A spatio-temporal network representation for manufacturing

Abstract

Manufacturing systems are currently represented in the graphical space predominantly from the perspective of process duration and resource dependencies. Such representations of time are used for planning and scheduling purposes, with the aim of optimising the productivity and efficiency of the factory under consideration. Some examples of temporal representations are PERT, CPM, etc. In the case of globally distributed manufacturing systems, temporal representation alone fails to capture the whole network as location information is omitted. To capture the complexities of a globally distributed manufacturing network, a novel way of representing both space and time in the graphical space is required. This paper discusses a new representation mapping space and time, which captures location, time and duration information of a globally distributed manufacturing network. This representation aims to improve the understanding of process and resource dependencies across geographies, and has the potential for capturing global manufacturing network in varying levels of granularity.