A MODEL FOR THE APPLICATION OF INDUSTRY 4.0 TECHNIQUES WITHIN THE CONCRETE INDUSTRY

The concrete product industry in general is a low-tech environment with low levels of digitisation, however the industry does not escape the same pressures forcing other industries to adopt Industry 4.0 technologies. An Industry 4.0 orientated enterprise relies on the collection and distribution of data, from the shop floor to the highest levels of the enterprise. Simulation of production environments is a subset of the cyber-physical tools used to emulate real life situations and environments, enhancing the ability to analyse plant data in a structured and configurable environment. This research adopts a unique approach in order to increase the effectiveness of a simulation on the overall working of an enterprise i.e. Business Processes (BP) are simulated within the same models as the production environment. An off-the-shelf simulation tool is used to build a simulated production environment and the BPM are adapted and included into this platform to virtually interact with the process. The results provide insights into the outputs of BPs and its successful link to plant events as triggers.