Modern production systems can benefit greatly from integrated and up-to-date digital representations. Their applications range from consistency checks during the design phase to smart manufacturing to maintenance support. Such digital twins not only require data, information and knowledge as inputs but can also be considered integrated models themselves. This paper provides an overview of data, information and knowledge typically available throughout the lifecycle of production systems and the variety of applications driven by data analysis, expert knowledge and knowledge-based systems. On this basis, we describe the potential for combining data analysis and knowledge-based systems in the context of production systems and describe two feasibility studies that demonstrate how knowledge-based systems can be created using data analysis.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Towards symbiotic autonomous systems’.

现代生产系统可以从集成的最新数字表示中受益匪浅。它们的应用范围从设计阶段的一致性检查到智能制造再到维护支持。这种数字孪生不仅需要数据、信息和知识作为输入，而且本身也可以被视为集成模型。本文概述了生产系统整个生命周期中通常可用的数据、信息和知识，以及由数据分析、专家知识和基于知识的系统驱动的各种应用程序。在此基础上，我们描述了在生产系统背景下将数据分析和基于知识的系统相结合的潜力，并描述了两项可行性研究，展示了如何使用数据分析创建基于知识的系统。

本文是“迈向共生自治系统”主题的一部分。