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Monitoring systems for the manufacturing field are essential. These systems have various architectures and scales to meet more diverse requirements depending on their purpose. However, communication is commonly fundamental for all monitoring systems. This paper proposes a structure for a machining cell monitoring system that is composed of machine tools and industrial robots. The system adapts OPC UA for collecting data and MQTT for publishing data. The unique aspect of the suggested monitoring system is that it creates OPC UA data nodes dynamically according to the requests of the clients and it is applicable to any CNCs. The collected data from a machine tool and an industrial robot were chosen considering preventive maintenance. The proposed method was implemented to a machining cell and the developed dashboard shows that the selected data were successfully stored and queried.

Many developed countries are making various efforts to innovate their own manufacturing industries, through initiatives such as Manufacturing innovation 3.0, Industry 4.0, and Manufacturing 2025. Innovation in the manufacturing industry, represented by the so-called “smart factories,” is being developed through the latest technologies such as Internet of things (IoT), cloud, and big data. However, as the application of these technologies requires a lot of cost and time, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are often hampered in their efforts to take full advantage of them. For an enterprise that operates a manufacturing information system, the integrated management of information between systems is essential to the application of a new technology. If the enterprise lacks the relevant experts, it will have difficulty applying a new technology in the field. This study suggests the application of a cloud-based applications’ integration and operation platform (AIOP) in order to resolve those problems. The AIOP must accept a large volume of data at IoT-based manufacturing fields, interconnect between manufacturing fields and AIOP, and provide application contents in the form of service. The suggested study contents are applied to a company that produces electric components using plastic injection molds to verify their effects. It is expected that this study can be used as a reference model for applying smart factory technologies to other SMEs in the future.

The Smart Factory is an important topic worldwide as a means for achieving Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing domain. Contemporary research on the Smart Factory has been concerned with application of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT) to the shop floor. However, IoT in this context is often restricted to solving local problems such as managing product information, collaborative information exchange, and increasing productivity. To take full advantage of the potential of the IoT in manufacturing systems, it is necessary that the information service perspective should receive keen attention. This paper proposes a reference architecture for the information service bus or middleware for the Smart Factory that can be used for information acquisition, analysis, and application for the various stakeholders at the levels of Machine, Factory, and Enterprise Resource Planning. To reflect the real voice of the industry, real industrial problems have been identified, transformed into requirements, and incorporated into the information architecture; i.e., Smart Factory Information Service Bus. The implementation process of the reference architecture is also presented and illustrated via case studies.

Most of manufacturing enterprises design their products through the 3D CAD system. Generated 3D CAD data are mainly used in design and manufacturing stage for product engineering. Since the 3D CAD data includes not only shape models but also part structures and specifications, it is possible to reuse the data in various kinds of manufacturing-related activities after design and manufacturing. For example, 3D CAD data could be used to produce a catalog for marketing and promotion of products by replacing product images, a manual provided to the customers by implementing the animation for the operation of the product and educational materials for training of service staffs by guiding maintenance instructions interactively. These activities for customer support are necessary and significant from the perspective of product lifecycle although they may be not directly related to productivity and quality of products. However, a lot of manufacturing enterprises, especially SMEs (small and medium-sized Enterprises) have difficulty in to carry out these activities due to problems of cost and labor. In this context, this study proposes a new service model to support the manufacturing-related activities to be able to use 3D CAD data. The service model could operate through a software system as follows: A service provider (e.g. IT service vendor) makes core functions to process and manipulate 3D model a form of service platform and develops applications based on the service platform according to the supporting activities so that more applications could be added and expanded effectively. A service consumer (e.g. manufacturing enterprise) requests a service with required data such as 3D CAD data and service contents data to the provider and receives deliverables corresponding to the service. To implement the service model, this study specifies stakeholders, workflow and data of the service model, and develops the service platform. And this study illustrates an industrial case of the service model by developing a 3D digital catalog application and demonstrating a home appliance example.

Received 15 October 2014; received in revised 3 November 2014; accepted 5 November 2014ABSTRACT Most manufacturing enterprises create CAD data as a result of the product/part design process;however, the CAD data is being utilized only for production activities. Besides the processesdirectly related to manufacturing such as design and production, the CAD data is an importantresource that can be used in variety of services (e.g., catalog production and production manu-als) for manufacturing enterprises. This study proposes a software platform that can support awide range of services for manufacturing companies in an efficient and productive way. Thesoftware platform was designed based on the functions identified by requirement analysis. Theplatform consists of four layers: data model layer to manage relevant data; library layer andcommon function layer to configure services; and application layer to install and run the soft-ware. Finally, this study evaluates the validity of the proposed platform architecture by apply-ing it to the digital catalog system. Key Words:Manufacturing Support Service, Software Platform Design, STEP-Based Data Model,3D-Based Digital Catalog

Mixed-color illumination affects the quality of images in industrial vision system and it is important to optimize color and intensity for image acquisition. This study used simplex search to find the optimal illumination in a short amount of time. A typical color mixer synthesized various color of lights by changing the inputs of RGB power LEDs and passing the lights through an optical system. The image quality under mixed-color illumination was calculated according to the sharpness. For the purpose of optimal illumination using simplex search, a probe network was organized with N + 1probing points for N inputs. The shape of the probe network, simplex, was varied through procedures of extension, contraction, and shrinkage. The inputs of the color mixer were changed until the size of the simplex became smaller than a threshold. The simplex search was tested for commercial semiconductor patterns, and was useful for finding the optimal illumination.

