Building material capabilities: A socio-technical analysis of composite product development and manufacturing strategy

The development of advanced material requires much more than purely technical knowledge. This paper presents a socio-technical analysis of industrial capability issues for composites material product. The central idea behind this work is to provide a framework to identify and examine important growth drivers in composites. Composites are engineered materials, made from a combination of constituent materials with different properties, and find applications in a variety of business sectors and contribute towards a sustainable economy. The main goal of this paper is to shed some light on how the composites industry could accelerate production rates, meet demands for sophisticated products in high volumes and reach advanced levels of industrialisation

From composite material technologies to composite products: A cross-sectorial reflection on technology transitions and production capability

Materials, since the dawn of time, have played a crucial role in the development of civilization. Pre-history ages are fundamentally characterized by the material humans mastered, while the transitions to new materials have always marked a different socio-technical order. In this work we are going to investigate a relatively new material class, composites, in order to explain the issues the industry is currently facing. We are going to discuss material in the context of developing products that take full advantage of the benefits that composites can offer. The main idea behind this work is to understand how composite material technologies create growth and how the properties of those materials influence production capability and manufacturability. This work is the result of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites Platform research in the UK. It started with the bold intention to go beyond conventional research in composite material and explore the mechanisms of industrial change and growth through material. An examination of cases from a diverse range of sectors, acted as a platform to initiate a conversation on the issues practitioners are facing when adapting their products, or processes, to composite technologies, or when moving from a craftsman approach to state-of-theart material and process technologies. This paper presents insights from a sector/market agnostic point of view to probe the socio-technical considerations related to the diffusion of manufacturing innovation concerning composites and their production capabilities.The paper makes three main contributions. First, it presents a discussion on the capability issues regarding composites. Second, it presents empirical evidence on industrializing in composite material technologies. Finally, building on empirical evidence and previous literature, it describes the feedback loops during the composite product development process. The paper concludes with a reflection on current theories of innovation management on composite material technologies

System dynamics and learning: Learning during the product realization chain

Global market competition and consumer attitudes, demand a constant flow of new products in the market. Product lifecycles shrink and consequently the pressure for novel products that rapidly pass from the R&D lab to the consumer hands is increased, especially for high-technology firms. This requires particularly high rates of learning allowing firms to develop new products faster and adapt quickly to market changes. This paper addresses a gap in the learning literature, presenting an integrative model for learning during the whole process of new product development, from concept design to actual manufacturing. Higher order learning dynamics, occurring during the product realization chain (product design, process modeling, process execution) are combined with the learning curve theory, in order to present an innovative view of learning that facilitates the modeling of this complex process through control theory. ©2010 IEEE

Hierarchies of adaptable learning during product development

Shorter product lifecycles, shrinking time-to-market and increasing global competition, drive companies to premature transitions from the development laboratory to full-scale commercial production. This ramp-up period is usually considered as a transient phenomenon and often ignored by a large body of literature. Hence, the current push for accelerated development and quality manufacturing of new products, has increased the need to model and measure production performance during ramp-up. Despite this need for a concrete framework of these early stages of the product life cycle, a useful model of ramp-up, formalizing this tradeoff between product design and process modeling during the execution phase, is missing. In this context the present work deals with this issue throught a structured methodology that highlights the system sensitivities by decoupling process and product design, proposing an algorithm that uses empirical evaluation measures of manufacturing complexity. © 2011 IEEE

A socially intelligent approach to consumers' collective capabilities in smart grids

There is a pressing need to investigate consumers' social relations within energy systems particularly in the context of socially smart grids at the domestic level. However, no studies to date have categorised or explained how such social relations manifest and what role different consumers play in managing home energy demand. This work provides for the first time, a categorisation of household archetypes through the social relations that govern them. This study draws on mixed data including a large-scale ethno-visual survey and interviews conducted with energy consumers in Glasgow and Bristol, UK. The analysis forms part of a wider study which integrates social identity theory (SIT), practice theory and rhythm-analysis. We primarily focus on insights derived from SIT as an approach to identifying consumers' capabilities in smart energy systems and Home Energy Management (HEM) through a study of social relations. The findings reveal novel perspectives on how social identities shape HEM patterns and how the consequent socio-spatial and technical implications play a role in future demand reduction and the development of socially smart grids. The contribution of this study is two-fold; firstly, to demonstrate how prioritising social practices, identities, and rhythm-analysis can lead to novel interventions in smart grids and redefine the roles of the community, and neighbourhoods, and secondly to discuss the policy implications for planning future automated demand management via the acquisition of new socio-spatial insights into how diverse social identities and practices can foster just transitions and equitable energy futures in the UK and beyond.</p

