An Internet of Things based framework to enhance just-in-time manufacturing

Just-in-time manufacturing is a main manufacturing strategy used to enhance manufacturers' competitiveness through inventory and lead time reduction. Implementing just-in-time manufacturing has a number of challenges, for example, effective, frequent and real-time information sharing and communication between different functional departments, responsive action for adjusting the production plan against the continually changing manufacturing situation. Internet of Things technology has the potential to be used for capturing desired data and information from production environment in real time, and the collected data and information can be used for adjusting production schedules corresponding to the changing production environment. This article presents an Internet of Things based framework to support responsive production planning and scheduling in just-in-time manufacturing. The challenges of implementing just-in-time manufacturing are identified first and then an Internet of Things based solution is proposed to address these challenges. A framework to realise the proposed Internet of Things solution is developed and its implementation plan is suggested based on a case study on automotive harness parts manufacturing. This research contributes knowledge to the field of just-in-time manufacturing by incorporating the Internet-of-Things technology to improve the connectivity of production chains and responsive production scheduling capability.