Modular and collaborative automation: achieving manufacturing flexibility and reconfigurability

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Abstract
Manufacturing companies urgently need production systems that can provide both the flexibility to support product variety dynamically and the reconfigurability to be adapted economically to manufacture new products. In response to this need, a new collaborative automation paradigm is now emerging, which is characterised by decentralised distributed automation systems composed of intelligent reconfigurable mechatronics modules. This paper aims to provide a significant insight into the benefits and challenges posed by the industrial adoption of this paradigm. It describes both how best to provide appropriate modular reconfigurable automation systems and how best to implement engineering environments capable of supporting their lifecycle.