Challenges in Skill-based Engineering of Industrial Automation Systems

Somayeh Malakuti, Jürgen Bock, Michael Weser, Pierre Venet, Patrick Zimmermann, Mathias Wiegand, Julian Grothoff, Constantin Wagner and Andreas Bayha

Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA),

2018 · doi: 10.1109/ETFA.2018.8502635

abstract

Skill-based engineering is gaining attention as a means to increase flexibility and changeability in engineering industrial automation systems. This paper proposes the Skill-based Engineering Model (SEM), which formally describes the core entities that play a role in skill-based engineering. Accordingly, we propose a four dimensional classification scheme for skills, and assess the suitability of a property model and OWL ontologies to describe and match skills. For each case, we identify a list of challenges that must be addressed to make skill-based engineering a reality in industrial automation systems. We believe that this paper can guide researchers to study various open aspects of skill-based engineering to make it feasible in complex industrial automation systems.