RFID-based Apparel Management Expert System for Operator Task Allocation and Production Line Balancing

1383533579850 Rame Web
Managing apparel production efficiently has always been a problem to many manufacturers as the planning and control process relies heavily on the knowledge, experience and intuition of production managers. Their decisions in planning and control are found to be inconsistent and non-optimal due to fact that many of them can only be considered as quick-fix without giving a wider consideration on an overall situation. Although current real-time shop floor data capture systems utilizing RFID technology are available in the markets, such as GPRO, Igarment (IWork), Zymmetry, to facilitate the capture of production data and provide real-time reports, they are not equipped with any artificial intelligent (AI) elements which can help production management to improve their decision making. The proposed research aims to employ AI techniques for developing a novel smart (intelligent) process flow management expert system which can provide scientific production planning and line-balancing decisions for agile apparel manufacturing management. The system can be plugged into any commercial data capture system to enhance the capabilities of these systems in terms of decision support.
Application

The RFID-based Apparel Management Expert (RAME) System integrating with the real time production data captured by existing RFID system, adopts artificial intelligence techniques to generate effective and efficient solutions for operator task allocation and production line balancing of apparel manufacturers.
Industry Benefit

• Time Shortening on Staff Deployment - The system can shorten time spent on operator assignment of a production line before a new production order is released for processing.

• Increase of Production Efficiency - The system enables an efficient production distribution and effective solution on decision-making with collection and application of real-time data.
Technological Breakthrough

• The RAME system is the first innovation on integration of RFID and artificial intelligence techniques.
• Unlike the existing RFID production data capture systems which can only capture data without analysis and generating solutions, the RAME system can conduct detailed data analysis, generate effective and efficient solutions for operator task allocation and production line balancing.
Project Name (ITF)
Development of a Smart Process Flow Management Expert System for Agile Manufacturing of Apparel Supply Chain
Project Number (ITF)
ITP/047/09TP