In a globalised world the process industry faces challenges regarding data management. Rising demands for agility and rapid shortening of innovation cycles have lead to project-based collaborations. Highly specialised small and medium enterprises are forming “virtual companies” for their mutual benefit. However, today’s industrial data structures are very heterogeneous, complicating collaborative work and hindering the flow of data between stakeholders from different domains. Existing solutions are too rigid and potentially cumbersome. A broad gap still exists between the need of virtual companies to share data from mixed sources in a controlled way and the technologies available. The authors’ approach uses semantic web technologies to represent industrial data in a generic way. Major advantages in comparison to traditional approaches arise from the inherent merging abilities and the extensibility of Linked Data. Distributed information spaces from different domains can be condensed into an interlinked cloud. Existing data can be integrated either on-the-fly using appropriate adapters or by complete migration. Furthermore, operations from graph theory can be performed on the Linked Data networks to generate aggregated views. This article discusses a set of proven web technologies for cloud-driven industrial data sharing in virtual companies and presents first results.

No abstract

No abstract

This paper presents a mobile assistance system for service and maintenance personnel in industrial facilities. It provides an innovative interaction metaphor designed to fit domain specific working conditions. As a result of a strictly user-centered design process, the presented system follows the principles of Embodied Interaction. The system is evaluated using a sophisticated scenario in a typical industrial environment. The evaluation also includes a comparison with the conventional paper & pencil-based maintenance workflow. A detailed discussion addresses problems of mobile usability evaluation in industrial environments and provides appropriate solutions. The results presented in this paper demonstrate that the proposed system allows for effective and satisfactory service and maintenance. It contributes further insights for utilization and evaluation of embodied systems in industrial applications. Potential applications of this research include design guidelines for future interface configurations using embodied interactive devices.

No abstract