A Decision Support System for rapid rampup of industry 4.0 enabled production systems Abstract   Production rampup is a key phase during the introduction or changeover of a production system. Process calibration and tuning are inevitably required to make such a system fully operational and let it reach its maximum production yield. A complex decisionmaking process takes place in order to optimally tune the system and requires a long time for testing and experimenting that will determine the system behaviour. This work considers the sequential nature of rampup and proposes a CyberPhysical Systems approach based on data capturing, learning mechanisms and knowledge extraction, leading to an Industry 4.0 compliant Decision Support System (DSS) for human operators. The proposed system is implemented as an online DSS and also supports offline learning using previously gathered knowledge. A number of experiments have been carried out on a micro scale assembly station, validating the expected benefits of the proposed DSS. Results show a reduction of over 40% in the number of rampup steps required when using the DSS.

Approach for Implementing Industry 4.0 Framework in the Steel Industry The advancements of the Steel Industry require a fully integrated manufacturing and business system for realtime decision making. The main challenge in the Steel Industry is the disconnection between the shop floor systems such as Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and business systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). The production process of Steel Industries requires visibility of operations, planning and scheduling, lead times, quality management, machine health, maintenance planning, to name but a few aspects. This study investigates current technologies and investments employed by steel companies and how to leverage these existing investments to attain a smart enterprise and subsequently manage current and future steel demands efficiently. Industry 4.0 simplifies the approach to implement complex systems in a structured and logical manner in manufacturing organisations. This paper deliberates the Industry 4.0 framework and the path to implement Industry 4.0 in the steel sector.