Cyber-physical systems as field of action

In order to be continuously successful, manufacturing companies have to deal with Industrie 4.0 and develop feasible strategies therefore. The reasons and potentials that arise with Industrie 4.0 have already been analyzed and discussed in the first article “wake-up call for enterprises” of this series based on the „WGPStandpunkt Industrie 4.0“. In the context of Industrie 4.0, four different fields of action are identified: “cyber physical systems, “cloudand service-based production platforms”, “digital shadow” and “analytics”. A successful strategy for digitalization within production largely depends on the consideration and implementation of these four fields of action. In this article, cyber-physical systems (CPS) are analyzed in detail. CPS can be seen as the central elements of Industrie 4.0. They are key-enablers facilitating the potentials that arise with Industrie 4.0, e. g. increased flexibility and productivity or the development of new business models.