Digitalisation of shop-floor operations in the South African tool, die and mould making industry

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This doctoral dissertation focuses on the digitalisation of shop-floor operations in the SouthAfrican Tool, Die and Mould Making (TDM) industry through the development of a Mobile DataCollection (MDC) tool known as a Shop-floor Management System (SMS). Recent results ofthe benchmarking initiative in the South African TDM industry have shown that most firmsstruggle on the global market due to intense external competition and internal shortcomings.Digitalisation has been advocated as a possible solution that can improve the competitivenessof tooling companies in the 21st century. The recent rise of digital technologies makesdigitalisation an achievable reality now. However, how does one adopt such a factor in a SouthAfrican tool-room environment? This study aims to answer this question through a systematicmethod of analysis, design, development and testing of a solution. This research demonstratesthe application of systems thinking by implementation of current technology in a tooling factoryenvironment. The theoretical framework established by Professor Schuh for the 'Fast ForwardTooling Approach on digitalisation was employed in this study. A Strengths, Weaknesses,Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of recent South African TDM industrybenchmarking study results was conducted to decide on areas of deficiency which can beimproved through digitalisation. A deficiency in the areas of shop-floor data collection andmanipulation within most TDM firms was identified and selected as one of the major problemsto be addressed. Thereafter, company visits were conducted to finalise the industry specificcharacteristics in the South African tooling industry and desired system goals wereestablished. Mobile and web-based technologies were selected as a sustainable solution fornear real-time data collection in production environments. Furthermore, an analysis followedof the tool production value chain through company visits of firms within the Western CapeProvince. The sub-processes of cost estimation, process planning and job-card data collectionwere identified as areas which can be improved by digitalisation. Key parameters for each ofthe identified processes were derived through knowledge engineering and the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) methodology was used to rank the identified parameters. Basedon a decision matrix for development software platform selection, the AppSheet platform waschosen and utilised in the development of mobile data collection modules for the abovementionedfunctions. Another decision matrix for selection of hardware tools was used todetermine the appropriate input devices to be used for recording of shop-floor data by thetooling factory personnel. The 'Google Sheets' cloud computing platform was utilised for thedevelopment of the back-end database. Reports on cost analytics, resource performance andorder progress status were generated by the system in real-time for process-planning,rescheduling and maintenance decisions. The system also facilitates alerts in cases of eventchanges within the tooling value stream process. The developed SMS was validated in a selected company for various scenarios and cases. The system outputs show that the use of mobile devices and web-based cloud computing platforms for data collection and manipulation effectively improves the shop-floor real-time data collection and visibility of a tooling factory environment.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University