Assembly system configuration through Industry 4.0 principles: the expected change in the actual paradigms

Abstract

Industry 4.0 creates what has been called a "smart factory". The possibility to a wide data
\ncollection from industrial processes makes possible to act smart action related to the system changes.
\nCyber-Physical Systems monitor physical processes and make possible decentralized decisions or even,
\nin the last stage, a self-smart system adaptation. Thanks to the connectivity of the different production
\nresources (machines, work stations, etc.) it is possible to generate information, to share and provide it and
\nfinally to create a smart system in which a predictive and automated decision making process with
\npotential self-reconfiguration of the production system is possible to occur. As consequence Industry 4.0
\ncould strongly impact on the actual assembly paradigms, even in the cases in which the human factor is
\nprevailing, as manual assembly. This paper aims to investigate how these transformations are expected to
\noccur. A future state map of the assembly paradigms as effect of the integration with the Industry 4.0
\nprinciples is presented. Moreover, a general architecture to implement Industry 4.0 principles into
\nexisting assembly systems is provided, highlighting how the final steps of implementation represented by
\nthe Operator Support Systems (OSS) and Self-Adapting Smart Assembly System (SASS) are crucial. A
\ndetailed report of a real case study derived by an Italian worldwide industrial refrigerator manufacturer
\nrepresents a further element of interest of the research and demonstrates the practical implication of the
\nstudy.