Intelligent quality management system for flexible manufacturing systems

Abstract

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, Europe and the United States. The transition included going from hand production methods to machines. The result was new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, the increase in the use of steam power and waterpower, the development of machine tools, as well as the rise of the mechanized factory system. That was the First Revolution which began in the late 1700’s in Britain. The Second, involved the use of electric power to create mass production, beginning in the late 1800’s, in the United States. The late 1900’s gave way to the Third Industrial Revolution. During this Digital Revolution, electronics and information technology were used to automate production. The current, Fourth Industrial Revolution, is building on the Third. Industry 4.0 holds the promise of increased flexibility in manufacturing, along with mass customization, superior quality and improved productivity. Industry 4.0 has evolved from the ‘Industry 4.0’ vision, an initiative for increasing Germany's manufacturing industry competitiveness. The scope of Industry 4.0 was initially restricted to the digitalization of production processes at the factory level. Technology trends of Industry 4.0, refer to a wide variety of information, digital, operations and advanced manufacturing technologies that, collectively, push the digital industrial revolution. Intelligent manufacturing is based on the concept of optimizing manufacturing and productivity, by taking advantage of technological advances. Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS’s) are a form of intelligent manufacturing. A Flexible Manufacturing System reacts to changes in the production process. This includes changes in the product and the production schedule. Quality management processes should be increasingly efficient and effective, which is becoming a competitive factor for companies. Disadvantages of FMS, include its higher upfront costs and more time required to design the system specifications for a variety of future needs. Furthermore, there are costs associated with the need for specialized technicians to run, monitor and maintain the FMS. A traditional Quality Management System (QMS) cannot be used for a Flexible Manufacturing System, as it is unable to keep up with the changes in the FMS. The aim is to design, construct and evaluate an Intelligent Quality Management System (iQMS), which may learn and adapt to the change of the Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS). The emphasis of the system design is on easy initialisation, quick transition from learning to running and data handling. An initial review is carried out on the available literature on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and flexible manufacturing systems. The application of quality management in the manufacturing industry, is investigated. The literature on flexible manufacturing is used to provide context and highlight the problem statement. A case study is used to showcase the challenges encountered, when circuit breakers of varying specifications are set up in an assembly system with interchangeable tools/stations. This highlights the assumptions that led to the formulation of the project. It provides a concise description of the study area and the methods employed. The tools used in the development of the QMS project, are discussed. The development of the Quality Management System, is discussed, detailing the hardware and software aspects of the research study. The details on the use of the ARDUINO platform to construct the QMS’s Hardware Nodes, are included in this Chapter. Furthermore, QMS Software development and deployment details are incorporated. The innovative use of QR codes to collect training data is highlighted in the Chapter. QR code decoding and training data extraction is exhibited in this section of the study. The concluding Chapter discusses the results from the iQMSs testing and data collection process, as well as observes future work. The main contributions of the study, in comparison with further available research, regarding the manufacturing industry and industry 4.0, are further highlighted. The study realised a data management system that caters to the unique data management requirements of Flexible Manufacturing Systems. A major highlight of the study shows the benefit of reworking quality management practices using new digital advances.