Designing resilient product architectures with systems engineering Applied in the context of an automation technology product

A PLC (=Programmable Logical Controller) is an automation component which can be build-in in multiple manufacturing machines and lines across various industries. When designing a PLC, not all possible use cases, stakeholders, or contexts, which determine the product requirements, are known upfront. To cope with this uncertainty of requirements, the PLC needs to have a resilient product architecture. Using this as an example, this paper addresses the following research question: How are resilient product architectures designed using the methodology of Systems Thinking and Engineering while confronted with the uncertainty of system contexts and requirements.