Digital manufacturing: what are we able to print?

In a rational exercise, in the present paper it is extrapolated how the development of ICTs (information and communication technologies) and the incipient technological development of additive manufacturing has the potential to change our society. In the following, it is analyzing the evolution of man over physical matter and how this has shaped our society. The main milestones or key stages in history that have marked a transcendental change in the human-machine-environment relationship have been identified and consequently have led us to ask ourselves: What is next, how far are we, and what are we capable of printing? In an attempt to identify the current state of the art, highlighting the possibilities those additive technologies can offerPostprint (published version

Decision Support Models for the Selection of Production Strategies in the Paradigm of Digital Manufacturing, Based on Technologies, Costs and Productivity Levels

Digital manufacturing has opened a new window in the way to approach the manufacture of parts. The possible switch from manufacturing and holding physical stock to manoeuvring with a fully-digital one is promising but still has not been undertaken‑or only in a small proportion‑by the majority of the manufacturing companies. What are the cost and productivity frontiers that halt the transformation taking place so far? When does it make sense, in terms of production volume and costs, to undertake this transformation? What level of savings could be achieved and what investments would be favourable? The base line of the present chapter is to depict quantitative tools to address the potential impact of endeavouring digital transformation in manufacturing environments, considering costing and production variables, as well as technological decision-making parameters. Keeping the modelling of the demand very basic, some exploration on the degree of postponement of the production is discussed. Also, decision support systems (DSSs) for manufacturing selection are reviewed. Finally, a case study serves to apply the mathematical framework presented and to quantify the results in a realistic industrial case. Using this case, the chapter outlines and describes how to apply artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to implement the DSSs

Implementation of intelligent manufacturing algorithms in agile architectures for production: world models for systems incorporating binary and continuous variables

Agile Manufacturing, Intelligent systems, AlgorithmsBuilding in previous works of the authors, the present paper focuses on the extension of the Algorithms described for the specific case study of binary systems (systems in which each variable can take one out of two values), to cases that also incorporate continuous variables (those which can take any continuous value within a range). This extension of the Algorithms makes possible the incorporation of new possibilities and functionalities for the treatment of the information received by the sensors of the manufacturing systems and in particular reduce the number of variables in which to monitor the states and costs of execution. The Construction of World Models based on this logical theory -that incorporates the knowledge derived from the results of a set of experiments conducted by the system utilizing a set of different algorithms- is applicable to a wide range of production systems topologies, which is also visited in the present work.Postprint (published version

Contribució als algoritmes de construcció de models del món per a la implementació en Arquitectures Àgils de Fabricació

