Towards Socio-Cyber-Physical Systems in Production Networks

The adoption of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) in production networks enables new potential for improved efficiency, accountability, sustainability and scalability. In terms of production and transport processes, materialising this potential requires customised technological concepts, planning and control methods as well as business models. Even though CPS strongly rely on technological advancements, the creativity, flexibility and problem solving competence of human stakeholders is strongly needed for their operation. This paper introduces and reviews the social aspects of CPS and motivates future research towards Socio-Cyber-Physical Systems (SCPS) applied to production networks. In this frame, context-dependent behavioural aspects and implications related to the human stakeholders are delimitated. As a showcase for the relevance of these aspects the deficits arising from an insufficient communication among stakeholders in SCPS are analysed by means of a simulation experiment. The obtained results substantiate the dependence of SCPS on properly considering the aspects related to human stakeholders together with technology. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.