Insights into SoRa: A Reference Architecture for Cyber-physical Social Systems in the Industry 4.0 Era

Reference architectures for Industry 4.0 tend to have a techno-centric orientation; their social dimension is usually restricted to specifying that users exist, and they have concerns that impact the architecture of desired systems. We take a step further to make the social element the core of future systems. A first step is to propose a reference architecture for Industry 4.0 cyber-physical social systems (CPSS), that builds upon proposals from well-known initiatives. Key differentiator in our design is the explicit consideration of the human – cyber-physical relation and the way the two sides influence or adapt to each other. The final aim is that architecture descriptions derived from this reference architecture, will enable the development of CPSSs capable of harnessing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT), while respecting the importance of their