Technology enablers for the implementation of Industry 4.0 to traditional manufacturing sectors: A review

The traditional manufacturing sectors (footwear, textiles and clothing, furniture and toys, among others) are based on small and medium enterprises with limited capacity on investing in modern production technologies. Although these sectors rely heavily on product customization and short manufacturing cycles, they are still not able to take full advantage of the fourth industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 surfaced to address the current challenges of shorter product life-cycles, highly customized products and stiff global competition. The new manufacturing paradigm supports the development of modular factory structures within a computerized Internet of Things environment. With Industry 4.0, rigid planning and production processes can be revolutionized. However, the computerization of manufacturing has a high degree of complexity and its implementation tends to be expensive, which goes against the reality of SMEs that power the traditional sectors. This paper reviews the main scientific-technological advances that have been developed in recent years in traditional sectors with the aim of facilitating the transition to the new industry standard.This research was supported by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the project CloudDriver4Industry TIN2017-89266-R

Reinterpreting the Dougong joint: a systematic review of robotic technologies for the assembly of timber joinery

The Dougong (brackets set) is a traditional Chinese capital used to transfer the roof load to the columns. Besides its historical significance, it is also known for its anti-seismic and environmentally friendly properties. This paper investigates which existing digital design and fabrication technologies are suitable for the automated assembly and production of the Dougong joint by reviewing relevant research. The paper systematically reviews and comparatively analyses 23 articles filtered through 1,774 publications searched by using the keywords ‘timber’, ‘digital fabrication’, and ‘robot’ in the databases Scopus, CumlnCAD, ScienceDirect, Engineer Village, IEEE and Semantic Scholar. Our findings include a comparative analysis chart evaluating workflows, tools and technologies on their suitability for the robotic reinterpretation of the Dougong, as well as the proposal of a novel design for fabrication workflow for that particular purpose, which is verified through the design and fabrication of a timber column fragment

Role of prosumer driven 3D food printing in innovating food value chains

Digital platforms have created an impact in almost all facets of our life in a short period. Today, they are an integral and critical part of consumer experience. When combined with revolutionary 3d printing technology, these platforms are great enablers of prosumption, i.e., production undertaken by consumers. The associated paradigm change is already visible in the specialized goods sector. With the emergence of 3d food printing technology, similar changes are very much anticipated in the food sector. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to create an understanding on how digitally-driven 3d food printing could be best utilized for food prosumption. Three research questions were raised with an aim of identifying key challenges, and uncertainties in prosumer driven 3d food printing; defining the characteristics and customization parameters of a prosumer platform for 3d food printing; and identifying most potential archetypes and use cases for prosumer-driven 3d food printing. To answer the research questions, 3 research themes were identified, namely food value chain, prosumption, and 3d food printing. After an extensive literature review process based upon the research themes, relevant data were gathered using Mixed Methods Research (MMR) approach. 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from industry and academia. This was followed by a quantitative survey with a pool of respondents from within the identified research themes. Finally, a stakeholder workshop was carried out to finalize and further refine the concepts generated through MMR. Personalized nutrition is found to be an area where 3d food printing has a lot of scope, especially for applications in fitness centres, senior homes, and hospitals. Also, utilization of prosumer driven 3d food printing in fine dining restaurants has one of the highest business potential and feasibility at this point of time. Overall, the research implies that leveraging digital platforms in 3d food printing has the potential to generate futuristic food value chains that are connected, collaborative, data-driven, and transparent

