Hitech Smart Factory: A generalized software solution for automated production line monitoring

Abstract

Abstract Mass production of goods with automated production lines is a commonly used approach today to fulfill the high demand. Automation reduces production time, increases accuracy and eliminates human errors. However, controlling and obtaining the highest throughput from these automated production lines require constant monitoring. Lack of monitoring can result in business failures as well as huge profit losses. Using a software solution for this monitoring process is way beneficial than using human labor. In this dissertation, a generalized software solution is proposed for monitoring automated production lines, which can be integrated with existing production lines without doing any hardware modifications. To achieve the generalization, a novel approach to production line modeling is being introduced. As the initial step, the proposed solution, Hitech Smart Factory provides a mechanism to model the existing production lines, and that model is then used in further functionalities. Hitech Smart Factory uses sensor data read through PLC units as inputs in order to facilitate the integration of the system into an existing production line without doing hardware modifications. Users can view the status of the sensors in real time. A data processing platform is used to process and store real-time data to match with various business requirements. Reports can also be generated using these processed data. Evaluations carried out for the proposed solutions shows that Hitech Smart Factory is capable of meeting the identified requirements to an above satisfactory level. The system is capable of presenting real-time data values in its graphical components within a latency of two seconds. Non-functional requirements such as modularity, Reusability and scalability are also achieved. Promising future study areas have also identified which can be used for further tuning of the proposed solution.