AI and OR in management of operations: history and trends

The last decade has seen a considerable growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for operations management with the aim of finding solutions to problems that are increasing in complexity and scale. This paper begins by setting the context for the survey through a historical perspective of OR and AI. An extensive survey of applications of AI techniques for operations management, covering a total of over 1200 papers published from 1995 to 2004 is then presented. The survey utilizes Elsevier's ScienceDirect database as a source. Hence, the survey may not cover all the relevant journals but includes a sufficiently wide range of publications to make it representative of the research in the field. The papers are categorized into four areas of operations management: (a) design, (b) scheduling, (c) process planning and control and (d) quality, maintenance and fault diagnosis. Each of the four areas is categorized in terms of the AI techniques used: genetic algorithms, case-based reasoning, knowledge-based systems, fuzzy logic and hybrid techniques. The trends over the last decade are identified, discussed with respect to expected trends and directions for future work suggested

Overview of Remaining Useful Life prediction techniques in Through-life Engineering Services

Through-life Engineering Services (TES) are essential in the manufacture and servicing of complex engineering products. TES improves support services by providing prognosis of run-to-failure and time-to-failure on-demand data for better decision making. The concept of Remaining Useful Life (RUL) is utilised to predict life-span of components (of a service system) with the purpose of minimising catastrophic failure events in both manufacturing and service sectors. The purpose of this paper is to identify failure mechanisms and emphasise the failure events prediction approaches that can effectively reduce uncertainties. It will demonstrate the classification of techniques used in RUL prediction for optimisation of products’ future use based on current products in-service with regards to predictability, availability and reliability. It presents a mapping of degradation mechanisms against techniques for knowledge acquisition with the objective of presenting to designers and manufacturers ways to improve the life-span of components

Advanced micro and nano fabrications for engineering applications

This document is a compilation of my selected research publications in micro and nano fabrications. The papers are largely arranged in chronological order to show the development of research interests. The research works are grouped into three sections. Section one consists of 34 research papers on micro fabrication in various materials. The research was motivated by the development of a finger nail sized micro engine as explained in Papers 1 and 2. Section two of the document includes some research activities and achievements on nanocomposite materials embedded in metallic and ceramic matrices. Section 3 includes the papers to reflect the research in developing nanostructure fabrication processes. The research contained in this DSc submission shows a continuous exploration and development of novel micro/nano fabrication processes. Although the submission covers research activities spanning 15 years, from 2000 to 2015, many of the research results represent the top technology of the time. They have contributed to the ever progressing manufacturing capability of the world. The research has encompassed both theoretical and experimental studies, contributing to the understanding of the processes and materials involved

Engineering handbook

2003 handbook for the faculty of Engineerin

A comparison of processing techniques for producing prototype injection moulding inserts.

This project involves the investigation of processing techniques for producing low-cost moulding inserts used in the particulate injection moulding (PIM) process. Prototype moulds were made from both additive and subtractive processes as well as a combination of the two. The general motivation for this was to reduce the entry cost of users when considering PIM. PIM cavity inserts were first made by conventional machining from a polymer block using the pocket NC desktop mill. PIM cavity inserts were also made by fused filament deposition modelling using the Tiertime UP plus 3D printer. The injection moulding trials manifested in surface finish and part removal defects. The feedstock was a titanium metal blend which is brittle in comparison to commodity polymers. That in combination with the mesoscale features, small cross-sections and complex geometries were considered the main problems. For both processing methods, fixes were identified and made to test the theory. These consisted of a blended approach that saw a combination of both the additive and subtractive processes being used. The parts produced from the three processing methods are investigated and their respective merits and issues are discussed

Reducing risk in pre-production investigations through undergraduate engineering projects.

