Production Management as-a-Service: A Softbot Approach

Abstract

Production management involves many activities. In order to deal with Industry 4.0 requirements, many systems have developed solutions to gather real-time information from the shopfloor for more reliable decision-making. Empirical studies have been showing that this has created a tremendous overload of information to be handled by managers, causing stress, incorrect analyses and sometimes guessing-based decision-making, especially in SMEs. Using data analytics and maturity models concepts, this work shows Livia, a softbot with chatting capabilities. Deployed in a cloud and working on companies’ shopfloor information got via a MES system, Livia helps managers to identify their main problems, suggests corrective actions, and proactively performs many supporting actions. Results are presented and discussed in the end.