A Methodological Approach to Knowledge-Based Engineering Systems for Manufacturing

A survey of implementations of the knowledge-based engineering approach in different technological sectors is presented. The main objectives and techniques of examined applications are pointed out to illustrate the trends and peculiarities for a number of manufacturing field. Existing methods for the development of these engineering systems are then examined in order to identify critical aspects when applied to manufacturing. A new methodological approach is proposed to overcome some specific limitations that emerged from the above-mentioned survey. The aim is to provide an innovative method for the implementation of knowledge-based engineering applications in the field of industrial production. As a starting point, the field of application of the system is defined using a spatial representation. The conceptual design phase is carried out with the aid of a matrix structure containing the most relevant elements of the system and their relations. In particular, objectives, descriptors, inputs and actions are defined and qualified using categorical attributes. The proposed method is then applied to three case studies with different locations in the applicability space. All the relevant elements of the detailed implementation of these systems are described. The relations with assumptions made during the design are highlighted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The adoption of case studies with notably different applications also reveals the versatility in the application of the method

Factories of the Future

Engineering; Industrial engineering; Production engineerin

The design of a 3D printing facility in Central, Port Elizabeth

High-tech architecture is moving towards a paradigm shift with the development and incorporation of digital fabrication technology. This interest is extended into the discussion of recycling existing infrastructure. In this treatise, a topic which ties into both the heritage and ecological discourse. It recognises the significance of historical urban elements and the finite quality of heritage resources within the city. A historical building used as a host for the design of a 3D printing facility invites a dialogue between the architecture of the old and the expression of the new. The Premier Mill Building is identified as an historical urban artefact and the proposed programme complements the historical background of the building, which was a granary. A building from another time, now caught in a post-industrial age. The primary architectural exploration focuses on the possibilities offered by 3D printing in the making and expression of architecture. Therefore research is focused on the types and processes of 3D printing and there products. Secondly, the treatise employs an urban artefact as a vehicle of expression for a new programme, which requires an understanding of the topic of marrying present and past architecture. In the treatise the city, is understood through the work of Aldo Rossi’s conceptual perspective of the city. Further, the topic of digital tectonic is explored in order to establish an expression of digital fabrication. Heritage and conservation principles are investigated to complete a theoretical understanding of the project. This treatise document is a record of the design process from start to finish. The document unpacks the treatise through its various stages of growth: project background; research; design strategies and final design

Foreign direct investment from China: implications for British business partners

Multinational enterprises from developing economies have been reshaping the global investment landscape since the early 2000s. In particular, companies from China have become increasingly significant outward investors. In fact China is currently the third largest outward investor in the world (UNCTAD 2013). As a relatively new phenomenon the outward investment of Chinese multinationals has not been researched comprehensively. This is especially true of Chinese multinationals undertaking investment activities in advanced economies. Therefore the aim of this research is to extend our knowledge of the investment behaviour of Chinese multinationals in advanced economies. This is achieved through the examination of their reasons for investment, selected entry modes and effects on British business partners. This research takes a multiple case study approach consisting of nine Chinese multinationals from the automotive, manufacturing, IT, telecommunications and medical device sectors. As a qualitative study it is principally based on interview data but also draws on quantitative evidence where appropriate. The findings of this research suggest that the examined firms had diverse competitive advantages and investment motives. The effects of their investments were also varied because they were determined by the MNEs’ investment motives and modes of entry. The strategic asset-seeking investors significantly improved the companies they acquired. They also intensified research and development activities in external partner organisations. Meanwhile the asset-exploiting investors improved consumer welfare, intensified competition in their sectors and generated high value-added business opportunities for British partners at home and abroad. The generally positive effects of Chinese FDI imply that UK policy-makers may wish to step up their efforts to attract further investment from China. The diverse nature of Chinese companies indicates that investment promotion agencies could develop a differentiated strategy to encourage Chinese investors. In addition the benefits derived from collaborating with Chinese multinationals suggest that British firms could be more proactive in forging relationships with them

