Collaborative material and production tracking in toy manufacturing

Material safety and traceability is of great importance in toy manufacturing because there have been tougher requirements on toy product safety imposed by new international regulations. We investigate and analyze the production workflow in small and medium toy manufacturing enterprises by SADT and simulation analysis. We find out that tracking information is incomplete and information flow and material flow are out-sync due to lacking material and production process collaboration in current system. Thus, the tracking objective creates a need for systems to collaborate material flow and production flow in manufacturing enterprises. In this paper, aiming at enhancing efficiency of production, a new concept of collaborative material and production tracking based on a supply chain view is presented. Then we also propose collaborative architecture of toy material and production tracking system based on the Internet of Things to improve tracking accuracy and efficiency. Finally, we take the paint material for example to implement the production tracking system. The application example shows that it can collect real-time data accurately and reliably. This system has practical significance in improving product quality management and realizing enterprise information construction.