Industrial robotics for ERP controlled smart factories

Abstract

At product manufacturing the time-to-market factor, the profitability and the delivered value define the success of an enterprise. The increasing number of modules in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programs is a facing problem, when there is a margin between the manufacturing cells and the ERP. Nowadays, the connection between the industrial machines and the ERP is an important requirement especially at automated warehouses and smart factories. Other concerns at manufacturing are the maintenance schedules of the machines, and flexible and easy reconfiguration of the production lines or the production cells. Information technology provides solutions and software environments to implement complex production supervisor ERPs at smart factories. At a production line or an automated warehouse several technical parameters and information can influence the planning of the resources at the enterprise, like maintenance, machine error, stockpile, product ID, defective product ratios, etc. When there is machine maintenance, the company needs to order the service parts, as well as schedule the service time and the stop of the production line. In case of a machine error, the system can estimate the length of the service time from error messages, and reorganize orders, transportation, or even maintenance schedules of other machines. Our plug and play type robot and industrial automation controller project gives a solution for these hardware demanding needs.