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

A New Concept of Digital Twin Supporting Optimization and Resilience of Factories of the Future

In the context of Industry 4.0, a growing use is being made of simulation-based decision-support tools commonly named Digital Twins. Digital Twins are replicas of the physical manufacturing assets, providing means for the monitoring and control of individual assets. Although extensive research on Digital Twins and their applications has been carried out, the majority of existing approaches are asset specific. Little consideration is made of human factors and interdependencies between different production assets are commonly ignored. In this paper, we address those limitations and propose innovations for cognitive modeling and co-simulation which may unleash novel uses of Digital Twins in Factories of the Future. We introduce a holistic Digital Twin approach, in which the factory is not represented by a set of separated Digital Twins but by a comprehensive modeling and simulation capacity embracing the full manufacturing process including external network dependencies. Furthermore, we introduce novel approaches for integrating models of human behavior and capacities for security testing with Digital Twins and show how the holistic Digital Twin can enable new services for the optimization and resilience of Factories of the Future. To illustrate this approach, we introduce a specific use-case implemented in field of Aerospace System Manufacturing.The present work was developed under the EUREKA–ITEA3 Project CyberFactory#1 (ITEA-17032), co-funded by Project CyberFactory#1PT (ANI|P2020 40124), from FEDER Funds through NORTE2020 program and from National Funds through FCT under the project UID/EEA/00760/2019 and by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, Germany, funding No. 01IS18061C).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Digital Twin Fidelity Requirements Model for Manufacturing

The Digital Twin (DT), including its sub-categories Digital Model (DM) and Digital Shadow (DS), is a promising concept in the context of Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0. With ongoing maturation of its fundamental technologies like Simulation, Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data, DT has experienced a substantial increase in scholarly publications and industrial applications. According to academia, DT is considered as an ultra-realistic, high-fidelity virtual model of a physical entity, mirroring all of its properties most accurately. Furthermore, the DT is capable of altering this physical entity based on virtual modifications. Fidelity thereby refers to the number of parameters, their accuracy and level of abstraction. In practice, it is questionable whether the highest fidelity is required to achieve desired benefits. A literary analysis of 77 recent DT application articles reveals that there is currently no structured method supporting scholars and practitioners by elaborating appropriate fidelity levels. Hence, this article proposes the Digital Twin Fidelity Requirements Model (DT-FRM) as a possible solution. It has been developed by using concepts from Design Science Research methodology. Based on an initial problem definition, DT-FRM guides through problem breakdown, identifying problem centric dependent target variables (1), deriving (2) and prioritizing underlying independent variables (3), and defining the required fidelity level for each variable (4). This way, DT-FRM enables its users to efficiently solve their initial problem while minimizing DT implementation and recurring costs. It is shown that assessing the appropriate level of DT fidelity is crucial to realize benefits and reduce implementation complexity in manufacturing

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) in supply chain management: From foundations to practical implementation

Since 2015 developments such as Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical production systems on the technology side, and approaches such as flexible and smart manufacturing systems hold great potential. These in turn give rise to special requirements that the production planning, control and monitoring, among others, needing a paradigm shift to exploit the full potential of these methods and techniques. Starting from foundations in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), building upon definitions and findings reported by literature, a practical example of innovative Cyber Physical Supply Chain Planning System (CPS2) is provided. The paper clarifies the advantages of cyber-physical systems in the production planning, controlling and monitoring perspective with respect to manufacturing, logistics and related planning practices. A set of basic features of CPS2 systems are discussed and addressed by contextualizing service orientation architecture and microservices components with respect to supply chain management collaboration and cooperation practices. The identification of specific technologies behind those functions, within the developed research, provides some practical insight if the interesting CPS2 potential

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) in supply chain management: from foundations to practical implementation

Abstract Since 2015 developments such as Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical production systems on the technology side, and approaches such as flexible and smart manufacturing systems hold great potential. These in turn give rise to special requirements that the production planning, control and monitoring, among others, needing a paradigm shift to exploit the full potential of these methods and techniques. Starting from foundations in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), building upon definitions and findings reported by literature, a practical example of innovative Cyber Physical Supply Chain Planning System (CPS2) is provided. The paper clarifies the advantages of cyber-physical systems in the production planning, controlling and monitoring perspective with respect to manufacturing, logistics and related planning practices. A set of basic features of CPS2 systems are discussed and addressed by contextualizing service orientation architecture and microservices components with respect to supply chain management collaboration and cooperation practices. The identification of specific technologies behind those functions, within the developed research, provides some practical insight if the interesting CPS2 potential

TRENDS AND PROSPECTS OF DIGITAL TWIN TECHNOLOGIES: A REVIEW

© Quantum Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology (QJOEST). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND licence, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/The plethora of technologically developed software and digital types of machinery are widely applied for industrial production and the digitalization of building technologies. The fourth industrial revolution and the underlying digital transformation, known as Industry 4.0 is reshaping the way individuals live and work fundamentally. However, the advent of Industry 5.0 remodels the representation of industrial data for digitalization. As a result, massive data of different types are being produced. However, these data are hysteretic and isolated from each other, leading to low efficiency and low utilization of these valuable data. Simulation based on the theoretical and static model has been a conventional and powerful tool for the verification, validation, and optimization of a system in its early planning stage, but no attention is paid to the simulation application during system run-time. Dynamic simulation of various systems and the digitalization of the same is made possible using the framework available with Digital Twin. After a complete search of several databases and careful selection according to the proposed criteria, 63 academic publications about digital twin are identified and classified. This paper conducts a comprehensive and in-depth review of this literature to analyze the digital twin from the perspective of concepts, technologies, and industrial applicationsPeer reviewe

Dissecting the impact of information and communication technologies on digital twins as a service

Recent advances on Edge computing, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and 5G are stimulating the interest of the industrial sector to satisfy the stringent and real-time requirements of their applications. Digital Twin is a key piece in the industrial digital transformation and its benefits are very well studied in the literature. However, designing and implementing a Digital Twin system that integrates all the emerging technologies and meets the connectivity requirements (e.g., latency, reliability) is an ambitious task. Therefore, prototyping the system is required to gradually validate and optimize Digital Twin solutions. In this work, an Edge Robotics Digital Twin system is implemented as a prototype that embodies the concept of Digital Twin as a Service (DTaaS). Such system enables real-time applications such as visualization and remote control, requiring low-latency and high reliability. The capability of the system to offer potential savings by means of computation offloading are analyzed in different deployment configurations. Moreover, the impact of different wireless channels (e.g., 5G, 4G and WiFi) to support the data exchange between a physical device and its virtual components are assessed within operational Digital Twins. Results show that potentially 16% of CPU and 34% of MEM savings can be achieved by virtualizing and offloading software components in the Edge. In addition, they show that 5G connectivity enables remote control of 20 ms, appearing as the most promising radio access technology to support the main requirements of Digital Twin systems.This work was supported in part by the H2020 European Union/Taiwan (EU/TW) Joint Action 5G-eDge Intelligence for Vertical Experimentation (DIVE) under Grant 859881, in part by the H2020 5Growth Project under Grant 856709, in part by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) through the Multiannual Agreement with Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) in the line of Excellence of University Professors under Grant EPUC3M21, and in part by the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Program of Research and Technological Innovation)