Remote production dashboard: A real-time and online control technology for discrete manufacturing process based on knowledge service

A viable and affordable real-time and online control technology named remote production dashboard (RPD) for discrete manufacturing process based on knowledge service is proposed. Firstly, the basic framework of RPD consisted of production environment layer, data process layer, knowledge service layer and man-machine interaction layer is constructed. Secondly, the principles of two key technologies used in RPD including real-time manufacturing field data capture and knowledge service are presented. Thirdly, the mechanism of RPD is described in detail and two running instances are given out. Finally, a prototype system is developed and applied to an auto motor manufacturer preliminarily. The RPD system facilitates the visible management of plant shop thus enhances the operational efficiency in a real-time manner, and is proved to be a promising next generation advanced manufacturing technology.

I. INTRODUCTION

As manufacturers gain control over inventory and grab accurate demand signals from their customers, the last blind spot in the global supply chain is the plant floor^[1] Due to the lack of necessary manufacturing field data, many general scheduling algorithm such as genetic algorithm (GA), ant colony algorithm (ACA), neural network algorithm (NNA) and particle swarm algorithm (PSA) can't be effectively applied to discrete plant shop. It is still a difficult problem for factory managers to monitor, control and optimize manufacturing process in a real-time manner.