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A number of materials have been identified by the EU as being critical to their member's economies and manufacturing industries. A material has been defined by the EU as being critical if it is of “high economic importance combined with a high risk of supply shortage”. This criticality will become increasingly acute as the escalating use of finite resources continues, driven by growing populations and consumer demand. One group of materials that is listed top on the majority of these „critical‟ lists are rare earths, which include the elements neodymium and dysprosium. These are often used in high value, high technology products used in renewable energy, military and aerospace sectors. Whilst most manufactures would be aware of the direct use of rare earth elements in their products, many may not be aware of their indirect use such as in manufacturing equipment and bought-in components, or further down the value chain in inter-reliant products or consumables. This paper presents a framework for the resilient use of critical materials in sustainable manufacturing systems. The first phase of this three phase framework identifies where, in the value chain of this business, critical material are used. Once identified, the second phase assesses the level of risk to the business based upon the likelihood, frequency and severity of a supply disruption occurring for the critical material identified. The third phase supports the identification and development of suitable mitigation strategies to reduce this risk, including the consideration of factors specific to the business as well as more general ones associated with the type of rare earth and its application. The paper concludes with a case study, based on simulated data, that demonstrates the application of phase one of this framework in a typical manufacturing operation.

Fiber reinforced polymers (FRPs) show advantageous physical-mechanical, thermal, and dielectric characteristics, making them promising candidates for weight reduction in structural applications. However, machinability is often difficult because of the specificity of their structure. This paper highlights the latest advances in CFRP drilling. Key papers are analyzed with respect to workpiece materials, geometrical tool features, and input variables (such as variation in process parameters). The influence of tool geometry and process parameters on workpiece delamination and hole quality/integrity represents the primary focus of this review. In addition, some new data are presented and discussed.

The improvement of business processes is viewed as a key to competitive success. Since the beginning of the 1990s, many companies could increase their efficiency through initiatives improving the production process. Despite the existence of numerous different scientific approaches to improve the supporting processes of indirect business areas, comparable successes could not be achieved. In the literature for business process management, the described guidelines and methods for process prioritization are often of very high level and hence not of much assistance when attempting to use them on production-related business processes. Further approaches focus the modelling and analyzing of single processes. These are often very detailed and do not taking into account the interrelations and influences that arise between the processes. An analysis and comparative evaluation of the production-related business processes of indirect areas does not exist. This paper presents an approach to analyze the influence of supporting business processes on the goals of their core process. Therefore, a meta-model is introduced to describe different types of interrelations between processes within in a process system by specific characteristics. The considered system includes the manufacturing process and its support processes as the interrelating elements. Based on the meta-model, influencing factors of the support processes on the characteristic values of the manufacturing process are determined. The paper contributes to theories on business process architecture and the modeling of process systems as well as the basics on system theory. In the literature review of this paper, different approaches for the selection of critical processes, the modelling of process systems and the interdependencies between processes are discussed.

Organisations are exploring new sustainable business models to prepare for a fundamentally different operating environment. Eco-efficiency and eco-technology in eco-factories has been the actions taken by most firms. Beyond this the next steps appears to be the complete reconfiguration of the industrial system and business models. Organisations currently lack understanding of possible futures and where to focus efforts to inform planning. There is a need to develop the know-how to enable changes across the whole industrial system and to identify system-wide opportunities. This paper aims to rethink how manufacturing industry can perform sustainably in a changing world. The paper presents competencies needed to enable business to look beyond eco-efficiency to plan for a sustainable & resilient future. The results of exploratory case studies observed through document analysis and interviews provide insights on organisations transforming from eco-efficiency to eco-effective system.

It is said that PCB (printed circuit board) of used electronics contains considerable amount of critical metals, rare earths, and so on. However, one of the problems in utilizing such used products is that the valuable materials scatter among huge numbers of small-sized electronics. Efficient methods of collection and concentration are necessary. Although manual disassembly and separation of PCB is a good way to enhance the quality of the recycled materials, it causes a large labor cost. As a solution to this problem, this paper focuses on a new concept of recycling process which is to outsource such manual operation to unspecified workers via internet. The concept will be also helpful to reduce environmental impact caused by unnecessary transportation of the used products. This paper has proposed the concept of the outsourcing of recycling operations and discussed the advantages of the concept. And then, it tried to prototype a mechanism to enable the idea. The paper carried out a basic design of screening and sorting mechanisms and made some experiments of operation. The basic results obtained in this paper clarified that the remote recycling concept is feasible and promising.

Electrochemical Machining (ECM) is a well-established process in areas such as the aviation and automobile industries but the further commercial development and use of the μECM process has been prohibited by several issues, the main one being the lack of a suitable power supply unit (PSU) that can deliver the high-current pulses required while maintaining a minimal form factor, physical geometry, and realistic cost. The work presented in the paper is based on research that was carried out during the development of a novel switch mode power supply (SMPS) that is capable of delivering nano-second pulses at the MHz frequency range to the machine tool with minimal inductance. Preliminary experimental work was conducted to obtain initial design parameters and specifications required for the power supply. This included analysis of load characterisation followed by an investigation into the power switching using gallium nitrate based field effect transistors (FETs) as a novel switching technology and an investigation of the effects of the Inter Electrode Gap (IEG) loop. A Pulse Width Modulator (PWM) Frequency generator was constructed that was tested and shown to produce a modulated frequency of up to 45 MHz with a minimum pulse on time of 14 ns. Methods were investigated and deployed for monitoring the current and voltage sensing feedback for optimising process performance and control. Control system requirements were defined and implemented by adapting a Texas Instrument Piccolo microcontroller specifically for interfacing with the PSU that was then integrated with the higher-level Delta Tau control system deployed for the controlling the overall machining process of the μECM demonstrator machine. The PSU was tested, validated and integrated with the demonstrator machine for a number of machining trials that were conducted on copper and 18CrNi8, with material removal observed. This paper will outline the development work that was undertaken for the PSU and present findings from the PSU control tests. In addition, findings will also be discussed and presented from the analysis of a novel multi-probe IEG connection concept which was shown to be correctly transmitting pulses to the IEG with a total loop inductance of just 50 nH with pulse-on times as short as 50 ns without any issue.

