Configuration and Control Approach for Flexible Production Stations

This paper discusses the design and implementation of a software platform that undergoes the configuration and control activities that are needed in a modular production station. Towards the notion of Industry 4.0 concept, new technologies are introduced to the production offering several benefits to the industries, such as providing a higher flexibility in the assembly stations. Nevertheless, such systems need to be easily configured and coordinated without compromising the production stations. Towards fully exploiting those capabilities, a central execution platform able to organize, manage and control those technologies is proposed. XML-based resource configuration and task allocation as well as support for controlling multiple resource types, such as robots, grippers, vision systems etc. following the "plug&play" concept, are the key benefits of the proposed system. The whole implementation has been validated in a case study inspired from an actual assembly station of the consumer goods industry. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)