An Approach for Secure Data Transmission in a Distributed Production Environment

Abstract

The exchange of data along the supply chain can be viewed as one of the key characteristics of advanced manufacturing concepts, frequently labeled as industry 4.0. Intelligent products produced in shorter life cycles, increasing cost and quality pressures from global supply chains, increasingly complex regulatory requirements, as well as decreasing costs of advanced sensors are major drivers for this trend. Large amounts of data generated as a by-product of this trend represents an opportunity for advanced data analytics. However, the exchange of data across organizational boundaries bears also the risks of being in the focus of cyber-attacks. In this paper, we tackle the challenge of securing the data transfer in an Industry 4.0 environment. We first identify the security requirements within our use case. Based on these requirements, we present an approach for secure data transmission and discuss how our solution meets the identified requirements.