Flexible manufacturing control with autonomous product memories

Nowadays, RFID is used to identify a wide range of work pieces or individual products for tracking their movements during the product life cycle. For future purposes the idea of storing only a single ID must be extended to a “Digital Product Memory”. A Digital Product Memory provides a digital diary of the complete product life cycle and is embedded in the product itself. It records all relevant ambient parameters in digital form. Sensors note where and when an interaction with a product takes place. People can access these digital product diaries at any time. The autonomous behavior of the product memory makes it additionally possible to monitor and control the production and logistics of the product. In this paper we describe a flexible approach for product-driven manufacturing using a digital product memory to achieve minimum lot sizes and a reduced time to market.