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Smart manufacturing process and system automation – A critical review of

the standards and envisioned scenarios
Article in Journal of Manufacturing Systems · September 2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmsy.2020.06.010
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Page 1 Industrial AI Research Group @UoA
Smart manufacturing process and system automation – A critical

review of the standards and envisioned scenarios
Yuqian Lu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
OCRID: 0000-0001-5954-0421
Tel.: +64 9 923 1584
E-mail address: yuqian.lu@auckland.ac.nz
Corresponding author
Xun Xu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
OCRID: 0000-0001-6294-8153
Lihui Wang
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
OCRID: 0000-0001-8679-8049
Please cite the article as:

Lu, Y., Xu, X., & Wang, L. (2020). Smart manufacturing process and system
automation – A critical review of the standards and envisioned scenarios. Journal of
Manufacturing Systems, 56, 312-325, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2020.06.010
Lu, Y., Xu, X., & Wang, L. (2020). Smart manufacturing process and system automation – A critical review
of the standards and envisioned scenarios. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 56, 312-325,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2020.06.010
Abstract
Smart manufacturing is arriving. It promises a future of mass-producing highly

personalized products via responsive autonomous manufacturing operations at a
competitive cost. Of utmost importance, smart manufacturing requires end-to-end
integration of intra-business and inter-business manufacturing processes and systems.
Such end-to-end integration relies on standards-compliant and interoperable
interfaces between different manufacturing stages and systems. In this paper, we
present a comprehensive review of the current landscape of manufacturing automation
standards, with a focus on end-to-end integrated manufacturing processes and
systems towards mass personalization and responsive factory automation. First, we
present an authentic vision of smart manufacturing and the unique needs for next-
generation manufacturing automation. A comprehensive review of existing standards
for enabling manufacturing process automation and manufacturing system automation
is presented. Subsequently, focusing on meeting changing demands of efficient
production of highly personalized products, we detail several future-proofing
manufacturing automation scenarios via integrating various existing standards. We
believe that existing automation standards have provided a solid foundation for
developing smart manufacturing solutions. Faster, broader and deeper implementation
of smart manufacturing automation can be anticipated via the dissemination, adoption,
and improvement of relevant standards in a need-driven approach.
Keywords: Smart Manufacturing; Standard; Automation; Mass Personalization;

Industry 4.0; Self-organizing Manufacturing Network; Digital Thread
1. Introduction
Today’s manufacturers face ever-increasing demands of product variability (i.e.,
personalization), smaller lot sizes, and turbulent market needs. Manufacturers will
have to adopt new technologies and manufacturing theories to help them quickly adapt
to rapid changes and elevate product quality while optimizing the use of energy and
resources [1]. Over the past few years, international initiatives have collaboratively
advocated a new generation of manufacturing – smart manufacturing [2–4],
characterized by on-demand responsive autonomous manufacturing operations via
advanced sensing, data processing, and decision-making technologies [5]. Similarly,
the Industry 4.0 initiative [6] aims to develop efficient and low-cost production with
flexible workflows for producing high-quality personalized products at low costs.
Industry 4.0 uses cyber-physical systems (CPS) in manufacturing processes with
advanced intelligence and flexibility. In particular, manufacturing automation needs

personalized-product-based (i.e., batch size one) manufacturing process automation
and vertical integration of manufacturing systems. Both collectively form dynamic end-
to-end engineering integration.
Among all the recognized research gaps [3], standards-compliant interoperability and
integration between manufacturing processes and systems are of utmost importance
[7]. With an overwhelming portfolio of industry standards relevant to smart
manufacturing applications [8], there is a need to review the current standard
landscape for smart manufacturing process and system automation to enable efficient
production of a variety of personalized products simultaneously. Therefore, this paper
details well-recognized standards that are essential for manufacturing process and
system integration and presents some emerging manufacturing automation scenarios
based on these standards.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefs the drivers for smart
manufacturing innovation and the impact on manufacturing automation from two
aspects, i.e., manufacturing process automation and manufacturing system
automation. The review of the current landscape for smart manufacturing automation
is presented in two streams. Section 3 presents the current standards for enabling
smart manufacturing process automation throughout the product development lifecycle.
Section 4 reviews existing standards for manufacturing system automation. Some
piloting smart manufacturing automation application scenarios for achieving end-to-
end integration in smart manufacturing are presented in Section 5. Section 6 presents
our discussions on current smart manufacturing standardization activities and our
suggestions on accelerating the smart manufacturing journey. Section 7 concludes the
paper.
2. Smart manufacturing
The term smart manufacturing is controversial as it has been seen as a general
concept describing manufacturing systems or processes with advanced intelligence,
such as in [9] and, more importantly, refers to a specific manufacturing paradigm [5,10].
This paper refers to the latter. This section briefs the vision of smart manufacturing and
new requirements for manufacturing automation, as well as highlights the role of
standards in facilitating the next generation of manufacturing automation.
2.1. Drivers
A decisive driving force for manufacturing paradigm shifts is the continued market
desire for personalized products. The market has never stopped its hunt for
personalized products. However, this journey has been extremely long because of the
limitations of manufacturing automation technologies, as shown in Figure 1. Only since
2010, mass personalization [11] (or mass individualization [12]) has become a realistic
goal. Today, manufacturers desire to have the capability of concurrently producing
highly personalized products at dynamic batch sizes with the efficiencies of mass
production.
Figure 1: Manufacturing paradigm shifts and the drivers [13]
Alongside the dramatic shift from mass customization to mass personalization,

underpinning technologies for manufacturing automation have also advanced at an
unprecedented rate, as shown in Figure 2. After the 3rd industrial revolution, the
explosion of algorithms, connectivity, and computation technologies have collectively
laid a solid foundation for a connected and smart industry. In particular, the rise of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, such as Reinforcement Learning [14] and
Knowledge Graph [15], can make manufacturing control more intelligent and intuitive
[16]. Cyber-physical Systems, Cloud Computing, Edge Computing, and Fog
Computing allow resource-constrained industrial devices and systems to gain powerful
remote computation capabilities, enabling near real-time in-process decision-making.

