Supporting Dynamic Reconfigurations in
Flexible Manufacturing
Internet of Things, Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Additive Manufacturing are amongst the technologies which enable the vision of flexible and adaptable manufacturing underpinning Industry 4.0. These technologies are necessary but not sufficient to implement this vision. We also need to learn how to manage the millions of dependencies linking organisations, activities and resources in any manufacturing value chain of realistic size, and this is the focal point of a 15-years long research programme conducted in the University of Manchester in collaboration with partners such as Airbus, Comau, MAN, Magna Intier, BT, SAP and Atos.
Historically, production was confined to small artisan workshops, where we had a couple of people, their tools and materials. This configuration could produce bespoke products personalised for every customer. Subcontracting activities or sourcing components such as furniture handles from the ironmonger down the street was also flexible and done with comparative ease.
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Prof Nikolay Mehandjiev Professor of Enterprise Information Systems
At the other extreme we have the contemporary production lines such as those of Volkswagen which has six factories in Germany alone employing more than 130,000 people. Its Wolfsburg plant is now producing over 800,000 Golfs, Tiguans and Tourans per annum, with a workforce of 21,000 and 98.3% utilisation of resources. The supply chain is also incredibly complex, with 15000 processing and transporting stations on the path of raw material to a component installed in a Volkswagen car. Coordinating all activities and resources in such a factory to achieve this amazing utilisation rate has created a complex network of dependencies, and managing these dependencies by conventional means stands in the way of any visions of dynamic reconfigurations and personalised production. The figure below illustrates this trade-off between agility and complexity.
