TRANSFORMING STRATEGY FROM INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION TO ADVANCED LEAN AUTOMATION

Industrial automation refers to the control of machines and processes in order to manage variables. Automated manufacturing systems have evolved as advanced technologies have been incorporated, and theoretical approaches have evolved from mass production to intelligent manufacturing, each step introducing superior manufacturing concepts and models, which allowed increasing processes, organization and work. One of the newest approaches refers to distributive automation, in which the system allows reconfiguration and self-organization of autonomous subsystems in a distribute environment. By incorporating integrative Industry 4.0 technologies, an automated industrial system becomes an intelligent, fully digitized and reconfigurable manufacturing applications platform. At the same time, through digitization and virtualization, the automated manufacturing system can employ the Advanced Lean Manufacturing conceptual support. This paper addresses the transforming challenges of an existing automated manufacturing system to the Advanced Lean adaptive automated manufacturing level, taking into account the limits due to attributes, properties and capabilities of physical manufacturing assets. The proposed solution describes a versatile and dynamic architecture, which allows the organization / reorganization of manufacturing flows, scalability and connection with the external environment, according to advanced cyber manufacturing requests.