Simulation of Flexible Manufacturing Systems as an Element of Education Towards Industry 4.0

Abstract

Industry 4.0, known as the fourth digital revolution, is the integration of modern systems and machines based on digital solutions that influences the productivity of an enterprise. This concept forces the use of more and more sophisticated and complex solutions by enterprises, i.e. technological or organizational, associated with data collection and analysis, the development of technology, the ability of a rapid response to both internal and external changes, and the improvement of present processes. Highly automated production processes will require qualified management staff as well as production workers experienced in the work with new materials, machines and, in particular, information. This work presents the course of a didactic process which aims at the acquisition of skills within the simulation and analysis of flexible manufacturing systems with the use of mass service systems theory. The main part of the work shows the course of classes which aim to study the work efficiency of a flexible manufacturing cell. As a criterion of the system work efficiency, basic indicators of the mass service system work were adopted, that is an average number of products waiting in a queue, average time of a product waiting in a queue and a manufacturing system as well as the expected downtime of a cell. The results were compared with the results of typical models describing the work of mass service systems (M/M/1, M/D/1, M/El/1, M/G/1).