Innovation in manufacturing through digital technologies and applications: Thoughts and Reflections on Industry 4.0

The rapid pace of developments in digital technologies offers many opportunities to increase the efficiency, flexibility and sophistication of manufacturing processes; including the potential for easier customisation, lower volumes and rapid changeover of products within the same manufacturing cell or line. A number of initiatives on this theme have been proposed around the world to support national industries under names such as Industry 4.0 (Industrie 4.0 in Germany, Made-in-China in China and Made Smarter in the UK). This book presents an overview of the state of art and upcoming developments in digital technologies pertaining to manufacturing. The starting point is an introduction on Industry 4.0 and its potential for enhancing the manufacturing process. Later on moving to the design of smart (that is digitally driven) business processes which are going to rely on sensing of all relevant parameters, gathering, storing and processing the data from these sensors, using computing power and intelligence at the most appropriate points in the digital workflow including application of edge computing and parallel processing. A key component of this workflow is the application of Artificial Intelligence and particularly techniques in Machine Learning to derive actionable information from this data; be it real-time automated responses such as actuating transducers or informing human operators to follow specified standard operating procedures or providing management data for operational and strategic planning. Further consideration also needs to be given to the properties and behaviours of particular machines that are controlled and materials that are transformed during the manufacturing process and this is sometimes referred to as Operational Technology (OT) as opposed to IT. The digital capture of these properties and behaviours can then be used to define so-called Cyber Physical Systems. Given the power of these digital technologies it is of paramount importance that they operate safely and are not vulnerable to malicious interference. Industry 4.0 brings unprecedented cybersecurity challenges to manufacturing and the overall industrial sector and the case is made here that new codes of practice are needed for the combined Information Technology and Operational Technology worlds, but with a framework that should be native to Industry 4.0. Current computing technologies are also able to go in other directions than supporting the digital ‘sense to action’ process described above. One of these is to use digital technologies to enhance the ability of the human operators who are still essential within the manufacturing process. One such technology, that has recently become accessible for widespread adoption, is Augmented Reality, providing operators with real-time additional information in situ with the machines that they interact with in their workspace in a hands-free mode. Finally, two linked chapters discuss the specific application of digital technologies to High Pressure Die Casting (HDPC) of Magnesium components. Optimizing the HPDC process is a key task for increasing productivity and reducing defective parts and the first chapter provides an overview of the HPDC process with attention to the most common defects and their sources. It does this by first looking at real-time process control mechanisms, understanding the various process variables and assessing their impact on the end product quality. This understanding drives the choice of sensing methods and the associated smart digital workflow to allow real-time control and mitigation of variation in the identified variables. Also, data from this workflow can be captured and used for the design of optimised dies and associated processes

Digitalization of business processes of enterprises of the ecosystem of Industry 4.0: virtual-real aspect of economic growth reserves

The purpose of the research is to present the features of digitization of business processes in enterprises as a foundation on which the gradual formation of Industry 4.0 and the search for economic growth in new virtual reality, which has every chance to be a decisive step in implementing digital strategy for Ukraine and development of the innovation ecosystem. Key problems that arise during the digitalization of business processes in enterprises are presented, among which are: the historical orientation of production to mass, “running” sizes and large batches; large-scale production load; the complexity of cooperation and logic between production sites. It is determined that high-quality and effective tools of innovation-digital transformation in the conditions of virtual reality should include: a single system of on-line order management for all enterprises (application registration – technical expertise – planning – performance control – shipment); Smart Factory, Predictive Maintenance, IIoT, CRM, SCM. Features of digital transformation in the part of formation of enterprises of the ecosystem of Industry 4.0 are revealed. The capabilities and benefits of using Azure cloud platform in enterprises, which includes more than 200 products and cloud services, are analyzed. Azure is said to support open source technologies, so businesses have the ability to use tools and technologies they prefer and are more useful. After conducting a thorough analysis of the acceleration of deep digitalization of business processes by enterprises, authors proposed to put into practice Aruba solution for tracking contacts in the fight against COVID-19. Aruba technology helps locate, allowing you to implement flexible solutions based on Aruba Partner Ecosystem using a USB interface. It is proposed to use SYNTEGRA – a data integration service that provides interactive analytics and provides data models and dashboards in order to accelerate the modernization of data storage and management, optimize reporting in the company and obtain real-time analytics. The possibilities of using Azure cloud platform during the digitization of business processes of enterprises of the ecosystem of Industry 4.0 in the conditions of virtual reality are determined

Rockefeller Foundation 2010 Annual Report

Contains president's letter; 2010 program highlights, including support for Africa's green revolution, sustainable and equitable transportation policy, and healthy communities; grants list; financial report; and lists of trustees and staff

Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts. EVA 2013 Florence

Important Information Technology topics are presented: multimedia systems, data-bases, protection of data, access to the content. Particular reference is reserved to digital images (2D, 3D) regarding Cultural Institutions (Museums, Libraries, Palace – Monuments, Archaeological Sites). The main parts of the Conference Proceedings regard: Strategic Issues, EC Projects and Related Networks & Initiatives, International Forum on “Culture & Technology”, 2D – 3D Technologies & Applications, Virtual Galleries – Museums and Related Initiatives, Access to the Culture Information. Three Workshops are related to: International Cooperation, Innovation and Enterprise, Creative Industries and Cultural Tourism

