Factory 4.0 Open Initiative, LLC.

Information is data with some structure, context, usefulness. For example, a steel gear inside a box have all sorts of properties (data), but without something utilizing those properties (such as a Preventive Maintenance Schedule, or PMS) they are meaningless. The gearbox has hundreds if not thousand of properties, and the “tribal knowledge” is the filter which validates the useful set. The “corporate culture” is the mechanism which controls access to that knowledge, assures its survival, transitions it in a disciplined and predictable manner (business logic, resource planning, supply chain of spare parts).

FourOh-LLC builds a Manufacturing Dictionary, with a vocabulary structured in a key-value pairs. For example, inside the gearbox, one of the gears requires a “set screw”. The Dictionary around this set screw is constructed from Tribal Knowledge, as the set screw is “serviced”, “bought”, inspected“. For servicing: “set-screw = torgue”, and for buying: “sets-screw=supplier”, “set-screw=price”. If it does not “happen” it does not become part of YOUR dictionary. So “gearbox=sell-price” might not be in your dictionary, instead you have “gearbox=recycle”.

Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_knowledge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture

The simplistic “key=value” approach is not ideal by any measure, but its more-less compatible with SQL, No-SQL, XML and of course with CSV. FourOh-LLC is a development and evaluation platform, and the data does not need to be “normalized” - but it must conform to Industry Standards such as ASTM, IPC, and others. Furthermore, the “corporate culture” is going to be rooted in the product of these standards, such as the Generic Requirements for Surface Mount Design and Land Pattern Standard document. This scope is set globally and permanently, and building on top of it provides undisputed credibility to FourOh-LLC. It also shows that the global scope is too large and too complex for small manufacturers to tackle on their own - so the scope should be narrowed.

To limit the scope each participants going to follow a → FourOh-LLC Suggested Migration Path ← or in short form FourOh-SMP. We coined these and we are going to be using them repeatedly, as there is not yet an equivalent for it in Wikipedia. In bits and pieces Wikipedia discusses this on the pages below, listed in no particular order.

Schema_migration, Data Migration, System_migration, Content_migration, Data_mapping, Data_transformation

Each of the standards documents listed in the IPC example above cost money. We cannot just buy it and share it with you - that would violate all sorts of laws and business ethics. This is very important to understand and underline. IPC, ASTM and other entities are investing an enormous amount of resources (time, money, expertise) into their Intellectual Property and they are going to protect it vigorously.

Therefore one of our key objectives is to ensure that whatever you draw from our project, and contribute back to the project, is compatible with laws, regulations and business ethics. This is the foundation of our strategy.

Our next objective is the implementation of the standard tools, which are currently Joomla 3.x and Fabrik. As of right now its uncertain if Fabrik continues to be available on Joomla 4.x, so the planned end of life for this FourOh-LUG component is the same as for Joomla 3.x.

Our third objective is to identify candidates for deployment. This could be any one “workstation” or one “operator” on your factory floor. Maybe a tour of the manufacturing or warehousing process. Whatever you chose should be complete with a start and end definition, sufficiently self-contained so you may somehow connect it to other self-contained units (such as “kits” to “workstation” to “operator” to “process”).

Our fourth, and currently final objective is to build the FourOh-SMP into a web-form driven, SQL-stored, functional implementation. For this, the current login is at the Data Warehouse.

FourOh-SMP¹⁾: Legal → FourOh-LUG → Candidate → Deployment

The primary result of the deployment should be creating your first, your “initial” dictionary.

By default this is going to be in a MySQL database, in data tables. The FourOh-SMP is going to decide what happens when you need to access it (read and write access rights), transform it (into spreadsheets or into XML) and so forth.

In the database you are going to have a mix of tribal knowledge and corporate culture entities. To reduce interruption on the production floor you are not going to get everything right for the first time. For example, you are not going to know the name of the supplier who stocks the air-filters for the PMS - so you are going to write “PMS Supply” or “UNK”. Later, when you connect the dots you change that to a drop-down showing “Achme Industrial, Co. (web)”.

The first time around everything is a learning experience, and your secondary results are going to be insight about the scale of your future projects. You are going to become familiar with the capacity of the FourOh-LUG software and service stack, so by the second project you know what to expect.

To keep the cost of the FourOh-LLC and FourOh-LUG participation low - we do not maintain a “staff”. We simply talk to someone from your business or organization, and help them get started. We would like to grow, and the best way grow is to train the trainers. A few, maybe more than a few participants are going to convert from “consumer” FourOh-LLC to “provider” FourOh-LUG, as there is real potential to take what FourOh-LLC created and grow it into a profitable business.