An Aligned Reference Model for Digital Factories

The integration of the Internet technologies into the industrial value chain has built the foundation for the fourth industrial revolution, in which Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is the most impacting designation, among others like Smart Manufacturing, Industrial Internet, and Intelligent Manufacturing. From the point of view of a factory that wants to adopt the I4.0 transformation, a set of issues remain unsolved. An all-encompassing architecture supported by an information model enabling end-to-end information flow from customer requirements over product design to production, marketing and distribution, faces several challenges. Several reference models/architectures have been developed, particularly RAMI 4.0, the official architecture of I4.0, but there is no unified model for the industrial ecosystem. The diversity of proposals with overlaps and meaning variations undermines clarity and motivates indecision. An aligned model would allow to guide the developments on how to organizationally prepare for the change. This paper attempts to contribute to the definition of an agreeable model for digital factories transformation, trying to reveal its dimensions and the main axes in which they intervene in the industrial ecosystem. Through an indepth review of the most relevant models and architectures for I4.0, the paper proposes a classification for grouping the identified industrial dimensions, exposed on a five-dimensional aligned reference model for digital factories.