Digitalization: a tool for the successful long-term adoption of lean manufacturing

Abstract

The lean manufacturing benefits are well documented in literature for different types of industries. However, data acquisition and computation are the basic difficulties or pain points in developing value stream maps to find different types of waste. Industrial internet of things (IIoT) and digital twin enable fast, and dynamic data acquisition and computation with ease. This paper presents digitalization as a tool for the successful adoption of lean manufacturing through real-time data acquisition and computation. The proposed solution incorporates smart low-cost sensor-based data acquisition with a unified dashboard for operational and strategic decision making. The implementation of the proposed unified system is demonstrated through the development of a digital twin and a dynamic dashboard for a modular production system (MPS) assembly line. The dynamic data integration through the deployment of IIoT synchronizes the physical system to dashboard and digital system. The unified dashboard supports effective and timely decision making, especially for shop floors with alternate process plan configurations. The adoption of the proposed solution in an MPS assembly line demonstrates the capability of the architecture as a robust decision support system.