The DFKI is currently using the PHYSICS platform to improve the reliability of a production plant prototype for selected scenarios (see Blogpost: Industrial Use Cases of FaaS: The basics you need to know).
Besides the evaluation of the technical feasibility of the PHYSICS platform, the DFKI participated in the event “Innovationstag 2022” of the “Technology Initiative SmartFactory-KL e.V” to evaluate professional opinions regarding the smart manufacturing use case.
The SmartFactory-KL has nearly 50 different industrial and research partners it its partner network where the DFKI is part of.
The possibility to present the project PHYSICS at this event which takes place once a year was very successful. Presenting the idea behind the PHYSICS platform, the status of the smart manufacturing use case and its scenarios delivered important feedback.
Looking through the glasses of other industrial users who visited the PHYSICS event-station (5 groups with each 5-10 people) many conceptual questions and suggestions arose.
Visitors and participants gave different inspirations:
- For example, the prospect of managing and deploying functions with a single mouse click was eagerly awaited. Managing complex systems with many interlocking cogs should be very easy.
- Software and hardware technologies should be used holistically. This means that digital processes such as fault tolerance using cloud technologies should be one building block of many. Therefore, a simple way to identify and keep track of where “low-tech” solutions and actions and the “high-tech” counterpart are or should be deployed would be helpful. For example, a failover scenario should also consider hard real-time processes or good software design, hardware design and operating system design.
- In addition, many participants would welcome the option of deploying functions on self-hosted or alternative cloud instances, rather than using the current cloud market leaders. Independence and individual configurability have a high priority.
