System monitoring through element flow reasoning

Whether a manufacturing plant is operating “healthily” or not can be identified by the characteristics of how elements (e.g., components or products, etc.) are moving in it. The technique presented in this paper can be regarded as a generic system approach as it aims at monitoring a system regardless of the nature. This concept is different from the approaches of constructing dedicated models to watch facilities; it aims at monitoring a system by employing simple counting devices to capture the element flowing characteristics. Also, a mathematical model to identify some typical problems in production such as Blocking, Slowdown, Overflow, etc. has also been provided. Simulated experimental works were conducted, which showed that the proposed technique is able to assist in the diagnostic operation in the case of a problem occurring.