Fog computing facilitated flexible factory

1. A method comprising:

establishing a physical production process as part of a first work cell;

establishing a sensing process as part of the first work cell for the physical production process;

establishing a first fog node as part of the first work cell for the physical production and sensing processes;

establishing a monitoring process for the sensing process and the physical production process;

establishing a second fog node for the monitoring process;

establishing a managing process for the monitoring process, the sensing process and the physical production process;

establishing a third fog node for the managing process;

establishing a planning process for the managing process, the monitoring process, the sensing process and the physical production process;

establishing a fourth fog node for the planning process;

establishing a first master fog node communicatively coupled to the first, second, third and fourth fog nodes and collectively forming a first computing cluster;

establishing an operating system on the first, second, third, fourth and first master fog nodes, the operating system consistent across all of the fog nodes;

enabling a federation of interoperable elements across the physical production, sensing, monitoring, planning and managing processes through integration of industry standard OPC/UA protocol providing a fog federation OPC/UA information model that models a flexible factory and provides a OPC/UA aggregation information model (AIM) for the flexible factory;

the first, second, third, fourth and first master fog nodes each sharing processing responsibilities for the physical production, sensing, monitoring, managing and planning processes;

the first master fog node communicatively coupled to a second master fog node, the second master fog node being a member of a second computing cluster;

the second master fog node as part of the second computing cluster performing processing responsibilities for the physical production process and sensing process of the first work cell and one or more of the fog nodes virtualized to support other virtual machines having one or more containers.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second computing cluster includes:

a physical production process as part of a second work cell;

a sensing process as part of the second work cell for the physical production process; and

a fog node as part of the second work cell for the physical production and sensing processes.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the physical production process being performed by any of a robotic arm, welding device, drilling device, painting device, riveting device, industrial arm, automatic guided vehicle or soldering device or combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the sensing process being performed by any of a camera, actuator, thermometer, vision sensor, probe or other sensor or combination thereof.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the first fog node communicating to the physical production process via a deterministic ethernet network or TSN wireless (WiFi+BLE) network.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the first fog node communicating secure data streams to the monitoring, planning and production process with distinct data ownership that enables secure computation of business decisions based on current sensitive business strategy.

7. A method comprising:

establishing a physical production process as part of a work cell;

establishing a sensing process as part of the work cell for the physical production process;

establishing a monitoring process for the sensing process and the physical production process;

establishing a managing process for the monitoring process, the sensing process and the physical production process;

establishing a planning process for the managing process, the monitoring process, the sensing process and the physical production process; and

establishing a fog node as part of the work cell for all of the processes.

8. A fog federation comprising:

a work cell fog node;

a plant controller fog node communicatively coupled to the work cell fog node;

a manufacturing execution fog node communicatively coupled to the plant controller fog node and the work cell fog node; and

a master fog node communicatively coupled to the manufacturing execution fog node, the plant controller fog node and the work cell fog node.

9. The fog federation of claim 8 , further comprising the plant controller fog node performing any of the operations of the work cell fog node, and the manufacturing execution fog node, and all of the fog nodes transferring or replicating software between each other.

10. The fog federation of claim 9 , further comprising the master fog node performing as the manufacturing execution fog node, the plant controller fog node and the work cell fog node.

11. The fog federation of claim 10 , further comprising the master fog node performing as the manufacturing execution fog node, the plant controller fog node and the work cell fog node for at least a plurality of other fog federations.

12. The fog federation of claim 11 , further comprising each fog node having a flexible architecture and performing functions including that of: an ERP/MRP system, a manufacturing execution system, a cell controller, a microcontroller, an industrial personal computer, a robotics controller with visualization, a PLC system and a machine vision system with a bar code reader.

13. The fog federation of claim 12 , further comprising virtualizing each of the controllers to change manufacturing process cycles in a few minutes through software upgrades.

14. The fog federation of claim 13 , further comprising centralizing managing of all of the fog nodes in a cloud or locally in a plant.

15. The fog federation of claim 14 , further comprising one or more of the fog nodes performing machine learning of information received from a work cell.