Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has received increasing attention from both academia and industry. However, several challenges including excessively long waiting time and a serious waste of energy still exist in the IIoT-based integration between production and logistics in job shops. To address these challenges, a framework depicting the mechanism and methodology of smart production-logistics systems is proposed to implement intelligent modeling of key manufacturing resources and investigate self-organizing configuration mechanisms. A data-driven model based on analytical target cascading is developed to implement the self-organizing configuration. A case study based on a Chinese engine manufacturer is presented to validate the feasibility and evaluate the performance of the proposed framework and the developed method. The results show that the manufacturing time and the energy consumption are reduced and the computing time is reasonable. The presented work potentially enables manufacturers to deploy IIoT-based applications and improve the efficiency of production-logistics systems.

Discrete manufacturing systems are characterized by dynamics and uncertainty of operations and behavior due to exceptions in production-logistics synchronization. To deal with this problem, a self-adaptive collaborative control (SCC) mode is proposed for smart production-logistics systems to enhance the capability of intelligence, flexibility, and resilience. By leveraging cyber-physical systems (CPSs) and industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), real-time status data are collected and processed to perform decision making and optimization. Hybrid automata is used to model the dynamic behavior of physical manufacturing resources, such as machines and vehicles in shop floors. Three levels of collaborative control granularity, including nodal SCC, local SCC, and global SCC, are introduced to address different degrees of exceptions. Collaborative optimization problems are solved using analytical target cascading (ATC). A proof of concept simulation based on a Chinese aero-engine manufacturer validates the applicability and efficiency of the proposed method, showing reductions in waiting time, makespan, and energy consumption with reasonable computational time. This article potentially enables manufacturers to implement CPS and IIoT in manufacturing environments and build up smart, flexible, and resilient production-logistics systems.

Trends toward the globalization of the manufacturing industry and the increasing demands for small-batch, short-cycle, and highly customized products result in complexities and fluctuations in both external and internal manufacturing environments, which poses great challenges to manufacturing enterprises. Fortunately, recent advances in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the widespread use of embedded processors and sensors in factories enable collecting real-time manufacturing status data and building cyber—physical systems for smart, flexible, and resilient manufacturing systems. In this context, this paper investigates the mechanisms and methodology of self-organization and self-adaption to tackle exceptions and disturbances in discrete manufacturing processes. Specifically, a general model of smart manufacturing complex networks is constructed using scale-free networks to interconnect heterogeneous manufacturing resources represented by network vertices at multiple levels. Moreover, the capabilities of physical manufacturing resources are encapsulated into virtual manufacturing services using cloud technology, which can be added to or removed from the networks in a plug-and-play manner. Materials, information, and financial assets are passed through interactive links across the networks. Subsequently, analytical target cascading is used to formulate the processes of self-organizing optimal configuration and self-adaptive collaborative control for multilevel key manufacturing resources while particle swarm optimization is used to solve local problems on network vertices. Consequently, an industrial case based on a Chinese engine factory demonstrates the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed model and method in handling typical exceptions. The simulation results show that the proposed mechanism and method outperform the event-triggered rescheduling method, reducing manufacturing cost, manufacturing time, waiting time, and energy consumption, with reasonable computational time. This work potentially enables managers and practitioners to implement active perception, active response, self-organization, and self-adaption solutions in discrete manufacturing enterprises.

Complex and customized manufacturing requires a high level of collaboration between production and logistics in a flexible production system. With the widespread use of Internet of Things technology in manufacturing, a great amount of real-time and multi-source manufacturing data and logistics data is created, that can be used to perform production-logistics collaboration. To solve the aforementioned problems, this paper proposes a timed colored Petri net simulation-based self-adaptive collaboration method for Internet of Things-enabled production-logistics systems. The method combines the schedule of token sequences in the timed colored Petri net with real-time status of key production and logistics equipment. The key equipment is made ‘smart’ to actively publish or request logistics tasks. An integrated framework based on a cloud service platform is introduced to provide the basis for self-adaptive collaboration of production-logistics systems. A simulation experiment is conducted by using colored Petri nets (CPN) Tools to validate the performance and applicability of the proposed method. Computational experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the event-driven method in terms of reductions of waiting time, makespan, and electricity consumption. This proposed method is also applicable to other manufacturing systems to implement production-logistics collaboration.

Recent advances in technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) have provided promising opportunities to solve problems in urban traffic. With the help of IoT technologies, online data from road segments are captured by monitoring devices, while real-time data from vehicles are collected through preinstalled sensors. Based on these data, a CPS model is constructed to depict real-time status and dynamic behavior of road segments and vehicles. An online learning data-driven model is developed to extract prior knowledge and enhance collaboration between road segments and vehicles by combining short-term traffic forecasting and real-time routing optimization. A case study based on Xi'an city is presented to demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed method, showing a reduction in the travel time with reasonable computation time, without much compromising the travel distance and fuel consumption. This work potentially strengthens the transparency and intelligence of urban traffic systems.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely used in robotics, automation, finance, healthcare, etc. However, using AI for decision-making in sustainable product lifecycle operations is still challenging. One major challenge relates to the scarcity and uncertainties of data across the product lifecycle. This paper aims to develop a method that can adopt the most suitable AI techniques to support decision-making for sustainable operations based on the available lifecycle data. It identifies the key lifecycle stages in which AI, especially reinforcement learning (RL), can support decision-making. Then, a generalised procedure of using RL for decision support is proposed based on available lifecycle data, such as operation and maintenance data. The method has been validated in a case study of an international vehicle manufacturer, combined with modelling and simulation. The case study demonstrates the effectiveness of the method and identifies that RL is the current most appropriate method for maintenance scheduling based on limited available lifecycle data. This paper contributes to knowledge by demonstrating an empirically grounded industrial case using RL to optimise decision-making for improved product lifecycle sustainability by effectively prolonging the product lifetime and reducing environmental impact.