Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based wireless manufacturing systems, a review

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is one of the most promising technological innovations in order to track and trace products as well as material flow in manufacturing systems. High Frequency (HF) and Ultra High Frequency (UHF) RFID systems can track a wide range of products in the part production process via radio waves with level of accuracy and reliability.   As a result, quality and transparency of data across the supply chain can be accurately obtained in order to decrease time and cost of part production. Also, process planning and part production scheduling can be modified using the advanced RFID systems in part manufacturing process. Moreover, to decrease the cost of produced parts, material handling systems in the advanced assembly lines can be analyzed and developed by using the RFID. Smart storage systems can increase efficiency in part production systems by providing accurate information from the stored raw materials and products for the production planning systems. To increase efficiency of energy consumption in production processes, energy management systems can be developed by using the RFID-sensor networks. Therefore, smart factories and intelligent manufacturing systems as industry 4.0 can be introduced by using the developed RFID systems in order to provide new generation of part production systems. In this paper, a review of RFID based wireless manufacturing systems is presented and future research works are also suggested. It has been observed that the research filed can be moved forward by reviewing and analyzing recent achievements in the published papers

A case of implementing RFID-based real-time shop-floor material management for household electrical appliance manufacturers

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies provide automatic and accurate object data capturing capability and enable real-time object visibility and traceability. Potential benefits have been widely reported for improving manufacturing shop-floor management. However, reports on how such potentials come true in real-life shop-floor daily operations are very limited. As a result, skeptics overwhelm enthusiasm. This paper contributes to the re-vitalization of RFID efforts in manufacturing industries by presenting a real-life case study of applying RFID for managing material distribution in a complex assembly shop-floor at a large air conditioner manufacturer. The case study discusses how technical, social and organizational issues have been addressed throughout the project within the company. It is hoped that insights and lessons gained be generalized for future efforts across household electrical appliance manufacturers that share similar shop-floor. © 2010 The Author(s).published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 21 Feb 201

RFID-enabled real-time manufacturing information tracking infrastructure for extended enterprises

In extended enterprises, real-time manufacturing information tracking plays an important role and aims to provide the right information to the right person at the right time in the right format to achieve optimal production management among the involved enterprises. However, many enterprises are caused by lack of timely, accurate and consistent manufacturing data. The laggard information transfer flow and the unmatched information transfer method bring extended enterprises much more uncertainty and unknowingness. This paper proposes a RFID-enabled real-time manufacturing information tracking infrastructure (RTMITI) to address the real-time manufacturing data capturing and manufacturing information processing methods for extended enterprises. Following the proposed infrastructure, the traditional manufacturing resources such as employees, machines and materials are equipped with RFID devices (Readers and Tags) to build the real-time data capturing environment. In addition, a series of manufacturing information processing methods are established to calculate and track the real-time manufacturing information such as real-time manufacturing cost, progress, WIP (Work-in-progress) inventory etc. in parts/assemblies/products at machines/shop floors/enterprises/ extended enterprises levels. Finally, a case study is given to demonstrate the developed framework and corresponding methodologies. © 2010 The Author(s).published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 21 Feb 201

Agent-based real-time assembly line management for wireless job shop environment

Recent developments in wireless technologies have created opportunities for developing next-generation manufacturing systems with real-time traceability, visibility and interoperability in shop floor planning, execution and control. This paper discusses how to deploy wireless and intelligent technologies to convert physical objects in manufacturing systems into smart objects to introduce and improve the interoperability and visibility between them and thus with manufacturing decision support systems. A reference architecture for wireless manufacturing (WM) is proposed where three types of smart objects are identified. At the same time, the concept of smart object agent (SOA) is presented and the corresponding framework of smart objects management system (SOMS) is constructed. Under this framework and the concept of SOA, a SOA-based WM environment is studied and demonstrated using a near real-life simplified product assembly line for the collection and synchronization of the real-time field data from manufacturing workshops. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA) 2010, Xi'an, China, 4-7 August 2010. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation, 2010, p. 2013-201

