I. The Value of Intelligent Manufacturing
"Intelligent manufacturing" represents the current stage of advanced manufacturing development, integrating next-generation information technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and big data. It shifts from centralized control to decentralized, enhanced control, and achieves intelligent and socialized production through the fusion of IoT and the Internet, as well as three types of integration (vertical integration, end-to-end integration, and horizontal integration). Understanding "intelligent manufacturing" helps to better grasp the current position of China's manufacturing industry and its future direction, avoiding the tendency to blindly pursue innovation and rush for quick results.
It can scientifically schedule production processes, improve productivity, achieve personalized customized production, and adjust resource use, adopting the most energy-efficient methods, thereby truly realizing the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. The most effective information technology is RFID technology. As we all know, modern manufacturing enterprises have thousands of different types of parts, raw materials, and products in their production lines or warehouses. This means that in reality, no matter how good the management model or system is, it is difficult to guarantee the visual flow of materials, causing great trouble for managers and making it difficult to significantly improve work efficiency.
Currently, countries worldwide are utilizing barcode and RFID technologies to quickly and accurately locate and track the status of components and raw materials during production, thereby improving the production and management efficiency of manufacturing enterprises. In particular, RFID technology, with its comprehensive information management system for manufacturing production lines, helps companies simplify business operations, reduce production costs, improve the real-time performance of material inventory, product tracking, material management, and inventory management, and significantly enhance customer service quality and satisfaction. As RFID electronic tag technology continues to improve and costs gradually decrease, RFID technology is slowly replacing barcode technology.
Make good use of RFID technology; avoid working alone.
II. Five Stages of Intelligent Manufacturing Development
The development of intelligent manufacturing is a process from establishing a system to building a precise model. To achieve intelligent manufacturing, the first step is to solve the major problem of intelligent maintenance, followed by intelligent prediction, and finally, to achieve a worry-free system and high value. Specifically, it can be divided into the following five stages:
Phase 1: Total Productive System (TPS). Proposed by Japan, the 5S standard (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) was the core standard of the entire manufacturing system in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was solidified in the organization and personnel training.
The second phase: Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma. Its core value lies in how to establish a management system using data as a standard, and its essence is to eliminate waste.
This foundation includes quality management systems, product lifecycle management systems, and so on. Only then does data truly play a role in the manufacturing and usage process.
Phase Three: Data-Driven Predictive Modeling and Analytics. Data-driven predictive modeling and analytics refers to how to make implicit problems explicit, and then solve the implicit problems to prevent them from occurring.
The fourth stage involves optimizing resource-effective operational decisions based on prediction. After modeling past correlations, the next step is to dynamically optimize in real-time based on changes in various factors such as system production, environment, and personnel.
The fifth stage is the "cyber-physical" system. It is based on highly accurate modeling of the operating environment and objectives of all devices, at which point the issues of knowledge application and transfer arise.
Intelligent manufacturing should ultimately possess the characteristics of state perception, real-time analysis, autonomous decision-making, and precise execution, making enterprises more flexible, intelligent, and integrated, and realizing the application of most or all intelligent technologies. The goal is to achieve the acquisition, large-scale utilization, and inheritance of knowledge.
