Process modeling for industry 4.0 applications: Towards an industry 4.0 process modeling language and method

The term Industry 4.0 derives from the new (fourth) industrial revolution enabling suppliers and manufacturers to leverage new technological concepts like Internet of Things, Big Data, and Cloud Computing: New or enhanced products and services can be created, cost be reduced and productivity be increased. Similar terms are Smart Factory or Smart Manufacturing. The ideas, concepts and technologies are not hype anymore — they are at least partly reality, but many software specification and development aspects are still not sufficiently covered, e.g. standardization, specification and modeling languages. This paper presents an Industry 4.0 process modeling language (I4PML) that is an extension (UML profile with stereotypes) of OMG's BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) standard. We also describe a method for the specification of Industry 4.0 applications using UML and I4PML.