Digitising a Machine Tool for Smart Factories

Abstract

Smart factory development renders an incredible opportunity for the manufacturing industry to join the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). However, an incredible number of conventional CNC machine tools are populating the world’s factories. Replacing these machines is an expensive process. This task might be considered unliftable by most small businesses. An inexpensive digitalisation of Machine Tool 3.0 to an Industry 4.0-compatible tool might be one way for small businesses to keep up with the progress and stay competitive. The developed framework uses recent advances in the open-source community to transform a conventional CNC machine into Machine Tool 4.0. The suggested approach opens up a way to bypass the proprietary computer numerical control and enable connectivity and efficient data communication with the machine tool. At almost no cost, the provided strategy converts an average CNC machine into a machine tool with the full spectrum of accessibility and interoperability of Machine Tool 4.0. The proposed solution can enable small- and medium-sized enterprises to step up and propel them into the Industry 4.0 era.