Key Performance Indicators Integrating Collaborative and Mobile Robots in the Factory Networks

Measuring performances of collaborative robots in Industry 4.0 applications is an open research area since the emergence of collaborative and mobile robots as a support for semi-automatic manufacturing processes. A compelling management problem is the definition of convenient performance measures on which to assess the new generation of robots, to improve process performances both at the robotic cell design stage and at the production stage. A consequent problem is to gather the required data to measure performances. Data must be obtained automatically and in real time. Different levels of communication protocols have to be harmonized in order to transfer data from robots and other factory machines to the cloud on the internet and eventually to the production control system. A case study allows to demonstrate the operation of data acquisition system for collaborative and mobile robots and the real-time monitoring dashboard. The outcome of the study is the gathering of data at field level, the evaluation of robot performances at machine level in order to execute the real time production control at factory level.