Smart Factory / the intelligent factory

Smart factory stands for intelligent networking/communication of the production lines and their individual processes within a factory (can also be the entire factory site). There is no central master computer in the smart factory. Machines, production and spare parts, the product itself; they control themselves autonomously and communicate with each other using RFID and other radio technologies.

The key characteristics of a smart factory are its adaptability, resource efficiency and human-machine interaction. All real processes merge with the virtual world and humans take on a completely new role: they monitor the work processes using big data or smart data (data that is suitable for meaningful use) and only intervene if the respective process chain comes to a standstill or fails. Industry and politicians in Germany also like to talk about Industry 4.0.

Tools for Smart Factory:

Rigid value chains are becoming dynamic networks. Key factors for this are enthusiastic people, sufficient digital data for improved forecasting and more targeted process control, synchronized supply chains and shorter production and innovation cycles,” said Professor Raimund Klinkner at the 32nd German Logistics Congress in Berlin.

In terms of intralogistics, distributed warehouses and production facilities (worldwide) will in future rely on a global orientation. The previous local and mostly radio-controlled (RFID, WLAN, Smart Mobile Logistics) routing will be replaced by GPS-like systems. Goods, resources and process sequences, for example within order picking, are recorded offline but stored online (cloud computing) for subsequent processes.

Challenges: On the one hand, new technical instances are required for the storage and distribution of the necessary data (hardware, tactile internet – “real time”), on the other hand, a completely new security policy (IT infrastructure and data protection) is required within the factory, the company.

In practice: individual process chains, individually operating machines and other production systems will become flexible and will be able to manufacture or move individual products (including small batch sizes) in the future. Product data will be exchanged fully automatically between the production systems and, if necessary, enriched with additional data from other areas. Provided that all system levels are networked with each other.

Further information on the networked factory can be found in the article Industry 4.0.

Image: Author / CC BY 2.0