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

Implementation of virtual manufacturing by a technology licensing company

NoThe paper considers the implementation of a virtual manufacturing system as an alternative to outward technology licensing in a high technology industrial sector. Brief theoretical definition and description of the two strategy options is provided to give background and context. This is followed by empirical material from a longitudinal case study of a company that has developed a virtual manufacturing system in addition to its pre-existing outward technology licensing business stream. A summary account of the company history and development is followed by description of the virtual manufacturing proposal. Analysis of this identified a number of competencies that would be required in order to succeed. The final part of the paper describes the company's response to this analysis and discusses early implementation of the virtual system. It is shown that implementation of the proposal has represented a positive response to the business challenges facing the company

Survey on Additive Manufacturing, Cloud 3D Printing and Services

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) is the concept of using manufacturing resources in a service oriented way over the Internet. Recent developments in Additive Manufacturing (AM) are making it possible to utilise resources ad-hoc as replacement for traditional manufacturing resources in case of spontaneous problems in the established manufacturing processes. In order to be of use in these scenarios the AM resources must adhere to a strict principle of transparency and service composition in adherence to the Cloud Computing (CC) paradigm. With this review we provide an overview over CM, AM and relevant domains as well as present the historical development of scientific research in these fields, starting from 2002. Part of this work is also a meta-review on the domain to further detail its development and structure

Vision 2020: The Role and Scope of Operations Research Models

In this theme article, we summarize the broad characteristics of Vision 2020 (a document which outlines the transformation process related to evolution of India as a developed nation by 2020) as envisaged by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. We discuss the enabling role of our discipline related to this critical national (social) transformation process. This theme article is organized in three segments. The first segment, which is drawn heavily based on the published work by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam introduces the salient features of Vision 2020 and a road map related to realizing this national dream. The second segment sketches the evolution of operations research as a scientific discipline in the international and Indian context. The third and final segment of the article relate OR tools and techniques that can facilitate the planning and implementation of several projects / activities / policies in the overall context of Vision 2020.

B2C Mass Customization in the Classroom

The purpose of this article is to describe an internet-based mass customization assignment in Operations Management/Supply Chain Management classes where students utilize the Web site of a company that offers a customized product. Students evaluate the user interface, judge the value proposition of the product they demonstrate, and discuss issues of product design, process design and scheduling, inventory management, Supply Chain Management, marketing, and competitors. The students learn about mass customization from both the producer\u27s perspective and the consumer\u27s perspective. Through their own research and the class presentations students are able to develop a better understanding of the implementation requirements and challenges of mass customization. The assignment is highly interactive and has been successfully used in Operations Management and Supply Chain Management courses at under-graduate and graduate levels and at multiple universities. In addition, practitioners interested in implementing a mass customization process can use the assignment as a brainstorming or benchmarking exercise

An extensible manufacturing resource model for process integration

Driven by industrial needs and enabled by process technology and information technology, enterprise integration is rapidly shifting from information integration to process integration to improve overall performance of enterprises. Traditional resource models are established based on the needs of individual applications. They cannot effectively serve process integration which needs resources to be represented in a unified, comprehensive and flexible way to meet the needs of various applications for different business processes. This paper looks into this issue and presents a configurable and extensible resource model which can be rapidly reconfigured and extended to serve for different applications. To achieve generality, the presented resource model is established from macro level and micro level. A semantic representation method is developed to improve the flexibility and extensibility of the model