A Communication Architecture to Observe and Partially Preserve Efficiency in Automated Production Systems

The Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of automated Production Systems (aPS) is an essential metric in a competitive global market. Maintaining high OEE is not easily achieved in aPS, because hard real-time requirements and the fulfillment of extra-functional tasks, including safety, limit the flexibility needed for fault-tolerant control and dynamic reconfiguration. This paper proposes the extension of aPS by a distributive agent to monitor the process and intervene only in case of potential OEE loss, leaving the core system unaltered. The approach's viability is demonstrated using a preexisting demonstrator machine whose OEE is monitored by a physically separate agent, connected via the internet. Unbound by real-time requirements, this agent monitors potential risks to OEE and, if deemed necessary, automatically intervenes with instructions to the operative layer to trigger a reconfiguration. This work was submitted alongside another paper, conceptualizing the inclusion of component health modeling and observation in the distributive agent's capabilities.