The main problem for companies that follow this model is to maintain high efficiency levels with very small lots, lot 1 at the end. The variety of products is usually high and they are specifically designed for each order. Although they may have standardized solutions, design changes are frequent.
Market trends lead small batch production companies to an increasingly volatile demand, in need of internationalization to ease this volatility and with greater requirements for product customization and integration.
In this type of smart manufacturing, we find companies in the general machinery sector, aerospace or industrial facilities.
For these cases, three major work areas associated with Industry 4.0 are identified:
Management Of The Entire Product Life Cycle:
The aim will be to implement PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) tools (1) that integrate all the elements and information from 3D design, generation of manufacturing drawings, programming of CNC machines or quality control . The objective will be that all the information related to the design of the product and its manufacture is integrated and that any change produced in any part of the process is automatically transferred to all the others.
Tools And Digital Information In The Workplace:
We talk about eliminating paper in the workplace using digital tools that give access to work orders, operations flows, documentation, plans, quality checks, etc. At the same time, an attempt will be made to monitor in real time the state and degree of progress of manufacturing.
Optimization Of Operational Efficiency (Oee – Availability, Performance, Quality) (2) :
From automatic feeding systems and programming of the machines, predictive maintenance systems for critical equipment and digitized quality control systems in the workplace.
Diagnostics for digital transformation allow us to know the situation the company is in and to select the possibilities that may have the greatest impact on the business.