With the Internet of Things, dispersed manufacturing processes and systems can be
networked and connected with ubiquitous communication and coordination.
2012
Fog Computing
introduced
1997 Cisco
Cloud Computing
Ramnath Chellappa 2001 2012
Semantic Web Deep Learning in
Tim Berners-Lee ‘Google Brain’
1969 Google
First expert system – 2006
DENDARL developed Cyber-physical
2017
1956 Stanford University 1989 System proposed
AlphaGo beats
1st AI workshop World Wide Web Helen Gill at NSF, US world Go champion
1948 John McCarthy concept proposed
Google
RFID invented 1969 Tim Berners-Lee 2011 –
Harry Stockman 3rd Industrial 4th Industrial
Revolution Revolution
1784 1870
1st Industrial 2nd Industrial 2006
Revolution Revolution 1965 1973 1999 Elastic Compute
st
1 mass-produced 1st patent for Internet of Things Cloud released
embedded system passive RFID Kevin Ashton Amazon
Autonetics, now part of Mario Cardullo
Boeing 2012
1990 Digital Twin applied in
1969 Edge Computing 2005
Big Data coined aerospace vehicles
PLC developed introduced in content
Roger Mougalas NASA
General Motors and delivery network
Bedford Associates Akamai 2005 2012
Birth of Hadoop Knowledge Graph 1st
Yahoo used in Google
search engine
Google
Figure 2: Algorithm, connectivity and computation technology explosion
The merge of a strong desire for mass personalization and underpinning technology
explosion has made it timely to revisit manufacturing automation theories and practices.
It is believed that manufacturing is entering the next era – Industry 4.0 or, more
specifically, smart manufacturing.
2.2. Definition
Smart manufacturing is devised by the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition

(SMLC) as a set of manufacturing practices that respond to a new wave of networked
data and information technology capability destined to shape future manufacturing
operations [2]. Wallace and Riddick [17] describe smart manufacturing as “a data-
intensive application of information technology at the shop floor level and above to
enable intelligent, efficient, and responsive operations.” According to Davis et al. [10],
smart manufacturing is the dramatically intensified application of “manufacturing
intelligence” throughout the manufacturing and supply chain enterprise. NIST defines
smart manufacturing systems as “fully-integrated, collaborative manufacturing
systems that respond in real-time to meet changing demands and conditions in the
factory, in the supply network, and in customer needs [5].”
These definitions all highlight the use of Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) and advanced data analytics to achieve intelligent and flexible manufacturing
operations at all levels from the shop floor, through factory level to supply chain.
Integrating all these concepts, we believe smart manufacturing is “fully-integrated,
collaborative and responsive operations that respond in real-time to meet
changing demands and conditions in the factory, in the supply network, and in
customer needs via data-driven understanding, reasoning, planning, and
execution of all aspects of manufacturing processes, facilitated by the pervasive
use of advanced sensing, modeling, simulation, and analytics technologies.”
The characteristics of smart manufacturing include (1) digitalization and service-
orientation, (2) smart and connected automation devices, and (3) collaborative
manufacturing networks, to enable cost-effective, flexible, and resilient mass
personalization.
2.3. Impact on manufacturing automation
As discussed in Section 2.1, two game-changing drivers in the new era of

manufacturing are predominant – (1) the manufacturing paradigm shift from mass
production and mass customization to mass personalization, and (2) rapid
development of smart algorithms, connectivity, and computation technologies.
Traditionally, automated manufacturing processes and systems sacrifice flexibility for
productivity. In the context of mass personalization, rigid, fully automated systems do
not work anymore. Manufacturing automation needs to be both flexible and productive
to mass-produce personalized products at a reasonable cost. Therefore, future-
proofing manufacturing automation will have to become smart in two aspects in parallel
for achieving smart manufacturing:
• Personalized-product-based manufacturing process automation –

manufacturing processes will be integrated and automated from design to
inspection for each unique product instead of product families.
• Networked self-organizing manufacturing systems – traditional dedicated
hierarchical manufacturing pyramid will evolve to integrated networks of
autonomous manufacturing things with self-configuration, self-optimization, and
self-healing capabilities.
For smart manufacturing process automation, product family-based manufacturing

process configuration and integration will not apply ubiquitously as each product can
be unique, and the batch size can be as small as one in the context of mass
personalization. Therefore, product development lifecycle tracking, process

configuration, and product inspection all need to be bound to a unique product instance,
e.g., a unique product ID. This will require deep integration and seamless bidirectional
data flow between all the design and manufacturing stages of the product development
lifecycle without data loss [18]. A product digital twin [19] needs to be created to track
all the relevant information (e.g., design specification, materials, manufacturing
processes, manufacturing facilities, and inspection logs) about a unique product.
For smart manufacturing system automation, devices, machines, systems, and people
can be connected via machine-to-machine (M2M) communication channels, creating
a manufacturing network in which information carriers exchange device data in near
real-time. Data-driven distributed intelligence will enable the rapid configuration of a
network of manufacturing things to cost-effectively produce a variety of personalized
products with dynamic batch sizes simultaneously. In particular, smart manufacturing
systems should have the following features:
• Context-awareness: Smart manufacturing systems can recognize, interpret

and analyze intentions of objects, systems, and participating users in the
application domain, which allows for self-awareness regarding knowledge
about its situation, status, and options for actions to be taken.
• Modularity: Smart manufacturing systems are modular, being able to
configure sub-components to form different system configurations to produce
new personalized products cost-effectively.
• Self-organization: Participants (e.g., systems, processes, and people) can
communicate with each other and coordinate their actions in a purposeful
matter without external involvement. Self-organization is typically embodied as
self-configuration, self-optimization, and self-healing capabilities.
• Data-driven decision-making: Smart manufacturing makes extensive use of
insights learned from big engineering data to make intelligent and adaptive
decisions according to changing external and internal conditions.
2.4 Smart manufacturing standard dimensions
Standardization is an essential requirement for integrating different systems and

processes. Standardization is the top challenge in implementing smart manufacturing
on a large scale [7]. Given the collaborative and integrated nature of smart
manufacturing, the standardization of architectures, data exchange formats, semantics,
and interfaces is critical to maximizing business outputs between different technologies
and solutions in smart manufacturing [20]. The focus of international standardization

initiatives should, therefore, be placed on interoperable interfaces between smart
manufacturing processes and systems.
The standardization activities in the field of smart manufacturing are incredibly dynamic,
with several international initiatives working on smart manufacturing-related standards.
According to DIN – German Institute for Standardization [21], there are more than 600
standards related to smart manufacturing. All these dynamics make it impossible to
systematically identify the ultimate list of recommended standards for smart
manufacturing. Several studies thus far have investigated the landscape of standards
for smart manufacturing with distinct focuses and recommendations [5,22,23].
Our review primarily focuses on the standards for enabling smart manufacturing
processes and system automation. Reference architectures of smart manufacturing
itself, such as RAMI 4.0, are not in the scope. IT-oriented standards on communication
and security are not in the scope, either. Figure 3 illustrates two dimensions of
concerns that are manifest in manufacturing automation – manufacturing process
automation and manufacturing system automation. Our review in Sections 3 and 4 are
organized in these two streams accordingly.
Recycling
Process Production
Design Fabrication Use & Service
Planning Engineering
Enterprise Level
MOM Level
SCADA Level
Device Level
Figure 3: Smart manufacturing automation dimensions (MoM: Manufacturing