Energy Policy Scenarios of CCS Implementation in the Greek Electricity Sector

The energy balance of Greece is strongly dependent on imported oil. The rather late introduction of natural gas has increased the diversity of the energy mix while the share of renewable sources in primary energy supply still needs to increase according to the existing potential. Yet, Greece as one of the most of the EU developed countries encounters a serious task: the need to increase its electricity production of almost 5% per year but at the same time to reduce the CO2 emissions according with the National and International (20-20-20) regulations and allocation plans. Therefore reducing CO2 emissions has become a major priority for national government. In addition, from 2013, there will be the full implementation of the wholesale market in the European Trading Scheme (ETS) which is currently in the last stages of a transition phase.In Greece electricity is mainly generated from lignite, thus making the electricity sector one of the main contributors to GHG emissions with a level above 40% of the total country and higher than the corresponding average of the rest of the EU countries. The possible implementation of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies would then become very decisive due to the large use of the lignite as fuel in the country electricity mix. CCS technology has the potential of increasing the flexibility on the achievement greenhouse gas emissions reduction by allowing to continue to use fossil fuels, which still guarantees feasibility in the energy sector. This work presents a roadmap with the modeling of the main technologies associated to the CCS and its implementation into the Greek energy system considering existing National and International Strategic energy plans under different scenarios. The implementation of CCS technologies would have a large influence on the national electrical power production, having the responsibility for large shares of the emissions reduction that can potentially achieved in this sector. For this purpose, TIMES (The Integrated MARKAL/EFOM System) has been chosen as the principal tool for building a techno-economic model of the Greek energy system and its possible evaluation over time (2040)

Studying effects of preshearing on hand layup

Advanced composites are used extensively in many high performance applications. As they are taken up in a wider range of applications, the volume of demand is pushing manufacturing methods, especially hand layup of woven prepreg cloth, to their limits. An alternative approach to hand layup over complex geometries is proposed. The regular method of layup involves generating shear using grasps and pressures in the prepreg as and when it is needed during layup, leading to a sometimes complex and time consuming process. In the method proposed, all the shear deformation is created in the ply prior to any contact between the prepreg and the mold surface. Guidelines were drawn onto the prepreg surface to enable the correct shear distribution to be ‘presheared’ by hand. These were created by processing the outputs from a simple kinematic drape simulation within MATLAB. Once preshearing was completed, the ply is laid up onto the mold using regular hand layup techniques. The process was tested alongside regular manual lamination across three example parts and using video analysis effects of the process were investigated via a variety of metrics. This revealed that significant time savings and reduced likelihood of manufacturing variations are possible with this approach. There was also a significant simplification of the layup process, leading participants to comment that a previously ‘difficult’ layup had become ‘easy’. An improved bespoke system for communicating the required preshearing was subsequently developed, and successfully trialed on a fourth example part. Preshearing has the potential to make hand layup more economically viable for years to come. As well as the productivity and cost benefits, preshearing shows promise as a training aid, especially for beginner laminators. Concepts for integrating preshearing into existing industrial practice and its further potential in the field of automation are also discussed

Toward privacy-sensitive human-robot interaction: Privacy terms and human-data interaction in the personal robot era

Can we have personal robots without giving away personal data? Besides, what is the role of a robots Privacy Policy in that question? This work explores for the first time privacy in the context of consumer robotics through the lens of information communicated to users through Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions. Privacy, personal and non-personal data are discussed under the light of the human-robot relationship, while we attempt to draw connections to dimensions related to personalization, trust, and transparency. We introduce a novel methodology to assess how the "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Trans-Border Flows of Personal Data"are reflected upon the publicly available Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions in the consumer robotics field. We draw comparisons between the ways eight consumer robotic companies approach privacy principles. Current findings demonstrate significant deviations in the structure and context of privacy terms. Some practical dimensions in terms of improving the context and the format of privacy terms are discussed. The ultimate goal of this work is to raise awareness regarding the various privacy strategies used by robot companies while ultimately creating a usable way to make this information more relevant and accessible to users

A socially intelligent approach to consumers’ collective capabilities in smart grids

There is a pressing need to investigate consumers’ social relations within energy systems particularly in the context of socially smart grids at the domestic level. However, no studies to date have categorised or explained how such social relations manifest and what role different consumers play in managing home energy demand. This work provides for the first time, a categorisation of household archetypes through the social relations that govern them. This study draws on mixed data including a large-scale ethno-visual survey and interviews conducted with energy consumers in Glasgow and Bristol, UK. The analysis forms part of a wider study which integrates social identity theory (SIT), practice theory and rhythm-analysis. We primarily focus on insights derived from SIT as an approach to identifying consumers’ capabilities in smart energy systems and Home Energy Management (HEM) through a study of social relations. The findings reveal novel perspectives on how social identities shape HEM patterns and how the consequent socio-spatial and technical implications play a role in future demand reduction and the development of socially smart grids. The contribution of this study is two-fold; firstly, to demonstrate how prioritising social practices, identities, and rhythm-analysis can lead to novel interventions in smart grids and redefine the roles of the community, and neighbourhoods, and secondly to discuss the policy implications for planning future automated demand management via the acquisition of new socio-spatial insights into how diverse social identities and practices can foster just transitions and equitable energy futures in the UK and beyond