A line configuration planning device determine a task sequence during production of the to-be-produced product and the task time by the worker or the automatic machine for each task on the basis of the task information and the task time information. The line configuration planning device determine a required cycle time for producing the to-be-produced product on the basis of the production plan information. The line configuration planning device generate, on the basis of the determined task sequence, task time, and required cycle time, an allocation proposal for the worker and the automatic machine such that an estimated cycle time for producing the to-be-produced product is less than or equal to the required cycle time. The line configuration planning device determine a production line configuration for the to-be-produced product on the basis of the allocation proposal and the equipment configuration information.

An operation method for production facilities operates production facilities of a same kind located at production sites, and includes: a data information preparation step of aggregating operational data of each of the production facilities for each of the production sites; a data accumulation step of accumulating the operational data aggregated at the data information preparation step into a computer located at a data accumulation site; a data analysis step of analyzing an operation status of each of the production facilities, using the operational data accumulated at the data accumulation step; a data display step of displaying information on analyzed the operation status of each of the production facilities on a display unit located at each of the production sites; and a facility operation step of referring to the displayed information and operating a production facility located at a second production site from a first production site.

The present disclosure makes it possible to construct a production line of products using pieces of first equipment located in a geographical area and mobile second equipment. An information processing method tries to assign pieces of first equipment to a series of work processes to produce products based on the pieces of first equipment located in the geographical area and positions thereof, decides installation of pieces of second equipment to be assigned to a part of the series of work processes to which a part of the pieces of equipment cannot be assigned from among the pieces of first equipment when there is the part of the series of work processes to which the part of the pieces of equipment cannot be assigned from among the pieces of first equipment, outputs a request to transport the pieces of second equipment to an installation position in the geographical area.

A method of determining an installation site of a robot manipulator at a workstation, the method including: recording a respective image of the robot manipulator and of the workstation of the robot manipulator, and of a workpiece to be machined at the workstation via a camera unit, wherein the respective image contains spatial information; transmitting the respective image to a computing unit; and determining the installation site of the robot manipulator by applying a non-linear optimization of a predefined cost function and/or of a neural network via the computing unit based on a predefined task for machining the workpiece and based on the spatial information determined by the computing unit from the respective image.

A system and method generating a 3D plant layout model departing from 2D schema of the layout provide access to a plant catalogue of identifiers of 3D plant objects. At least one 3D plant object identifier is associated with a 2D plant object identifier. Data on a given 2D schema of a layout are received as input data. A function trained by machine learning algorithm is applied to the input data for detecting a set of 2D plant objects. A set of identifier and location data on the detected 2D plant object set is provided as output data. A set of 3D plant objects is selected from the plant catalogue with identifiers associated with the set of 2D plant objects identifiers of the output data. A 3D model of the layout is generated by arranging the selected set of 3D plant objects according to location data of the output data.

A computer-implemented method for generating and evaluating robotic workcell solutions includes: determining a plurality of locations within a workcell volume, wherein each location corresponds to a possible workcell solution; for each location included in the plurality of locations, determining a value for a first robot-motion attribute for a first robot based on position information associated with the location and a trajectory associated with a component of the first robot; and, for each location included in the plurality of locations, computing a first value for a first performance metric based on the value for the first robot-motion attribute.

A method of coordinating automated systems, the method includes providing a first automated system that is programmed with a set of predetermined operating instructions that correspond with automated system processing requirements, monitoring an operational status of the first automated system with a second automated system, automatically generating a second system action, with the second automated system, that is complimentary to a first system action of the first automated system, where the first system action corresponds to the set of predetermined operating instructions and the second system action depends on the operational status of the first automated system, and performing the second system action with the second automated system so that the second automated system cooperates with the first automated system to perform a predetermined operation.

In example embodiments, a multi-stage PFS diagram generation technique is used to iteratively define the layout of a PFS diagram from a subset of engineering data in a 3D model of an industrial process. The multi-stage PFS diagram generation technique may repeatedly call an automatic layout generator, which each time solves for one unknown quality of the PFS diagram (e.g., relative positions of components in the PFS diagram, positions on components in the PFS diagram, sizes of the components in the PFS diagram). The PFS diagram may be adapted based on user preferences, for example to define the subset of engineering data, or to constrain aspects of its layout. Updated PFS diagrams may be generated by selecting different user preferences.

A method of planning works for robots includes creating a work plan for a plurality of robots, each having a work tool, sharing at at least one station a work to a plurality of work parts of the workpiece. The method includes the steps of calculating a distribution of the work parts to the robots, calculating, as a robot operation, a work order of the work parts and a moving path of the work tool for each of the robots based on the calculated work distribution, and calculating a disposed location of each of the robots with respect to the workpiece and a station where the robot is disposed so that an inter-robot interference does not occur during execution of the calculated robot operation.

Provided herein are exemplary systems and methods for a fog computing facilitated flexible factory including establishing a physical production process as part of a work cell, establishing a sensing process as part of the work cell for the physical production process, establishing a monitoring process for the sensing process and the physical production process, establishing a managing process for the monitoring process, the sensing process and the physical production process, establishing a planning process for the managing process, the monitoring process, the sensing process and the physical production process, and establishing a fog node as part of the work cell for all of the processes.