This poster is the culmination of final year Bachelor of Engineering Technology (B.Eng.Tech) student projects in 2017 and 2018. The B.Eng.Tech is a level seven qualification that aligns with the Sydney accord for a three-year engineering degree and hence is internationally benchmarked. The enabling mechanism of these projects is the industry connectivity that creates real-world projects and highlights the benefits of the investigation of process at the technologist level. The methodologies we use are basic and transparent, with enough depth of technical knowledge to ensure the industry partners gain from the collaboration process. The process we use minimizes the disconnect between the student and the industry supervisor while maintaining the academic freedom of the student and the commercial sensitivities of the supervisor. The general motivation for this approach is the reduction of the entry cost of the industry to enable consideration of new technologies and thereby reducing risk to core business and shareholder profits. The poster presents several images and interpretive dialogue to explain the positive and negative aspects of the student process

Inspection by exception: a new machine learning-based approach for multistage manufacturing

Manufacturing processes usually consist of multiple different stages, each of which is influenced by a multitude of factors. Therefore, variations in product quality at a certain stage are contributed to by the errors generated at the current, as well as preceding, stages. The high cost of each production stage in the manufacture of high-quality products has stimulated a drive towards decreasing the volume of non-added value processes such as inspection. This paper presents a new method for what the authors have referred to as ‘inspection by exception’ – the principle of actively detecting and then inspecting only the parts that cannot be categorized as healthy or unhealthy with a high degree of certainty. The key idea is that by inspecting only those parts that are in the corridor of uncertainty, the volume of inspections are considerably reduced. This possibility is explored using multistage manufacturing data and both unsupervised and supervised learning algorithms. A case study is presented whereby material conditions and time domain features for force, vibration and tempering temperature are used as input data. Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering is implemented to achieve inspection by exception in an unsupervised manner based on the normalized Euclidean distances between the principal components and cluster centres. Also, deviation vectors for product health are obtained using a comparator system to train neural networks for supervised learning-based inspection by exception. It is shown that the volume of inspections can be reduced by as much as 82% and 93% using the unsupervised and supervised learning approaches, respectively

Goal driven optimization of process parameters for maximum efficiency in laser bending of advanced high strength steels

Laser forming or bending is fast becoming an attractive option for the forming of advanced high strength steels (AHSS), due primarily to the reduced formability of AHSS when compared with conventional steels in traditional contact-based forming processes. An inherently iterative process, laser forming must be optimized for efficiency in order to compete with contact based forming processes; as such, a robust and accurate method of optimal process parameter prediction is required. In this paper, goal driven optimization is conducted, utilizing numerical simulations as the basis for the prediction of optimal process parameters for the laser bending of DP 1000 steel. A key consideration of the optimization process is the requirement for minimal microstructural transformation in automotive grade high strength steels such as DP 1000

A Survey of Automated Process Planning Approaches in Machining

Global industrial trend is shifting towards next industrial revolution Industry 4.0. It is becoming increasingly important for modern manufacturing industries to develop a Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) system by integrating the various operational and information processing functions in design and manufacturing. In spite of being active in research for almost four decades, it is clear that new functionalities are needed to integrate and realize a completely optimal process planning which can be fully compliant towards Smart Factory. In order to develop a CIM system, Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) plays a key role and therefore it has been the focus of many researchers. In order to gain insight into the current state-of-the-art of CAPP methodologies, 96 research papers have been reviewed. Subsequent sections discuss the different CAPP approaches adopted by researchers to automate different process planning tasks. This paper aims at addressing the key approaches involved and future directions towards Smart Manufacturing

Design study for wire and arc additive manufacture

Additive Manufacture (AM) is a technique whereby freeform structures are produced by building up material in a layer by layer fashion. Among the different AM processes, Wire and Arc Additive Manufacture (WAAM) has the ability to manufacture large custom-made metal workpiece with high efficiency. A design study has been performed to explore the process capabilities of fabricating complicated geometries using WAAM. Features such as enclosed structures, crossing structures, and balanced building structures have been investigated in this study. Finite Element (FE) models are employed to take the thermo-mechanical performance into account. Robot tool path design has been performed to transfer the WAAM component designs into real components efficiently. This paper covers these essential design steps from a technical as well as practical point of view