Factories of the Future

Engineering; Industrial engineering; Production engineerin

Sense and Respond

Over the past century, the manufacturing industry has undergone a number of paradigm shifts: from the Ford assembly line (1900s) and its focus on efficiency to the Toyota production system (1960s) and its focus on effectiveness and JIDOKA; from flexible manufacturing (1980s) to reconfigurable manufacturing (1990s) (both following the trend of mass customization); and from agent-based manufacturing (2000s) to cloud manufacturing (2010s) (both deploying the value stream complexity into the material and information flow, respectively). The next natural evolutionary step is to provide value by creating industrial cyber-physical assets with human-like intelligence. This will only be possible by further integrating strategic smart sensor technology into the manufacturing cyber-physical value creating processes in which industrial equipment is monitored and controlled for analyzing compression, temperature, moisture, vibrations, and performance. For instance, in the new wave of the ‘Industrial Internet of Things’ (IIoT), smart sensors will enable the development of new applications by interconnecting software, machines, and humans throughout the manufacturing process, thus enabling suppliers and manufacturers to rapidly respond to changing standards. This reprint of “Sense and Respond” aims to cover recent developments in the field of industrial applications, especially smart sensor technologies that increase the productivity, quality, reliability, and safety of industrial cyber-physical value-creating processes

Applications

Volume 3 describes how resource-aware machine learning methods and techniques are used to successfully solve real-world problems. The book provides numerous specific application examples: in health and medicine for risk modelling, diagnosis, and treatment selection for diseases in electronics, steel production and milling for quality control during manufacturing processes in traffic, logistics for smart cities and for mobile communications

Capability-based adaptation of production systems in a changing environment

Today’s production systems have to cope with volatile production environments characterized by frequently changing customer requirements, an increasing number of product variants, small batch sizes, short product life-cycles, the rapid emergence of new technical solutions and increasing regulatory requirements aimed at sustainable manufacturing. These constantly changing requirements call for adaptive and rapidly responding production systems that can adjust to the required changes in processing functions, production capacity and the distribution of the orders. This adaptation is required on the physical, logical and parametric levels. Such adaptivity cannot be achieved without intelligent methodologies, information models and tools to facilitate the adaptation planning and reactive adaptation of the systems. In industry it has been recognized that, because of the often expensive and inefficient adaptation process, companies rarely decide to adapt their production lines. This is mainly due to a lack of sufficient information and documentation about the capabilities of the current system and its lifecycle, as well as a lack of detailed methods for planning the adaptation, which makes it impossible to accurately estimate its scale and cost. Currently, the adaptation of production systems is in practice a human driven process, which relies strongly on the expertise and tacit knowledge of the system integrators or the end-user of the system. This thesis develops a capability-based, computer-aided adaptation methodology, which supports both the human-controlled adaptation planning and the dynamic reactive adaptation of production systems. The methodology consists of three main elements. The first element is the adaptation schema, which illustrates the activities and information flows involved in the overall adaptation planning process and the resources used to support the planning. The adaptation schema forms the backbone of the methodology, guiding the use of other developed elements during both the adaptation planning and reactive adaptation. The second element, which is actually the core of the developed methodology, is the formal ontological resource description used to describe the resources based on their capabilities. The overall resource description utilizes a capability model, which divides the capabilities into simple and combined capabilities. The resources are assigned the simple capabilities they possess. When multiple resources are co-operating, their combined capability can be reasoned out based on the associations defined in the capability model. The adaptation methodology is based on the capability-based matching of product requirements and available system capabilities in the context of the adaptation process. Thus, the third main element developed in this thesis is the framework and rules for performing this capability matching. The approach allows automatic information filtering and the generation of system configuration scenarios for the given requirements, thus facilitating the rapid allocation of resources and the adaptation of systems. Human intelligence is used to validate the automatically-generated scenarios and to select the best one, based on the desired criteria. Based on these results, an approach to evaluating the compatibility of an existing production system with different product requirements has been formulated. This approach evaluates the impact any changes in these requirements may have on the production system. The impact of the changes is illustrated in the form of compatibility graphs, which enable comparison between different product scenarios in terms of the effort required to implement the system adaptation, and the extent to which the current system can be utilized to meet the new requirements. It thus aids in making decisions regarding product and production strategies and adaptation