Industry 4.0 (hereafter I4.0) is referred to as the 4-th Industrial Revolution. Revolutionary is certainly an advanced technology, progressively developed intelligent systems, communication and IoT, smart sensors and actuators, or collaborative robots working with people – Cobots.
Some key methods and procedures that are important for creating the factory in I4.0 have previously been applied in production management and automation systems. One of them is the principle of deep system integration of manufacturing IT functions, contained in current MES, ERP and sophisticated control systems. Deep system integration was applied by COMPAS Automation company in the concept of Electronic Production Management since 2008. Our solution for I4.0 is the Smart digital factory, which further develops the proven concept of Electronic Production Management on the COMES ® MES/MOM platform.
We understand Industry 4.0 initiative as an opportunity for innovation. The opportunity for significant improvement of the industrial production in productivity, flexibility (to produce custom-specific orders with the same efficiency as the serial orders) as well as costs reduction while ensuring high quality of the production process.
COMPAS solution can be implemented in new production facilities as well as in existing factories, which can help to significantly improve the production processes for the minimum investment.
We can present the relevant references (some of the implemented projects are presented in this section) with the process automation in the I4.0 vision, both for discrete production and for batch production or SW for maintenance management.