Industry 4.0 Smart Factories
Smart Factories, most of the world’s leading industrialized countries have invested in national initiatives to promote advanced manufacturing, innovation, and design in the globalizing world. The bulk of this investment has been to reach a future where smart factories and smart manufacturing such as Industry 4.0 are the norm. Industry 4.0; With advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, 3D (three-dimensional) printers and space technology, all objects can interact with each other via the internet, which is called “smart manufacturing”. In Industry 4.0, one of the important places where objects communicate with each other are “smart factories”, which are equipped with “smart” technologies and are also called dark factories because no people work. With the use of robots in the first dark factory in China that produced mobile phone modules, the number of workers decreased by 90%, while the rate of defective products decreased from 25% to 5% . So far, CPS, IoT and CBM have been introduced as core components of Industry 4.0. It should be noted that these concepts are closely related, as CPS communicates via IoT. Therefore, it allows it to be called the “smart factory” based on the idea of a decentralized production system where people, machines and resources naturally communicate with each other in a social network. The close connection and communication between products, machinery, transportation systems and people is expected to change the existing logic of production. Therefore, smart factories are seen as another important feature of Industry 4.0. In the smart factory, products find their way independently through production processes and are always easily identifiable and available. Smart factories make the increasing complexity of production processes manageable for the people working there and ensure that production is simultaneously attractive, sustainable and profitable in the urban environment.
The “Smart Factories” of Industry 4.0 include smart machines and systems that perceive the business need with sensors, communicate with other remote production tools via the Internet, and pull the production information they need from “Big Data” in cloud systems. Here, the communication and interaction between the means of production is provided through the internet. Here, all production resources (sensors, actuators, machines, robots, conveyors, etc.) will not only automatically exchange information, but will be conscious and intelligent enough to anticipate and maintain machines to control the production process and manage the factory system. In addition, many production processes such as product design, production planning, production engineering, production and services will be simulated modularly. In addition, these processes will not only be commanded by a decentralized system, but also interconnected by an end-to-end system, which means that they are controlled in an interdependent manner. The smart factory is an important feature of industry 4.0, which expresses the vertical integration of network production systems for smart production. For smart factory implementation, smart factories must combine smart objects with big data analytics. Smart objects can dynamically reconfigure to ensure high flexibility, while big data analysis can provide global feedback and coordination to achieve high efficiency. Therefore, the smart factory can produce customized and small quantity products efficiently and profitably. The smart factory can be seen as a double closed loop system as shown in Figure 5. One loop consists of physical resources and the cloud, while other loops consist of controller control terminals and the cloud.
The Industry 4.0 paradigm is mainly outlined in three dimensions: (1) horizontal integration across the entire value creation network, (2) end-to-end engineering throughout the product life cycle, and (3) vertical integration and networked manufacturing systems. Horizontal integration across the entire value creation network defines the cross-in-house and in-house intelligent cross-linking and digitization of value creation modules across the product lifecycle value chain and along the value chains of adjacent product life cycles. End-to-end engineering throughout the product lifecycle defines intelligent crosslinking and digitization (digital) at all stages of a product lifecycle, from raw material acquisition to manufacturing system, product utilization and product lifecycle. Vertical integration and networked production systems define intelligent cross-linking and digitization at different aggregation and hierarchical levels of a value creation module, from manufacturing stations to production cells, lines and factories. Intelligent cross-linking and digitization involves the implementation of an end-to-end solution using information and communication technologies embedded in a cloud. Smart cross-linking in a manufacturing system is accomplished through the application of CPS that operate in a self-organized and decentralized manner. It is based on embedded mechatronic components, namely sensor systems applied for data collection and actuator systems to influence physical processes.
The macro perspective of Industry 4.0 includes the end-to-end engineering dimension of #Industry4_0 as well as horizontal integration. This visualization includes cross-linked product lifecycles, value creation in Industry 4.0, different value creation modules at lower collection levels such as the smart factory, manufacturing lines, production cells or production stations with the highest collection level value creation module. Smart factories will use renewable energies as part of a self-sufficient supply alongside the supply provided by the external smart grid.
Thus, the factory will become an energy supplier and consumer at the same time. In addition to the smart grid, the smart factory’s energy management system must be able to meet the dynamic requirements of energy supply and feedback. The supply of clean water for value creation modules within the smart factory is also an important resource flow that requires an adequate and undisturbed water tank. Horizontal integration smart logistics from a micro perspective is characterized by the integrated smart factory cross-linked value creation modules along the material flow. Intelligent logistics is characterized by transportation vehicles that can react to unforeseen events such as changes in traffic or air, and operate autonomously from the beginning, from factories to and from factories.
Although there is a common consensus on the necessity of technological progress of production technologies and business models in the sense of Industry 4.0, perceived complexity and abstraction pose a major obstacle that partially hinders the rapid transformation to industrial application. The challenges are not limited to the financial investment required for the acquisition of #newtechnologies, but also to the availability of personnel at all organizational levels to cope with the increasing complexity of future production systems. However, for future production scenarios in the sense of Industry 4.0, other competencies of learning factories, students and professionals that allow managers and employees of learning factories to cope with the challenges of an increasingly digitalized production system must also be addressed. It has proven to be an indispensable tool for training in the application of production management principles. Therefore, learning factories offer a great opportunity for training and for the preparation of employees for the use of #Industry4_0
Source: Sakarya University Journal of the Institute of Science, 22 (2), 546 ~ 556, 2018