Real-time Production Scheduling Method for Automobile Engine Remanufacturing Based on the Internet of Manufacturing Things

Remanufacturing is conducive to make the most use of material, reduce resource consumption, lower production cost and alleviate environmental pollution. It is an effective way to achieve sustainable development. Typical challenges that remanufacturing shopfloors are facing now are compounded by lack of timely, accurate, and consistent information of manufacturing resources. As a result, it is difficult to implement real-time production scheduling for the shopfloors. To address this problem, in this research, by extending the techniques of IoT (Internet of Things) to automobile engine remanufacturing, an IoMT (The Internet of Manufacturing Things) environment is formed. Under the IoMT, an identification technology for disassembled remanufacturing engine parts is designed, and the real-time status of the different manufacturing things such as operators, machines, pallets, key components etc. can be easily sensed. Then, based on the captured manufacturing information, a real-time production scheduling method for automobile engine remanufacturing is presented, and the mathematical model is established by considering the multi objectives such as makespan, dynamical capability of manufacturing resources, and energy consumption etc.