Manufacturing cooperation : An ethnography of Norwegian factory regimes

Doctoral thesis (PhD) – Nord University, 2021publishedVersio

Tracking the rise of robots: A survey of the IFR database and its applications

Robots are continuously transforming industrial production worldwide and thereby also inducing changes in a variety of production-related economic and social relations. While some observers call this transformation an unprecedented "revolution", others regard it as a common pattern of capitalist development. This paper contributes to the literature on the effects of the rise of industrial robots in three ways. Firstly, we describe the historic evolution and organizational structure of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), which collects data on the international distribution of industrial robots by country, industry, and application from industrial robot suppliers worldwide since 1993. Secondly, we extensively analyze this IFR dataset on industrial robots and point out its specificities and limitations. We develop a correspondence table between the IFR industry classification and the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) Revision 4 and shed some light on the price development of industrial robots by compiling data on robot price indices. We further compute implicit depreciation rates inherent to the operational stocks of robots in the IFR dataset and find an average depreciation rate of aggregate robot stocks between 4% and 7% per year between 1993 and 2019. Moreover, tracking the share of industrial robots that are not classified to any industry or application we find that their share in total robot stocks has sharply declined after 2005. We also compare IFR data with other data sources such as UN Comtrade data on net imports and unit prices of industrial robots or data on robot adoption from firm-level surveys in selected countries. Thirdly, we provide a comprehensive overview of the empirical research on industrial robots that is based on the IFR dataset. We identify four important strands of research on the rise of robots: (i) patterns of robot adoption and industrial organization, (ii) productivity and growth effect of robot adoption, (iii) its impact on employment and wages, and (iv) its influence on demographics, health, and politics

Automation and Robotics: Latest Achievements, Challenges and Prospects

This SI presents the latest achievements, challenges and prospects for drives, actuators, sensors, controls and robot navigation with reverse validation and applications in the field of industrial automation and robotics. Automation, supported by robotics, can effectively speed up and improve production. The industrialization of complex mechatronic components, especially robots, requires a large number of special processes already in the pre-production stage provided by modelling and simulation. This area of research from the very beginning includes drives, process technology, actuators, sensors, control systems and all connections in mechatronic systems. Automation and robotics form broad-spectrum areas of research, which are tightly interconnected. To reduce costs in the pre-production stage and to reduce production preparation time, it is necessary to solve complex tasks in the form of simulation with the use of standard software products and new technologies that allow, for example, machine vision and other imaging tools to examine new physical contexts, dependencies and connections

Bacterial Memetic Algorithm Trained Fuzzy System-Based Model of Single Weld Bead Geometry

This article presents a fuzzy system-based modeling approach to estimate the weld bead geometry (WBG) from the welding process variables (WPVs) and to achieve a specific weld bead shape. The bacterial memetic algorithm (BMA) is applied to solve these problems in two different roles, as a supervised trainer, and as an optimizer. As a supervised trainer, the BMA is applied to tune two different WBG models. The bead geometry properties (BGP) model follows a traditional approach providing the WBG properties as outputs. The direct profile measurement (DPM) model describes the bead profiles points by a non-linear function realized in the form of fuzzy rules. As an optimizer, the BMA utilizes the developed fuzzy systems to find the solution sets of WPVs to acquire the desired WBG. The best performance is achieved by applying six rules in the BGP model and eleven rules in the DPM model. The results indicate that the normalized root means square error for the validation data set lies in the range of 0:40 - 1:56% for the BGP model and 4:49 - 7:52% for the DPM model. The comparative analysis suggests that the BGP model estimates the BWG in a superior manner when several WPVs are altered. The developed fuzzy systems provide a tool for interpreting the effects of the WPVs. The developed optimizer provides multiple valid set of WPVs to produce the desired WBG, thus supporting the selection of those process variables in applications

Explorations, Vol. 6, No. 2

Cover: Untitled #13, Series 2, chalk on paper, by Ronald Ghiz, Associate Professor of Art at the University of Maine. Articles include: Editorial Overview: in this issue, by Carole J. Bombard Save the Planet . . . please, by Nick Houtman Research and Public Service Recognizing Leadership, Pioneering, and Productivity, Herb Hidu and Stephen Norton Private Assistance for Maine’s Hungry, by William H. Whitaker and Jean M. Andrews The Ugly Faces of Hunger Explaining the Iranian Revolution, by Henry Munson, Jr. Biological Clocks: timing is everything—and everywhere, by Jamie Watler Love of Glory and the Common Good: Periclean Democracy and Athenian Tyranny in Thucydides, by Michael Palmer Tools of the Trade: Technology Usage and Financial Performance in Small Business, by Diane J. Garsombke and Thomas W. Garsombk

Technical, Economic and Societal Effects of Manufacturing 4.0

This open access book is among the first cross-disciplinary works about Manufacturing 4.0. It includes chapters about the technical, the economic, and the social aspects of this important phenomenon. Together the material presented allows the reader to develop a holistic picture of where the manufacturing industry and the parts of the society that depend on it may be going in the future. Manufacturing 4.0 is not only a technical change, nor is it a purely technically driven change, but it is a societal change that has the potential to disrupt the way societies are constructed both in the positive and in the negative. This book will be of interest to scholars researching manufacturing, technological innovation, innovation management and industry 4.0

Technical, Economic and Societal Effects of Manufacturing 4.0

This open access book is among the first cross-disciplinary works about Manufacturing 4.0. It includes chapters about the technical, the economic, and the social aspects of this important phenomenon. Together the material presented allows the reader to develop a holistic picture of where the manufacturing industry and the parts of the society that depend on it may be going in the future. Manufacturing 4.0 is not only a technical change, nor is it a purely technically driven change, but it is a societal change that has the potential to disrupt the way societies are constructed both in the positive and in the negative. This book will be of interest to scholars researching manufacturing, technological innovation, innovation management and industry 4.0