The present work composes a contribution towards the Construction of World models for its implementation in 'Agile Manufacturing Architectures', aiming to take a step further the control programs for manufacturing systems, making it go from being mere tasks implementers to be entities with 'intelligence' that allow them to decide for themselves what is the best strategy to approach a certain given task. In other words, the input information to the production system should stop being a deterministic sequence of commands to become a specification of initial and final states. The work builds on previous results of Gomà and Vivancos to build logical models of simple systems and enunciates some corollaries relating to its operation. Then, it develops new algorithms based on the main stages of World Exploration and Tasks Implementation; initially only for Worlds populated by binary variables and later with the introduction of the treatment of continuous variables. These algorithms, innovative as they introduce the possibility of applying logical prejudices about the world, can apply different strategies to build world models. To evaluate the applicability of these algorithms it is programmed in C+ an experimentation platform for particularised systems and a specification according to the variables that should be utilised in the implementation of these algorithms in different types of manufacturing equipment (Machine tools for Subtractive methods and Additive Manufacturing systems) as well as in complex systems such as the 'Agile Manufacturing Architectures', that have been studied and materialized in works in the context of the present Thesis. In recent years, the paradigm of manufacturing has changed. China and Asia have become the factory of the world and all developed countries have had to began aggressive reindustrialization campaigns to relocate the industry lost. In some cases, particularly relevant sectors 'like the biomedical sector, the Toys case and the Consumer products-, have been presented as a golden opportunity to achieve promising results and have been the subject of an in-depth analysis in this work. Meanwhile, during these years, research and development of manufacturing systems have not been stopped; in fact, it has emerged a new community called 'Makers', built upon very well trained users, motivated by non-profit aspirations that are making to change the game rules. Soon, the personal digital fabrication and the virtual generation and sharing of content will end up to change the way of producing products (and therefore to conceive, to transport, to use and to trade with them), making possible a movement that is being considered as the 'Democratization of the production'. The algorithms presented are intended to maintain a high level of abstraction. 'Action' and 'detection' are internally treated as entirely independent processes, so the system must necessarily learn by an internal logical process. Moreover, beyond the scope of the contribution of this Thesis, the aim of this work is being able to provide a functional specification that can be made available to the community and may serve as a seed to allow the development of intelligent manufacturing paradigms (iCAM) in truly Agile Manufacturing Architectures.La present Tesi Doctoral realitza una contribució a la Construcció de Models del Món per a la implementació en Arquitectures Àgils de Fabricació, amb la intenció de portar un pas més enllà els programes de control dels sistemes de fabricació, tot fent que passin de ser simples executors de tasques a ser elements amb 'intel·ligència' que els permeti decidir per ells mateixos quina és la millor estratègia per abordar una tasca encomanada. Dit d'altra manera, la informació d'entrada al sistema de fabricació ha de deixar de ser una seqüència determinista de comandes per convertir-se en una especificació d'Estats inicial i final. El treball parteix dels treballs previs de Gomà i Vivancos per construir models lògics de sistemes senzills i n'enuncia uns corol·laris relatius al seu funcionament. A continuació, desenvolupa nous algoritmes basats en les etapes principals d'Exploració del Món i d'Execució de Tasques; primer per móns només poblats per variables binàries i més tard amb la introducció del tractament de contínues. Aquests algoritmes, innovadors, ja que introdueixen la possibilitat d'aplicar prejudicis lògics sobre el món, permeten aplicar diferents estratègies de construcció de Models del Món. Per a avaluar la bona aplicabilitat d¿aquests algoritmes, es realitza la programació d'una plataforma d¿experimentació en llenguatge C+ i es particularitza una especificació de sistemes segons les seves variables per tal d'interpretar com hauria de ser la implementació d'aquests en diferents tipologies de Màquina (Fabricació per arrencament de ferritja i Fabricació Additiva), així com en sistemes complexos com les Arquitectures Àgils de Fabricació que han estat objecte d'estudi i de materialització en treballs a l'entorn de la present Tesi Doctoral. Durant els darrers anys, el paradigma de la fabricació ha canviat. Xina i l'Àsia s'han convertit en la fàbrica de tot el món i els països desenvolupats han hagut de començar campanyes de reindustrialització molt agressives per relocalitzar la industria perduda. En alguns casos, sectors especialment rellevants -com el cas biomèdic, el cas de la joguina i els productes de consum- s'han presentat com a oportunitats daurades per assolir resultats esperançadors i han estat objecte d'un anàlisi en profunditat en el present treball. Paral·lelament, durant aquests anys, la recerca i el desenvolupament de sistemes de fabricació no han estat aturats; de fet ha aflorat amb força una nova comunitat anomenada 'Makers', formada per usuaris molt ben capacitats moguts per interessos no lucratius que estan fent canviar les regles del joc. Aviat, amb la fabricació digital personal i la generació i compartició de continguts de manera virtual, canviaran la manera de produir productes (i per tant de concebre'ls, transportar-los, utilitzar-los i de comerciar amb ells), tot fent possible el moviment que ja es considera com la 'Democratització de la producció'. Els algoritmes presentats pretenen mantenir un nivell d'abstracció elevat. 'Acció' i 'detecció' es tracten com a processos desacoblats internament, de manera que el sistema hagi de fer necessàriament un procés d'aprenentatge lògic. Més enllà de l'abast de la contribució de la present Tesi Doctoral, la intenció d'aquest treball és haver pogut aportar unes especificacions funcionals que podran ser posades a l'abast de la comunitat i que podran servir de llavor per permetre el desenvolupament de nous paradigmes de fabricació intel·ligent (iCAM) en veritables Arquitectures Àgils de Fabricaci

