Needs and opportunities in E-Manufacturing
 

The rapid growth of internet-based and related systems is a dominant factor in business today and this research work examines its impact on manufacturing:

e-Manufacturing : The application of open, flexible, reconfigurable communications and computing for the enhancement of existing manufacturing practices and the creation of new business models and processes.

We emphasize that the scope of this study is specifically considering those information issues which are specific to manufacturing, and in particular, those which impact on the physical production, movement and storage of products.

This research was stimulated by the observation that, although significant improvements to existing manufacturing business processes are currently being achieved through the application of Internet technologies, the business processes and models and the systems that support them stem largely from manufacturing supply chain models developed in the early 20th century. Figure 1 shows the E-manufacturing model supported by internet environment.

One of the key components of e-manufacturing is the ability of the systems that run the production processes to also pass and share information in a very collaborative environment. In other words, the data that powers the devices and machines on the factory floor must be made available, and disseminated throughout the manufacturing enterprise in order for e-manufacturing to function. E-manufacturing, when actually implemented, becomes collaborative or "c manufacturing". Factories, by their very nature, comprise an environment consisting of many heterogeneous systems, machines, and devices.

An open, universal environment is required to deploy software applications; especially since most manufacturing operations employ multiple platforms. This makes the Java platform very appealing due to its natural flexibility and ability to connect heterogeneous systems.

The Internet brings both a threat and an opportunity to manufacturers.

Today, even with the best implemented lean manufacturing practices, many companies still face the following problems, which are all interrelated to each other: 1) Defect parts, 2) High downtime, 3) High energy utilization and cost, 4) Long changeover and setup time, 5) Long lead time for new product realization (long part and process design, and validation periods), 6) Slow decision making (high inventory, slow scheduling, etc.).

e-Manufacturing can bring solutions to these problems by addressing the following research and development issues: 1) Development of intelligent agents for continuous, real time, remote and distributed monitoring and analyses of devices, machinery and systems to provide the first and most needed element of predictive maintenance via offering real time information about machine’s performance status (health condition), its capability of producing quality parts (or completing its tasks), etc, 2) Development of remote, distributed and web-based quality control systems and their integration with intelligent predictive agents described above in order to identify quality variations and their causes in real time, 3) Development of D2B (device-to-business) platform for complete transformation, optimization and synchronization of plant floor problems, issues, and solutions with higher level production, maintenance and transaction scheduling systems, inventory control systems, supply chain systems and with ERP for dynamic scheduling of production, maintenance, human and other resources, dynamic inventory monitoring and control, optimization of energy/power utilization, etc., 4) Development of virtual design platform for collaborative part, process, tooling design among suppliers, design and process engineers and as well as customers for fast validation and decision making.

In order to effectively implement the e-Manufacturing platform described above in various manufacturing environments (food processing, metal fabrication, petro-chemical processing, paper/tissue production, aircraft industry, etc.), the followings need to be accomplished and integrated:

• Data from various machinery, devices and processes must be processed (analyzed) locally.

• Data from disparate systems and machinery needs to be merged (i.e. correlated)

• Data quality need to be ensured, may be, by having data quality indexes

• Advanced prediction methods and tools need to be developed in order to detect degradation, performance loss or trend of failure not faults, breakdowns, etc.

• For flexibility of data processing, analysis, remote monitoring and control of devices on the plant floor existing tether-free technologies (wireless communication, wireless sensor, vision systems, etc.) should be utilized

• Performance issues of tether-free (wireless) communication and network architecture should be analyzed and ensured in terms of security, safety, reliability, robustness, and scalability. Data assurance -getting correct data to correct user, never allowing data to incorrect user- need to be provided

• For wider and easier implementations, new standards need to be Identified and developed. Existing efforts to develop standards should be leveraged via active participation and involvement

• Identify the needs and areas in terms of interfacing factory floor side of e-manufacturing with ERP, SCM, EAM systems for smooth synchronization and business automation