Analysis of the Main Engineering and Production Chains in the SMART Factory

The current study defines and reviews the major engineering-and-production chains in a contemporary Smart factory. The research goes through three main stages - review of the core definitions of the “Smart factory” concept and generating a working definition for the purposes of the present article, synthesis of the major engineering-and-production chains in a contemporary Smart factory and analysis of their structure and functional correlation. The chain “human machine - robot - machine - human” is outlined as a fundament of the other chains, which determine the architecture of the Smart factory. At the same time, this chain is ensured by the engineering-and-technological chain “software - hardware - sensors - robotized and automated production capacities - sensors - hardware - software”. The six major engineering-and-production chains are brought forward on this basis and are analytically studied: “resource planning - resource provision”, “available resources production planning - production capacity planning - control over the production power capacities”, “production planning production processes planning - operational production control over the production processes and operations”, “strategic control - operational-and-production control”, “production processes - quality testing - production-and-management software - operational-and-production software”, and, “quality testing - transportation-and-trade logistics”, which determine the generation of new business, management and production models.