To easily and smoothly construct a virtual production line for a simulation of environmental performance, productivity and manufacturability, the use of a manufacturing machine e-catalogue library is proposed in this paper. A machine vender such as a machine tool maker and equipment provider registers an e-catalogue of his product to the library using a corresponding template. The designer of a production system constructs a virtual production line by selecting an adequate manufacturing machine's e-catalogue from the library. In this paper, this e-catalogue library concept is applied to the electric-power consumption simulation of a PCA (Printed Circuit Assembly) line. A PCA line consists of a solder paste printing machine, two or three electronic part mounters, reflow furnace and testing machine. Each machine's e-catalogue consists of descriptions not only for specifications but also for computational expressions according to the behavior of the machine. Using experimentally implemented e-catalogues, virtual PCA lines are configured for simulation of electric power consumptions. These virtual lines are configured as a multi agent system of machine agents which are generated based on a selected machine's e-catalogue.

Global competition forces companies to respond to fast changing market conditions by introducing new and innovative products rapidly and more often at competitive prices. Meeting these challenges sets strict requirements in order to cope with the variety of products during both ramp-up and production. The Reconfigurable Manufacturing System meets these challenges of high variety by adapting to the capacity and functionality needed when needed. Thus, implementing reconfigurable manufacturing affects the performance during both ramp-up and production. Still, the evaluation of the reconfigurable manufacturing potential has only received limited attention even though it is highly related to justifying its investment. One practical case based example of investigating the potential in reconfigurable manufacturing has though been carried out in high volume manufacturing. However, quantifying and investigating the potential in reconfigurable manufacturing for low volume manufacturing has to our knowledge not been carried out. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to measure the potential of reconfigurable manufacturing in low volume industry, carried out by use of a case-study in Danish industry. Thus, this paper presents an approach for decision support that can be applied by low volume manufacturing companies.

When looking in rear view mirrors the Swedish as well as the international production industries can overview several years of progress covering all aspects of production. Production methodologies and machines etc. have changed and evolved, and so has the environment of the shop-floor operator. The demands on the shop-floor operators have grown from simple monotonic tasks with low complexity to pro-active team work requiring flexibility, continuous improvements and a holistic approach. With a base in a study where production and HR-managers at six Swedish manufacturing industries have been interviewed this paper identifies the role of today’s and the future Swedish shop-floor operator. The response to the described role of the future operator is compiled from the ones who will become the future Swedish shop-floor operators – today’s teenagers attending technical high-school. Their views of the environment of the future shop-floor operator are described by accuracy, development, a good working environment and team work. The paper also reveals what the offer should include to make these teenagers say: I want to be a future Swedish shop-floor operator. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Edited by Roberto TETI

The paper reports the development of a new Abrasive Electrical Discharge Grinding (AEDG) system and investigations of performance characteristic of machining difficult-to-cut materials. Developed machining system allows to perform following machining processes: conventional grinding, AEDG process and conventional grinding with in-situ EDM grinding wheel dressing. The first section of this paper describes thermal model to analyze the self-dressing phenomenon in AEDG. In the second part, the modular abrasive-electro-discharge grinding machine with adaptive control system is presented. There are also presented basic performance characteristics of the machining system achieved during machining of cutting tools made of PCD compacts sintered on WC base. Presented machining system MESO 25 CNC allows performance of all operations needed for production or regeneration of cutting tools with complex geometries. It is worth to notice that operations of rough and finishing machining can be performed with the machining system using single clamping.

The paper focuses on the interaction in human-robot collaboration. On the one hand, the robot assistance system individually aligns itself to the employee and on the other hand, the employee gets an interface which enables him to influence certain robot positions. The aim is to support the employee in assembly tasks. The employee's personal anthropometric data and age-related as well as temporary restrictions in movements are considered by being recorded individually via motion capturing before the workplace is built in a virtual and real environment. Based on the data, task specific movements of the employee are simulated using digital human models for the virtual representation of the employee, combined with an ergonomic analysis within the work environment. The impact of the employee on the assistance robot system is provided by the design of intuitive user interfaces. The positioning of the components in the assembly is done user-specifically by the robot. In addition, the employee gets a graphical user interface and can additionally adjust the position or turn the components. In this paper, preliminary results of this ongoing research project are presented as well as two reference processes from the field of assembly technologies as application examples.

Current trends in manufacturing focus on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The physical world and its virtual representation are increasingly converging, which leads to Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) in the manufacturing environment. CPPS synergize conventional production technology as well as ICT, allowing machines and products to exchange information, trigger actions and control other components autonomously. Therefore, seamless communication between physical objects of the shop floor and various computer systems is required. The Reference Architecture Model Industrie 4.0 (RAMI4.0) provided by the Plattform Industrie 4.0 specifies requirements for CPPS consisting of Industrie 4.0-components. In such systems, a major goal is to enable communication of I4.0 components among each other via industrial networks. For this purpose, RAMI4.0 suggests that each component has a virtual representation and uses Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) based communication with I4.0-semantics. This paper describes a systematic approach to OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) information model for representing the static and dynamic behavior of manufacturing systems. Moreover, the approach is generic in the sense that it can be used to define information models for multiple target technologies, such as OPC UA, MTConnect and others. It even allows to reuse large parts of the generated models for similar manufacturing utilities and various target technologies. Therefore, we first present a concept for system analysis and design by using the Unified Modeling Language (UML), which is widely accepted for interdisciplinary work. The information gathered is then transformed to OPC UA information models which serves as target technology in this paper. The purpose of this approach is to simplify the process of defining virtual representations of manufacturing systems. Applying the presented concept allows transformation of classic manufacturing systems into CPPS with SOA-based communication and semantically rich virtual representations of individual components. It is therefore well suited to meet the requirements specified by RAMI4.0.

