A methodology for production analysis based on the RFID-collected manufacturing big data

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been widely implemented in manufacturing shop-floors to collect production data, which in turn can be used for making decisions, analyzing production efficiency and evaluating aspects of a product’s quality evaluation. The RFID-collected manufacturing Big Data can reflect the real-time statuses of all manufactured products and production processes. This paper introduces an analytical method to examine the RFID-collected manufacturing Big Data. Specifically, the proposed method includes four key steps: data cleansing, data processing, data visualization and data analytics. This systematic method enables small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to perform data analytics in a simple manner. Production efficiency analysis is investigated and associated with operators, processes, and machines respectively. It is observed that error rates and performance bottlenecks can be attributed to a variety of factors such as machine failure, process deficiencies, and human error.