Engineering support for variability modeling for context-sensitive reconfiguration of collaborative manufacturing systems

The manufacturing domain faces new challenges due to market changes. One of these changes affects consumer behavior, i.e. customers demand individualized products in small batches. Varying production requests require different configurations of manufacturing systems. But until today most of these systems are designed for single purpose usage, therefore new manufacturing systems are required. One solution are modular manufacturing systems, which can be composed of diverse modules from different vendors providing varying capabilities [1]. Modular manufacturing systems are re-configurable at two different levels. First, on the system group level, where modules with the required capabilities are selected and orchestrated. Second, on the module level, where a configuration has to be selected that provides the capability with the right manufacturing parameters. To be able to select and orchestrate the modules on the system group level, each module has to provide a self-description, which covers the current configuration [2].