Abstract
The adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies within the manufacturing and process industries is widely accepted to have benefits for production cycles, increase system flexibility and give production managers more options on the production line through reconfigurable systems. A key enabler in Industry 4.0 technology is the rise in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Digital Twins (DTs). Both technologies connect the physical to the cyber world in order to generate smart manufacturing capabilities. State of the art research accurately describes the frameworks, challenges and advantages surrounding these technologies but fails to deliver on testbeds and case studies that can be used for development and validation. This research demonstrates a novel proof of concept Industry 4.0 production system which lays the foundations for future research in DT technologies, process optimisation and manufacturing data analytics. Using a connected system of commercial off-the-shelf cameras to retrofit a standard programmable logic controlled production process, a digital simulation is updated in real time to create the DT. The system can identify and accurately track the product through the production cycle whilst updating the DT in real-time. The implemented system is a lightweight, low cost, customable and scalable design solution which provides a testbed for practical Industry 4.0 research both for academic and industrial research purposes.
Highlights
Manufacturing systems are dramatically changing as a result of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) and the increase in the digitisation of the manufacturing industry.[1,2] Global competitiveness has amplified the need for manufacturers to be reactive and adaptive to increasingly diverse customer demands and on much shorter time scales than ever before
Ribeirio and Bjorkman[41] described the challenges from transitioning from a standard automation system to a Cyber-Physical Production system (CPPS) and Uhleman et al.[42] highlighted the need for scalable demonstrator platforms to demonstrate the IR4.0 principles where the requirements included the need for real-time data acquisition to support Digital Twins (DTs)
The Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model can display radiofrequency identification (RFID) Information (Pallet ID), number and position of parts in the system at a given time based on touch sensors and RFID tag detection when in station, cycle times of a production process duration at any given station and goods-in/goods-out
Summary
Manufacturing systems are dramatically changing as a result of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) and the increase in the digitisation of the manufacturing industry.[1,2] Global competitiveness has amplified the need for manufacturers to be reactive and adaptive to increasingly diverse customer demands and on much shorter time scales than ever before. The Smart Factory KL33 at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern consists of a testbed with many of the key communication technologies used within this research such as RFID and networked systems.
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