A reference activity model for smart factory design and improvement

TLDR

Smart manufacturing systems are envisioned as highly automated, IT‑driven production environments. The study aims to introduce a standard, holistic factory design and improvement activity model and to contribute to standards for exchanging related information. The authors present the FDI reference activity model, detailing its application in an electromechanical component factory and covering activities across initial development and operational phases. The model reveals activity dependencies, required information, and software functions, suggesting that digitizing these elements will enhance agility in factory design and improvement.

Abstract

Smart manufacturing systems (SMSs) are envisioned to contain highly automated and IT-driven production systems. To address the complexity that arises in such systems, a standard and holistic model for describing its activities and their interrelationships is needed. This paper introduces a factory design and improvement (FDI) activity model and illustrates a case study of FDI in an electromechanical component factory. In essence, FDI is a reference activity model that encompasses a range of manufacturing system activities for designing and improving a factory during its initial development and also its operational phases. The FDI model shows not only the dependency between activities and manufacturing control levels but also the pieces of information and software functions each activity relies on. We envision that the availability of these pieces of information in digital form to integrate across the software functions will increase the agility of factory design and improvement projects. Therefore, our future work lies in contributing to standards for exchanging such information.