The prediction of internal defects of metal casting immediately after the casting process saves unnecessary time and money by reducing the amount of inputs into the next stage, such as the machining process, and enables flexible scheduling. Cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) perfectly fulfill the aforementioned requirements. This study deals with the implementation of CPPS in a real factory to predict the quality of metal casting and operation control. First, a CPPS architecture framework for quality prediction and operation control in metal-casting production was designed. The framework describes collaboration among internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, simulations, manufacturing execution systems, and advanced planning and scheduling systems. Subsequently, the implementation of the CPPS in actual plants is described. Temperature is a major factor that affects casting quality, and thus, temperature sensors and IoT communication devices were attached to casting machines. The well-known NoSQL database, HBase and the high-speed processing/analysis tool, Spark, are used for IoT repository and data pre-processing, respectively. Many machine learning algorithms such as decision tree, random forest, artificial neural network, and support vector machine were used for quality prediction and compared with R software. Finally, the operation of the entire system is demonstrated through a CPPS dashboard. In an era in which most CPPS-related studies are conducted on high-level abstract models, this study describes more specific architectural frameworks, use cases, usable software, and analytical methodologies. In addition, this study verifies the usefulness of CPPS by estimating quantitative effects. This is expected to contribute to the proliferation of CPPS in the industry.

Sustainability relies on the environmental, social and economical systems: the three pillars of sustainability. The social sustainability mostly advocates the people’s welfare, health, safety, and quality of life. In the agricultural food industry, the aspects of social sustainability, such as consumer health and safety have gained substantial attention due to the frequent cases of food-borne diseases. The food-borne diseases due to the food degradation, chemical contamination and adulteration of food products pose a serious threat to the consumer’s health, safety, and quality of life. To ensure the consumer’s health and safety, it is essential to develop an efficient system which can address these critical social issues in the food distribution networks. This research proposes an ePedigree (electronic pedigree) traceability system based on the integration of RFID and sensor technology for real-time monitoring of the agricultural food to prevent the distribution of hazardous and adulterated food products. The different aspects regarding implementation of the proposed system in food chains are analyzed and a feasible integrated solution is proposed. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated and finally, a comprehensive analysis of the proposed ePedigree system’s impact on the social sustainability in terms of consumer health and safety is presented.

In the future, with the advent of the smart factory era, manufacturing and logistics processes will become more complex, and the complexity and criticality of traceability will further increase. This research aims at developing a performance assessment method to verify scalability when implementing traceability systems based on key technologies for smart factories, such as Internet of Things (IoT) and BigData. To this end, based on existing research, we analyzed traceability requirements and an event schema for storing traceability data in MongoDB, a document-based Not Only SQL (NoSQL) database. Next, we analyzed the algorithm of the most representative traceability query and defined a query-level performance model, which is composed of response times for the components of the traceability query algorithm. Next, this performance model was solidified as a linear regression model because the response times increase linearly by a benchmark test. Finally, for a case analysis, we applied the performance model to a virtual automobile parts logistics. As a result of the case study, we verified the scalability of a MongoDB-based traceability system and predicted the point when data node servers should be expanded in this case. The traceability system performance assessment method proposed in this research can be used as a decision-making tool for hardware capacity planning during the initial stage of construction of traceability systems and during their operational phase.

In today’s era of information technology, human computer interaction and interface design are critical factors for a successful retail business. In a virtual world, the purpose of store layout is to create an environment that fascinates customers, entices them to spend more time in the store and encourages them to purchase from the store. The accomplishment of a successful retail business relies on a quick response and the adoption of new technologies that simplify the customer’s shopping experience. Virtual stores play a vital role in enhancing the success of a retail business. Nowadays, digital signage is widely used to publicize different store contents. The aim of this paper is to select a distinct layout that can be used in digital signage. To enhance Customer Relationship Management (CRM), digital signage can be installed in various contexts, such as metro stations, shopping centers, airplane terminals, and so on. The proposed system scans the Quick Response (QR) code of a product, and the product then arrives at the user end. The tree, pipeline and guiding pathway layouts are employed in the context of digital signage. A questionnaire is used to determine customers’ opinions on the most efficient layout. The statistical results show that layout significantly affects customer’s behavior. Moreover, human computer interaction can help understand more about the customer’s interaction with digital signage.

Factories of the future are foreseen to evolve into smart factories with autonomous and adaptive manufacturing processes. However, the increasing complexity of the network of manufacturing processes is expected to complicate the rapid detection of process anomalies in real time. This paper proposes an architecture framework and method for the implementation of the Scalable On-line Anomaly Detection System (SOADS), which can detect process anomalies via real-time processing and analyze large amounts of process execution data in the context of autonomous and adaptive manufacturing processes. The design of this system architecture framework entailed the derivation of standard subsequence patterns using the PrefixSpan algorithm, a sequential pattern algorithm. The anomalies of the real-time event streams and derived subsequence patterns were scored using the Smith-Waterman algorithm, a sequence alignment algorithm. The excellence of the proposed system was verified by measuring the time for deriving subsequence patterns and by obtaining the anomaly scoring time from large event logs. The proposed system succeeded in large-scale data processing and analysis, one of the requirements for a smart factory, by using Apache Spark streaming and Apache Hbase, and is expected to become the basis of anomaly detection systems of smart factories.