Operations Management; SCADA: Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition).
3. Standards for manufacturing process automation

Smart manufacturing requires distributed manufacturing businesses to work together
to fulfill a highly personalized product development need. To achieve this,
manufacturing companies need to be capable of exchanging product data throughout
the product development process without interoperability issues.
Figure 4 shows a timeline-based depiction of standards for different product

development stages, including design, planning, manufacturing, and inspection. The
plethora of standards in this space makes it challenging to coalesce a shared vision
across an organization. In this work, our discussion focuses on a collection of
standards with minimal interoperability risks to enable streamlined product data
exchange during the design and manufacturing stages.
STEP-NC AP238 ed2(2021

ISO 23247 (2021 projected)
projected)
2020
OPC UA CNC Model (2017)
2016 DMIS 5.3 (2016) QIF Resources (2016)
Smart Manufacturing STEP AP242 QIF MBD
ISO 13399 ed2 (2014) MTConnect 1.3.0 (2014)
(2014) (2014)
2012
STEP AP214 STEP AP203
ed 3 (2010) ed3 (2011) QIF Plans (2009) MTConnect 1.0.1 (2009) QIF Results (2009)
2008 STEP-NC AP238 (2007)
PPAP (2006)
STEP AP203 ed 2 (2005) ISO 13399 ed1 (2005)
2004 AS9102 / First Article Insp.
(2004)
STEP AP214 ed ½
(2001/2003)
2000
ISO 14649 (1999)
STEP AP202 (1996)
1996
STEP AP203 STEP AP201 DMIS 3.0 (1995)
ed1 (1994) (1994) EIA 494 BCL (1992)
1992
RS-274-NGC (1989) DMIS 2.1 (1990)
IGES as NBSIR 80-1978

1980
(Since 1980)
G-code as RS-274-D (since
Pre-1980s 1950)
Planning for Planning for

Design Manufacturing Inspection
Manufacturing Inspection
Figure 4: Timeline-based depiction of standards for different product lifecycle stages

([19], enriched based on [24])
3.1. Standards for product data exchange
ISO 10303, commonly known as STEP, is an international standard designed to

exchange product data between CAD systems with a neutral file format and data
structure. STEP has just completed a significant development of STEP AP242 (as
shown in Figure 5) for “Managed Model-Based 3D Engineering”, focusing on
representing 3D model data, geometric tolerance, and PMI (Product Manufacturing
Information) to enable global design and manufacturing collaboration [25]. STEP

AP242 can enable streamlined product design, process planning, and manufacturing
[26]. The Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T) data through AP 242 can be
automatically consumed by downstream applications such as Computer-aided
Process Planning (CAPP), Computer-aided Inspection (CAI), Computer-aided
Tolerance Systems (CATS), and Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) [27].
PDM Process plans Mating definition
Product structure Project management
Configuration Requirements 3D assembly constraints

Change management
management
Persons & organizations Classification properties,... Design rules 3D kinematics
Mechanical design Composite design Additive manufacturing design
3D PMI
3D Construct. History /
(Product and Manufacturing 3D machining features Presentation
Parametric
Information)
3D shape 3D shape data quality
Tessellated Curved tessellated

Exact geometry ...
geometry geometry 2D draughting
Figure 5: The high-level scope of ISO 10303 AP242
3.2. Standards for manufacturing
Standards for planning and execution of manufacturing are also integral to smart
manufacturing. In this sub-section, we view manufacturing in the narrow sense as the
step to convert raw material to the final product based on product specification. In the
era of smart manufacturing, manufacturing focuses on one-of-a-kind production that
can potentially involve a collection of fabrication methods, such as NC machining,
robotic machining, and additive manufacturing. Thus, interoperability between
manufacturing systems is required to achieve a flexible organization of manufacturing
activities under changing conditions [28]. More importantly, manufacturing equipment
needs to be capable of interpreting manufacturing requirements from a CAD file at the
semantic level and generating adaptive manufacturing strategies. Take CNC machine
tools as an example. The ultimate machine tool can directly engage with CAD files and
generate feasible manufacturing plans without going through the off-line process
planning stage [18].
In this regard, ISO 14649 [29] and ISO 10303-238 [30] (also known as STEP-NC),
aims to replace the RS274D (ISO 6983) G and M code via a modern associative
language that directly connects the CAD design data with the downstream processes.
Unlike G-code, STEP-NC describes “tasks” to be carried out (what-to-do information)
instead of “methods” to do the job (how-to-do information) for a machine tool. STEP-
NC relies on machine tools to interpret machine-dependent machining instructions
based on the local machining conditions. This shift of interpreting local machining
instructions into individual CNC controllers maximizes the interoperability between
machine tools.
To this end, numerous studies have been conducted to achieve STEP-NC compliant
manufacturing with applications in milling [31–33], turning [34–36], electro-erosion [37],
industrial robotics [38–40], and additive manufacturing [41–43]. These works have
used STEP-NC in the loop of CAD/CAM/CNC, but the industry still waits for a truly
intelligent and adaptive STEP-NC controller. The ultimate adaptive STEP-NC
controller can optimize machining in real-time by considering in-process machine
conditions. An adaptive CNC controller can fully understand a product’s design intent
and its quality requirement and devise an optimal manufacturing strategy according to
the real-time local manufacturing environment. It can also adjust the fabrication
process and parameters according to online inspection results.
Part identification, characteristics

Part identification, characteristics
General management information Intelligent Machine
General management information
Activity and work management information Tool
Activity and work management information
Process plans Manufacturing features
Process plans
Product requirements Manufacturing operations
Product requirements
Design rules Workingsteps
Design rules
Mating definition Workplan
Mating definition
3D production and manufacturing information Tools
3D production and manufacturing information
3D machining form features Machining strategy
3D machining form features
3D assembly constraints Fixtures/ Clamping
3D assembly constraints
CAM 3D kinematics STEP-NC complaint
CAD 3D kinematics
3D shape data quality robots
3D shape data quality
3D parametric constraint history
3D parametric constraint history
STEP AP242 ISO 14649

