The Use of CAD/CAM Systems in Manufacture

Theoretical and academic work on CAD/CAM systems has supposed that the standard NC and APT-like interfaces would be adopted. Recent experience has shown that most economically viable industrial CAD/CAM systems are not following this pattern. A plea is made for modularity as a means of slashing development costs and facilitating technology transfer

Satellite-Host Tradeoffs in Computer-Aided Design Systems

Computer-aided design is the generic term for a rapidly proliferating set of techniques which have become mandatory for all who wish to maintain their competitive positions in an increasing number of industries. CAD practitioners in advanced technology industries such as aerospace and electronics are usually highly sophisticated in computer usage and therefore able to configure their own CAD environments to suit their requirements. Those, however, who are relatively new to computers, are faced with a bewildering set of choices over which they have to make decisions. Should they have a cheap terminal linked to a remote time-sharing bureau? Should they attempt to do their whole design job on a dedicated, medium-sized in-house computer? Or should they invest in a high capability, intelligent terminal backed up by access to a central (or network-distributed) number-crunching and data-bank facility? What graphic facilities should they use? A drum plotter, a storage-tube display, interactive refresh graphics unit, hardware rotation, conic generation, zooming, are all choices that are presented to them and the manufacturers' praise of their own line is often more confusing than helpful. The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IIASA, has recently embarked on a World Survey of CAD, one of whose aims has been to provide guidance to would-be users on the establishment of CAD facilities suited to their needs. In this work IIASA has relied heavily on the analysis of the activity phases in CAD, currently being conducted by W.G. 5.2 (Computer-Aided Design) of IFIP (The International Federation for Information Processing)

Possible Consequences of the Intensive Computerization of Industrial Production and Management: A Scenario and Annotated Bibliography

This scenario was written in 1978 by J. Hatvany of the Computer and Automation Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and an IIASA alumnus. It was intended as an input to the Institute's own thinking about a future research program. It is just one scenario in a wide spectrum that needs to be taken into consideration in future studies when studying the possible impact of computer developments on management, organization and society. J. Hatvany has a broad perspective on societal development. In the introduction of this report he commits himself to the "school" of futurologists following Daniel Bell in their investigations of the "post industrial society." Herman Kahn is another major influence. He heavily opposes the other school as advocated by Schumacher, Schwartz, and others. With this perspective, he investigates his scenario of the future characterized by intensive computerization of industrial production and management with an emphasis on far-reaching vertical integration of computer use in organizations, industry and society. He sees different characteristics in this report within discrete manufacturing and in continuous processes. Managers will have to adapt smoothly into a larger hierarchical power structure than ever before -- just as any other component of the gigantic system. The author finds the key to his future scenario in the development of powerful systems analysis and synthesis tools to design highly integrated and a far-reaching computerized control system encompassing industry and societal planning. He holds that such a development must be made through international cooperation. In the "factory of the future" the author paints a picture of a super-developed society based on such computerized procedures. He dwells on the societal effects within this scenario; on decision-making, education, employment, human settlements, environment, resources, R&D and monetary circumstances. He sees the society where money itself will gradually recede from the everyday citizen level sphere to the accounting and planning of society only. An extensive bibliography partially annotated with the author's values and comments concludes the report

Sample Size in Behavioral Research: A Systematic Review of JEAB and JABA from 2009 to 2018

The current research conducted a systematic review on sample size and the use of inferential statistics in basic and applied behavioral research by assessing all experimental studies from 2009 to 2018 in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) which was 1,155 articles. The use or non-use of inferential statistics in behavioral research remains controversial as visual inspection has deep historical roots. JEAB had a median number of eight subjects and JABA had a median number of four subjects, which was statistically different using Mood’s median test. In addition, articles in JEAB were more likely to use inferential statistics compared to JABA.  In general, inferential statistics were used in the presence of larger sample sizes, however, the use of animal subjects was associated with smaller sample sizes. Although patterns of the use of inferential statistics varied across journal, sample size, and species, this does not preclude the use of statistical methods by applied behavioral researchers, which should be used to support and confirm visual inspections of data. Keywords: sample size, inferential statistics, behavioral research, systematic review

User-Friendly MES Interfaces:Recommendations for an AI-Based Chatbot Assistance in Industry 4.0 Shop Floors

The purpose of this paper is to study an Industry 4.0 scenario of ‘technical assistance’ and use manufacturing execution systems (MES) to address the need for easy information extraction on the shop floor. We identify specific requirements for a user-friendly MES interface to develop (and test) an approach for technical assistance and introduce a chatbot with a prediction system as an interface layer for MES. The chatbot is aimed at production coordination by assisting the shop floor workforce and learn from their inputs, thus acting as an intelligent assistant. We programmed a prototype chatbot as a proof of concept, where the new interface layer provided live updates related to production in natural language and added predictive power to MES. The results indicate that the chatbot interface for MES is beneficial to the shop floor workforce and provides easy information extraction, compared to the traditional search techniques. The paper contributes to the manufacturing information systems field and demonstrates a human-AI collaboration system in a factory. In particular, this paper recommends the manner in which MES based technical assistance systems can be developed for the purpose of easy information retrieval

Interactive Curve Fitting

Interactive curve fitting is one of the main problems met when trying to fulfill the task of converting the description of the shape of a car body model into a computer compatible form. The solution proposed by Bezier has gained wide attention and acceptance mainly because of the idea of relating the shape of the curve to a polygon that mimics the curve itself. It is noted that the degree to which the polygon mimics the associated curve decreases as the number of points of inflexion, sharp bends or other odd behaviours require higher order polygons. Some solutions proposed by other authors to overcome this problem are briefly discussed and a contribution to the problem is give