Abstract
With the application of Internet of Things and services to manufacturing, the fourth stage of industrialization, referred to as Industrie 4.0, is believed to be approaching. For Industrie 4.0 to come true, it is essential to implement the horizontal integration of inter-corporation value network, the end-to-end integration of engineering value chain, and the vertical integration of factory inside. In this paper, we focus on the vertical integration to implement flexible and reconfigurable smart factory. We first propose a brief framework that incorporates industrial wireless networks, cloud, and fixed or mobile terminals with smart artifacts such as machines, products, and conveyors. Then, we elaborate the operational mechanism from the perspective of control engineering, that is, the smart artifacts form a self-organized system which is assisted with the feedback and coordination blocks that are implemented on the cloud and based on the big data analytics. In addition, we outline the main technical features and beneficial outcomes and present a detailed design scheme. We conclude that the smart factory of Industrie 4.0 is achievable by extensively applying the existing enabling technologies while actively coping with the technical challenges.
Highlights
The emerging technologies (e.g., Internet of Things (IoT) [1,2,3], wireless sensor networks [4, 5], big data [6], cloud computing [7,8,9], embedded system [10], and mobile Internet [11]) are being introduced into the manufacturing environment, which ushers in a fourth industrial revolution
We mainly focus on constructing a general architecture of the smart factory and exploring the operational mechanism that organizes the involved technical components
With the emerging information technologies, such as IoT, big data, and cloud computing together with artificial intelligence technologies, we believe the smart factory of Industrie 4.0 can be implemented
Summary
The emerging technologies (e.g., Internet of Things (IoT) [1,2,3], wireless sensor networks [4, 5], big data [6], cloud computing [7,8,9], embedded system [10], and mobile Internet [11]) are being introduced into the manufacturing environment, which ushers in a fourth industrial revolution. The core idea of Industrie 4.0 is to use the emerging information technologies to implement IoT and services so that business process and engineering process are deeply integrated making production operate in a flexible, efficient, and green way with constantly high quality and low cost. The main features of Industrie 4.0 include (1) horizontal integration through value networks to facilitate inter-corporation collaboration, (2) vertical integration of hierarchical subsystems inside a factory to create flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing system, and (3) end-to-end engineering integration across the entire value chain to support product customization. The Industrie 4.0 aims to cope with personalized needs and global challenges so as to gain competitive strength considering the globalization of markets To this end, the emerging information technologies should be applied to every aspect of industry to implement three kinds of integration. The Industrie 4.0 is believed to impose a deep effect that is not limited to industry itself and to lifestyle and the way we work [23]
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