Due to customer specific products, the number of product variants and the complexity of assembly processes increase. To meet these challenges, worker information systems are used to manage information diversity in manual assembly and to provide the right information at the right time in a lean way. Such systems are available in various types and their classification depends on a particular point of view. In order to enable a holistic overview of the existing diversity, this paper summarizes such systems and their benefits. For this purpose, available categories are shown. Accordingly, this paper serves as a summarizing report for the state of the art. Furthermore, the implementation and configuration of worker information systems depend on company specific boundary conditions. Considering them, a guideline is presented for the selection of worker information systems.

AD helps to conceive controllable and manageable designs, beyond fulfilling initially posed requirements. According to authors’ experience and understanding, this eases the evolution of designs towards their future versions. Thus, ideal solutions according to Suh's theory are characterized by a considerable capability of evolving and accelerating technological progress. Conversely, such an aspect is seldom considered in the most diffused definitions of ideality, although it can be easily regarded as a fundamental feature of good designs. In this context, the paper reviews the definitions of ideality dispersed in the literature. A particular attention is dedicated to TRIZ, since ideality represents a pillar of the former USSR-originating theory and many attempts have been performed to combine it with AD. The paper explores the compatibility of the surveyed definitions with AD objectives, revealing theoretical pitfalls, but also pointing out opportunities for increasing ideality in the design practice.

This paper discusses improvements of an existing manual assembly line for roller skis when it was used as a template for a learning factory in the university. These improvements were in terms of lean philosophy and operations management, angled towards the application of "flexibility" and "learning factories" concepts. The article introduces list of suggestions that were built up with the help of several techniques presented in the paper. These techniques can bring significant improvements if wisely applied. A novel contribution of this article is combination of theoretical knowledge with application of it to the real life case used to make necessary enhancements to increase production capacity of the assembly line and involve it into the learning factory. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). This is the authors' accepted and refereed manuscript to the article.

Fast changing markets and the trend towards increasing individualization of products make the ability to adapt the production program a key competitive factor of industrial enterprises. Rigidly coupled production lines, as often found in mass production, reach the limits of their flexibility when facing these challenges. To ensure the adaptability of the production system, a systematic method to support the planning of the system's structure is needed. This paper presents the general approach of an innovative structure planning method for complex assembly systems based on Axiomatic Design. Flexibly linked process modules are used, resulting in a changeable connectivity of the assembly system. The focus of the paper is put on the approach to define abilities of process modules as the system's elements in a way that a high universality towards the assembly of different variants is achieved. The integration of this planning step into the overall methodology is briefly outlined. After motivating the research, an overview into the Axiomatic Design based assembly system structure design is given. A detailed description of designing the system elements follows. This paper concludes with a short presentation of application in an automotive industry use case.

This paper proposes a concept to optimize tolerance synthesis process. Tolerance synthesis is getting more and more important to limit inaccuracies of the product during the manufacturing process. Today tolerance synthesis is used to assign the “right tolerance range” to the called out geometrical and dimensional tolerances. This can be achieved using tolerance analysis tools. However to reach the defined target value (e.g. maximum allowed deviation of a gap-/ flushness- measurement) there are multiple input parameters available towards the tolerance simulation model, which can be modified to a certain range. To address these issues, the approach in this paper is showing a way to couple an optimization tool to a CAT-simulation. This approach shall consider all the input parameters in a tolerance simulation model to stand out from existing tolerance optimization approaches. Also a unique feature of the approach is using a non-static simulation deck for the coupled tolerance analysis. This means all the tolerance simulation models are generated subjected to the deviating input parameters defined by the optimization tool. The optimization tool then uses the results of the CAT-simulations to calculate the response surface model. Using an optimization algorithm on this response surface model (RSM) helps to find an optimal set of parameters to reach the required quality features. Thus the tolerance planning engineer can give a well-founded feedback to the departments involved.

The high variability of customer expectations results in the complexity of product development and manufacturing processes, which exists obviously in all types of production systems. One of these production systems with a high level of complexity, is single-item production, which is addressed in this paper. The preparation process in single-item production is usually wasteful and complicated. The question is: how can a product be produced most efficiently in the single-item production process. Recently, due to the increasing application of variant-oriented product modelling, the efficiency of preparation processes has been increased. But deficiency of harmonisation between design and production structures limits the automation of the preparation and planning process after the design process. In this paper, we introduce an approach to restructure the production processes and also harmonise the design and production structures in single-item production system. Due to this structure, a parts list has been adapted. This adaptation promotes the automation of the preparation and planning process. To achieve this goal, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and PDM (Product Data Management) systems should not only be configured but also interconnected on the base of this introduced method. As a result, we put forward an integrated model to minimize circle times in single-item production.

The development of Cyber Physical Production Systems (CPPS) is currently the dominant research topic in production and automation engineering. Therefore the underlying objective of this paper is to upgrade an existing centralized production laboratory to a CPPS learning factory. Key aspects of CPPS are interconnection on system level and with superordinate structures. This implementation, the comparison with state of the art production control systems and the utilization in university seminars are subjects of the paper. For example the enhancement enables the realization of manufacturing various products at the same time, mass customization aspects and automatic production of new products.

