1st IEEE Track on System of Systems for Logistics
A track of the 25th IEEE WETICE'16 Conference, June 13-16 Paris, France

Current solutions of Internet-of-Things (IoT) are isolated, diverse islands of automation, where various sets of interconnected smart physical objects adhere to completely different design goals. The integration of such isolated systems is traditionally achieved by means of data-driven approaches, or mapping technologies such as data adaptors, rather than exploring principal architectural solutions. We observe that a global integration is hard to achieve because stakeholders are not willing to change their running (legacy) systems. On the other hand, we observe that an increasing need emerges for integration, e.g., for networking manufacturing systems with systems of logistics and with information systems of subcontractors.

Logistics is a service domain that has a particularly high potential of benefiting from cyber-physical systems (CPS) where the focus is on the system of sytems (SoS). A distinguishing feature for a system of systems is that at least some of the components can provide useful services also independently. the control and management of CPSoS cannot be performed in a completely centralized or hierarchical top-down manner with one authority tightly controlling and managing all the subsystems. Instead, there is a significant distribution of authority with partial local autonomy, i.e. partially independent decision making. In CPSoS, there are partly autonomous human or automatic decision makers that steer the subsystems according to local priorities.

The objective of logistics is to service individual firms, supply chains and entire industries with flexible means for realizing flows of goods from the point of origin to the point of destination. Logistics relies on the ability to: (1) share resources of different organizations, (2) provide complex services based on configurations of elementary services, (3) coordinate service delivery across organizations, and (4) maintain an agreed quality of service. These requirements match closely to the key characteristics of service-based systems. While recent advances in the engineering and management of such systems have been made, still many questions regarding the design of the multi-paradigm models and methods to be used as well as their efficacy and usefulness for CPS, remain to be answered.

We view next-generation logistics innovations as CPSoS of three layers. At the bottom layer we have smart objects connected to the Internet that do not interact, or do so in an ad-hoc way. At the middle layer are CPSoS where smart objects are supported by a system of collaborating computational elements controlling the respective physical objects. Computational elements are embedded in the smart physical objects themselves and in their governance platform, the latter being the “cyber” aspect of CPSoS. The highest layer is occupied by sociotechnical systems, where CPSoS are tied to and support social-work processes within organisations.

This conference track aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners from different, though overlapping areas: services computing, information systems, and logistics/supply chain management. The objective is to discuss the state of the art, on-going projects and open research questions at the intersection of services computing and logistics/supply chain management. The conference track intends to provide a forum for discussing research approaches that will (1) enhance the understanding of the problem domain, (2) provide ideas to solving important problems either in the domain or the models and methods, or (3) evaluate models and methods of services computing by reporting their use through, e.g., case study, experimentation, simulation. The conference track is not restricted to particular research methods and we will consider both conceptual, theoretical and empirical research, as well as novel applications.
Topics of Interest

Logistics governance platforms employing CPSoS

Composition of logistics
Choreography of CPSoS-logistics
Humans in CPSoS-logistics loops
Cross-CPSoS-ecosystem logistics orchestration
Conflict management and resolution

Smart objects as autonomous agents in logistics facilitation

Physical smart objects for logistics
Sensors for logistics-context management
Intelligence generation for mission control of smart-object flocks
Controllers for smart-object flocks

Ontologies with a CPSoS-logistics communication focus

Engineering CPSoS-ontologies for logistics
Computations of CPSoS-logistics ontologies
Noise management in CPSoS-logistics ontologies
Ontologies for smart-object protocols
Mission control based on CPSoS-logistics ontologies

Security in CPSoS-driven logistics

Availability for CPSoS-logistics
Confidentiality for CPSoS-logistics
Integrity for CPSoS-logistics
Action authorization for CPSoS-logistics
Privacy protection for CPSoS-logistics
Dependability correlations for CPSoS-logistics

Agile CPSoS-development methodologies for logistics-scenarios

Goal-driven CPSoS-development
CPSoS-logistics requirements engineering
Methodologies for CPSoS-development
Tool-support for agile CPSoS-development

Case-study-based industry research for CPSoS-centered logistics