Industry 4.0: Development of a multi-agent system for dynamic value stream mapping in SMEs

Abstract

As the next wave of productivity, Industry 4.0 aims to enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of manufacturers by bridging the gap between industrial manufacturing and information technology. Through digitalization, it provides the advantage of enabling the real-time/near-real-time monitoring of manufacturing. This digital information allows monitoring tools such as Value stream mapping (VSM) to help the decision makers efficiently capture the non-value-adding processes on the factory floor. However, the application of VSM into small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including diverse manufacturing environments, is not an easy task. It is even more challenging especially when the product processing is more complicated and requires improvements to labour management and facility utilization. Conventional VSM is not competent to handle the contemporary rapid dynamic manufacturing environment, complex material flow or efficiency of machine and labour performance. These three are the most important resources on the shop floor to bring transparency to the decision maker. We present a multi-agent system composed of several cost effective embedded Arduino systems as agents and a Raspberry-Pi ® as a core agent. Equipped with Cyber-Physical System (CPS) technology, these agents, placed on or near the station, could reflect the non-linear material value flow without modelling the process or using RFID tags. Moreover, through the sensor node installed in each machine and by knowing the staff ID, the agents could send the relevant information in the form of dynamic value stream mapping (DVSM) in near-real-time for storage, analysis and visualization. We present a suitable visualization tool based in Node-RED ® to carry out DVSM.

Industry 4.0-Based Real-Time Scheduling and Dispatching in Lean Manufacturing Systems

“…Hence, the scheduling research needs to shift its focus to real-time and smart scheduling and product-flow optimization [13]. In this regard, Industry 4.0, with its powerful real-time data capturing technology enablers like radio-frequency identification (RFID), machine data, multiple sensors, network gateways, and others, can bridge the serious gap between reality on the PSF and the offline scheduling algorithms or mathematical models [4,14,15].Integrating Industry 4.0 in manufacturing systems provides the advantage of real-time tracking and monitoring of the entities of manufacturing systems [14,16]. Moreover, Industry 4.0 provides the ability of identifying, tracking, communicating, and controlling smart entities such as jobs, machines, tools, fixtures, workers, and other resources along the value stream in the lean manufacturing environment.…”

“…Moreover, Industry 4.0 provides the ability of identifying, tracking, communicating, and controlling smart entities such as jobs, machines, tools, fixtures, workers, and other resources along the value stream in the lean manufacturing environment. This will enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of manufacturers [14,17,18].Recently, there have been challenges in the deployment and implementation of lean tools in manufacturing systems, preventing manufacturing organizations that have deployed lean manufacturing initiatives from successfully achieving lean goals. However, due to rapid changes in products and technologies, lean initiatives simply diminish in the long run.The superior features of Industry 4.0 provide lean practitioners with the opportunity to build an integrated smart lean manufacturing system.…”

“…Hence, the scheduling research needs to shift its focus to real-time and smart scheduling and product-flow optimization [13]. In this regard, Industry 4.0, with its powerful real-time data capturing technology enablers like radio-frequency identification (RFID), machine data, multiple sensors, network gateways, and others, can bridge the serious gap between reality on the PSF and the offline scheduling algorithms or mathematical models [4,14,15].…”

“…Integrating Industry 4.0 in manufacturing systems provides the advantage of real-time tracking and monitoring of the entities of manufacturing systems [14,16]. Moreover, Industry 4.0 provides the ability of identifying, tracking, communicating, and controlling smart entities such as jobs, machines, tools, fixtures, workers, and other resources along the value stream in the lean manufacturing environment.…”

“…Moreover, Industry 4.0 provides the ability of identifying, tracking, communicating, and controlling smart entities such as jobs, machines, tools, fixtures, workers, and other resources along the value stream in the lean manufacturing environment. This will enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of manufacturers [14,17,18].…”