Big Data Analytics for Physical Internet-based intelligent manufacturing shop floors

Abstract

Physical Internet (PI, π) has been widely used for transforming and upgrading the logistics and supply chain management worldwide. This study extends the PI concept into manufacturing shop floors where typical logistics resources are converted into smart manufacturing objects (SMOs) using Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless technologies to create a RFID-enabled intelligent shop floor environment. In such PI-based environment, enormous RFID data could be captured and collected. This study introduces a Big Data Analytics for RFID logistics data by defining different behaviours of SMOs. Several findings are significant. It is observed that task weight is primarily considered in the logistics decision-making in this case. Additionally, the highest residence time occurs in a buffer with the value of 12.17 (unit of time) which is 40.57% of the total delivery time. That implies the high work-in-progress inventory level in this buffer. Key findings and observations are generated into managerial implications, which are useful for various users to make logistics decisions under PI-enabled intelligent shop floors.

Keywords:

• Physical Internet
• big data
• radio frequency identification (RFID)
• logistics
• intelligent shop floors

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51405307], Project Funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant number 2015M570720] and Guangdong High Education Institution project [grant number 2013CXZDC008].