Smart Factory of Industry 4.0: Key Technologies, Application Case, and Challenges

TLDR

Smart factories upgrade manufacturing by integrating physical and cyber technologies, making previously independent systems more complex and precise. This study proposes a hierarchical smart‑factory architecture and analyzes its key technologies across physical, network, and data‑application layers. The authors detail the architecture and evaluate IoT, big‑data, and cloud‑computing components, addressing major issues and proposing solutions within the manufacturing process. A candy‑packing line test demonstrated that implementing these technologies significantly improves overall equipment effectiveness.

Abstract

Due to the current structure of digital factory, it is necessary to build the smart factory to upgrade the manufacturing industry. Smart factory adopts the combination of physical technology and cyber technology and deeply integrates previously independent discrete systems making the involved technologies more complex and precise than they are now. In this paper, a hierarchical architecture of the smart factory was proposed first, and then the key technologies were analyzed from the aspects of the physical resource layer, the network layer, and the data application layer. In addition, we discussed the major issues and potential solutions to key emerging technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing, which are embedded in the manufacturing process. Finally, a candy packing line was used to verify the key technologies of smart factory, which showed that the overall equipment effectiveness of the equipment is significantly improved.