For global automakers that manufacture products through a globally distributed supply chain, it is essential for this supply chain to be managed efficiently to enhance the efficiency and responsiveness to uncertain changes in the market. These manufacturers face limitations associated with independent applications, such as difficulties in collecting information from distributed sites and the inability to make quick decisions. To solve this problem, researchers have been actively investigating the application of smart manufacturing technology to improve productivity as well as the optimal use of manufacturing resources in dynamic environments. Furthermore, different countries have different cultures, regulations, and policies. Hence, a universal integrated platform is required to address these difficulties. Accordingly, this study proposes an integrated cyberphysical system-based platform that reflects international standards and has versatile applications. This platform can be used to utilize information from various distributed manufacturing sites in real time. In addition, the proposed system was verified through a field application case study.
The manufacturing industry has witnessed rapid changes, including unpredictable product demand, diverse customer requirements, and increased pressure to launch new products. To deal with such changes, the reconfigurable manufacturing system has been proposed as one of the advanced manufacturing systems that is close to the realisation of smart manufacturing since it is able to reconfigure its hardware, software, and system structures in a much quicker manner. Conventional simulation technologies lack convergence with physical manufacturing systems, and reconfigurable manufacturing lines require the manual construction of production line models for each reconfiguration. This study presents a digital twin-based integrated reconfiguration assessment application that synchronises with real-time manufacturing data and provides accurate, automated simulation functionality to build and analyse a manufacturing system. The paper discusses the architectural design and implementation of the application, an information model, and an assessment model that enable quantitatively assessment on reconfigurations of manufacturing systems from various aspects. The effectiveness of the proposed application is verified via application to an automotive parts production line to assess the reconfiguration indicators of the manufacturing system under different scenarios. The results reveal that the proposed application provides faster and more accurate reconfiguration assessments compared to existing methods. The findings of this study are expected to facilitate accurate and consistent decision making for evaluating the various indicators of production line performance.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.