Integration and testing of the RFID-enabled Smart Factory concept within the Learning Factory

Abstract

Abstract The Industry 4.0 brought new production paradigms and, among them, the Smart Factory concept is definitely the most important one. Smart Factory concept is based on the integration of the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) with the shop-floor level on the one side, and with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) level on the other side. The popular solution for the product data gathering is the RFID (radio-frequency identification) system. In this paper, the RFID-enabled Smart Factory has been designed and integrated within Learning Factory, and its performances have been tested. Regarding the design of the system, it was made as simpler as possible to enable students to understand it and work on it within Learning Factory environment. The Web application hosted on the Siemens Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) was made for controlling and managing of the RFID system (Turck BL-Ident RFID system). A simple MES was made to connect the data gathered by the RFID system with the ERP system (Venio ERP). The designed solution was integrated into the Lean Learning Factory at FESB, University of Split, and the performances were tested. The weakest point of the system could be the performance of the RFID system. Namely, for reading or writing the data on the RFID tag some amount of milliseconds is needed to successfully do it, in regard to the amount of data. So, the research was made, how fast product, with the RIFD tag attached onto it, can pass near the RFID head to have successful reading or writing of the data. Analysis of the test results and conclusions for the work-place design are given.