Flexible Manufacturing System for Enhanced Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 Applications

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) have the potential to increase efficiency and adaptability in manufacturing which results in both economic gains as well as support future environmental and social sustainability. However, the continuous optimization of such systems remains a challenging task due to the trade-offs between flexibility and production efficiency under increasing cost pressures. This work presents an enhanced design and development approach for flexible systems of fabrication that takes into account these trade-offs. Our approach is based on a combination of simulation and optimization techniques, and it has been validated through experiments on a real-world flexible system of fabrication with state-of-the-art components and tools for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0/5.0 paradigm integration. The presented results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed approach in conjunction with reference performance metrics such as the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and the power consumption.