STEP AP242
STEP AP238
STEP-NC complaint
3D printer
Figure 6: Information flow in a STEP-NC compliant manufacturing chain
Smart manufacturing needs an adaptive CNC controller that can directly take a STEP-
NC file and can communicate the as-executed product model back to CAD/CAM
system. Figure 6 depicts the STEP-NC compliant CAD/CAM/CNC chain, enabling
interoperable design and manufacturing in a distributed design and manufacturing
scenario. The chain starts with a CAD system generating a 3D CAD model with product
manufacturing information in STEP AP242 standard. The 3D CAD model is then
passed on to a CAM system, which adds manufacturing information to the geometry
and stores the extended information in an AP238 file. The AP238 file contains the
AP242 design information with the addition of manufacturing operations,
manufacturing features, tools, and machining strategies organized in “workingsteps”
and “workplans”. The resultant STEP-NC file is then passed on to an intelligent
controller that can interpret the complex data structure and derive the necessary local
machine movement commands. The information flow is bidirectional since complete
product information is carried onto the CNC controller itself. More importantly, the
bidirectional information flow serves as a basis for digital twin manufacturing by
enabling product changes and final product parameters to be synced back to the
product design file.
3.3. Standards for manufacturing process monitoring
Monitoring the manufacturing execution progress is vital to ensuring traceability and

product quality. Manufacturing process monitoring has been around using equipment-
dependent monitoring technologies from individual manufacturing equipment suppliers.
This method does not provide the required interoperable information flow between
manufacturing devices and processes. This limitation is not a significant issue in a
factory that mass produces standard products. However, the rapid production of highly
personalized products needs the manufacturing process monitoring signals to match
with product design and manufacturing plans to derive meaningful monitoring
information. This requirement inevitably needs standardized manufacturing process
monitoring and data fusion with product design files and manufacturing plans.
The MTConnect [44] standard enables manufacturing equipment to capture execution

monitoring data and transmitted to external sources in a structured XML format. Since
its inception, MTConnect has been widely used to monitor machine tools status [45],
with limited efforts on contextualizing the collected machine data. In a smart
manufacturing context, manufacturing progress monitoring data will need to be
associated with the unique work-in-progress part. In this regard, Bernstein et al. [24]
overlaid real feed rate gathered from MTConnect streams onto planned feed rate to
examine machining process accuracy and used the aggregation of real feed rates and
cutting parameters to estimate machining costs of a machining feature. Helu et al. [46]
also demonstrated that manually aligning MTConnect data onto a virtual product model
can directly reveal design insight to a decision-maker. By automatically alignment of

manufacturing execution data, such as spindle speed and feed rate to numerical
control code, Monnier et al. [47] demonstrated the benefits of verifying process plans
and real execution data. However, this alignment still requires substantial human
interpretation and intervention. This is mostly because the features and the
identification of design and machining features are not maintained consistently
throughout the data conversion chain from design to machining. For example, though
MTConnect can output near real-time machining process parameters, it could have
lost the feature ID after the machining planning and NC programming stage.
3.4. Standards for smart inspection
Product inspection is an integral part of the product development process. It verifies

product quality on-site at various stages of the production process from receiving the
raw materials to pre-shipping. Currently, inspection activities are mostly performed
either as off-line inspection or online post-process inspection, due to the difficulties and
cost in setting up online in-process inspection along with the production process. In
the future, online in-process inspection that integrates with the product fabrication
process is a must for producing highly personalized products at small batches. The
production of highly personalized products cannot afford the costs incurring from
manual or semi-automated inspection.
The Quality Information Framework (QIF) is an ANSI (the American National

Standards Institute) standard that defines an integrated set of XML information models
to enable the exchange of metrology data throughout the entire manufacturing quality
measurement process – from product design, through inspection planning and
execution, to analysis and reporting [48]. QIF provides a complete and accurate 3D
product definition with semantic geometric and dimensional tolerances, definitions for
measurement resources, template for measurement rules, and statistical functionality.
Analyze & Report Quality

Data
Inspection Report and Analysis
Customer Tolerance
Requirements Standards QIF Statistics
Product
Development Needs Define Product Quality Manufacturing
Requirements Processes
Evaluation Results
Determine Measurement
Product Model Requirements
PMI with Criticalities
Define Measurement
QIF MBD
Measurement Scope Process QIF Results
Execute Measurement
QIF Resources Inspection Plan Process
QIF Rules
QIF Plans
Perform DME Program
Figure 7: Integrated metrology process with QIF standard
As shown in Figure 7, a QIF-compliant metrology process starts with the generation of

CAD and PMI data exported as QIF Model-Based Design (MBD) product model.
Quality planning systems import the product model and generate the measurement
plans according to the quality requirements and manufacturing processes. The
inspection resources and rules are considered at this stage. Programming systems
import the measurement plans to create Dimensional Measurement Equipment (DME)
specific programs. Dimensional measurement equipment executes the programs and
evaluates the measurements as measurement results. Analysis systems import single
part results and generate the analysis of multiple part batches as QIF statistics data.
The integration between quality information using QIF and production process data
saves resources on non-value-adding activities related to the translation of data
between different components of a dimensional metrology system. This integration will
enable integrated manufacturing and inspection taking place simultaneously, which in
the end fulfills the rapid production and QA (Quality Assurance) of highly personalized
products with minimum human involvement.
The research of using QIF standards across the product lifecycle is still in its infancy
with just some theoretical discussions on harnessing QIF data into the product design
and manufacturing processes [24,49]. Michaloski et al. [50] investigated the possibility
of gathering continuous quality inspection results during the product machining
process via integrating QIF standard with MTConnect. Their pilot provided a feasible
solution for collecting and representing necessary process data and quality
measurement data at the same time. With the same intent, STEP Tools, Inc. [51]
recently developed a digital thread solution that keeps the design, manufacturing, and
inspection data connected via deep integration between STEP, STEP-NC and QIF
standard.
More research needs to be carried out to understand the benefits and limitations of
automating the product manufacturing and inspection process by utilizing the recently
developed QIF standards.
4. Standards for manufacturing system automation

Apart from the need for mass-personalization-oriented smart process integration from
design to inspection, smart manufacturing also needs vertically integrated smart
factories with ubiquitous connectivity between manufacturing devices and adaptive
manufacturing operations, thus moving away from traditional rigid fully-automated
manufacturing systems. This section reviews the essential standards that facilitate
smart manufacturing system automation for ensuring flexible and efficient production
of a variety of personalized products simultaneously.
Industry 4.0 will see factory automation architecture changing from a conventional
dedicated automation pyramid to a networked automation structure, in which intelligent
manufacturing things continuously and collaboratively self-optimize their setups and
configurations via self-awareness, reasoning, planning, and execution. In this network,
the information from these behaviors must flow between any connected nodes.
Therefore, data exchange can be between any two layers in the conventional
automation pyramid, not just adjacent layers. However, for presentation simplicity, we
still present the relevant standards in a manufacturing pyramid structure. In Table 1,
we divide standards based on the ISA 95 hierarchy and classify their use to three
primary categories – modeling, communication, and execution.
Table 1: Manufacturing system automation standards by automation pyramid levels and functions
Enterprise MoM SCADA Device

