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PurposeThis work reports on a developing method time measurement system for measuring manufacturing and assembly processes automatically. This automatic system enables the production engineers and management to detect, process, and display concise and accurate information about the operations in real time.Design/methodology/approachThis system is based on Internet of things technology and RFID-antenna. This methodology consists of seven main steps and one final optimization step. Mainly, the operator is equipped by RFID reader, and the work station tools and devices are provided by RFID tags. Responding the RFID tags to the reader will refer to the certain operations, the difference time between start and end of the operations will be collected immediately and calculated by the microprocessor of the system.FindingsThis automatic system is promising, considering the accurate time measurements and recommendations that obtained from the case study which includes measuring manual assembly operations to be followed in order to overcome the limitations which are not only technical but also managerial, legal and organizational.Research limitations/implicationsThe acquired data about timing and duration of individual operations are anonymized to guarantee the compliance with respect to the privacy laws (GDPR and Italian work's laws).Originality/valueThis work presents a unique system to measure the time instead of traditional methods in the factories environment and satisfies the requirements to study the recommendations in order to overcome the challenges.

Simple analog devices like manometers, manual valves, etc., have been ignored in the digitization process that has characterized the transition towards Industry 4.0. The reason behind this is that their substitution with the equivalent digital versions is high cost and needs re-wiring. This study introduces a low-cost wireless and passive model aligned with the Industry 4.0 paradigm to digitize analog indicators. The concept is based on electromagnetic (EM) shielding of the manometer’s embedded radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. We designed and tuned a new tiny RFID tag to be embedded into analog devices. Finally, a digitized manometer by RFID electromagnetic shielding concept is simulated in the Ansys HFSS modeling environment.

Automation of logistics and production processes is one of the significant goals of the Industry 4.0 movement. Thus, this study uses the automatic data acquisition approach to automatically create Spaghetti Charts (SC), decrease the required time spent on collecting data, and provide a fast analysis (feedback). Smartphone technology used for drawing the automated spaghetti diagram has potential drawbacks related to safety, security, the privacy of organizations, and independency. So, Method Time Measurement 4.0 and RStudio software are used to collect the real data and draw the spaghetti chart, respectively, as an alternative solution. The experiment results for four scenarios (different Facility layouts and processes) prove that the approach is competitive, with cycle time reduction exceeding 40% less than the conventional facility layout and process plan. The proposed solution of the wearable device is promising for replacing smartphone technology with smart spaghetti chart systems.

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