Towards Assembly 4.0: Graduation Intelligent Manufacturing System for Fixed-position Assembly Islands

The layout of fixed-position assembly islands is widely used in the equipment manufacturing industry. In this configuration, the product remains at one assembly island for its entire assembly period, while required workers, equipment and materials are moved to the island according to the assembly process and production plan. Such configuration is not only suitable for producing large, bulky, heavy or fragile products, but also offers considerable flexibility and competitive operational efficiency for products with medium variety and production volumes. However, inherently limited space, complex assembly processes, and high dynamic of material, equipment and manpower flows increase the complexity and chaotic dynamics with massive human interventions in fixed-position assembly islands. For overcoming these challenges, inspired by graduation ceremony, this paper proposes a novel manufacturing mode-Graduation Manufacturing System (GMS), in which three kinds of tickets are designed to organise and manage production activities in fixed-position assembly islands. Under the context of Industry 4.0, the pillars of Assembly 4.0 are discussed. Finally, based on the principles of Assembly 4.0, by integrating Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Wearable (IW), and Machine Learning (ML) technologies, the framework of Graduation Intelligent Manufacturing System (GiMS) is developed.