Design of Integration Framework for the Process Control in the Context of Industry 4.0: From Cloud to Field Devices
Authors:   Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Chua Tuck Zheng , Lee Yoon Ket ,   Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Chiew Tsung Heng ,   Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Ong Jia Jan ,   Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Chang Kai Ming ,   Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Leong Kok Heng ,   Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Chan Tai Wei ,   Business Dvelopment and Data Analysis Department (BDDA), Asia Roofing Industries Sdn. Bhd. (subsidiary of Ajiya Berhad), No. 4, Jalan Sungai Pelubung 32/149, Seksyen 32, 40460 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia, Chan Wah Beow ,   Engineering Department, Asia Roofing Industries Sdn. Bhd. (subsidiary of Ajiya Berhad), No. 4, Jalan Sungai Pelubung 32/149, Seksyen 32, 40460 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia, Eyo Geak Loo ,   Centre for Technology Research, Innovation and Sustainability (C-TRIS), Asia Roofing Industries Sdn. Bhd. (subsidiary of Ajiya Berhad), No. 4, Jalan Sungai Pelubung 32/149, Seksyen 32, 40460 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia., Ng Li Hong ,   Production Department, Asia Roofing Industries Sdn. Bhd. (subsidiary of Ajiya Berhad), No. 4, Jalan Sungai Pelubung 32/149, Seksyen 32, 40460 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia., Pang Julian Kuan Beng ,   Production Department, Asia Roofing Industries Sdn. Bhd. (subsidiary of Ajiya Berhad), No. 4, Jalan Sungai Pelubung 32/149, Seksyen 32, 40460 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.
Published: August 2022

The fourth revolution has instilled great interest in small medium enterprises due to its essence in handling the constantly changing demand of customers. In the roofing industry, Industry 4.0 is one of the solutions to alleviate the manufacturing to next level to handle the high variation in productions. In this study, a three-layer Industry 4.0 integration framework based on the RAMI 4.0 model, adoptable by a considered roofing company was proposed. Three conceptual mechanical designs of automated stacking systems also have been proposed to automate the considered stacking process in the roofing company to minimize the manual labour workforce. The proposed framework realized the complete vertical integration from field level to the Cloud system using Automation Markup Language and OPC Unified Architecture technologies as the communication backbone. The feasibility of the proposed framework was demonstrated through an experimental system model where the Google Cloud was used in the enterprise layer, the OPC UA-AutomationML server as the communication layer, and a microcontroller-controlled system as the field layer. The success of integration was proven by controlling the blinking rate of light in the experiment. For future works, the proposed framework could be implemented on a real-time manufacturing line to test its robustness Keywords: AutomationML, Cloud, Industry 4.0, Integration, OPC UA