In order to standardize the design process of complex products and improve customer satisfaction and intelligence of specific design scheme, a design case of Lower Limb Exoskeleton Rehabilitation Robot (LLERR) is presented in this paper. Under the precondition that walk assistance and rehabilitation training functions are achieved, higher demands for LLERR from psychological and physiological needs of users are proposed. Based on the research status and market demands of rehabilitation robots, a conceptual design of LLERR with the character of customized gait and customized exoskeleton is presented. The mapping process from functional requirement (FR) domain to design parameter (DP) domain of customized design scheme is analyzed according to Axiomatic Design (AD) theory. Then, an overall design matrix of 11×11, a triangular matrix, is obtained, revealing that the customized design scheme of LLERR is a decoupled design with great reliability. Lastly, the design scheme is optimized through constrains analysis. The correctness and practicality of this design scheme are verified. The paper's work can provide guidance for the design of the same type products.

Semiconductor manufacturing processes are reliant on physical measurements of metrology equipment to enable decision making related to, and control of, the process. These metrology tools are expensive and the measurement process is time consuming, motivating the need for alternative methods to acquire the same information. Virtual Metrology (VM) methods attempt to provide such alternatives by predicting the required characteristics based on data collected from the tool and work piece, prior to and during the manufacturing process. VM applications have been enabled by advancements in the sensing technology employed in this industry. In this paper, the high sampling rates that have recently become available are exploited to extract a set of features that capture dynamic effects in the tool behavior. The task of predicting defect levels, and hence product quality, is considered in this work by framing it as a classification problem. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) informed by the aforementioned features, in combination with traditional statistical features, is exploited, in this paper, to predict whether or not the defect levels will exceed a heuristically defined threshold. The proposed methodology is also evaluated using data obtained from a major 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing fab, yielding prediction accuracy of over 90%.

Manufacturers of capital goods are subject to high requirements regarding availability and productivity. Services give manufacturers the opportunity to expand technical products and to fulfill all customer requirements. Solution concepts that consist of a union of technical products and services are called Product-Service Systems (PSS). For the realization of PSS, the capital goods manufacturer (PSS-provider) must collaborate with each participant of his extended value-added network. The extended value-added network consists of members of the development, production and service. This cooperation and complete interconnection with each participant provides the foundation of the development and offer of availability-oriented business models. This paper presents an approach for PSS which enables innovative services for the extended value-added network and for the customers in order to realize customized, availability-oriented business models. The approach is based on three sub-goals. First, development of PSS and customized, availability-oriented business models. This goal is presented in the paper. Second, development of smart components for collecting and processing of service relevant data. Third, design and configuration of an information management platform to provide and exchange service relevant data.

In complex machining processes which require long processing times, e.g. incorporating hardened or difficult to cut materials, free form surface shapes of the workpieces, such as milling of dies and molds, the avoidance of critical tool and process conditions is essential with respect to the quality of the final part and the efficiency of manufacturing. The progress of tool wear leads to changing cutting conditions, process forces and vibrations which affect the workpiece surface quality. On the other hand, tool vibrations due to varying engagement scenarios and process parameters close to the stability limits provoke an accelerated tool wear behavior. This paper first introduces comprehensive experimental studies regarding the relationship between tool wear progress and tool vibrations during milling. The investigations focus on long and slender ball nose milling cutters which are usually applied in die and mold manufacturing within semi-finishing and finishing process steps. An automated analysis setup was developed which allows recording the tool wear progress and milling behavior with a very high resolution. With respect to process simulations involving the tool wear state, a detailed database is provided by these experiments. Secondly, the paper presents a new approach for a sensor integrated long and slender ball nose milling tool which detects the process vibrations close to the cutting zone. By combination of the experimental data and the sensory tool, predictive process control strategies can be implemented in order to avoid critical wear and vibrations situations.

Configure-to-Order (CTO) is one of the common market interaction strategies for suppliers. In CTO, the customer configures the product where bill of materials, drawings and working plans are elaborated automatically. Traditionally, the Order Penetration Point (OPP) is set too early which induces high costs of stock and long delivery times. For assuring short delivery times and low levels of stock, the supply chain should be triggered according to the customer demand. The paper presents an applied research project performed by a German medium-sized windows and doors production company, where a new customer oriented production system was developed and implemented. The main objective of the holistic production system is to allow a Just-in-Time (JIT) production of windows and doors with short operating costs. It is based on the CONstant Work In Progress (CONWIP) approach needed for assuring short delivery times. More in detail, it presents an approach for medium and short-term production planning needed for triggering JIT the first and second-tier supply chain. As a result, the paper presents design guidelines for production systems with short delivery times in the CTO-market interaction strategy.

This paper deals with the production of a geometrically specified borehole diameter using EDM drilling. To produce a specified borehole different electrode diameters can be used. For each electrode diameter the discharge energy has to be adjusted. This influences the amount of removed material of a single discharge and therefore the productivity of the EDM drilling process and the geometrical accuracy of the borehole are affected. For the industrial use of EDM drilling there are no recommendations concerning the electrode diameter and machining settings for the discharge energy to be used to achieve a specific diameter. To study the influence of the electrode diameter and discharge energy on the productivity and geometrical accuracy a specified borehole diameter of 2.0 mm was produced using four different electrode diameters. The electrode diameter ranged from 1.6 mm to 1.9 mm. By varying the discharge current and discharge time different machining settings were developed to achieve the desired borehole diameter. The influence of the parameter settings on the feed rate, the electrode wear ratio and the geometrical accuracy of the borehole were studied. Furthermore, the influence of the servo of the feed axis on the formation of a bulging at the borehole entry was investigated. The experiments show an opposing trend in maximizing the productivity and the accuracy of the produced borehole respectively. The results presented in this paper help to access the potential of EDM drilling to produce a specified borehole diameter and to provide basic technological information for industrial users.

