Real-Time Optimal Material Delivery Method for Digital Plant Production

Currently, for meeting the Just-in-Time (JIT) manufacturing requirement in digital plant production, the material delivery is becoming an important issue to be studied which is characterized by real time, accuracy and optimization. Therefore, this paper presents a new kind of real-time optimal material delivery method for digital plant production by utilizing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. In the method, the accurate and visual layout for manufacturing resources included in the digital plant such as manufacturing equipment, RFID devices, forklifts and all kinds of inventories are realized. After real-time locating and tracking the positions of forklifts by utilizing RFID technology and taking the minimal travel distance as the objective, a mathematical model for real-time optimal material delivery in digital plant is established to obtain the optimal travel distances of forklifts. In order to resolve the mathematical model effectively and efficiently, the branch and bound programming model is built. A prototype system of real-time optimal material delivery is developed and the results derived by the implemented numerical case study demonstrate that the proposed method is suitable for forklift route optimization and navigation. Furthermore, with the help of the proposed method, the work-in-progress (WIP) inventories will be reduced and the material delivery will be more timely and accurately which establishes the foundation for implementing JIT manufacturing in digital plant production.