Improving Cyber-Physical Production Systems for Reconfigurability and Mobility

The idea of designing a physical production system nowadays is mostly product-oriented, where the product is a critical factor in the design of the hardware, software, and process. This will serve its purpose for a fixed product but in today’s fast growing technology space, it makes the production system very rigid and non-adaptable to changes. It is near impossible to produce a new product without revamping the machine design, shop floor layout and automation processes which are not feasible for modern flexible production requirements. This paper will aim to demonstrate the methods used to achieve reconfigurability, modularity and mobility in the Machines in the learning factory. The selected machines will be re-designed and modified by process rather than by specific products. Firstly, hardware to be designed with interchangeable, modular, and improved mobility concepts, and for software to be re-packaged into modules which can be interchangeable between various machine cells. This will be able to allow the learning factory machine cells to demonstrate the effectiveness of reconfigurability in a production environment and its ability to adapt to changes more effectively as compared to a fixed product-oriented production line. To achieve reconfigurability and mobility, existing fixed end-effectors will be modified to become interchangeable. They will also be designed by process as compared to current product-defined end-effectors. The assembly unit will be designed to be interchangeable via quick connection technology to allow for easy reconfigurability for future NPI. PLC programming codes will be made into modules. The overall machine cell will be modified allow for mobility and reconfiguration of production floor layout.