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

University-local industry linkages : the case of Tohoku University in the Sendai area of Japan

This paper focuses on Tohoku University in Sendai in the nonmetropolitan area of Japan. Both a long historical and comparative perspective and a spacial perspective are essential to discuss the relevance of university-local industry linkages to local regional economic development. The conjunction of these linkages and economic development has been affected by two evolutionary processes: institutional configurations and territorial dynamics in the national innovation system. In addition, university-local industry linkages have been complicated by top-down regionalization and bottom-up regionalism.Tertiary Education,ICT Policy and Strategies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Technology Industry,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems

Innovation from user experience in Living Labs: revisiting the ‘innovation factory’-concept with a panel-based and user-centered approach

This paper focuses on the problem of facilitating sustainable innovation practices with a user-centered approach. We do so by revisiting the knowledge-brokering cycle and Hargadon and Sutton’s ideas on building an ‘innovation factory’ within the light of current Living Lab-practices. Based on theoretical as well as practical evidence from a case study analysis of the LeYLab-Living Lab, it is argued that Living Labs with a panel-based approach can act as innovation intermediaries where innovation takes shape through actual user experience in real-life environments, facilitating all four stages within the knowledge-brokering cycle. This finding is also in line with the recently emerging Quadruple Helix-model for innovation, stressing the crucial role of the end-user as a stakeholder throughout the whole innovation process

Discrete event simulation and virtual reality use in industry: new opportunities and future trends

This paper reviews the area of combined discrete event simulation (DES) and virtual reality (VR) use within industry. While establishing a state of the art for progress in this area, this paper makes the case for VR DES as the vehicle of choice for complex data analysis through interactive simulation models, highlighting both its advantages and current limitations. This paper reviews active research topics such as VR and DES real-time integration, communication protocols, system design considerations, model validation, and applications of VR and DES. While summarizing future research directions for this technology combination, the case is made for smart factory adoption of VR DES as a new platform for scenario testing and decision making. It is put that in order for VR DES to fully meet the visualization requirements of both Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet visions of digital manufacturing, further research is required in the areas of lower latency image processing, DES delivery as a service, gesture recognition for VR DES interaction, and linkage of DES to real-time data streams and Big Data sets

A 3D immersive discrete event simulator for enabling prototyping of factory layouts

There is an increasing need to eliminate wasted time and money during factory layout design and subsequent construction. It is presently difficult for engineers to foresee if a certain layout is optimal for work and material flows. By exploiting modelling, simulation and visualisation techniques, this paper presents a tool concept called immersive WITNESS that combines the modelling strengths of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) with the 3D visualisation strengths of recent 3D low cost gaming technology to enable decision makers make informed design choices for future factories layouts. The tool enables engineers to receive immediate feedback on their design choices. Our results show that this tool has the potential to reduce rework as well as the associated costs of making physical prototypes

Agent fabrication and its implementation for agent-based electronic commerce

In the last decade, agent-based e-commerce has emerged as a potential role for the next generation of e-commerce. How to create agents for e-commerce applications has become a serious consideration in this field. This paper proposes a new scheme named agent fabrication and elaborates its implementation in multi-agent systems based on the SAFER (Secure Agent Fabrication, Evolution & Roaming) architecture. First, a conceptual structure is proposed for software agents carrying out e-commerce activities. Furthermore, agent module suitcase is defined to facilitate agent fabrication. With these definitions and facilities in the SAFER architecture, the formalities of agent fabrication are elaborated. In order to enhance the security of agent-based e-commerce, an infrastructure of agent authorization and authentication is integrated in agent fabrication. Our implementation and prototype applications show that the proposed agent fabrication scheme brings forth a potential solution for creating agents in agent-based e-commerce applications

The development of factory templates for the integrated virtual factory framework

Páginas numeradas: I-XVI, 17-123Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores (Major Automação). Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

The development of factory templates for the integrated virtual factory framework

Páginas numeradas: I-XVI, 17-123Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores (Major Automação). Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201