Real-time Optimization of Production Scheduling

第四次工业革命，即工业4.0，给制造业带来了新的挑战。该项目旨在通过瑞尔森大学和Axiom Group Inc.之间的合作解决其中一些挑战。Axiom Group专门从事各种零部件和组件的热塑性注射成型，并开发了一种名为Smart Attend的实时生产监控系统。Smart Attend从机器收集数据，并提供有关生产预期与实际性能、周期时间分析、轮班基准测试以及长达三年的生产分析等功能的快速报告。Smart Attend还与Axiom的内部企业资源规划/物料需求规划（ERP/MRP）系统PRISM完全集成。通过与瑞尔森大学的合作，Axiom集团希望通过在工业4.0的背景下结合最先进的数据科学和运筹学方法来提高其Smart Attend和PRISM系统的能力。该模型将考虑操作参数和生产干扰（如机器故障）来优化生产计划。我们将在一个真实的制造环境中证明这个模型作为一个面向市场的生产调度解决方案的有效性。预计所提出的解决方案将嵌入智能考勤/PRISM系统，并作为商业化产品提供给市场。拟议的解决方案还将提高工业4.0环境中制造机械的可用性和整体效率，减少停机成本和因故障造成的生产损失，最大限度地减少人为错误的机会，并提高生产性能和能源效率。这种合作对加拿大制造业具有巨大的潜在利益，并为经验丰富的团队提供了将其知识转化为有用创新的机会。

The fourth industrial revolution, commonly known as Industry 4.0, offers new challenges to the manufacturing industry. This project aims to address some of these challenges through a collaboration between Ryerson University and Axiom Group Inc. Axiom Group specializes in thermoplastic injection molding of various components and assemblies, and has developed a real-time production monitoring system called Smart Attend. Smart Attend collects data from machines and offers quick reports on production expectations vs. actual performance, cycle-time analysis, shift-to-shift benchmarking, and up to three years of production analysis among other features. Smart Attend is also fully integrated with PRISM, Axiom's in-house enterprise resource planning/material requirements planning (ERP/MRP) system. Through collaboration with Ryerson University, Axiom Group would like to enhance the capability of its Smart Attend and PRISM systems by incorporating state-of-the-art methods of data science and operations research for real-time production scheduling in the context of Industry 4.0. This model will optimize production schedules considering operational parameters and production disturbances, such as a machine failure. We will demonstrate the validity of this model in a real manufacturing setting as a market-ready production scheduling solution. It is expected that the proposed solutions will be embedded in the Smart Attend/PRISM systems and offered to the market as a commercialized product. The proposed solutions will also enhance the availability and overall efficiency of manufacturing machinery in an Industry 4.0 setting, reduce downtime costs and production loss due to failure, minimize the chances of human error, and enhance production performance and energy efficiency. This collaboration has enormous potential benefit to the Canadian manufacturing industry and provides the opportunity for a highly experienced team to translate their knowledge into a useful innovation.