Modeling of the Master Production Schedule for the Digital Transition of Manufacturing SMEs in the Context of Industry 4.0

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to propose a guide for the digital transformation (4.0) of a manufacturing SME’s medium-term production planning process, the master production schedule (MPS). A model of the current MPS process of a group of SMEs is presented as a starting point toward digitization. The current state of this process reveals a lack of tools to support decision making and the need to increase the reliability of input data and to make the process more agile. Industry 4.0 technologies and process modeling could increase agility in the planning process. However, the digital transformation of medium-term planning activities in SMEs has not been studied. To fill this gap, a group of six experts was consulted. The novelty of this study was to identify the Industry 4.0 technologies that could improve medium-term planning and integrate them into a standardized MPS process model. This model is an ultimate point of digitization that cannot be achieved immediately by any SME, but only after several cycles of planning, deployment, and improvement. Therefore, this research also provides a method to help SMEs determine how to start the digitization of their MPS process.