Abstract:
Internet of Things (IoT) enabled manufacturing is an advanced principle where typical production resources are converted into smart objects which are able to sense, interconnect, and interact with each other to automatically carry out the manufacturing activities. With the wide usage of IoT digital devices which are able to generate huge number of data, manufacturing companies are facing challenges for making full use of this collected data. This paper focuses on proposing various solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in implementing IoT technologies and Big Data Analytics. SMEs are usually facing challenges when using data for decision making: 1) with the deployment of enormous IoT-enabled devices which may be different in functionalities, vast heterogeneous data will be captured and collected; 2) the collected data are linked to each other based on the manufacturing logics so that it is difficult to analyse the data using traditional approaches; and 3) the complex and bulky datasets are difficult to use in various applications, thus, innovative data presentation and interpretation approach are needed. In order to address the challenges, this solution • uses Auto-ID like RFID or Barcode technology to convert various manufacturing resources into smart objects which are able to sense and interact with each other; • adopts wireless and wired communication networks to collect the manufacturing data; • establishes an innovative data model to visualize the captured and collected data in a graphical fashion; • and uses the mined production information and knowledge to make advanced decisions and production automation.