Industry 4.0 Intelligent Workstations Help Increase Production

By Corey Foster & Bosch Rexroth

Abstract

An Industry 4.0 Workstation is a semi-automated workstation that provides a link between the real world and the virtual world. It is a versatile solution that enables a highly efficient use of resources, great planning, reliability and short throughput times. With unique RFID tags embedded and semi-automated tasks, different operators can effectively produce a large number of different products with consistent quality.

Problem

With most manual assembly processes being shipped off-shore, this leaves the more complicated, lower volume, and higher-mix product product-lines still in the United States where we have much higher variation in personal and skill requirements from moment to moment and product to product.  This variation sets the needs for intelligent work-stations that adjust to the needs of the moment.

Solution

Industry 4.0 intelligent workstations automatically adapt to the needs, skills and preferences of operators using an integrated chip reader. A receiver on the assembly station reads the RFID tag of each user and adapts the workstation monitor with the user’s profile. The right font size, language and even depth of information will appear automatically for each individual operator.  The workstation will also automatically adjust its position to the individual’s needs.  And many tools, such as a wireless nutrunner, can be connected to the data and can be accessed on the touch screen.  This allows other functionality such as part counting and quality control.

Impact

  • Quicker change-over from product to product
  • Quicker change-over from operator to operator
  • Improves part tracking
  • Improves ergonomics
  • Increase in real-time communication and data-exchange between a company’s production and management environments

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