Deriving a systematic approach to changeable manufacturing system design

It has long been argued that Factories are long life and complex products. The complexity of designing factories, and their underlying manufacturing systems, is further amplified when dealing with continuously changing customer demands. At the same time, due to research fragmentation, little if any scientific explanations are available supporting and exploiting the paradigm that "factories are products". In order to address this weakness, this paper presents research results arising from a comparative analysis of systematic "product design" and "manufacturing system design" approaches. The contribution emerging from this research is an integrated systematic design approach to changeable manufacturing systems, based on scientific concepts founded upon product design theories, and is explained through a case study in the paper. This research is part of collaboration between the CERU University of Malta and IAO Fraunhofer aimed at developing a digital decision support tool for planning changeable manufacturing systems.peer-reviewe

The Narrative of Gay Male Teachers in Contemporary Catholic Malta

This thesis seeks to raise awareness of the pervasive heteronormativity of Maltese culture and on the effects that exclusionary practices may have on gay students and teachers. The culturally-saturating influence of the Roman Catholic faith in Malta, and the effects of a vigorously heterosexist society are chief elements which discourage Maltese homosexual educators from presenting their true sexuality to students, their parents, and teacher colleagues; in this and other related socio-cultural ways, Maltese gay teachers have thus been rendered an invisible presence in their schools. The study investigates the significance of being a gay teacher in contemporary Maltese culture through a set of narratives which reveal how five teachers construct and negotiate their personal and professional identities. The thematically-driven narratives themselves are made ‘transgressively’ (St Pierre, 1997) from an artistic re-casting of interview data as composite fictional accounts; in this way, the identities of the actual participants are invisible, whilst the issues that characterise their lives can be dramatically foregrounded. Each of the fictionalised narratives is followed by a critical deconstruction which both locates the story in the context of the literature and features the reflections of the interviewees themselves on the re-working and re-presentation of their life accounts. The accounts themselves tell of suffering and exclusion, of ambiguity but also of success; of experiences which are heavily conditioned by the sexuality of these teachers and by the context in which they are situated. The study concludes with an anticipation of the further research and of the developments in education policy which are needed if Maltese institutions are to realise the national commitment to inclusive cultures of schooling

A case for assisting ‘product family’ manufacturing system designers

Manufacturing system design is a complex and demanding activity and the system designer has to take many factors into consideration during the development process including the demand and technological requirements of the products or product families. Central to this activity is the synthesis decision making process, during which the designer defines the elements that will make up the manufacturing system. This research identifies in the decision making process a critical activity and contributes a phenomena that can be used by a framework to support designers to address complex issues such as changeability and the evolution of products over the manufacturing system life-cycle.This research work was partially funded through an ERDF Project (Project No. ERDF083). The first and second authors would therefore like to thank the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) who is administering this project.peer-reviewe

Towards intelligent early form design and prototyping, questionnaire results and analysis

Currently, the Department of Manufacturing Engineering (DME), University of Malta and the Istitito per la Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche (IMATI), Genoa are conducting research on how simple components represented by sketches on normal paper can be converted to computer models. One of the key issues in developing a sketch recognition system is precisely to handle the trade-off between ease of computer recognition and the preservation of sketching freedom. With an attempt to address this issue, two sketching methods (or sketching languages) have been developed by the DME. This report presents the results of a questionnaire about the sketching activity itself and also about the two proposed sketching languages. An analysis of the results obtained is also presented with the scope to identify what should be the future directions that might contribute to enhance the usefulness of the two sketching approaches

Experiments with augmented reality for supporting education in distributed product design solution evaluation

This paper presents results of an experiment set up to exploit the impact of using Augmented Reality (AR) whilst groups of engineering design students from Malta, Scotland, London and Hungary were collaborating on designing different parts making up a car seat belt mechanism. In particular, the experiment focuses on the distributed, real-time evaluation of the emerging design solution. The results achieved are encouraging and the paper contributes insights of the suitability of using AR in distributed and collaborative design evaluation scenarios

Design for micro milling guidelines

Miniaturisation of parts is emerging as an important approach to satisfy modern industrial and customer needs. Micro milling is one of the basic micromachining technologies used toproduce miniaturised components. It differs from conventional machining in that the handling and machining of very small features generates various problems. As a consequence, designers need to consider such problems during design to make micromilling more feasible. More emphasis thus needs to be placed on deriving design know-how from the other product life-phases. This paper reports the work undertaken by the Department of Manufacturing within the University of Malta to generate a set of Design for Micromilling (DFμM) guidelines that can contribute to the development to intelligent CAD for this domain.peer-reviewe

A conceptual framework to assess effectiveness in wheelchair provision

Background: Currently, inadequate wheelchair provision has forced many people with disabilities to be trapped in a cycle of poverty and deprivation, limiting their ability to access education, work and social facilities. This issue is in part because of the lack of collaboration among various stakeholders who need to work together to design, manufacture and deliver such assistive mobility devices. This in turn has led to inadequate evidence about intervention effectiveness, disability prevalence and subsequent costeffectiveness that would help facilitate appropriate provision and support for people with disabilities. Objectives: In this paper, we describe a novel conceptual framework that can be tested across the globe to study and evaluate the effectiveness of wheelchair provision. Method: The Comparative Effectiveness Research Subcommittee (CER-SC), consisting of the authors of this article, housed within the Evidence-Based Practice Working Group (EBP-WG) of the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP), conducted a scoping review of scientific literature and standard practices used during wheelchair service provision. The literature review was followed by a series of discussion groups. Results: The three iterations of the conceptual framework are described in this manuscript. Conclusion: We believe that adoption of this conceptual framework could have broad applications in wheelchair provision globally to develop evidence-based practices. Such a perspective will help in the comparison of different strategies employed in wheelchair provision and further improve clinical guidelines. Further work is being conducted to test the efficacy of this conceptual framework to evaluate effectiveness of wheelchair service provision in various settings across the globe

'Form Design For Emotion' with a Cameraphone Based Tool

Merging emotional value into products has become an essential strategy for increasing a product’s competitive edge in the consumer market. Indeed, this approach instills emotional value into products, to satisfy human emotional needs. Combined with this is the fact that designers usually work outside their design office using pen and paper, since ideas are usually stimulated. Yet, designers lack mobile computer-aided sketching (CAS) tools which truly link paper-based sketching with computer-based 3D modelling tools. As a step in this direction, this poster presents a framework that extends CAS technology to cameraphones. Furthermore, this framework is capable of providing emotional guidance about a form concept to satisfy the emotional needs of the customer, directly on cameraphones. A proof-of-concept tool has been implemented and evaluated. Preliminary evaluation results with design engineers in the cosmetic cases industry, indicate the positive impact that technology based on the framework developed will have on DFe in practice

Towards life-oriented evaluation support of ‘interface concepts’

The evaluation of design concepts is a critical early design stage with potential ramifications on subsequent lifecycle phases. During this stage the engineering designer is typically required to evaluate multiple concepts with respect to conflicting criteria. Over the years academic research proposed numerous concept evaluation techniques in order to support the user at this critical stage. Yet this has yielded an additional problem in which the inexperienced user needs also to be guided in the selection of the appropriate concept evaluation technique. The research presented in this paper has the long-term objective of providing computer support to the user on 2 levels: the evaluation of design concepts and the selection of the appropriate concept appraisal technique. The research, presented in this paper focuses on the development of an approach for the evaluation of module interface design concepts.peer-reviewe