Novel Approach of an Intelligent and Flexible Manufacturing System: A Contribution to the Concept and Development of Smart Factory

Abstract

An integrated and intelligent manufacturing system linked the concept of smart factory demonstration are proposed and implemented in this paper. A simple and flexible system design of interfacing between available machines and devices are conducted in term of an integrated system. Thus, the conventional milling machine, the robotic arm as well as the conveyor system are gathered and integrated into fully automated system of a loop cycle in process manufacturing demonstration, the so-called “Demo Site”. The key concepts of intelligent manufacturing system as well as smart factory are preliminary performed and presented based on system design of the “Demo Site”. The ability of this intelligent and flexible system is to manufacture the different shapes and dimensions of predesigned parts based on repeatedly running on single loop cycle of the system. A single loop system consists of sequencing in process manufacturing which fully automatic in any production steps. The experimental study is made on performance testing of the integrated system, and results shown that differently machined parts can be automatically manufactured by repeatedly execution of the single loop configuration of “Demo Site”. Also, it is flexible and reprogrammable for any machined parts which can be performed based on this system. Furthermore, proposed of the intelligent and flexible system is a primary key configuration enhancing in the development of smart factory for industry 4.0.