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The idea of non-hierarchical production networks consisting of autonomous enterprises has been present in scientific community for more than 20 years. Although some global corporations are using their own production networks across continents, they are not similar to the original idea of non-hierarchical production networks in many aspects. It seems that this idea waited for production systems to acquire proper information and communications technology (ICT) or new industrial platforms, like Industry 4.0. The result is a new type of production network called Cyber-Physical Production Network (CPPN). The CPPN is, from ICT point of view, ready to act as non-hierarchical production networks consisting of autonomous production systems with many automated processes. One of the most important processes of the CPPN is a selection of optimal partners (enterprises) to be part of a new virtual enterprise, created inside production network. An optimisation problem emerges in this process, and it is called Partner Selection Problem (PSP). It is non-polynomial-hard combinatorial problem. Since metaheuristic algorithms are well-proven in solving that kind of problem, a specially designed metaheuristic algorithm derived from ant colony optimisation and named the HUMANT (HUManoid ANT) algorithm is used in this paper. It is multi-objective optimisation algorithm that successfully solves different instances of PSP with two, three, four or more objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cylindrical wire electrical discharge turning (CWEDT) is a special form of wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) process, which uses submerged rotation spindle as a clamping device for workpiece rotation in order to produce cylindrical parts. This study aims at determining influence on material removal rate (MRR) of CWEDT as an objective function. In the preliminary experiments, the widely used X5CrNi18–10 (DIN) and hard machinable S390PM (DIN) were used. The results of preliminary experiments showed that the type of steel is not the factor that has a significant influence onMRR. Pulse maximum current, pulse pause time, rotation speed, length of discharge area and cutting radius were used inMRRmathematical modelling by neural network programming. The results of the study exhibit that among the machining parameters, the pulse maximum current has the strongest influence onMRR. When the pulse maximum current increases,MRRincreases as well. The discharge area length has an influence onMRRonly on higher pulse maximum current values, and by the increase of the discharge area length, theMRRalso increases. The derived mathematical model forMRR, which was finally validated and tested, enables calculation of complex cylindrical part production machining time for the given experimental set-up condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's process manufacturing environment, innovation is viewed as critical to sustainable growth and business profitability. While open innovation is regarded as the answer, the companies can effectively measure the return on R&D investment, have acceptable product success rates, achieve acceptable promotional effectiveness, or have visibility into their compliance risks or operational readiness for new product launches. While open innovation is an actual topic, capitalizing on the opportunity requires holistic strategy, not just increased collaboration. Companies must have repeatable, compliant and responsive business processes, global information infrastructure that provides a single source of the truth, alignment across departments and solutions that evolve without coding. With holistic strategy and supporting infrastructure, companies can consistently minimize the time to scale, improve product success rates and promotional effectiveness, and enjoy sustainable and profitable growth. With open innovation providing unlimited opportunities, the company should start to identify the best open innovation opportunity and deliver top and bottom line of the company's benefits. The companies must first focus on the needs of their customer, continually minimize time to scale, eliminate waste, drive out costs and improve. These are core concepts of a Lean strategy. This paper will describe how Lean concept with PLM business strategy can leverage Lean with integrated compliance, continual improvement and other PLM best practices to increase the return on R&D investments and provide sustainable and profitable growth for business processes mainly manufacturing processes. The purpose of this paper is to review PLM approach linked to Lean concepts in order to achieve sustainable and innovative business processes with sustainable and profitable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]