A microservice architecture for predictive analytics in manufacturing

This paper discusses on the design, development and deployment of a flexible and modular platform supporting smart predictive maintenance operations, enabled by microservices architecture and virtualization technologies. Virtualization allows the platform to be deployed in a multitenant environment, while facilitating resource isolation and independency from specific technologies or services. Moreover, the proposed platform supports scalable data storage supporting an effective and efficient management of large volume of Industry 4.0 data. Methodologies of data-driven predictive maintenance are provided to the user as-a-service, facilitating offline training and online execution of pre-trained analytics models, while the connection of the raw data to contextual information support their understanding and interpretation, while guaranteeing interoperability across heterogeneous systems. A use case related to the predictive maintenance operations of a robotic manipulator is examined to demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed platform. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.