Smart Production Systems LLC is a startup founded by Dr. Semyon M. Meerkov (Professor, University of Michigan) and his former graduate students: Dr. Liang Zhang (Associate Professor, University of Connecticut), and Dr. Pooya Alavian. In addition, the company includes a Board of Advisors consisting of Lawrence Achram (Vice President, Fiat Chrysler, retired), Gary L. Cowger (former GM Group Vice President of Global Manufacturing and President of GM North America, retired), and Dr. David Cole (Chairman, Center for Automotive Research, retired). 

The goal of the startup is to commercialize the technology of Production Systems Engineering (PSE) developed at the University of Michigan during the last 30 years and supported by six NSF grants (1991-2015) and three NIST grants (2016 – present). More specifically, the goal is to complete the development and to market a device referred to as Programmable Manufacturing Advisor (PMA). This device is the main part of Smart Production Systems (SPS), which we define as systems capable of diagnosing their “health” and providing the Operation Manager (OM) with an analytically calculated advice for achieving the desired productivity improvement. PMA is somewhat similar to PLC (Programmable Logic Controller); the difference is that while PLC is intended for equipment automation, PMA is intended for automation of decision-making in manufacturing environment.