In this paper, the Gait recognition includes the following stages: In stage of moving target detection, this paper uses the background subtraction to extract gait silhouette. In stage of feature extraction, using Key frame technology and Zernike Moments to extract silhouette feature. According to obtain feature data, we can use Earth Movers Distance (EMD) to recognize gait sequence.

Lean manufacturing has evolved from a set of tools and techniques to become a management philosophy. It can be used to reduce waste and improve the efficiency of companies. Many companies worldwide have implemented lean management and achieved great improvements. The present paper focuses on the lean manufacturing implementation within the Greek manufacturing sector. The purpose is to determine the extent to which the main principles of lean manufacturing are understood and adopted in Greek manufacturing sector companies. Also this paper aims to assess the importance of the driving factors and barriers towards implementing lean manufacturing in the Greek environment. A structured questionnaire was developed and circulated to a large number of Greek manufacturing companies. Based on the literature review and questionnaire findings, the degree of implementing lean manufacturing in Greece is assessed and discussed against literature review findings.

Over the last decades, one of the steadiest challenges for manufacturing companies is the need for reduction of time-to-market and for enhancement of the efficiency of their product engineering process (PEP). Triggering factors are changing customer demands, shorter technology cycles that enforce product changes and a noticeable market saturation. Hence, companies need to increase the efficiency of the PEP despite considerable improvements in this field such as concepts of simultaneous engineering and digital factory. Today, the three main phases of the PEP (product development (PD), manufacturing system planning (MSP) and manufacturing) are still performed sequentially. Due to already existing improvements in parallelizing steps of the PEP, efforts for further improvements should concentrate on the interface between MSP and PD. Traditionally, MSP starts after PD is completed. Thus, on one side, information regarding the product's manufacturing is withheld from product developers. As a result, decision making assistance for selection between design alternatives is not available. On the other side, MSP is not able to influence the product design. This leads to more expensive or not manufacturable products. This paper presents an innovative approach for an integrated MSP based on fuzzy information from early phases of PD. It solely uses information from specification phase and conceptual design phase of PD within the first steps of MSP. The approach aims at noticeable improvements e. g. more frequent feedback loops, reduction of expensive correction loops after product development, and a smooth manufacturing ramp-up. The paper summarizes the theoretical foundations for PD and MSP, highlights the need for research, and outlines further steps for the concept development. Additionally, early phases of PD and MSP are described and investigated in more detail with regard to links between the two domains. The basis for the development of a concept is given which aims at an early start of MSP and more efficiency within the PEP.

“Additive Manufacturing” (AM) is an emerging, highly promising and disruptive technology which is catching the attention of the Defence sector due to the versatility it is offering. Through the combination of design freedom, technology compactness and high deposition rates, technology stakeholders can potentially exploit rapid, delocalized and flexible production. Having the capability to produce highly tailored, fully dense, potentially optimized products, on demand and next to the point of use makes this emerging and immature technology a game changer in the “Defence Support Service” (DS2) sector. Furthermore, if the technology is exploited for the Royal Navy, featured with extended and disrupted supply chains, the benefits are very promising. While most of the AM research and efforts are focusing on the manufacturing/process and design opportunities/topology optimization, this paper aims to provide a creative but educated and validated forecast on what AM can do for the Royal Navy in the future. This paper aims to define the most promising next generation Additive Manufacturing applications for the Royal Navy in the 2025 – 2035 decade. A multidisciplinary methodology has been developed to structure this exploratory applied research study. Moreover, different experts of the UK Defence Value Chain have been involved for primary research and for verification/validation purposes. While major concerns have been raised on process/product qualification and current AM capabilities, the results show that there is a strong confidence on the disruptive potential of AM to be applied in front-end of DS2 systems to support “Complex Engineering Systems” in the future. While this paper provides only next-generation AM applications for RN, substantial conceptual development work has to be carried out to define an AM based system which is able to, firstly satisfy the “spares demands” of a platform and secondly is able to perform in critical environments such as at sea.

The industrial production of personalized goods is a great opportunity for manufacturing companies to strengthen their competitive position. This requires a very high degree of flexibility in the whole value-adding system. The massive digitization of production enables this flexibility in an economic way. There are manifold new solutions arising from the fields of the Internet of Things and Industrie 4.0. The strong connection of the physical, the service and the digital world can improve the quality of information required for planning, optimization and operation of manufacturing systems. Therefore, cyber-physical systems can be used in manufacturing to follow the vision of producing personalized goods on a large scale. The contribution at hand introduces the Application Center Industrie 4.0. This environment is a highly advanced platform for the cooperative research and development of innovative cyber-physical production systems between the IFF at the University of Stuttgart, the Fraunhofer IPA and cutting-edge manufacturing companies. The paper provides a detailed overview over the concept of the Application Center Industrie 4.0. The IT platform Virtual Fort Knox is concisely described as it serves as a backbone to realize a safe, secure and flexible way to integrate all relevant data and information sources and sinks. This includes humans, IT-Systems and technical components. This concept is then substantiated by the introduction of selected, prototypically implemented demonstrators that offer new ways of understanding and operating manufacturing systems. Afterwards the first example of a strategic cooperation between the Fraunhofer IPA and TRUMPF will be introduced. The paper closes with a summary and an outlook of future activities in the area of the Application Center Industrie 4.0.

In the flank milling process, processed metal surface is formed by the edge of the cutting tool and affected by errors of it in the manufacturing process. Among those errors, the error of tool rotation movement has the most significant effect on machined surface. This article focuses on the machining process influenced by cutting tool rotation errors in the NC machining process. In this paper, a mathematical model of machining process is built. The effect of tool offset error and tool tilt error on tool deflection error is studied. A method of detecting tool rotation errors through machined surface topography is presented in the paper.