Standard Description Modeling Communication Execution
Level Level Level Level
IEC PAS
Smart manufacturing - Reference architecture model industry 4.0 (RAMI4.0)  
63088
Industrial-process measurement, control, and automation - Digital factory framework
IEC 62832 defines the general principles of the Digital Factory framework including a set of  
model elements and rules for modeling production systems
Enterprise modeling and architecture — Requirements for enterprise-referencing

ISO 15704  
architectures and methodologies
Enterprise Integration - Framework for enterprise modeling, provides a unified
conceptual basis for model-based enterprise engineering that enables consistency,
ISO 19439  
convergence, and interoperability of the various modeling methodologies and
supporting tools
Enterprise integration - Constructs for enterprise modeling, specifies the
ISO 19440 characteristics of the core constructs necessary for computer-supported modeling of  
enterprises conforming to ISO 19439.
Automation systems and integration - Evaluating energy efficiency and other factors
ISO 20140  
of manufacturing systems that influence the environment.
Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS) defines a common

content model and common messages for communication between business
OAGIS    
applications, including application-to-application (A2A) and business-to-business
(B2B) integration.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for
BPMN  
specifying business processes in a business process model.
Decision Modelling Notation (DMN) from OMG provides the required constructs for
modeling decisions to close the gap between the business decision design and
DMN  
decision implementation. DMN notation is designed to be useable alongside the
standard BPMN business process notation.
Business To Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML) is an XML implementation

of data models in IEC/ISO 62264. It is a common data definition to link ERP and
B2MML  
supply chain management systems with manufacturing systems such as Industrial
Systems and Manufacturing Execution Systems.
AutomationML (Automation Markup Language) is a neutral data format based on

IEC 62714  
XML for the storage and exchange of plant engineering information.
Lu, Y., Xu, X., & Wang, L. (2020). Smart manufacturing process and system automation – A critical review of the standards and envisioned scenarios. Journal of Manufacturing
Systems, 56, 312-325, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2020.06.010
Enterprise-control system integration - defines manufacturing hierarchical model,

and describes the manufacturing operations management domain and its activities,
IEC 62264  
the interface content and associated transactions within Level 3 and between Level
3 and Level 4 and Level 3 objects. This standard is based upon ANSI/ISA-95.
OPC Unified Architecture - an industrial M2M communication protocol for

IEC 62541     
interoperability developed by the OPC Foundation
ISA 88 defines terminology, reference models, data models for batch control as
IEC 61512   
used in the process industries.
Modbus is a de facto standard providing serial communications protocol to connect

IEC/PAS
industrial electronic devices; Modbus is often used to connect a supervisory
62030  
computer with a remote terminal unit (RTU)/PLC in supervisory control and data
(Modbus)
acquisition systems.
Packaging Machine Language defines a common approach, or machine language,

PackML for automated machines. PackML was adopted as part of the ISA88 industry   
standard in August 2008.
BatchML BatchML is an XML implementation of the ISA-88   

MTConnect is a lightweight, open, and extensible protocol designed for the
MTConnect exchange of data from shop floor equipment to software applications used for   
monitoring and data analysis.
The standard specifies industrial communication networks - Fieldbus, including
IEC 61158  
ControlNet and Profibus.
This standard specifies a set of protocol specific communication profiles based on
the IEC 61158 series and real-time Ethernet communication profiles. It is to be used
IEC 61784  
in the design of devices involved in communications in factory manufacturing and
process control.
Controller Area Network (CAN) - a serial communication protocol that supports
ISO 11898  
distributed real-time control and multiplexing
IEC The standard specifies Wireless communication network and communication

 
62591/HART profiles - WirelessHART.
The standard describes a generic modeling approach for distributed control

IEC 61499 applications enabling interoperability, reconfigurability, and portability for distributed   
control systems, facilitated through event-driven Function Blocks
ISO 10303-
238 / ISO
Physical device control – Data model for computerized numerical controllers  
14649
(STEP-NC)
ISO 13399 Cutting tool data representation and exchange  
4.1 Modeling standards
From the top level of the automation pyramid, several standards define the reference
architecture, framework, core constructs, activities, interfaces, and transactions of a
factory. IEC 62714 (AutomationML) models linked production systems, enabling a
transfer of engineering data of these systems across domains and companies in a
heterogeneous engineering tool landscape. At the MoM level, IEC 62264 defines
activities models, function models, and object models in the MoM domain, and B2MML
serves the implementation of IEC 62264 to link ERP and Supply Chain Management
systems with manufacturing systems such as Manufacturing Execution Systems
(MES).
At the SCADA level, OPC UA (OPC Unified Architecture) can be used for connecting
components in a production system. It also defines platform-independent
communication mechanisms for online data exchange and generic, extensible, and
object-oriented modeling capabilities for the information a production system wants to
expose. Similar to OPC UA, MTConnect is used to access real-time data from shop
floor manufacturing equipment such as machine tools. ISA 88 is a standard for the
batch processing industry and defines the reference models and data models for batch
control. BatchML is an XML implementation of ISA 88. PackML models standardized
machines and SCADA for batch control in the packaging industry.
4.2 Communication standards
Industrial communication goes beyond physical data packet transmission between

manufacturing things. According to [52], communication technologies should be able
to:
• Send and receive messages – at this physical level, manufacturing devices

must communicate over agreed physical and network layers to be able to send
and receive objects that represent messages;
• Parse the messages – at the syntactic level, manufacturing devices must
parse messages to correctly decode the message to its parts, such as message
content, language, sender, and must be able to parse the content of the
message;
• Understand the messages – at the semantic level, manufacturing devices
must interpret and reason about the parsed information in the same context in
the same way, in which context-aware actions can be taken.
At the physical level, messages can be exchanged via a physical communication

channel, wired or wireless [53]. The foundation of M2M communication is the reliable
exchange of information. Since the 1980s, industrial communication networks have
evolved through several stages. According to [53], industrial communications started
with dedicated Fieldbus networks, such as PROFIBUS and Modbus, to enable M2M
communications. However, many Fieldbus protocols were designed to operate on
different physical media and have wide compatibility issues with the OSI (Open
Systems Interconnection) model [19]. As Internet technologies matured, Ethernet-
based networks, such as EtherNet and EtherCAT, became popular for facilitating
communications at a higher level. Since 2000, influenced by Internet of Things (IoT)
and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) application needs, some modern approaches
have adopted new standards such as IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15.1, and IEEE 802.15.4.
Detailed discussions on these transport-oriented network communication channels
and their latest developments can be found in [53].
The above transport-oriented communication technologies provide industrial data

