Maturity Assessment: A Case Study toward

Sustainable Smart Manufacturing Implementation

Xiaonan SHI, Takenori BABA, Daisuke OSAGAWA, Mitsushiro FUJISHIMA, Teruaki ITO
MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION

Abstract—Due to the rapid evolution of Internet of Things and improve every individual situation is the principle of the
(IoT), the advantage of having smart manufacturing has been implementation toward smart manufacturing.
quickly recognized by the industry. Manufacturing companies
This paper leads with a case study on how to enable smart
are facing challenges of organizing an unprecedented technical
integration of systems and factories across hierarchy, domain manufacturing in the actual system implementation environ-
boundaries and life cycle phases. ment, from which maturity assessment is validated. Section
Many reference models and use-case are available in national II introduces a brief background on smart manufacturing
and international smart manufacturing related studies. However, practical issue for system implementation and abstract the
gaps between study and actual factory environment exist due
barrier points in the process. Section III examines the process
to the less care of interconnecting of process steps toward smart
manufacturing implementation. To make over the transformation of enabling system implementation and highlight the maturity
of implementation effectively, methodology to identify the gaps assessment to make over the barriers. Section IV describes an
and address appropriate solutions in practice is needed. explanation of use case regard manufacturing operation site
This paper provides insights that help the manufacturing sustainable improvement on the factory automation system
companies toward developing a practical process to achieve
implementation Section V concludes with guiding principles
the ultimate goal of interconnecting every step of their smart
manufacturing. Case-study that lower the entry barrier, and for addressing the contribution of maturity assessment on the
reduce the investment risk of the transformation process for the system implementation that integrate multiple perspectives for
factory automation system is highlighted and validated. every individual situation in factory automation. Future work
Index Terms—Smart Manufacturing, Maturity, Kaizen Level, of systematically defining maturity assessment model in terms
Process Improvement, Assessment of management processes, operations, functions of system
implementation is specified in the end.
I. I NTRODUCTION
For some time now, drivers such as Internet of Things (IoT), II. P RACTICE ISSUE TOWARD SMART MANUFACTURING
optimization and the need to meet customer personalized
demands have once again powered the transformation of the Depending on functions, organizational management objec-
manufacturing systems, to become adaptive, entire connected tives and industry sectors, the complexity and pace of smart
and cognizant of its capability. This transformation is char- manufacturing leads to different points of implementation
acterized by the smart manufacturing that is rapidly gaining efforts across manufacturing companies. This situation creates
ground in attractive in industry. lacks of standard terminology and improvement opportunities.
Various regional concepts of initiatives are widely discussed Very few leading-edge manufacturing companies did further
the reference architecture of smart manufacturing, such as [1] changes, such as a fundamental structural and process reform
[2] [3] [4], underlying enabling technologies and preconditions to utilize technologies to raise the full potential of smart
and impact on different facets. Many manufacturing compa- manufacturing. For most of the manufacturing companies,
nies are capitalizing their essential functions toward smart especially for such middle-small size companies who do not
manufacturing within their interconnected manufacturing, as have enough resource, it is still difficult to draw a clear
well as with their partners along the value chain in smart vision, strategy and systematic roadmap matches their own
manufacturing. manufacturing situation.
It is very important to have a clear and applicable roadmap In order to cope with such situation, reference models are
for every individual manufacturing company not only to main- developed from various regional initiatives. Overall insights
tain but also to increase their competitive edge in smart man- on system implementation with technical requirements can be
ufacturing, that can covering multiple views and abstraction obtained through the use of reference models. Nevertheless,
levels of their manufacturing systems’ implementation to aid the reference models have different start points demonstrating
the firm in making improvements. There is a need to measure the developer’s favourable industrial sectors, where the con-
how well the current system has employed or its capability, sensus of usage is still relatively low. Especially, process of
and predict the capability and the process that can be deployed adopting the concept to actual implementation environment
from a different perspective of views. Satisfying the need is not explained in any of the reference models. This lack
with a holistic methodology that useful to analyse, integrate of reference models’ definition also creates ambiguity when a
 Fig. 1. Practice issue toward smart manufacturing. Fig. 2. SMKL to address sustainable implementation.