Based on inverse piezoelectric effect, a new micro-EDM method called piezoelectric self-adaptive micro-EDM was proposed in this paper. The tool structure and working principle of this new method is simple and it is different from the conventional micro-EDM system. A piezoelectric actuator with high resolution and high response frequency was employed as the micro driven mechanism in this system. Because of the special structure, this new technology could regulate the discharge gap depending on discharge condition and even could realize self-elimination of short circuits during machining process. Working principle and processing of the new method was introduced, and the distinct machining characteristics were analyzed in this paper. Based on orthogonal experimental design and S/N analysis method, the effects of machining parameters such as open voltage, capacitance, current-limiting resistance, spindle rotational speed and initial feed speed on surface roughness (SR) were researched. The experimental results show that the open voltage and capacitance were the main influence factors. With the increase of open voltage and capacitance, the SR rapidly increased.

This paper focuses on design of disturbance force observer for sustainable machining process in milling application. In milling process, cutting force acts directly on work surfaces thus producing external impact on the drives system of the positioning table. This effect must be compensated in order to preserve accuracy and quality of the final product, thus creating a sustainable machining process. Disturbance force observer (DFO) is a type of estimator that estimates precisely the disturbance force with prior knowledge of the cutting force harmonics frequencies. This paper presents both numerical and experimental results of DFO performed on an XYZ positioning milling table using measured cutting force. Four control configurations were considered; PID, cascade P/PI, PID with inverse model based disturbance observer, and PID with DFO. The FFT tracking error analysis showed that a near complete compensation of the disturbance force at identified harmonics frequencies was achieved.

Metrology is the science of measurements; production engineering metrology is the science of applied metrology in production and in product realization. In this paper the automotive, construction equipment and aerospace industry are particularly addressed. One theoretical and practical approach to geometrical part quality assurance focusing on manufacturing processes and systematic work and use of objective, value adding production engineering metrology is proposed. This paper aims to describe a practical approach on how to carry out geometrical assurance of parts produced in manufacturing processes using traditional production methods. One example using machining, i.e. turning, of a part is used to explain this approach.

Manufacturing enterprises are currently facing substantial challenges with regard to disruptive concepts such as the Internet of Things, Cyber Physical Systems or Cloud-based Manufacturing - also referred to as Industry 4.0. Subsequently, increasing complexity on all firm levels creates uncertainty about respective organizational and technological capabilities and adequate strategies to develop them. In this paper we propose an empirically grounded novel model and its implementation to assess the Industry 4.0 maturity of industrial enterprises in the domain of discrete manufacturing. Our main goal was to extend the dominating technology focus of recently developed models by including organizational aspects. Overall we defined 9 dimensions and assigned 62 items to them for assessing Industry 4.0 maturity. The dimensions ""Products"", ""Customers"", ""Operations"" and ""Technology"" have been created to assess the basic enablers. Additionally, the dimensions ""Strategy"", ""Leadership"", Governance, ""Culture"" and ""People"" allow for including organizational aspects into the assessment. Afterwards, the model has been transformed into a practical tool and tested in several companies whereby one case is presented in the paper. First validations of the model's structure and content show that the model is transparent and easy to use and proved its applicability in real production environments.

We are studying “Local Oriented Manufacturing” (LOMan) as an approach for achieving social sustainability. LOMan is the concept to focus on the locality of manufacturing and use stages in design and manufacturing. For example, the usage of energy saving technology in developed countries to products for developing countries may lead to a win-win situation. The objective of this research is to propose a design methodology for LOMan. As the first step, this paper clarifies the issues of the design methodology by executing a field survey and case studies. The case studies compare refrigerators and vacuum cleaners in Malaysia and those in Japan. Then, based on these results, this paper proposes a method of knowledge representation for supporting the LOMan design. The method represents situations and circumstances of the product life cycle, a product, and influence of the situation to the product design by using value chain, product information model, and checklist, respectively. The method represents requirements for the LOMan design by the relationship among these three items.

Nowadays, manufacturing enterprises have been faced with a globalized competitive environment. In this fierce condition, Cloud Manufacturing paradigm emerged as a promising concept for competition. It provides effective solutions and tools for manufacturing enterprises to collaborate in globalized market. The revolution that Cloud Manufacturing has created is based on the redefinition of the classic methods to those which are appropriate for todays’ modern and globalized manufacturing environments. In parallel with cloud-based revolution, the expansion of internet-based technologies has been started. These technologies previously have been applied in many fields and resulted in interoperability and integration among different technological solutions. This promotes this paper to fill the gap which of technologies in Cloud Manufacturing solutions as well and enabling integrated and interoperable communication among manufacturing clouds. This paper has focused on the idea of manufacturing cloud integration and interoperability. The paper has studied the dominant Cloud Manufacturing researches to find the opportunities for proposing a novel solution. This solution is capable to resolve the integration and interoperability consideration for different manufacturing clouds. The paper has applied the EDI X12 standards for insuring an integrated and standard data format for its contribution. An example in area of Supply Chain Management will be discussed to show the capabilities of the proposed solution.

Configurable products, like vehicles, face the challenge of handling all possible variants which are needed to answer the various customer needs. For these configurable products the support of all variants need to be addressed both by the design phase and the production phase. The product design phase and the production phase are linked together via operations. These operations model how each part of the bill-of-material is assembled to the final product. Operations also have inner relations among themselves, namely the precedence constraints, stating the order in which different parts can be assembled. Considering only the precedence constraints a product can generally be assembled in various different ways. It is through line balancing that the operations are assigned to different stations and/or assembly workers. The bill-of-material for each configurable product might be different with each variant, which will result in different set of operations. However, due to the precedence rules among the operations not all sets of operations might be possible to complete. The contribution in this paper is a automated method that can determine if all possible product variants can be successfully assembled while still satisfying precedence constraints between operations. The paper also includes an industrial example which further exemplifies the needed input for the method and the possible method outputs as a result of introducing a new variant to the product platform.

