In 2012, a study of University of Minho indicated that 77% of Portuguese textiles engineers did not have any knowledge or implementation about Lean organization. I think there wasn't great evolution since then. Now with the introduction of new technological concepts in top industries, namely industry 4.0, the Portuguese textiles face a new step which can increase more the gap between themselves and the edge industries. On the other hand I believe that this is an opportunity to make the definitive jump to an industry extremely well organized, technologically advanced and totally rethought. But will companies be prepared? I think it's all about have the right people.
Implement in a factory industry 4.0 technology requires rethinking processes, identify key points and establish communication. Are all procedures that combine with Lean organization. An uncommon thing in Portuguese textiles is approach the automation by islands and not in a whole. Let's see: it is common to buy machines and not think about the connection between them and the way the product as the product moves. To implement industry 4.0 this paradigm will have to change and the machines have to be integrated in a production chain and placed literally to talk with each other. Need to end the oral orders for the operators and implemented electronic service orders which in many cases can be directly interpreted by the machines. The called Internet of Things (IoT) it's a technology which implements protocols of wireless communication between machines and is the key for the future factories.
Let's make a short dissertation about a case that I know very well: a longitudinal sewing unit for terry towels. This unit has two fundamental sets of machines, the longitudinal cutting, normally 1 or 2 units, and longitudinal hemming machines, usual in greater numbers depending of the unit dimension. The product arrives to the longitudinal cutting machine in containers from dyeing and are parking in a intermediate warehouse. Currently the contents specified on a paper form that accompanying the container. In the future this will not be so, each container will have a electronic module able to store some information, communicate via wifi and be identified by RFID. When container leaves the dyeing it electronic stores all the details of your content and when arriving to the intermediate warehouse, he passes on a portico that read a RFID identification and an inventory manager system communicate via wifi with the container and refresh the inventory of warehouse. The operator of longitudinal cutting machine has a generous touchscreen display in which it is indicated the sequence of containers to be cut. The display is updated whenever a new container arrives to the warehouse or is processed in itself.
When a container is placed in the cutting machine it is identified by RFID and the cutting machine communicate by wifi with container to read the content and shoot down the inventory. It can also estimating the expected processing time and start a countdown to mark the operator's work. Another thing that the machine can do is lock the work if the container placed is not the one that is being shown in the display, is a way to avoid mistakes. After processing, the article falls into a new container, which also has electronic module. The cutting machine identify the container where going to deposit the article and sends all necessary information to identify it. Note that may need more than one container, if that happen the cutting machine only send the information relative to the article that effectively deposited into the container. More information needs to be transmitted like next warehouse and machine to process.
After this the container is sent to a new intermediate warehouse that precedes a longitudinal hemming machine. In this machine all the procedure is similar. The operator also have a terminal touchscreen with all information that need to work without mistakes, but this one will need more information than the previous post. The operator will have to know which thread use in the sewing process for example, and this information need be displayed.
To another level there must be a post to the production manager which can view all process in progress. The production manager can redesign the planning at every moment and in real time. How the factory is fully digital it should have simulation software and all production will be simulated weeks or months before it happens. This way it will be possible to predict unexpected situations and define action steps to prevent them. From this work will be born the production plan. It is this plan that the production manager will receive and will enforce. In your terminal it will be able to validate the production plan sending the orders directly to the machines, but it will also be able to monitor in real time everything that is happening and he will correct the orders whenever necessary. Imagine the situation of a planning who decided to align article entry in the cutting machine, which is not yet in stock but considered the expected time to leave the dyeing. Imagine also that there was a delay and in the hour to cut it was not in warehouse. In this case the production manager order skip to next container and create an watchdog so that when arrives into the warehouse for an alert to be created and inserted into the plan. Note that the production manager will also be able to walk in the factory and to have all that information in an app, in a smartphone or in a tablet.
This technology may be closer to be implemented of what you imagine, essentially the key is people. The most of these components exist in open source technology, they are cheap and can easily purchased, however have to be integrated and programmed. The textile companies have to recruit engineers for this job, to design, program and implement industry 4.0. A partnership with machinery manufactures is important but not the most important, I think it is not possible implement this simply buying the best machines because everything needs to be communicated and this only be possible by developing locally.
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