Manipulation Planning for Forceful Human-Robot-Collaboration

This thesis addresses the problem of manipulation planning for forceful human-robot collaboration. Particularly, the focus is on the scenario where a human applies a sequence of changing external forces through forceful operations (e.g. cutting a circular piece off a board) on an object that is grasped by a cooperative robot. We present a range of planners that 1) enable the robot to stabilize and position the object under the human applied forces by exploiting supports from both the object-robot and object-environment contacts; 2) improve task efficiency by minimizing the need of configuration and grasp changes required by the changing external forces; 3) improve human comfort during the forceful interaction by optimizing the defined comfort criteria. We first focus on the instance of using only robotic grasps, where the robot is supposed to grasp/regrasp the object multiple times to keep it stable under the changing external forces. We introduce a planner that can generate an efficient manipulation plan by intelligently deciding when the robot should change its grasp on the object as the human applies the forces, and choosing subsequent grasps such that they minimize the number of regrasps required in the long-term. The planner searches for such an efficient plan by first finding a minimal sequence of grasp configurations that are able to keep the object stable under the changing forces, and then generating connecting trajectories to switch between the planned configurations, i.e. planning regrasps. We perform the search for such a grasp (configuration) sequence by sampling stable configurations for the external forces, building an operation graph using these stable configurations and then searching the operation graph to minimize the number of regrasps. We solve the problem of bimanual regrasp planning under the assumption of no support surface, enabling the robot to regrasp an object in the air by finding intermediate configurations at which both the bimanual and unimanual grasps can hold the object stable under gravity. We present a variety of experiments to show the performance of our planner, particularly in minimizing the number of regrasps for forceful manipulation tasks and planning stable regrasps. We then explore the problem of using both the object-environment contacts and object-robot contacts, which enlarges the set of stable configurations and thus boosts the robot’s capability in stabilizing the object under external forces. We present a planner that can intelligently exploit the environment’s and robot’s stabilization capabilities within a unified planning framework to search for a minimal number of stable contact configurations. A big computational bottleneck in this planner is due to the static stability analysis of a large number of candidate configurations. We introduce a containment relation between different contact configurations, to efficiently prune the stability checking process. We present a set of real-robot and simulated experiments illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed framework. We present a detailed analysis of the proposed containment relationship, particularly in improving the planning efficiency. We present a planning algorithm to further improve the cooperative robot behaviour concerning human comfort during the forceful human-robot interaction. Particularly, we are interested in empowering the robot with the capability of grasping and positioning the object not only to ensure the object stability against the human applied forces, but also to improve human experience and comfort during the interaction. We address human comfort as the muscular activation level required to apply a desired external force, together with the human spatial perception, i.e. the so-called peripersonal-space comfort during the interaction. We propose to maximize both comfort metrics to optimize the robot and object configuration such that the human can apply a forceful operation comfortably. We present a set of human-robot drilling and cutting experiments which verify the efficiency of the proposed metrics in improving the overall comfort and HRI experience, without compromising the force stability. In addition to the above planning work, we present a conic formulation to approximate the distribution of a forceful operation in the wrench space with a polyhedral cone, which enables the planner to efficiently assess the stability of a system configuration even in the presence of force uncertainties that are inherent in the human applied forceful operations. We also develop a graphical user interface, which human users can easily use to specify various forceful tasks, i.e. sequences of forceful operations on selected objects, in an interactive manner. The user interface ties in human task specification, on-demand manipulation planning and robot-assisted fabrication together. We present a set of human-robot experiments using the interface demonstrating the feasibility of our system. In short, in this thesis we present a series of planners for object manipulation under changing external forces. We show the object contacts with the robot and the environment enable the robot to manipulate an object under external forces, while making the most of the object contacts has the potential to eliminate redundant changes during manipulation, e.g. regrasp, and thus improve task efficiency and smoothness. We also show the necessity of optimizing human comfort in planning for forceful human-robot manipulation tasks. We believe the work presented here can be a key component in a human-robot collaboration framework

Manufacturing Distinction: Gaining access to Mass Customization in the Production of Architecture

Contemporary architecture often finds itself challenging the physical constraints of the previous era and typically aims to be one of a kind. This thesis views architecture as the accumulation of design and construction and considers both from the view of constructibility. The design of architecture relies upon the formal desire, its materiality, function, direction of which parts are needed and how they can be constructed. The construction of architecture focuses on the coordination, fabrication and assembly of these parts. The industry of construction has three primary constraints: time, cost, and labour. To ease the construction process ideals have been borrowed and implemented from manufacturing to allow streamlining and moved away from the world of bespoke construction. We sit in a system of construction based upon the manufactured part. Manufacturing operations follow one essential formula, the transformation of raw material through the addition of machinery, tools, energy, and labour, to provide the desired product with greater function and value. All consumer items are created through these methods individually or in some combination, having to navigate the complex order of procedures which transform simple materials into everyday objects. The constraints of material play a significant role in the manufacturing operation available to produce any given object and its subsequent performance in an architectural application. Architecture is much more than the manufacturing of a single object. Similar to the production of bikes, cars and other consumer products, architecture utilizes what is known as a system of production. With increased product demand the system of production has naturally transformed as well. Improvements can be seen in areas of logical flow (the division of labour and interchangeable parts), physical flow (the assembly line, mechanization, and digitalization), and controls (tolerances and standards). The constraints of a product play a large role in the appropriateness of a system of production for that object, subsequently impacting the feasibility of any object being economically produced. Manufacturing processes are moving towards digital management and flow as a way of offering unique options within the production of manufactured parts. Overall, architecture strives for a way to be unique within the boundaries of manufactured elements, achieving this through different means such as distilling the function of a space to the elements that construct it, constructing with modular elements, and componentized customization. The transition towards digital design of objects within the industry allows a physically ‘free’ environment to create within; additive manufacturing offers the processing counterpart by digitally shaping physical objects from ‘nothing’. Moving architecture into the digital realm shifts it into a place to easily integrate digital design data into the manufacturing process. Having the ability to bypass the challenges of how we make items, why we choose specific materials, why we produce at specific volume runs, and ties into existing digital production processes. The potentials stand out in the area of producing objects with unique physical constraints or meeting the demands of small product runs

