Machinery Retrofiting for Industry 4.0

The paper presents an approach for the retrofitting of industrial looms on the shop floor of a textile industry. This is a real case study, where there was a need to update the equipment, providing the machines with communication features aligned with the concept of Industry 4.0. The work was developed within the scope of the research project PRODUTECH-SIF: Solutions for the Industry of the Future. Temperature, Inductive, Acoustic and 3-axis Accelerometers sensors were installed in different parts of the machines for monitorization. Data acquisition and processing is done by a SmarBox developed on a cRIO 9040 from National Instruments. A SmartBox processes data from one to four looms, allowing these old machines to have communication capacity and to be monitored remotely through the factory plant's MES/ERP. Communication can be done through the OPC UA or MQTT architecture, both protocols aligned with the new trends for industrial communications. The sensor data will be used to feed production and manufacturing KPIs and for predictive maintenance. The approach presented in this paper allows industries with legacy equipment to renew and adapt to new market trends, improving productivity rates and reduced maintenance costs.