An improved Cyber-Physical Systems architecture for Industry 4.0 smart factories

The Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is the core concept of Industry 4.0 for building smart factories. We can rely on the ISA-95 architecture or the 5C architecture to build the CPS. However, both architectures emphasize more on vertical integration, and less on horizontal integration. This paper proposes the 8C architecture by adding 3C facets into the 5C architecture. The 3C facets are coalition, customer, and content. The proposed 8C architecture is a helpful guideline for us to build the CPS for smart factories.