The load of sustainability for Additive Manufacturing processes

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Production Management Fundamentals for Additive Manufacturing

The additive manufacturing (AM) is a new way to produce parts, which in the last years had a significant application in the traditional production environment, since it demonstrated its capability to produce parts without particular defects and with good mechanical properties. During the last two decades the AM was firstly used to produce polymers’ products and after metals’ products; this evolution made possible the breakthrough in the traditional industrial sectors such as the aerospace, the mechanical, and other related sectors. Nevertheless, the introduction of this technology in this context put on the table of the researchers and practitioners some questions about the management of this technology in a more complex context, characterized by the integration with other machines. Aim of this chapter is to present a literature review of the principal facets of the AM related to the field of operations management and trying to define a model to account the costs of production and to schedule the machine activity

Digital twins and collaborative robotics: a SWOT-AHP analysis to assess sustainable applications

Digital twins, complex infrastructures able to connect physical systems with virtual ones in a bi-directional way, seem to be promising enablers of production system replication in real time. In the manufacturing field, cooperation and collaboration between humans and robots (properly cobots) in a shared environment is spreading. Digital twins and cobots are becoming fundamental tools to support humans in the workplace. This study aims at evaluating the benefits as well as criticalities of applying digital twin technology for cobot implementation within manufacturing operations. The adopted hybrid methodology combines SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis and AHP (Analytical Hierarchical Process) to assess the sustainability of digital twins and cobot implementation in a specific workplace by analyzing economic, as well as safety and environmental impacts. The main findings reported that application of digital twins and cobots may improve safety in the workplace by reducing hazards. Furthermore, the potential integration of digital twins and cobots represents an effective solution to overcome the weaknesses and threats of correlated systems, that have been envisaged separately. The potential contribution of using digital twins in designing and managing these applications could help researchers and technicians. Results have practical implications as they allow for the application of optimal innovative solutions in the manufacturing and re-manufacturing sector with an extending domain for further research

The Digital Factory Concept from Manufacturing to Services Environment

To significantly reduce development time and costs, concurrent work and change iterations (in reverse engineering approach) between design and manufacturing need to be evaluated and managed in near real time. Layout, workspace assessment and procedures, process analysis and validation can be analysed through the integration of multi-objective mathematical procedures, discrete event simulated environment and digital models (i.e., Digital Factory - DF approach). Across a digital world is possible to visualize and bear out and interplay all elements of the “future” growing factory/environment. Furthermore, brainstorms can be found on visual manifestation of hypothetical virtual environments. Expert analyst, from different fields and knowledge (like engineers and doctors), can eventually cooperate and meditate about optimization of procedures and processes on such a digital model. What is more is the possibility of resolving all design mistakes in a fictitious world (i.e., Virtual Reality environment). This significantly reduces the cumulative cost of change and time-to-market while improving quality of supply services. In this paper, a Digital Factory approach was implemented to analyze and optimize manufacturing as well as services environment. A continuous loop between virtualization and optimization has been engaged. The carried out cases study are the muffler assembly station of an Italian automotive company and the Emergency Department behaviour of an Ireland hospital. The visualization step was, in both cases, the system validation and the final optimization phase of a more complex discrete event simulated environment. Numerical outcomes of the DF approach will be manifested. The outputs will be produced in terms of layout and facilities improvements, space usability, product/service level and quality, costs reduction and profitability of investments. Concepts like ergonomics, workplace arrangement, flow characterization, paths analysis, human/quality/cost design will be exhaustively treated and prospected. Snapshots of the digital world will be portrayed

Computer Simulation and Swarm Intelligence Organization into An Emergency Department: A Balanced approach across Ant Colony Optimization

Healthcare system must be sensitive to the needs of patient, financially viable and cost-effective. Emergency Department (ED) crowding and rising healthcare costs are perceived as significant issues that are getting worse. In order to respond to the growing number of incoming patients, hospital departments, including emergency rooms, have to re-evaluate their current facilities, procedures and practises from an operations management perspective. In a typical ED, it is important to minimise not only the patient’s waiting time but also the staff idle time while maintaining the high utilisation rate of medical facilities. Computer simulation is recognised as a powerful tool, for medical management, to enquire productivity trying to increase service level to patients. Based on the analogy of a Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) and known patient scheduling methodologies, a metaheuristic Swarm Intelligence (SI) approach, focused on Ant System (AS) behaviour, was used in the balancing of an ED. The Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) algorithm was implemented with the proposal to optimise patient scheduling under defined precedence, zoning and capacity constraints while balancing the workload between and within resource types. The ED of Cork University Hospital (CUH), Ireland, is the case in issue

Design and Optimization of a Facility Layout Problem in Virtual Environment

Productivity improvement, due to high competition on global marketplace, requires a concurrent/reverse engineering approach to layout design, simulation and optimization in as short as possible times. Besides, a facility layout problem can be viewed as a combinatorial optimization problem solvable through heuristic methodologies. Designers, engineers and managers needs automated tools to effectively analyze layout and define an optimal configuration. Central to success is the integration of multi objective mathematical procedures with robust design techniques and virtual representation/validation in stereoscopic real scale. Flow analysis, plant design and optimal 3-D layout representation, with virtual environment validation, are the objects in our facility layout approach. In a Virtual Reality environment, using Axiomatic Design, it is possible to analyze alternative design configurations with little efforts and short time, obtaining improvements in communication, savings in changes and assuring design integration with computer tools. Encouraged by the big interest on Virtual Reality abilities, the paper presents an innovative robust design application based on a Rectangle-Packing placement optimization procedure with Virtual Reality environment validation of a real flow shop production process

The Care For Planning and Control in a Framework for Hospital Management

The paper presents a hierarchical framework for medium/short term planning and control of Healthcare delivery systems which deals with standardization, rationalization and effective measurement of assets capacity. The incorporated architecture is transposing information and communication methodologies, in the shape of Enterprise Resources Planning (i.e., ERP), from the production domain to the Hospital Resources Planning (i.e., HRP) frame. It is designed to translate successful control functions at all different levels of planning in a hospital. This is required for system’s flexibility, strategic decision support, material and resources and production control, patient volume admission and treatment schedule, budgeting analysis. Basically the vision coordinates procedures of operation management: Master Schedule (i.e., MS), Material and Resources Requirement Planning (i.e., MRP), Distribution Requirement Planning (i.e., DRP), Decision Support Systems (i.e., DSS), Finally Assembly Schedule (i.e., FAS). These modules need to be liaised, in an effective while efficient way, by a central engine of information sharing. Furthermore, based on the main holistic vision of the hospital, the material and resource planning&control for a patients’ admission schedule are elaborated in terms of required inputs, designed outputs, control mechanisms, correlated links and knowledge claims. A capacity driven system is fleshed out. This work provides an extremely valuable methodological architecture to healthcare systems that recognizes the strategic role of coordination between resources and requirements. It summarizes the principal factors and relationships that such a modelling tool should incorporate. Implications of the proposal are discussed evaluating hardware and software requirements, gains and gaps in terms of costs, services and quality. The framework is planning to be as a reference base in detailed short term planning for earnings in health care services. Recommendations for future implementation and research development have been finally formulated