Tracking Online Workpiece Machining Procedure in a Mobile Collaborative Environment

Abstract

To increase the agility in manufacturing, we propose a method of tracking the online workpiece machining procedure in a mobile collaborative environment. Here, how to enable both machining quality tracking and machining information tracking are two key problems that need to be solved in this research. The first problem deals with information handling and visualizing technologies related to SPC-based quality controlling and error sourcing for big-batch production and Bayesian-forecasting-based dynamic quality controlling for small-batch production. The second problem depends on information searching and managing mechanisms for visualizing time, task, batch and equipment data synthetically based on several machining information engines. As a result, a ubiquitous machining tracking implementation is unified under the mobile collaborative infrastructure. Then users with different roles-playing are able not only to track the machining quality and progress, but also to cooperate with each other, despite of their geographical places where they stay and collaborative tools they are using. Finally, a running example is given to verify the feasibility of the proposed method.