The present invention relates to a system for assembling and/or testing articles (101,102), the system comprising a plurality of stations (11, 12) adapted to hold and/or test articles (101, 102); a conveyor assembly (20, 21, 22, 23) connecting the plurality of stations (11, 12) and adapted to move articles between the stations at predetermined time intervals; and a central controller (30) connected to at least one of the stations (11, 12), wherein the central controller is adapted to receive and store assembly and/or test step completion information from the at least one station at the end of each time interval.

A cyber-physical production system includes a plurality of cyber-physical units configured to collectively produce a product comprising one or more workpieces. Each cyber-physical units comprises one or more automation system devices, a network interface and a processor. The network interface is configured to receive one or more skill instances. Each skill instance provides a machine-independent request for transformation of a workpiece by the one or more automation system devices. The processor is configured to execute each of the one or more skill instances by applying behaviors that control the automation system devices.

A digital manufacturing system includes a web portal to receive product configuration information. An enterprise resource planning subsystem generates a production order based on the product configuration information, and determines a manufacturing resource plan and production steps for manufacturing the product.

A manufacturing execution subsystem generates an identifier for the manufacturing resource plan, and communicate the manufacturing resource plan and the production steps to a production control subsystem controlling machines performing the manufacturing of the product according to the manufacturing resource plan and the production steps. A production control subsystem stores the identifier in a near field communication chip attachable to the product during the manufacturing to provide real-time tracking of the manufacturing throughout the steps. An empirical analysis subsystem connects to different social media applications to determine sentiment of the manufactured product.

A method and also an associated computer program (product) and an apparatus for shaping a production process for producing a product made up of multiple subproducts in a production system having multiple production modules is provided. The claimed method has the following steps: generating a process model using data about production steps to be carried out for the product and the subproducts thereof, from which process model at least some of the data about at least one production step are read and a respective production module that is available and associated for carrying out the respective production step is ascertained and using a signal connection to provide instructions that correspond to the respective production step for the production module.

Described are techniques for optimizing collaborative work performed by robotic machines in an industrial environment. The techniques include obtaining industrial activity data comprising steps of industrial activities performed by robotic machines on an industrial floor. The techniques further include obtaining robotic machine data comprising configuration information of the robotic machines associated with performing the steps of the industrial activities. The techniques further include inputting the industrial activity data and the robotic machine data to a machine learning model to analyze the steps of the industrial activities in view of the configuration information of the robotic machines to generate a production plan that aggregates performance of selected steps by the robotic machines, and configuring the robotic machines on the industrial floor according to the production plan generated by the machine learning model.

A method and apparatus for manufacturing a product. The method comprises creating a product plan comprising time units during which manufacturing of the product occurs, wherein the time units are grouped into phases of the manufacturing. Further, the product plan also includes entities performing work on systems for the product and work items performed by the entities during the manufacturing days. The manufacturing of the product is controlled using the product plan.

A product-input-plan developing device for developing product input plans including an input order of products to a manufacture line that includes a branch and a merge, and paths along which the products individually flow in the manufacture line, includes a processor configured to optimize product input plans for k number of products for which a product input plan is developable without causing information explosion from among the products to be input to the manufacture line; and determine adoption of product input plans for first n (n<k) number of products from among the product input plans optimized by the processor, wherein the processor repeatedly executes the process for optimizing the product input plan and the processor repeatedly executes the process for determination for a product for which adoption of the product input plan is not determined by the processor.

In an arrangement design of a robot cell and of robot work, a planning device searches an arrangement graph, that shows candidates for relative positions and orientations between a robot and a fixture; searches a disassembly task sequence, of disassembly tasks that are operations of the robot for disassembling components from the assembly in an arrangement of the relative positions and orientations between the robot and the fixture, and searches for, based on a point sequence of positioning relay points of the robot, a trajectory in which the robot disassembles the components from the assembly; and generates assembly tasks formed of a point sequence obtained by reversing the point sequence of the relay points, an assembly trajectory of the robot which is reverse to a disassembly trajectory formed of interpolation points between the point sequences, and an assembly sequence, which is a reverse order of the disassembly task sequence.

A method of planning the manufacture of component carriers includes defining a set of final product parameters as a target for component carriers to be manufactured, ranking the process parameters concerning their impact on the final product parameters, selecting a subset of higher ranked process parameters, inputting the selected subset of process parameters for processing by an artificial intelligence module, and determining an action plan for the manufacturing based on an output of the artificial intelligence module, where the product parameters are influenceable by a set of process parameters settable during the manufacturing method.

A method of programless assembly of a device using a robotic cell comprising calibrating a robotic cell for generating a product model, the robotic cell including an end-of-arm camera and utilizing the robotic cell to generate the product model of the device for assembly. The method in one embodiment further comprises validating the product model using a partial assembly method and making the product model available for use by robotic cells.