Paraskevas Chourtsidis

• Industry 4.0 defines the organization of production and manufacturing processes based on technological advanced solutions and devices autonomously communicating with each other. Within the context of this industrial revolution, the smart reconfigurable manufacturing systems are introduced. These systems shall be able to provide a dynamic level of reconfigurability based on the production demand and system availability. The introduction of the manufacturing reconfigurability constitutes a particularly important and expensive decision for the organizations and therefore scoping methods are becoming constantly essential. The present work covers a first approach to defining reconfigurability methods and drivers for the manufacturing systems within the context of Industry 4.0. The thesis introduces five main reconfigurability use case scenarios for manufacturing systems and the description of a two – dimensional model of scoping parameters. The first dimension is based on the potential business targets and reconfigurability drivers, while the second dimension focuses on the system functions and technologies, which are required for the successful realization of the reconfigurability use case scenarios. Finally, the thesis concludes with a brief comparison between the traditional software product line scoping approach and purposed scoping method for the reconfigurability of manufacturing systems.