exchange with guaranteed reliability, availability, and time-critical behavior. However,
meaningful data exchange in a specific domain needs more technologies, one of which
is a meta-model that explicitly defines the data content to be exchanged [54].
OPC UA developed by OPC Foundation provides a cross-platform M2M

communication mechanism for data exchange between industrial devices and systems
[55]. OPC UA also supports an object-oriented information modeling approach. It
allows the development of domain-specific companion models, for example, in [56–
58]. In the manufacturing domain, MTConnect is a widely-used semantic vocabulary
for exchanging contextualized data of manufacturing equipment [44]. It has been
widely used for monitoring machining processes [59] and machining simulation [60].
At the semantic level, semantic communication technologies are required for

interpreting message content and building contextual understandings within a domain
or across domains. Semantic Web technologies, such as RDF, RDF Schema, and
OWL can be used at a higher level of the automation pyramid to enable semantic
understanding between devices and systems across domains [61–63].
4.3 Execution standards
Manufacturing execution can be categorized into two levels – (1) production control at
the enterprise and MoM level and (2) device control. Standards for manufacturing
execution have been focusing on enabling adaptive and interoperable control of

industrial processes and systems. For production control, ISA 88 provides a consistent
set of standards and terminology for batch control. It defines the physical models,
procedures, and recipes. PackML specialized in batch control for the packaging
industry, provides (1) standard machine states and operational flow, and (2) flexible
recipe schemes and common SCADA or MoM inputs.
At the device level, G and M codes are currently widely used to control CNC machines
and 3D printers. However, G code’s machine-dependent nature stops it from being
shared between machines. Instead, STEP-NC, as discussed in Section 3.2, can
embed a complete set of machining information, allowing manufacturing organizations
to share machining information between machines.
IEC 61499 function block specification is an IEC standard for distributed industrial
processes and control systems, particularly for PLC control. It is based on an explicit
event-driven model and provides for data flow and finite-state automata-based control.
Based on previous research on function blocks [64–66], function blocks can be used
for machine-level monitoring, shop floor execution control, and CNC control. Research
has demonstrated the effectiveness of delivering generic manufacturing process plans
in the form of function blocks [67] to machine controllers on the physical shop floor for
execution. Thanks to the event-driven model and ability to embed multiple control
logics into a function block, manufacturing process plans in a function block will not be
tied to a specific machine but is portable to any alternative machines if needed. Similar
to STEP-NC, when CNC controllers natively support function blocks, there will be no
need to generate G-code but to run algorithms directly for adaptive machining.
5. Smart manufacturing automation scenarios

This section presents several future-proofing manufacturing process and system
automation scenarios enabled by the various standard development efforts and
application innovations. The scenarios focus on (1) personalized-product-based
manufacturing process automation, and (2) networked self-organizing manufacturing
system automation.
5.1. Manufacturing digital thread
Manufacturing process automation in the context of mass personalization requires a

manufacturing digital thread that facilitates upstream and downstream flow between
the manufacturing processes by seamlessly fusing data from design, planning,
manufacturing, and inspection via standard integration interfaces. Such a digital thread
will enable informed design and analysis, collaborative manufacturing process
planning and control, full-process traceability, and automated online quality inspection
[68].
As shown in Figure 8, manufacturing digital thread takes a model-based approach to

describing both each step as well as the connectivity and interoperability of
manufacturing processes, both digital and physical. Product design starts with an as-
designed model in STEP AP242 format. Based on the principles in Section 3.2, the as-
designed model is transferred to an as-planned model with all the planning rules and
coding procedures (e.g., STEP-NC and G-code) that are necessary for executing the
production process. All the data that describe the actual build event in the
manufacturing environment are tracked in an as-executed model. At the manufacturing
phase, in-situ monitoring and product inspection constantly update the product model,
thus building the as-inspected model. Post-manufacturing, product assembly, and final
inspection occur. The final QA report using QIF standard is incorporated into the final
product digital twin before commissioning.
Design Manufacturing Inspection
STL, AP242 G-Code, AP238 MTConnect QIF, AP238
As-designed As-planned As-executed As-inspected
Designed Product Expected Execution Measured Execution Inspected Product
Manufacturing Digital Thread
Figure 8: Manufacturing digital thread with seamless error-free and zero data-loss
information flow upstream and downstream the manufacturing processes
The above manufacturing digital thread outlines a feasible approach to manufacturing

process automation for a unique product. With this manufacturing thread, the overall
manufacturing process of a personalized product can be automated via standard-

compliant data exchange interfaces between different manufacturing stages. These
data exchange interfaces can seamlessly link together disparate processes, systems,
and companies into a single coherent ecosystem. Of all the enablers, the discussed
smart manufacturing standards are the foundation for a streamlined manufacturing
digital thread. However, existing integration technologies cannot establish a true
manufacturing thread yet without repetitive manual assistance between various
manufacturing stages, such as manual process planning and data conversion from
STEP AP242 to AP238. More algorithms and technologies need to be developed to
contextualize and link the data from multiple standards, as shown in [46,47].
5.2. Self-organizing manufacturing network
Smart manufacturing will see conventional manufacturing pyramid changing to a self-

organizing manufacturing network with cognitive decision-making capabilities,
enabling resilient and responsive manufacturing operations. Self-organizing
manufacturing network can be defined as “a network of autonomous manufacturing
things (e.g., manufacturing software tools, manufacturing equipment, and
operators) connecting in situation-dependent ways that can change their
internal structure, organization, and functions with minimum external
intervention to achieve optimal manufacturing operations and system
performance in response to unforeseen conditions and evolution along time.” In
general, self-organization aims at increasing autonomy and decreasing dependencies
for faster responses to dynamic context [69]. A self-organizing manufacturing network
includes the following three aspects of autonomous functions:
• Self-configuration – Self-configuration strives towards the “plug-and-produce”

paradigm in the way that all manufacturing “things” shall be capable of
integrating to form a feasible production system via standard hardware and
software interfaces. A manufacturing network can be dynamically re-
established via adding or deleting a connecting node or reconfiguring the links
between existing nodes.
• Self-optimization – Every node in a manufacturing network can automatically
optimize its parameters to seek optimal performance of the manufacturing
network, based on observations of its state as well as the state of the connected
node in the network.
• Self-healing – Self-healing refers to the ability that a manufacturing network

can perceive it is not operating correctly and, without external assistance, make
the necessary adjustments to restore itself to normal operation. A self-healing
manufacturing network can proactively monitor and identify a potential variance
from its standard parameters, validate it with a degree of confidence and
resume normal operations without human intervention.
Figure 9 depicts an abstract framework of a self-organizing manufacturing network. A

self-organizing manufacturing network consists of three components:
• Semantically interoperable communications between manufacturing things

