Environmental Sustainability of Cyber Physical Production Systems

Cyber physical production systems (CPPS) are of growing relevance for improving production machines, process chains or factories as a whole. In general, CPPS bear significant potential to improve the economic and environmental performance of production. However, for dynamically connecting the physical world with virtual (cyber) models extensive efforts for IT infrastructure (e.g. sensors, computers, visualization equipment) are necessary. Against this background, the paper aims at building up a methodology to assess those efforts from environmental point of view and bring them into context of potential improvement. The methodology is applied to different CPPS types in order to underline applicability and benefits.