New Trends in Development of Services in the Modern Economy

The services sector strategic development unites a multitude of economic and managerial aspects and is one of the most important problems of economic management. Many researches devoted to this industry study are available. Most of them are performed in the traditional aspect of the voluminous calendar approach to strategic management, characteristic of the national scientific school. Such an approach seems archaic, forming false strategic benchmarks. The services sector is of special scientific interest in this context due to the fact that the social production structure to the services development model attraction in many countries suggests transition to postindustrial economy type where the services sector is a system-supporting sector of the economy. Actively influencing the economy, the services sector in the developed countries dominates in the GDP formation, primary capital accumulation, labor, households final consumption and, finally, citizens comfort of living. However, a clear understanding of the services sector as a hyper-sector permeating all spheres of human activity has not yet been fully developed, although interest in this issue continues to grow among many authors. Target of strategic management of the industry development setting requires substantive content and the services sector target value assessment

Three Fundamental Trade-offs in Expanding Sustainable Distributions of Manufacturing

The background of the research is the trend towards more inclusive manufacturing. This includes all levels of technologies to enable more diverse geographic and demographic distributions of manufacturing, which can improve ecological and social sustainability. Expanding distributions of manufacturing is of interest to governments, companies, communities and individuals. Interest among government and companies relates to manufacturing being re-shored and redistributed. Interest among communities and individuals is in people having more involvement in the production of what they consume: i.e. prosumption. Expansion of geographic distributions has potential to increase ecological sustainability, for example, by reducing long-distance transportation. Expansion of demographic distributions has potential to increase social sustainability, for example, by increasing the diversity of people involved in manufacturing. The dissertation addresses three research gaps concerned with sustainable distributed manufacturing. In particular, the fundamental challenges of three manufacturing trade-offs are addressed as follows: product originality, product complexity, and product unsustainability versus sustainable distributed manufacturing. There are three main findings from the research. First, technological advances enable expansion of sustainable distributed manufacturing of original products, if the products are small simple original products rather than large complicated original products. Second, technological advances enable sustainable distributed manufacturing of products that are more complex than could otherwise be made far from manufacturing infrastructures, but which nonetheless are not the most complex products. Third, technological advances enable more sustainable distributed production of products with unsustainable features, if technological advances are applied also to some existing distributions of manufacturing. Consideration of these three main findings and three further findings, suggests two complementary strategies for expanding sustainable manufacturing distributions: trade-off reduction and trade-off avoidance. Overall, the research is novel through its inclusion of diverse technologies and distributions of manufacturing in order to determine their relative potential to improve the production of physical goods at more diverse locations by more diverse people

Biomechanical Assessments of the Upper Limb for Determining Fatigue, Strain and Effort from the Laboratory to the Industrial Working Place: A Systematic Review

Recent human-centered developments in the industrial field (Industry 5.0) lead companies and stakeholders to ensure the wellbeing of their workers with assessments of upper limb performance in the workplace, with the aim of reducing work-related diseases and improving awareness of the physical status of workers, by assessing motor performance, fatigue, strain and effort. Such approaches are usually developed in laboratories and only at times they are translated to on-field applications; few studies summarized common practices for the assessments. Therefore, our aim is to review the current state-of-the-art approaches used for the assessment of fatigue, strain and effort in working scenarios and to analyze in detail the differences between studies that take place in the laboratory and in the workplace, in order to give insights on future trends and directions. A systematic review of the studies aimed at evaluating the motor performance, fatigue, strain and effort of the upper limb targeting working scenarios is presented. A total of 1375 articles were found in scientific databases and 288 were analyzed. About half of the scientific articles are focused on laboratory pilot studies investigating effort and fatigue in laboratories, while the other half are set in working places. Our results showed that assessing upper limb biomechanics is quite common in the field, but it is mostly performed with instrumental assessments in laboratory studies, while questionnaires and scales are preferred in working places. Future directions may be oriented towards multi-domain approaches able to exploit the potential of combined analyses, exploitation of instrumental approaches in workplace, targeting a wider range of people and implementing more structured trials to translate pilot studies to real practice