• Accurate observation of manufacturing environment via self-sensing
• Cognitive manufacturing control algorithms to enable self-configuration, self-
optimization, and self-healing
Dynamic path planning
Action Input
Reward
System KPIs, e.g.,

Completion time
Lead time
Cost
Equipment utilization rate
Self-organizing manufacturing network
Cognitive agent (Environment)

Observation Output
Order status
State Material stock
Machine workload, health
condition etc.
Figure 9: Abstract framework of self-organizing manufacturing network in

Reinforcement Learning system model (Adapted from [70])
For establishing a manufacturing network, M2M communication protocols will be used

to exchange information between the connected nodes of a network. Apart from the
physical level communications, Semantic Web technologies [63] and resource
virtualization models, such as Industry 4.0 Administration Shell [71], can also be used
to create semantic understandings between heterogenous connected manufacturing
“things” across domains and organizations.
For modeling and observations of the environment, the Industrial IoT can collect raw
environmental data from various sensors and device-level monitoring systems. The
multi-source, multi-scale, heterogenous, and multi-granularity sensor data can be
fused to derive a trustful observation of the environment. This observation can be
quantitatively represented using potential system modeling metrics, such as order
status, material stock, and machine workload, thus forming an observed state of the
environment feeding into the Cognitive Agent.
Cognitive algorithms can enable self-organizing manufacturing control to adaptively

schedule optimal manufacturing routes for a variety of personalized products
simultaneously. Traditional heuristic algorithms, such as genetic algorithms and ant
colony optimization algorithms, can be used. More advanced cognitive capabilities can
be developed for all the connected manufacturing things via learning-based algorithms,
such as Reinforcement Learning. In a Reinforcement Learning setting, the Cognitive
Agent seeks to maximize the cumulative reward to optimize its action-selection
strategy. The reward value can be linked to some system objective factors together,
such as less order completion time, lower cost, and higher equipment utilization rate.
A fully-fledged self-organizing manufacturing network will become a ubiquitous

manufacturing system organization pattern that can be implemented for a
manufacturing system, a factory, or an inter-enterprise production network. The
continuous learning and optimization control loop of a self-organizing manufacturing
network will be able to adequately deal with uncertainties from (1) dynamic concurrent
orders of highly personalized products, (2) manufacturing network dynamics, and (3)
emergent instructions from human supervisors.
Existing work on self-organization principles for manufacturing system automation,

such as holonic manufacturing systems [72–75], multi-agent manufacturing systems
[76–79], and bionic manufacturing systems [80,81], has provided some answers to
autonomous manufacturing control in a distributed environment, in particular in semi-
structured and partial-hierarchical settings [82]. These approaches face the problem
of dynamic environment changes but introducing a closed world assumption [83]. They
lack universal adaptability to an extendable, collaborative, and sometimes chaotic
manufacturing network. While self-organizing manufacturing network could still adopt
a partial-hierarchical control structure [84] (a mixture of heterarchical and hierarchical
control structure) to achieve both system flexibility and optimality, a key research goal
can be advancing fully decentralized learning-based algorithms, such as Multi-agent
Reinforcement Learning algorithms [85–87], to achieve satisfactory system

performance in chaotic manufacturing networks.
5.3. Cloud-based manufacturing equipment as service
As the Industrial Internet and interoperable machine control interface matures,

manufacturing equipment can become an on-demand manufacturing service via
connectivity and control over the Internet [88]. This will be a practical end-to-end
implementation of cloud manufacturing principles [89]. Cloud-based equipment as a
service can significantly contribute to the required manufacturing process automation
and manufacturing system automation. This is because the possible service-oriented
architecture of cloud-based manufacturing equipment can be directly embedded into
a manufacturing digital thread or a self-organizing manufacturing network.
Figure 10 depicts a simplified concept of encapsulating a physical asset as a

consumable manufacturing service. Manufacturing assets are connected to the
Internet in the form of cyber-physical production systems via machine communication
standards, such as MTConnect or OPC-UA. At a scheduled time, a control network
between Company A and Company B is created for the creation of a virtual MES. The
machine from Company B is connected dynamically to Company A’s MES. Company
A can control (1) in what sequence A’s jobs are executed, and (ii) how manufacturing
should be executed on Machine B by injecting Company A’s know-how into Machine
B. Company A also gets shopfloor production progress report from Machine B regularly.
Company A Company B
MES MES
STEP /STEP-NC/Function Block
Machine Cyber Gateway
Quality Information Framework
Machine Agent Machine Agent
MTConnect / OPC UA
Company A’s Company A’s Company B’s

know-how Machine A know-how Machine B know-how
Figure 10: Cloud-based manufacturing equipment as service via standardized

machine control and monitoring interfaces (The green-colored background indicates
A’s temporary scope of ownership of equipment)
In this scenario, manufacturing assets become services thanks to intelligent

technologies, such as service-oriented architecture and machine communication
standards. More importantly, vendor-neutral data format – STEP/STEP-NC and
Function Block play a crucial role in enabling passing manufacturing jobs between
companies and machines. Because of the ability to describe generic manufacturing
jobs using STEP-NC standard, a manufacturer can easily interpret received
manufacturing requirements and generate adaptive machine control strategies based
on local machine conditions and setups.
6. Discussions
We detailed in Sections 3-5 selected standards for enabling manufacturing process
and system automation, as well as some pioneering manufacturing automation
scenarios. This section discusses some of the notable new standardization initiatives
targeting smart manufacturing automation and our views on future research activities
related to smart manufacturing standards development and application implementation.
Though many standards are already in place, there is ongoing work from various
standardization bodies reviewing, enriching, and developing standards for Industry 4.0
manufacturing automation. For example, ISO Smart Manufacturing Coordinating
Committee (ISO/SMCC) is coordinating international standards review and
implementation recommendations in this space. IEC Systems Committee smart
manufacturing (IEC/SyC) started in 2018, aims to identify gaps and overlaps relating
to the collaboration between relevant standards organizations. ISO and IEC also set
up a joint working group to draw up, publish, and update Industry 4.0 related standards.
In particular, being the most active technical committee in automation, ISO Technical
Committee 184 (ISO/TC 184) and IEC Technical Committee 65 (IEC/TC 65) formed a
joint working group – ISO/IEC JWG 21, to bring about the harmonization of smart
manufacturing reference models and various standards.
Beyond the possible standard gaps for smart manufacturing, three other barriers to
standard adoption hinder the growth of smart manufacturing: (1) lack of tracking of
standard adoption, (2) overlap and redundancies between standards, and (3)
inadequate co-development of standards with user communities. Regarding the lack
of tracking of standard adoption, the significant number of standards can be misleading
and not easy to use. Standardization parties often view the success of a
standardization program as publishing the standards, leaving potential adopters blindly
navigating the standards. Huge problem also exists in tracking the adoption rate and
effectiveness of a standard in the industry.
Regarding the overlap and redundancies between standards, it is unfortunate to see

