Micro-manufacturing : research, technology outcomes and development issues

Besides continuing effort in developing MEMS-based manufacturing techniques, latest effort in Micro-manufacturing is also in Non-MEMS-based manufacturing. Research and technological development (RTD) in this field is encouraged by the increased demand on micro-components as well as promised development in the scaling down of the traditional macro-manufacturing processes for micro-length-scale manufacturing. This paper highlights some EU funded research activities in micro/nano-manufacturing, and gives examples of the latest development in micro-manufacturing methods/techniques, process chains, hybrid-processes, manufacturing equipment and supporting technologies/device, etc., which is followed by a summary of the achievements of the EU MASMICRO project. Finally, concluding remarks are given, which raise several issues concerning further development in micro-manufacturing

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

Simultano inženjerstvo utemeljeno na virtualnoj proizvodnji

U radu je razmatran koncept konkurentnog inženjeringa koji podrazumijeva simultane aktivnosti u integriranom razvoju proizvoda i procesa, kroz primjenu inovativnih tehnologija virtualnog inženjeringa, posebno u dijelu simulacije proizvodnje, tzv. virtualne proizvodnje. Cilj je da se minimiziraju projektne izmjene u kasnijim fazama projektiranja, a time i vrijeme i troškovi projektiranja proizvoda i pripadajućih procesa. Primjena FE/FV simulacija može eliminirati skupe fizičke prototipove i eksperimente. Vrijeme razvoja se drastično smanjuje, više projektnih alternativa se može provjeriti, što rezultira povećanjem kvalitete. Primjena koncepta ilustrirana je brojnim primjerima numeričkih simulacija proizvodnih procesa korišćenjem SIMUFACT.forming softvera: oblikovanje debljih limova, kovanje, "net-shape" obrada, toplo istiskivanje profila, itd

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

Knowledge creation and visualisation by using trade-off curves to enable set-based concurrent engineering

The increased international competition forces companies to sustain and improve market share through the production of a high quality product in a cost effective manner and in a shorter time. Set‑based concurrent engineering (SBCE), which is a core element of lean product development approach, has got the potential to decrease time‑to‑market as well as enhance product innovation to be produced in good quality and cost effective manner. A knowledge‑based environment is one of the important requ irements for a successful SBCE implementation. One way to provide this environment is the use of trade‑off curves (ToC). ToC is a tool to create and visualise knowledge in the way to understand the relationships between various conflicting design parame ters to each other. This paper presents an overview of different types of ToCs and the role of knowledge‑based ToCs in SBCE by employing an extensive literature review and industrial field study. It then proposes a process of generating and using knowledg e‑based ToCs in order to create and visualise knowledge to enable the following key SBCE activities: (1) Identify the feasible design space, (2) Generate set of conceptual design solutions, (3) Compare design solutions, (4) Narrow down the design sets, (5) Achieve final optimal design solution. Finally a hypothetical example of a car seat structure is presented in order to provide a better understanding of using ToCs. This example shows that ToCs are effective tools to be used as a knowledge sou rce at the early stages of product development process

Increasing Competitiveness through Strengthening Regional Industrial Clusters: Middle Tennessee Marketing Region

Final Presentation Summary of the Entire Study: After reviewing the broader socioeconomic dynamics and workforce issues in the Middle Tennessee Marketing Region, this study, commissioned by Middle Tennessee Industrial Development Association in Nashville, identifies regional industrial clusters and provides a detailed assessment of target industry clusters to present a detailed roadmap for the competitive regional economic development initiatives.

Intelligent systems in manufacturing: current developments and future prospects

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are demanding increasing changes in manufacturing environments. Enterprises are required to constantly redesign their products and continuously reconfigure their manufacturing systems. Traditional approaches to manufacturing systems do not fully satisfy this new situation. Many authors have proposed that artificial intelligence will bring the flexibility and efficiency needed by manufacturing systems. This paper is a review of artificial intelligence techniques used in manufacturing systems. The paper first defines the components of a simplified intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS), the different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to be considered and then shows how these AI techniques are used for the components of IMS

A Monte-Carlo approach to tool selection for sheet metal punching and nibbling

Selecting the best set of tools to produce certain geometrical shapes/features in sheet metal punching is one of the problems that has a great effect on product development time, cost and achieved quality. The trend nowadays is, where at all possible, to limit design to the use of standard tools. Such an option makes the problem of selecting the appropriate set of tools even more complex, especially when considering that sheet metal features can have a wide range of complex shapes. Another dimension of complexity is limited tool rack capacity. Thus, an inappropriate tool selection strategy will lead to punching inefficiency and may require frequent stopping of the machine and replacing the required tools, which is a rather expensive and time consuming exercise. This work demonstrates that the problem of selecting the best set of tools is actually a process of searching an explosive decision tree. The difficulty in searching such types of decision trees is that intermediate decisions do not necessarily reflect the total cost implication of carrying out such a decision. A new approach to solve such a complex optimisation problem using the Monte Carlo Simulation Methods has been introduced in this thesis. The aim of the present work was to establish the use of Monte Carlo methods as an "assumptions or rule free" baseline or benchmark for the assessment of search strategies. A number of case studies are given, where the feasibility of Monte Carlo Simulation Methods as an efficient and viable method to optimise such a complex optimisation problem is demonstrated. The use of a Monte Carlo approach for selecting the best set of punching tools, showed an interesting point, that is, the effect of dominant "one-to-one" feature/tool matches on the efficiency of the search. This naturally led on to the need of a search methodology that will be more efficient than the application of the Monte Carlo method alone. This thesis presents some interesting speculations for a hybrid approach to tool selection to achieve a better solution than the use of the Monte Carlo method alone to achieve the optimum solution in a shorter time

Cost objective PLM and CE

Concurrent engineering taking into account product life-cycle factors seems to be one of the industrial challenges of the next years. Cost estimation and management are two main strategic tasks that imply the possibility of managing costs at the earliest stages of product development. This is why it is indispensable to let people from economics and from industrial engineering collaborates in order to find the best solution for enterprise progress for economical factors mastering. The objective of this paper is to present who we try to adapt costing methods in a PLM and CE point of view to the new industrial context and configuration in order to give pertinent decision aid for product and process choices. A very important factor is related to cost management problems when developing new products. A case study is introduced that presents how product development actors have referenced elements to product life-cycle costs and impacts, how they have an idea bout economical indicators when taking decisions during the progression of the project of product development.

A Hybrid Intelligent System for Stamping Process Planning in Progressive Die Design

This paper presents an intelligent, hybrid system for stamping process planning in progressive die design. The system combines the flexibility of blackboard architecture with case-based reasoning. The hybrid system has the advantage that it can use past knowledge and experience for case-based reasoning when it exists, and other reasoning approaches when it doesn’t exist. A prototype system has been implemented in CLIPS and interfaced with Solid Edge CAD system. An example is included to demonstrate the approach.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA