Transforming Manufacturing Quality Management with Cognitive Twins: A Data-Driven, Predictive Approach to Real-Time Optimization of Quality

In the ever-changing world of modern manufacturing, maintaining product quality is of great importance, yet extremely difficult due to complexities and the dynamic production paradigm. Currently, quality is rather reactively measured through periodic inspections and manual assessments. Traditional quality management systems (QMS), through these reactive measures, are often inefficient because of their higher operational cost and delayed defect detection and mitigation. The paper introduces a novel cognitive twin (CT) framework, which is the next evolved version of digital twin (DT). It is designed to advance the current quality management in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) through real-time, data-driven, and predictive optimization. This proposed framework uses four data types, namely feedstock quality (Qf), machine degradation (Qm), product processing quality (Qp), and quality inspection (Qi). By utilizing the power of machine learning algorithms, the cognitive twin constantly monitors and then analyzes real-time data. The cognitive twin optimizes the above quality components. This enables a very proactive decision making through an augmented reality (AR) interface by providing real-time visual insights and alerts to the operators. Thorough experimentation was conducted on the aforementioned FMS. Through the experiments, it was revealed that the proposed cognitive twin outperforms conventional QMSs by a great margin. The cognitive twin achieved a 2% improvement in the total quality scores. A 60% decrease in defects per unit (DPU) is observed as well as a sharp 40% decrease in scrap rate. Furthermore, the overall equipment efficiency (OEE) increased to 93–96%. The overall equipment efficiency increased by 11.8%, on average, from 82% to 93%, and the scrap rate decreased by 33.3% from 60% to 40%. The excellent results showcase the effectiveness of cognitive twin quality management via minimum wastage, continuous quality improvement, and enhancement in operational efficiency in the paradigm of smart manufacturing. This research study contributes to the field of industry 4.0 by providing a comprehensive, scalable, and adaptive quality management solution, thus leading the way for further advancements in intelligent manufacturing systems.