S3 manufacturing process taxonomy

Abstract

Abstract In the literature, the design approach has been mainly focused on products, however, manufacturing process awareness lacks structure measurements of the organization resources and their productive capacity to systematize the adoption of newer technologies and automation of production lines. Due to this fact, there is a remaining gap in the adoption of technological resources to automate them. The study of manufacturing processes has made it possible to identify three opportunity areas in any type of organization: i) structured processes, ii) industrial environmental knowledge and iii) technological adoption. This article presents a taxonomy that structure available information in manufacturing processes into five levels to characterize, redesign, or develop them from scratch. To get a better comprehension of the environment, it is possible to enhance awareness of energy consumption, waste management, information flow and emissions control through Sensors, collection, processing, and communication of information through Smart components. The technological adoption goes hand in hand with the sustainable objectives of the organization and dictates the search for alternatives throughout the development or redesign of the manufacturing process to pursue economic, social and environmental objectives. Besides, the taxonomy was used in the characterization and updating of four manufacturing processes for a modular machine. These four case studies allow for better insight into the design process. The changes between the initial and final stages after the update were recorded in the S3 Scorecard to visualize the increase of the characteristics and to chart a route for future technological acquisitions. The proposal has made it possible to locate the characteristics of the manufacturing process at one level and align the objectives of the organization to a technology acquisition plan since manufacturing firms are looking to future-proof their investments by acquiring solutions to comply current regulations while maintaining low-cost operations.