This paper was presented at the 6th International Conference on Industrial Informatics (IEEE INDIN 2008). The conference was held in Daejeon (Korea) from the 13 to the 16 July 2008.

This paper was attributed the Best Presentation Paper Award of the IEEE INDIN 2008 conference.

Abtract: The factory automation community is looking toward the Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS) set of Web Service standards to provide a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) enablement of factory elements. This paper examines the issues surrounding the application and future development of DPWS on production line machines and their integration with distributed enterprise applications. Issues raised reflect the need for more development on defining a generic approach to Web Service architecture in automation and the ontologies that support it. The concept of an automation lifecycle is introduced to aid this development from a more holistic perspective.