Laser surface texturing of alumina/zirconia composite ceramics for potential use in hip joint prosthesis

The use of metal shell to fix an acetabular cup to bone in hip joint prosthesis carries some limitations, including restrictions in prosthetic femur ball diameter and in patient’s range of motion. These drawbacks could be ideally overcome by using a monolithic ceramic acetabular cup, but the fixation of such an implant to host bone still remains a challenge. Since porous surfaces are known to promote more bone tissue interlocking compared to smooth materials, in this work the surfaces of sintered alumina/zirconia composite ceramics were treated by a pulsed laser radiation at 1064 nm with a pulse width in the nanosecond range, in order to impart controlled textural patterns. The influence of laser process parameters (e.g., energy per pulse, repetition rate, scanning speed, repetition number, angle of laser beam, and number of cycles) on the roughness and texture orientation was systematically investigated. The obtained surface topographies were inspected by optical and scanning electron microscopy, and the roughness was assessed by contact profilometry. Surface roughness could be modulated in the range of 3 to 30 µm by varying the processing parameters, among which the number of cycles was shown to play a major role. The laser treatment was also successfully adapted and applied to ceramic acetabular cups with a curved profile, thus demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed approach to process real prosthetic componentsPostprint (published version

Desarrollo de una herramienta de selección de procesos de fabricación basada en técnicas de Inteligencia Artificial

La gran cantidad de procesos de fabricación con los que cuentan actualmente tanto ingenieros como diseñadores industriales hace necesaria la utilización de sistemas basados en ordenador como sistemas de análisis y selección de procesos tipo CAE o CAPP. Aunque la selección de alternativas de fabricación es una tarea trivial para centros con una variedad limitada de tecnologías o bien para profesionales con un alto nivel de especialización en un reducido número de procesos, el proceso de selección no resulta tan trivial cuando lo que interesa analizar son nuevas tecnologías o procesos para los cuales no existe el conocimiento práctico necesario. El presente trabajo en marcado en el proyecto MAQMA se encarga de modelar un sistema concurrente para la evaluación de procesos de Rapid Manufacturing apoyado en técnicas de inteligencia artificial como redes neuronales, lógica difusa y sistemas expertos. Se presentará la aplicación piloto a fin de ilustrar el funcionamiento de dichas herramientas en un sistema integrado para facilitar las decisiones en este innovador campo de la fabricación.Postprint (published version

Sistema accesible, interoperable y ubicuo para el acceso a las nuevas tecnologías por parte de las personas con necesidades especiales

The possibility to access communication and information is indispensable to achieve equality of opportunities and full citizenship participation. However, people with some sort of handicap find themselves with environments, services and products inaccessible for them and making their daily life more difficult. Communication barriers are those obstacles that prevent these people to access information. Advance in information technologies and communications, diminishing in hardware costs and information transmission rates allows us today to develop tools that give people with special needs access to new technologies. CIM Fundation has been collaborating in the development of an accessible and ubiquitous platform for people with special needs as part of his participation in the INREDIS project within the CENIT Program. The objective of this project is the development of a system that offers a multiplatform, adaptive and natural interface that responds with intelligence to the user’s needs. The platform has been developed with a Software Oriented Architecture (SOA) and within Software as a Service model (SaaS).Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Study of the training needs of industrial companies in the Barcelona Area and proposal of Training Courses and Methodologies to enhance further competitiveness

The analysis of educational needs has shown that post university training could be better fitted to meet the strategic needs of the industrial companies, thus filling the gap generated. From this information, expert learning, professional training and innovative methodologies have been proposed. The study covers industrial companies focusing activities of: (i) Product and Process Design and Manufacturing, (ii) Production Management and Logistics and (iii) Automated and Robotized Manufacturing. These companies are considered a fair proxy of the Barcelona Area Industrial company sector. Moreover, it is concluded that in intermediate positions and executives, training should further address management and improvement of personal skills and soft skills.Postprint (published version

The Manufacturing Engineering Society international conference, MESIC 2015 Preface

Postprint (published version