system is analysed. Such miss-matched process cycles exclud-

TABLE I
ing important processes that necessary to one’s manufacturing SMKL HORIZONTAL AXIS : MATURITY LEVEL DEFINITION
company may cause a bias in the system performance, and in
how the system implementation and improvement may further Letter Definition Description
drive the company off track to the smart manufacturing. a Collecting Manufacturing data and machine status are col-
lected and stored in a electrical way automatically
Thus, most of the manufacturing companies who are inter- or manually with simple input action. By doing
ested are facing management challenges of doing sustainable so, for example electrical copy of daily handwrit-
smart manufacturing system implementation fit for their own ing report can be exempted.
b Visualizing Charts or Tables are automatically generated
situation with the help of reference models(Fig.1). based on collected and stored data and target
management objective. By doing so, for example
III. M ATURITY ASSESSMENT TO ADDRESS SUSTAINABLE manually generation of charts and tables can be
IMPLEMENTATION exempted.
In an attempt to overcome the challenges of across im- c Analyzing Charts and Tables describing the comparison of
target performance with current performance with
plementations toward smart manufacturing, several approach variance are automatically generated. By doing
of using maturity models have been studied. Review on the so, for example manually analysis difficulties on
relevant maturity level concept definition, such as [5] [6] variance at worker can be exempted.
d Optimizing Integration and or feedback across management
[7], many of them are result-driven, ramping up the target objectives are adjusted automatically and pro-
dimensions with maturity level definitions which statistically actively to over come the visualized variance
identifying the status of performance in the target dimensions. between current performance and target perfor-
mance. By doing so, for example the scales of
In this section, we introduce a process-driven maturity capability can be maximized.
model: Smart Manufacturing Kaizen Level (SMKL) conducted
with the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) [9]. We aim at
helping manufacturing companies to use maturity models as a
TABLE II
essential tool to sustainable improve their system implemen- SMKL VERTICAL AXIS : MANAGEMENT LEVEL DEFINITION
tation with a structured evaluation of technologies, physical
architecture, process, weapon system use-case. Letter Definition Description
Shown in Fig.2, horizontal axis (Table.I) of SMKL is 1 Installation Smallest management objective to fulfill specified
or worker function or operation in hierarchical structured
defined as the maturity level, describing the different levels manufacturing process
of information transparency. Vertical axis (Table.II) of SMKL 2 Work Management objective consists of one or more
is defined as the management level, specifying the range Station installations and workers satisfying a set of func-
tions or operation in hierarchical structured man-
of system implementation according to IEC62264:2013 [8] ufacturing process
hierarchy enterprise structure. 3 Factory Management objective consists of one or more
SMKL aims at providing indications to objectives specified work stations in a given physical location that can
in management level to help them execute their roles in the accomplish a hierarchical manufacturing process
4 Supply Whole manufacturing process includes several
system implementation process. Process flow in consensus is chain physically separated or related factory objectives
given in Fig.3. Functions on system implementation can be in one enterprise and beyond enterprise
conducted by KPI(s). Performance of the system implementa-
tion can be validated through maturity level, Sustainability of
system implementation can be specified from the KPI driven
grow path corresponding to investment. clear vision, strategy and systematic roadmap matches its own
In terms of such an assessment, continuous improvement in situation efficiently and effectively in its system application,
system implementation across management objectives can be where greater investment and more manufacturing will take
achieved. As a result, a manufacturing company can draw a place.
 TABLE III
S TAKEHOLDERS USED IN FACTORY PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT

Management Stakeholder Description

level
Factory Factory Person owns factory, who makes investment
owner decision
Work Production Person(s) responsible for production, who
station Manager manage plan, execution, monitor and con-
trol the whole production activities includes
maintenance
Work Service Person or organization provides service with
station provider a purpose of gathering and visualizing pro-
duction information fro installations, pro-
duction operators, as well as SMKL com-
ponent from machine vendors
Installation Production Person(s) engaged in production and main-
and worker operator tenance, who can feedback production im-
provement information according to produc-
tion manager’s instruction
Installation Installation One apparatus or a set of devices and or
and worker apparatuses associated in a given location to
fulfil specified purpose, including all means
for their satisfactory operation [10]
Installation Machine Person or organization provides installations,
and worker vendor component and or sub-assemblies, as well as
SMKL component description correspond-
ing to requirements

manager makes an improvement investment plan, where ma-

turity level jumps up with several grow path options is drawn.
Factory owner evaluates the investment plan and makes the
investment decision. The productivity is then graded up with
one or more circulation to the expected higher maturity level.
As a result shown in Fig.6, a radar chart can be used to
Fig. 3. SMKL process flow. depict the overall result of productivity improvement at-a-
glance to visualizing the implementation status and increasing
the ability of the sustainable improvement to weapon system
IV. C ASE STUDY IN FACTORY PRODUCTIVITY application.

In this section, we provide a case study to illustrate factory V. C ONCLUSION

automation productivity improvement by using SMKL.
This paper begins with specifying the practical issue of
We first specify the stakeholders corresponding to the man-
smart manufacturing implementation. Then maturity assess-
agement level scales in Table.III. Consider the trigger caused
ment for a sustainable smart manufacturing implementation
by the two sides of a factory hierarchical structure, we use the
process is introduced. An exemplary case study in factory
stakeholder located at the top and bottom layer to describe
productivity improvement process toward smart manufacturing
two different approaches for productivity improvement.
was presented to show how maturity assessment can drive the
For the top-down approach, shown in Fig.4 productivity implementation in the actual environment.
improvement starts from the factory owner located at fac-
Future work will focus on the refinement and validation with
tory management level. Factory owner indicates an expected
the entire smart manufacturing value chain of maturity assess-
maturity level to production manager. Production manager
ment, and later development of the systematic methodology
monitors current productivity performance through maturity
for adoption.
level and analyse the most efficient grow path of improvement.
Factory owner makes an affordable investment decision. The
productivity grades up with one or more circulations to the R EFERENCES
higher maturity level matching with investment.
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 Fig. 4. Productivity improvement: top-down approach.

Fig. 5. Productivity improvement: bottom-up approach.

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Fig. 6. Maturity level radar value chart for productivity.