Smart Factories

An Overview

Abstract

Due to the current structure of digital factory, it is necessary to build the smart factory to upgrade the manufacturing industry. This paper provides brief review on Smart factory and its implementation on traditional factory. They adopt the combination of physical technology and cyber technology and deeply integrate previously independent discrete systems making the involved technologies more complex and precise than they are now. Furthermore, a hierarchical architecture of the smart factory was proposed first, and then the key technologies were analyzed from the aspects of the physical resource layer, the network layer, and the data application layer. We have discussed the various features of the Smart Factory through an factory experts and example from the already existed smart factory. The Smart Factory architecture serves as solution pattern for the conception of modern production plants, which are characterized by mechatronic changeability, individualized mass production and internal and external networking. In addition, we discussed the major issues and potential solutions to key emerging technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing, which are embedded in the manufacturing process. Finally, we discuss the main limitation of the Smart factory and its ongoing research towards overcoming the limitations toward the future.