An important discussion on the application of the Axiomatic Design Theory (ADT) is how to address coupled designs. Coupled designs are somewhat usual in engineering and call for solutions in the field of ADT. This paper addresses a class of designs where one or more functional requirements can be fulfilled by design parameters of the type “the higher the better”. A good example of this kind of designs is one of the most widespread types of air conditioning systems for office applications: the variable air volume (VAV) system. A VAV system controls the air temperature of multiple rooms by adjusting the flow of cooled air that is supplied by the VAV box that serves each room of the office. The essential functional requirements (FRs) of any modern air conditioning system are: “to control the air temperature”, and “to provide indoor air quality (IAQ)” to each served room. The drawback of the VAV systems is that the renewal of the stale air depends on the heat loading of all the rooms, which makes it a coupled design. This paper shows how this coupled design can be decoupled by using a design parameter (the outdoor airflow), which value may be set large enough to fulfil the related functional requirement (the IAQ). The VAV application serves as an example of the application of a new proposed theorem of the ADT that allows decoupling a matrix equation.

Manufacturing Complexity has been extensively reported in the literature in the ways it can be classified, modelled, assessed and measured. However, the use of complexity measures for shop floor decision making has not been studied exhaustively. The paper demonstrates the use of a complexity measure for shop floor decision making. Knowledge of the transition of shop floor complexity into undesirability can give a correct indicative for any decision maker to intervene and take the necessary corrective actions to bring the system back to its desirable state. The current paper presents an information-theoretic approach based model which considers production scheduling, maintenance and quality functions simultaneously to come up with a complexity quantifier for a shop floor. At any point in time, various environmental factors like machine failures, corrective maintenance time variability, due date alteration, process shifts etc. are simulated into the future and their effect on the job states both in terms of schedule and quality are observed. The probability of these state occurrences is then quantified as complexity of situation which is subsequently scaled to a penalty based “undesirability index”. The complexity is re-evaluated every time a fresh event occurs, thus enabling the decision maker to be more predictive about the future state of the system and in turn, the performance of each of the manufacturing functions. Thus, the model so developed, deploys a complexity based look-ahead mechanism for identifying undesirable state transitions. The novelty of the work lies in the way it has been developed keeping the perspective of a shop floor manager in view and also in the way it can be readily used for decision making.

Constraint stimulates creativity and is the key to understanding complexity. The benefit of the constraint-based problem is that it can spark ideas for new knowledge, new possibilities, and new opportunities. In every design, boundaries, controls and restraints exist. The constraint model in this paper shows the relationship among Form-Fit-Function (F3), Functional Analysis Model (FAM) and Su-Field. The constraint-based techniques improve problem solving in the preliminary design and satisfy ideal conceptual design. Constraints lift and improve creativity by reframing problems in a creative way. The best way to visualize constraints is by adopting design parameters and embedding them in the conceptual design stage, and continuously diagnosing them to ensure that the design does not violate the constraint requirements. This paper aims to model design constraints as a criterion for generating creative ideas and solutions, and suggest as a systematic entity in the conceptual design process. The model will be useful as a guide for developing an understanding of constraints in the conceptual design process.

This paper describes development of a novel ambulance simulator implemented at the Nursing department at NTNU Gjøvik and effects of its use for educational purposes. Cultural aspects of the simulator implementation are also discussed. The article covers peculiarities of the simulator development process and also description of relation of modern educational techniques (learning factories) to the application of similar novelties within the learning process. The construction, purpose and educational effects gained after implementation of simulator are described. The paper can serve as further research basis on topics of the simulators creation and modern educational techniques use. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPS 2 ) fulfil specific customer needs in the industrial area due to the appropriate combination of product and service shares. Through the customer individual orientation of IPS 2 the need for identification of suitable network partners for service delivery arises. In this paper a method for the automated vendor selection for industrial service shares will be developed and evaluated. To achieve this goal, an investigation of possible service shares in the field of machine tools is necessary. Subsequently the parameters of the identified service shares and their potential values will be assigned. The comparison of defined parameter values of the customer's query and all registered providers facilitates the automated mediation of appropriate providers. For IPS 2 , the presented approach holds several benefits compared to existing approaches. These include the ability of standardised comparison of the providers’ potential for service delivery and the efficient selection of appropriate providers under consideration of uncertainty. Subsequently an application example of possible service shares for a customer request in the machine tool domain will be given. An outlook on further work and future potential will complete the paper.

The German industry consumes almost 50 percent of the total electricity produced in Germany. Upon breaking down the industry in terms of electrical energy consumption, it is shown that more than 70 percent of electricity, required in the industry, is used to operate electric drives. Given the huge rise in energy prices, especially in Germany, coupled with the lack of information and data on electric motors, the need to make the power consumption of electric drives transparent became more important than ever. This paper concentrates on the investigation of the electricity consumption of electric drives in the manufacturing plants. The focus lies on the various industrial applications of electric drives along with the identification of the main electric power consumers in the German industry. In order to create transparency regarding the energy consumption, a study was carried out in the second quartile of 2014. A number of randomly selected German manufacturing companies were sent an online questionnaire. After eliminating the incomplete answers, 210 answers were used as the database. The study on the real distribution of electric power consumption in the German manufacturing industry is presented for the first time in this paper. The study shows that most of electric power consumption can be allocated to a few applications in the industry. The dominant applications are compressed air systems, pumping systems and air conditioning systems. Other significant motor applications are cooling systems and machine tool. This paper rounds off by presenting the main study results as well as future research potential examined during this investigation.