As the product lifecycle is getting shorter and various models should be released to respond to the needs of customers and markets, automation-based flexible production line has been recognized as the core competitiveness. According to these trends, system vendors supply cell-level systems such as FMC(Flexible Manufacturing Cell) that is integration of core functions of FMS(Flexible Manufacturing System) and RMC(Reconfigurable Manufacturing Cell) that can easily extend components of FMC. In the cell-based environment, flexible management for shop floor composed of existing job shop, FMCs and RMCs from various system vendors has emerged as an important issue. However, there could be some problems on integrated operation between heterogeneous cells to use vendor-specific cell controllers and on seamless information flow with high level systems such as ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning). In this context, this paper proposes process management systems supporting integrated shop operation of heterogeneous multi-cell based flexible manufacturing environment: First of all, (1) Integrated Shop Operation System to apply the process management system is introduced, and (2) Multi-Layer BOP(Bill-Of-Process) model, a backbone of the process management system, is derived with its data structure. Finally, application of the proposed model is illustrated through system implementation results.

To cope with today's industrial demands requiring (1) coverage of the whole product life cycle, (2) environmentally conscious manufacturing, (3) competitive sustainability manufacturing, etc., a new manufacturing paradigm should be developed. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for a new paradigm called ubiquitous factory (u-Factory) by applying ubiquitous computing technology to the manufacturing system. The u-Factory is based on our previously developed paradigm, called UbiDMR [1], meaning product design, manufacturing, and recycling via ubiquitous computing technology. The essence of u-Factory can be represented by three key phrases: (1) information transparency, (2) autonomous control, and (3) sustainable manufacturing. This paper comprises two parts. In the first part, we show the derivation procedure for the framework of the u-Factory using problem analysis of the current manufacturing system, design consideration and derivation of the architecture for the ubiquitous factory. In the sec...

To cope with today's industrial demands, a new manufacturing paradigm should be developed for: 1) whole product life cycle, 2) environment 3) simultaneous improvement of productivity and sustainability, 4) enhancement of total performance of the product through the entire life cycle, and etc. For such a purpose, in this paper, we propose a new paradigm called ubiquitous factory (u-Factory) by applying ubiquitous computing technology into manufacturing environment. The u-factory paradigm is originated from the big paradigm called UbiDMR (Design, Manufacturing, Recycling via Ubiquitous Computing Technology). The vision of the u-Factory can be represented by three keywords: 1) Information transparency, 2) autonomous control, and 3) sustainable manufacturing. In this paper, we show how the vision can be realized in the shop floor via systematic procedure: 1) designing reference architecture to specify functionality and components of u-Factory from its vision, 2) analyzing information exchange mechanism between components of u-Factory based on SOA approach, and 3) developing scenario derivation methodology for realization to industrial domain.

A multi-channel complex machine tool (MCCM) is a versatile machining system equipped with more than two spindles and turrets for both turning and milling operations. Despite the potential of such a tool, the value of the hardware is largely dependent on how the machine tools are effectively programmed for machining. In this paper we consider a shop-floor programming system based on ISO 14649 (called e-CAM), the international standard for the interface between computer-aided manufacture (CAM) and computer numerical control (CNC). To be deployed in practical industrial usage a great deal of research has to be carried out. In this paper we present: 1) Design consideration for an e-CAM system, 2) The architecture design of e-CAM, 3) Major algorithms to fulfill the modules defined in the architecture, and 4) Implementation details.

Due to concerns about environmental protection and resource utilization, product lifecycle management for end-of-life (EOL) has received increasing attention in many industrial sectors including manufacturing, maintenance/repair, and recycling/refurbishing of the product. To support these functions, crucial issues are studied to realize a product recovery management system (PRMS), including: (1) an architecture design for EOL services, such as remanufacturing and recycling; (2) a product data model required for EOL activity based on international standards; and (3) an infrastructure for information acquisition and mapping to product lifecycle information. The presented works are illustrated via a realistic scenario.

As the number of functions in a menu increases, users have more difficulties in finding a desired function. Previous studies have shown that some functions are selected more frequently than others, and have suggested adaptive menus that support the selection of frequently used functions. Interestingly, studies on an adaptive toolbar are not easy to find as opposed to many studies on adaptive menus. This study suggested an adaptive toolbar (AT) that supported function selection, and conducted a usability test. Five or ten functions were presented in the AT according to the frequency of use or recency of use. A total of sixteen males in their twenties participated in the test. They freely selected functions from the menu or from the AT, and their pattern of selecting functions was analyzed. The results showed that the AT was more frequently used than the menu as time passed. The AT based on the recency of use showed more effective performance than that based on the frequency of use. In addition, keeping ten functions was better than five functions in terms of both performance and preference.