Networked Manufacturing Systems

In networked manufacturing, the focus of Industry 4.0 implementation is on developing connected systems, which includes:

• Bidirectional connection (read & write) of multiple equipment, devices, and sensing systems (if need be, modernizing legacy assets)
• Unifying different types of data from multiple sources while maintaining their spatial and temporal correlations
• Developing data-driven systems based on this wealth of data using physics-based models, statistical methods, and/or AI algorithms

• Smart MES and ERP Systems: Planning, evaluating, and managing entire production process based on real-time manufacturing data
• Data-Driven Process Control, Quality Monitoring, and Maintenance: Developing systems for real-time process adjustment and online prediction of product quality and machine failures
• Digital Product Life Cycle: Extending the digital life of a product beyond its design phase by integrating data from manufacturing phase

Developed Networked Manufacturing Systems

• To demonstrate capabilities of networked systems in plastics and composites manufacturing, an SCADA software (Ignition) was setup and used to connect a wide range of equipment and devices with different communication protocols.
• A real-time, multitiered quality monitoring system for precision manufacturing of composite parts was developed by integrating data from both injection machine and in-mold sensors and using several feature extraction and ML methods
• A closed-loop crystallinity control system for extrusion process was developed by retrofitting downstream equipment and incorporating their data along with extrusion machine data into a physics-based control model.