Development and Analysis of Automated Data Collection Solutions for Tool Maintenance in CNC Machines : A Case Study in a Swedish SME

Abstract: Since small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) represent a backbone for sustainable economicgrowth, the need for increasing the degree of automation in production plants is pushing today’sengineers to find customized and cost-efficient solutions. In the Industry 4.0 context, SMEswhich are aspiring towards quality, competitiveness and overall customer satisfaction requireto work with a systematic approach for implementing cyber physical systems (CPS) that arefunctioning autonomously and independently from human interaction. An essential area withinmanufacturing is represented by the maintenance of CNC machine’s tools that are directlyresponsible for achieving high-quality products. Since corrective maintenance is associatedwith uncertainty, unforeseen costs and increased downtime, the focus is diverted towardsuprising trends of preventive and predictive maintenance policies. The purpose of this thesis isto increase knowledge in the field of new maintenance practices in the context of Industry 4.0and to provide a framework for achieving customizable automated solutions adapted for theneeds and requirements of each individual SME. The work has used a guideline which isfollowing to transform the needs of SMEs into technical specifications which are used fordesigning and generating conceptual solutions whose effect is assessed from technical,economic, socio-environmental, operational and schedule perspective. For this matter, a casestudy has been conducted in a Swedish SME where there is a need for developing an automatedsolution for data collection in order to enable preventive and predictive maintenance. Forachieving this purpose and contribute to filling the gap in academic research on this matter, aframework for development and analysis of automated data collections is created based on thesystematic practices of concept development methodology to which a supplementary feasibilityanalysis is added for increasing the understanding of their impact. Furthermore, this frameworkis conceived to offer a long-term holistic view of the future changes resulted by theimplementation of automated solutions.