Assembly Line Event Synchronization via Two-Level Timestamp Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing manufacturing systems struggle to efficiently trace components in assembly lines due to asynchronous clocks among devices, leading to difficulties in recalling components for repair or replacement, especially when faults are detected, as they lack a mechanism for synchronizing clock times across devices.
Innovation Solution
A synchronization system that performs two-level timestamp synchronization to align events across devices in a manufacturing assembly line, using a common reference timestamp to convert local timestamps to global timestamps, ensuring accurate tracing of entities by correlating and mapping events based on predefined parameters and weights.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If each device in the manufacturing line operates with its own individual clock, then each device can independently record timestamps for events, but the timestamps from different devices are not synchronized, making it difficult to accurately trace components across the assembly line
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a central server as an intermediary that collects timestamps from multiple devices and computes synchronized timestamps using NTP protocol. This mediator reconciles the individual clocks of different devices, enabling accurate cross-device traceability without requiring each device to maintain perfect clock synchronization independently.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where devices send their local timestamps to a central server, which then computes synchronized timestamps and sends them back to the devices. This closed-loop feedback ensures that all devices operate with synchronized time references, resolving the timestamp inconsistency problem.
2Productivity
If data is transmitted from various devices to a central entity for processing, then centralized analysis can be performed, but data transmission may experience congestions, delays, re-ordering, and loss during transmission
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by computing synchronized timestamps at the source devices before data transmission to the central server. This ensures that temporal relationships between events are preserved in the data itself, allowing accurate traceability even if data packets experience delays or re-ordering during transmission.
3Ease of manufacture
If manufacturing companies assign quality indices to components based on process flow normalcy and stoppage levels, then targeted recalls can be performed, but efficient tracing of components becomes difficult when faults are detected due to lack of synchronized event tracking
Solution Approach 1:
The central server acts as a mediator that collects synchronized timestamps and event data from all devices in the manufacturing line. This enables efficient component tracing by correlating events across different devices using the synchronized time references, making it easy to identify the origin and path of faulty components for targeted recalls.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback by enabling quality indices to be assigned based on synchronized event data. The centralized collection of timestamped events allows the system to trace component history accurately, feeding back this information to improve quality index assignment and enable precise recalls.
Data Source
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AI summary
Present disclosure relates to method and synchronization system for synchronizing plurality of events associated with one or more processes in assembly line for tracing entity. Initially, information related to plurality of events associated with one or more processes from one or more devices is received, where each of the plurality of events comprises respective first timestamp. Upon receiving, the first timestamp between each of the plurality of events is synchronized by performing first level and second level synchronization. The synchronization converts first timestamp into second timestamp with respect to common reference timestamp. Further, the synchronization system may identify one or more defects based on quality value assigned to entity. Thus, the present disclosure helps the synchronization system to efficiently trace entity when a defect is identified and replaces/repairs the entity.