Modeling of RFID-Enabled Real-Time Manufacturing Execution System in Mixed-Model Assembly Lines

To quickly respond to the diverse product demands, mixed-model assembly lines are well adopted in discrete manufacturing industries. Besides the complexity in material distribution, mixed-model assembly involves a variety of components, different process plans and fast production changes, which greatly increase the difficulty for agile production management. Aiming at breaking through the bottlenecks in existing production management, a novel RFID-enabled manufacturing execution system (MES), which is featured with real-time and wireless information interaction capability, is proposed to identify various manufacturing objects including WIPs, tools, and operators, etc., and to trace their movements throughout the production processes. However, being subject to the constraints in terms of safety stock, machine assignment, setup, and scheduling requirements, the optimization of RFID-enabled MES model for production planning and scheduling issues is a NP-hard problem. A new heuristical generalized Lagrangian decomposition approach has been proposed for model optimization, which decomposes the model into three subproblems: computation of optimal configuration of RFID senor networks, optimization of production planning subjected to machine setup cost and safety stock constraints, and optimization of scheduling for minimized overtime. RFID signal processing methods that could solve unreliable, redundant, and missing tag events are also described in detail. The model validity is discussed through algorithm analysis and verified through numerical simulation. The proposed design scheme has important reference value for the applications of RFID in multiple manufacturing fields, and also lays a vital research foundation to leverage digital and networked manufacturing system towards intelligence

RFID-enabled real-time manufacturing for automotive part and accessory suppliers

Automotive part and accessory manufacturers (APAMs) at the lower tiers of the automotive vertical have been following leading vehicle assemblers in adopting RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and ubiquitous computing technologies, aiming to alleviate their advanced manufacturing systems. RFID-enabled real-time traceability and visibility facilitate the implementation of advanced strategies such as Just-In-Time (JIT) lean / responsive manufacturing and mass customization (MC). Being typically small and medium sized, however, APAMs are faced up with business and technical challenges which are summarized by the so-called "three high problems". They are high cost, high risk and high level of requirement for technical skills. Based on a series of industrial field studies, this paper establishes an innovative service-oriented business model for overcoming the "three high Problems" based on the concept of Product Service Systems (PSS) and RFID gateway technology.published_or_final_versionThe 40th International Conference on Computers and Industrial Engineering (CIE 2010), Awaji, Japan, 25-28 July 2010. In Proceedings of CIE40, 2010, p. 1-

Literature review on the ‘Smart Factory’ concept using bibliometric tools

The objective of this paper is to depict a landscape of the scientific literature on the concept of the ‘Smart Factory’, which in recent years is gaining more and more attention from academics and practitioners because of significant innovations in the production systems within the manufacturing sector. To achieve this objective, a dynamic methodology called "Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA)" has been applied. This methodology combines the Systematic Literature Review approach with the analysis of bibliographic networks. The adopted methodology allows complementing traditional content-based literature reviews by extracting quantitative information from bibliographic networks to detect emerging topics, and by revealing the dynamic evolution of the scientific production of a discipline. This dynamic analysis allowed highlighting research directions and critical areas for the development of the "Smart Factory". At the same time, it offers insights on the fields on which companies, associations, politicians and technology providers need to focus in order to allow a real transition towards the implementation of large-scale Smart Factory

Cloud service-oriented dashboard for work cell management in RFID-enabled ubiquitous manufacturing

This article aims at developing a service-oriented dashboard for operators and supervisors of manufacturing shopfloor work-cells to realize information visibility and traceability effectively with cloud and RFID (radio frequency identification) technologies. The work is based on a case of an illustrative assembly line consisting of a number of work cells. The dashboard is deployed for facilitating assembly operations in ubiquitous manufacturing environment. The utilization of the system leads to significant improvements in work cell productivity and quality, operational flexibility and decision efficiency. © 2013 IEEE.published_or_final_versio