Cross benefits from cyber-physical systems and intelligent products for future smart industries

The manufacturing industry is facing a technology paradigm change, as also captured in the Industrie 4.0 vision as the fourth industrial revolution. Future smart industries will require to optimize not only their own manufacturing processes but also the use of products and manufacturing resources, their maintenance and their recycling. In this context the strengths and weaknesses of two key concepts, namely Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Intelligent Product (IP) are discussed, and it is suggested that an integration of these two approaches to meet the introduced emergent requirements is beneficial. The integration of CPS and IP is shown via two real-world industrial cases, covering different phases of the product life-cycle, namely the production, use and maintenance phases.