many standardization bodies are competing revising and writing standards to claim
their authority in smart manufacturing compatibility. However, the full picture of Industry
4.0/smart manufacturing is yet to be clear. These practices cause overlap and
redundancy. As an example, the draft standard ISO 23247 – Automation systems and
integration – Digital Twin framework for manufacturing, primarily focuses on software
architecture reference model by integrating existing modeling and communication
standards. Our review found that the existing standards are good enough for
implementing the required smart manufacturing process and system automation
towards flexible and reconfigurable mass personalization.
Regarding the last barrier, top-down standardization efforts need to embrace bottom-
up need-driven community-based research activities. Since the inception of Industry
4.0, academic research activities and industrial innovations have shown remarkable
successes in developing de facto standards and applications for smart manufacturing,

such as MTConnect, openAAS (open Asset Administration Shell) [90], NIST Smart
Manufacturing Systems (SMS) Test Bed [91] and Eclipse IoT [92]. These open-source
projects have made a significant contribution to the up-take of smart manufacturing
reference implementations. They will provide first-hand learnings to any necessary
upcoming standardization activities.
To summarize, the two overarching transformative manufacturing signals from Industry

4.0 – (1) mass personalization and (2) CPS-based automation have not changed the
application grounds for existing manufacturing automation standards to play. Research
focus, on the one hand, should be seeking improvements to existing standards to
ensure their applicability to manufacturing automation in the context of smart
manufacturing and, on the other hand, needs to diversify the dissemination
mechanisms of standard-based manufacturing automation exemplars in practice. In
particular, need-driven open-source implementation projects should be encouraged.
7. Conclusions
This paper presents a critical review of standards for enabling the next generation
manufacturing process and system automation in the context of smart manufacturing
in two parts. First, we traced the authentic concept and vision of smart manufacturing
and the impact on next-generation manufacturing automation. Second, a
comprehensive review of existing standards for enabling manufacturing process and
system automation is presented, highlighting a sensible approach to developing
standard-compliant manufacturing automation solutions. Several smart manufacturing
automation scenarios are also presented.
Smart manufacturing promises a future of mass-producing highly personalized

products via responsive autonomous manufacturing operations at competitive costs.
In our humble view, smart manufacturing, though, as a new concept has become a
buzzword with inconsistent interpretations, commendable research advancement on
the core research issues of smart manufacturing is still limited. Importantly, smart
manufacturing automation needs to focus on two fundamental themes – personalized-
product-based manufacturing process automation and networked self-organizing
manufacturing system automation. We believe existing standards have provided a
solid foundation for developing smart manufacturing automation solutions in these two
themes. Together with advanced algorithms, connectivity, and computation
technologies, much work can be done to achieve networked self-organizing
manufacturing with advanced intelligence in responding to dynamic changes in the

manufacturing environment.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to Mr. Zhaojun Qin, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
The University of Auckland, for his valuable inputs. The authors also thank the
reviewers for their valuable comments that helped to significantly improve this article.
The article is an enhanced and extended version of the following conference article
“Lu Y, Huang H, Liu C, Xu X. Standards for smart manufacturing: A review. IEEE
International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 2019- August,
IEEE Computer Society; 2019, p. 73–78.”
Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship and/or publication of this article.
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Smart manufacturing process and system automation – A critical review of

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Smart manufacturing is arriving. It promises a future of mass-producing highly

Keywords: Smart Manufacturing; Standard; Automation; Mass Personalization;

advanced intelligence and flexibility. In particular, manufacturing automation needs

Figure 1: Manufacturing paradigm shifts and the drivers [13]

Alongside the dramatic shift from mass customization to mass personalization,

remote computation capabilities, enabling near real-time in-process decision-making.

Figure 2: Algorithm, connectivity and computation technology explosion

Smart manufacturing is devised by the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition

2.3. Impact on manufacturing automation

As discussed in Section 2.1, two game-changing drivers in the new era of

• Personalized-product-based manufacturing process automation –

For smart manufacturing process automation, product family-based manufacturing

personalization. Therefore, product development lifecycle tracking, process

• Context-awareness: Smart manufacturing systems can recognize, interpret

2.4 Smart manufacturing standard dimensions

Standardization is an essential requirement for integrating different systems and

and solutions in smart manufacturing [20]. The focus of international standardization

Figure 3: Smart manufacturing automation dimensions (MoM: Manufacturing

3. Standards for manufacturing process automation

Figure 4 shows a timeline-based depiction of standards for different product

STEP-NC AP238 ed2(2021

RS-274-NGC (1989) DMIS 2.1 (1990)

IGES as NBSIR 80-1978

Planning for Planning for

Figure 4: Timeline-based depiction of standards for different product lifecycle stages

3.1. Standards for product data exchange

ISO 10303, commonly known as STEP, is an international standard designed to

Information) to enable global design and manufacturing collaboration [25]. STEP

PDM Process plans Mating definition

Product structure Project management

Configuration Requirements 3D assembly constraints

Persons & organizations Classification properties,... Design rules 3D kinematics

Mechanical design Composite design Additive manufacturing design

3D shape 3D shape data quality

Tessellated Curved tessellated

Figure 5: The high-level scope of ISO 10303 AP242

3.2. Standards for manufacturing

Part identification, characteristics

STEP AP242 ISO 14649

Figure 6: Information flow in a STEP-NC compliant manufacturing chain

3.3. Standards for manufacturing process monitoring

Monitoring the manufacturing execution progress is vital to ensuring traceability and

The MTConnect [44] standard enables manufacturing equipment to capture execution

can directly reveal design insight to a decision-maker. By automatically alignment of

3.4. Standards for smart inspection

Product inspection is an integral part of the product development process. It verifies

The Quality Information Framework (QIF) is an ANSI (the American National

Analyze & Report Quality

Figure 7: Integrated metrology process with QIF standard

As shown in Figure 7, a QIF-compliant metrology process starts with the generation of

4. Standards for manufacturing system automation

Enterprise MoM SCADA Device

Enterprise modeling and architecture — Requirements for enterprise-referencing

Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS) defines a common