MicroFrontends as Opportunity for Process Orchestration Layer Architecture in Modular Process Plants

Plug&Operate shall enable process industry to adapt more quickly to varying production situations. While the definition of process equipment assemblies as units with specific capabilities and uniform automation interface is already under standardization, the process control layer is gaining importance as it realizes a variety of tasks required for plant operation. This paper presents an overview of requirements on the research process control layer Polaris collected from an initial implementation and literature. The results of these findings are used for an assessment of suitable architectures from which the presented concept emerges. Special focus is on microFrontends, as these are considered a suitable solution to support task specific frontends during plant engineering and operation with simultaneous high flexibility due to modular design and loose coupling.