Title: Toward smart manufacturing systems incorporating reconfiguration issues

Authors: Ibrahim H. Garbie; Abdelrahman I. Garbie

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering-Industrial Engineering Program, College of Engineering at Helwan, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA

Abstract: Nowadays, Industry 4.0 will become urgently implemented in most developed countries, although it is still mainly conceptual. As there are three different aspects making up Industry 4.0 (I4.0), such as digital systems, biological systems, and physical systems, most of the research published works were focused on mainly the first one. The smart manufacturing system (SMS) is not an invention, although it is representing the heart of I4.0. The SMS is a rebirth of a new version and innovation of production systems taken into consideration reconfiguring the existing manufacturing systems through adding machines with sensors, actuators, and control architectures for achieving the ultimate goals of I4.0. There are many challenges when reconfiguring these systems as an essential requirement to implement I4.0, representing the degree of individual system complexity, reconfigurable machines, material handling systems, system layout, competitive manufacturing strategies, leanness agility, and embedded systems (cyber-physical systems). In this paper, a new perspective of reconfiguring manufacturing systems will be figured out, and the reconfigurability level toward I4.0 will be presented.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; smart manufacturing systems; SMSs; reconfiguration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2024.135826

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2024 Vol.46 No.1, pp.1 - 33

Received: 23 Nov 2020
Accepted: 11 May 2021
Published online: 08 Jan 2024 *

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