The paper presents an approach to implement a failure classification and associated analyses for production ramp-up. The structural design of the failure classification is described in terms of a faceted classification by design principles to meet the requirements for the indexing of failure cases and the evaluation of specific failure facets. The structural design of the classification is followed by the design of the content of individual failure facets. The failure facets and their contents are used in the analysis. In this paper, the similarity search and the failure priority analysis are developed as functions, as they are particularly relevant in the ramp-up situation. Conceptual model examinations and case studies are carried out for validation.

We are rapidly moving into the new era of digitisation, into an era of the Massive Internet of Things - towards the Gigabit Society and towards 5G Technology. The implications are truly far reaching. Rapid transformation through the implementation of INDUSTRY 4.0 is becoming visible in industries all over the world. Disruption to the more traditional industrial practices and processes is inevitable. High Performance Cutting is no exception. Developments in the Internet of Things (IoT) opens up new and extremely powerful capabilities to help us gain a significantly deeper understanding of the fundamentals of cutting processes and offers entirely new connectivity possibilities at all interfaces, some old and some new, “between the Chip Root and the Cloud”. This supports us in our attempts since the foundation of CIRP in 1951 to remove technological roadblocks and can lead on a new journey towards new and unprecedented scientific/technological developments as well as new business models for companies involved in the various elements of the supply chain for cutting processes (DIN 8580). “Performance” will take on a new and unanticipated meaning over what was originally meant when we established this CIRP-HPC Conference back in the early 2000's. In this paper a critical review of a previous roadmap is undertaken for cutting processes presented in a CIRP Keynote Paper in 2003 by Byrne, Dornfeld and Denkena [1] and new thoughts and ideas are presented on a vision for a 2020 skeleton Roadmap for High Performance Cutting in the new age of Digitisation.

For many years there has been considerable research from both an academic and industrial perspective into the monitoring and control of CNC machining processes, and progress has been well documented. It is widely acknowledged within the CIRP community that collection of information into the performance of material cutting processes is a worthwhile research topic, and this is mirrored in the work of the Scientific Technical Committee-Cutting (STC-C) and other Scientific Technical Committees. This work has been continued by the consortium engaged in the REALISM project, an EU-FP7 funded project which is investigating the use of sensor fusion in a real time production environment, to monitor CNC tool wear through the use of three sensor technologies- Force, Acoustic Emission and Vibration. However, the real work of the project consortium will be in the analysis and interpretation of the data from the collated fusion of the deployed sensors- and the intelligent interrogation of this sensor information. The sensor deployment strategy of this project was outlined in a presentation, poster and paper presented at the 2014 CIRP ICME conference and this current paper provides an update on the ongoing work. An overview is provided in this paper of the challenges that have been overcome as part of the REALISM project, and a brief overview of the initial verification trials that were undertaken on the deployment of the sensors. Further results will also be presented that show promising initial sensor data, which shows conditions leading to Catastrophic Tool Failure (CTF).

Micromachining, using microelectrodes, is a key technology for manufacturing three-dimensional (3D) microstructures. However, 3D microelectrodes are difficult to fabricate, 3D microstructures are fabricated mainly using simple-shaped tools microelectrode with a layer by layer scanning strategy. Based on micro double-staged laminated object manufacture (micro-DLOM), 3D microelectrodes can be obtained by combining closed loop middle-speed wire (O100∼180 μm) electrical discharge machining (WEDM) and thermal diffusion welding. But it is difficult to obtain 3D microelectrodes with an edge length of end face less than 100 μm, though by low speed wire electrical discharge machining (LS-WEDM) or femtosecond laser cutting, the dimension of 3D microelectrodes can be further miniaturized, they are both very expensive. To solve the problem above, this paper proposed a low-cost method combining wire (O8 μm) electrochemical micromachining (WECMM) and micro-electric resistance slip welding to fabricate 3D microelectrodes. Firstly, with WECMM combining low frequency micro-vibration and travelling of wire electrode, 30-μm-thick 0Cr18Ni9 stainless steel foils were cut to obtain multi-layer two-dimensional (2D) microstructures. Secondly, through micro-electric resistance slip welding, the multi-layer 2D microstructures were laminated and bonded to fit 3D microelectrodes. Moreover, this paper investigated the influences of applied voltage, feed speed, wire electrode travelling and micro-vibration on machining surface quality and dimensional accuracy. Based on the studies above, two typical 3D microelectrodes with a dimension less than 100 μm were successfully fabricated. Finally, applying the fabricated 3D microelectrodes to micro-electrochemical machining (micro-ECM), 3D micro-cavities were obtained.

The paper addresses the Functional Products business model and how its elements are mapped to Hill categories in five industrial cases. The Hill categories include: order-winners, order-losers and qualifiers. The objective for Functional Products is to provide a function to customers with an agreed-upon level of availability, productivity or efficiency, etc. The paper outlines how different cases and their offers, based upon the Functional Products business model, can be element-wise mapped to Hill categories. Insight into the importance of the different business model elements provides valuable knowledge for an appropriate planning, design, sales and provision of Functional Products, as well as for determining how much effort, resources and money to spend on keeping the status of the element sharp, up-to-date, acceptable or just present.

Engineering product/process design changes are unavoidable and necessary for improvement & innovation. To capture the maximum market shares, manufacturers have to effectively and efficiently manage engineering changes throughout the entire product life. In this paper a comprehensive literature review on engineering change management in product/process perspective is presented. Engineering design changes can be taken in both aspects, such as an opportunity or as a burden. Different methods have been proposed by the researchers for better understanding of engineering change phenomenon. The insight regarding the changes propagation during the engineering design is crucial because a large number of artifacts are results of the predecessors. This article discusses the significant aspects of engineering changes, product architecture, propagation paths and highlighted the methods and tools that are proposed by the researchers. This paper will help researchers and managerial staff to get an idea and awareness about the change propagation and its impact. The review shows the prominence of engineering change management and concluded that the interest in the research field is escalating gradually.