Cartography

The terrestrial space is the place of interaction of natural and social systems. The cartography is an essential tool to understand the complexity of these systems, their interaction and evolution. This brings the cartography to an important place in the modern world. The book presents several contributions at different areas and activities showing the importance of the cartography to the perception and organization of the territory. Learning with the past or understanding the present the use of cartography is presented as a way of looking to almost all themes of the knowledge

Improving Mobile GIS applications through the identification of Geographic Context

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular. Their functionalities have become more than just making phone calls, due to regular improvements to these devices. Thus, with their notable increase in computational power, these devices have become able to support applications based on georeferenced data. By allowing the manipulation, visualisation and sharing of such data, these applications (supported by, for example, Google Maps or OpenStreetMap) have also shown an increasingly higher popularity. In this dissertation, we developed an adaptive Geographic Information System for Android devices, which displays relevant information to the user, based on the detected geographic context. The platform is supported by the concept of a context adaptation model, which enables the identification of particular situations in the context of the user, and the consequent adaptation of the application’s interface to the identified event. The context of the user is composed of the information collected by the sensors present in most mobile devices, which also enables the system to automatically adapt its content and thus become more relevant (according to the detected conditions), contributing for a better user experience. The relevant events to be listened to and the actions to be taken accordingly are managed in an administrator online tool, allowing for simplified software maintenance. By defining adaptation rules on aWeb platform, the administrators are able to configure the Android application’s behaviour without having to change the existing code. Finally, the developed platform was tested on a prototype of a Tourism application. The system was evaluated in two distinct parts - Web platform and Android application - by several participants, who agreed that the second is easy to use, while the first requires some previous learning.Os dispositivos móveis são cada vez mais populares. Devido a melhorias constantes destes dispositivos, as suas funcionalidades tornaram-se muito mais do que simplesmente efetuar chamadas. Assim, com a notável evolução do seu poder computacional, estes dispositivos passaram a ser capazes de suportar aplicações baseadas em dados georreferenciados. Ao possibilitar a manipulação, visualização e partilha de tais dados, estas aplicações (suportadas, por exemplo, por Google Maps ou OpenStreetMap) têm também apresentado um crescimento e popularidade cada vez maior. Nesta dissertação, foi desenvolvido um Sistema de Informação Geográfica adaptativo para dispositivos Android, que mostra informações relevantes ao utilizador, com base no contexto geográfico detetado. A plataforma é apoiada por um modelo de adaptação contextual, que permite a identificação de situações particulares no contexto do utilizador, e a consequente adaptação da interface da aplicação ao evento identificado. O contexto do utilizador é composto pelas informações recolhidas pelos sensores presentes na maioria dos dispositivos móveis, que também permite ao sistema adaptar automaticamente o seu conteúdo e, assim, tornar-se mais relevante (de acordo com as condições detectadas), contribuindo para uma melhor experiência de utilizador. Os eventos relevantes a serem tidos em conta e as ações a serem tomadas em conformidade são geridos através de uma ferramenta online de administrador, permitindo uma manutenção de software simples. Ao definir regras de adaptação numa plataforma Web, os administradores podem configurar o comportamento da aplicação Android sem precisar de alterar o código existente. Finalmente, a plataforma desenvolvida foi testada num protótipo de uma aplicação de Turismo. O sistema foi avaliado em duas partes - plataforma Web e aplicação Android - por vários participantes, que concordaram que a segunda é fácil de utilizar, enquanto a primeira requer alguma aprendizagem

A Software Engineered Voice-Enabled Job Recruitment Portal System

The inability of job seekers to get timely job information regarding the status of the application submitted via conventional job portal system which is usually dependent on accessibility to the Internet has made so many job applicants to lose their placements. Worse still, the epileptic services offered by Internet Service Providers and the poor infrastructures in most developing countries have greatly hindered the expected benefits from Internet usage. These have led to cases of online vacancies notifications unattended to simply because a job seeker is neither aware nor has access to the Internet. With an increasing patronage of mobile phones, a self-service job vacancy notification with audio functionality or an automated job vacancy notification to all qualified job seekers through mobile phones will simply provide a solution to these challenges. In this paper, we present a Voice-enabled Job Recruitment Portal (JRP) System. The system is accessed through two interfaces – the voice user’s interface (VUI) and web interface. The VUI was developed using VoiceXML and the web interface using PHP, and both interfaces integrated with Apache and MySQL as the middleware and back-end component respectively. The JRP proposed in this paper takes the hassle of job hunting from job seekers, provides job status information in real-time to the job seeker and offers other benefits such as, cost, effectiveness, speed, accuracy, ease of documentation, convenience and better logistics to the employer in seeking the right candidate for a job

News Articles

Recent activities from the Southeastern Library Association, developments from SELA member institutions, and personnel news