Realization of a learning environment to promote sustainable value creation in areas with insufficient infrastructure

To increase the rationally demanded sustainability with its ecologic, environmental and social dimensions, innovative technology shall be exploited. For example waste can be used by means of closed loop material cycles for the production of new products. The understanding of such material cycles can help to deal responsibly with resources. Considering the limited awareness of more than seven billion humans on globe about the sustainability challenge, the teaching and learning productivity has to be boosted to hitherto not achieved levels. Complex interdependencies have to be scaled down to daily life experiences, so that people of different skill levels or even laypersons can draw a practical benefit and become capable of self-sustainable value creation. How locally available plastic waste can be used for the production of new products in areas with insufficient technical and social infrastructure is explained in detail on the example of the mobile learning environment CubeFactory. This mini-factory was designed to support knowledge transfer for sustainable manufacturing competencies, independently from the need of any infrastructure. In this context, the term “infrastructure” contains all technical as well as social necessities needed for production. These may be the access to a durable energy and material supplies, as well as the access to machine tools or knowledge. Sustainability utilizes all elements to its advantage to serve as a beneficial tool for the society, the local economy and the environment. The CubeFactory represents an example of how to produce on local level what is immediately needed. It integrates a 3D printer as a manufacturing tool, a recycler for the filament production, a solar-powered energy supply and the knowledge for the application of this resource-saving technology

Multi-objective shop floor scheduling using monitored energy data

Modern factories will become more and more directly connected to intermittent energy sources like solar systems or wind turbines as part of a smart grid or a self-sufficient supply. However, solar systems or wind turbines are not able to provide a continuous energy supply over a certain time period. In order to enable an effective use of these intermittent energy sources without using temporary energy storages, it is necessary to rapidly and flexibly adapt the energy demand of the factory to the constantly changing requirements of the energy supply. The adaption of the energy demand to the intermittent supply results in different energy-related objectives for the production system of the factory, such as reducing energy consumption, avoiding power peaks, or achieving a power use within the available power supply. Shop Floor Scheduling can help to pursue these objectives within the production system. For this purpose, a solution methodology based on a meta-heuristic will be described for Flexible Job Shop Scheduling taking into account different energy- as well as productivity-related objectives

Process model based development of disassembly tools

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Disassembly processes require flexible tools for loosening and handling operations. Today, disassembly processes demand a great deal of manual labour and a vast variety of tools. Partly destructive tools which generate and use new acting surfaces are able to increase the economic viability owing to their flexibility and their promotion of the reuse of components. This article describes selected methods of acting surface generation and their application for prototypical tools.DFG, SFB 281, Demontagefabriken zur Rückgewinnung von Ressourcen in Produkt- und Materialkreisläufe

Comparatively Assessing different Shapes of Lithium-ion Battery Cells

Different shapes of lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are competing as energy storages for the automobile application. The shapes can be divided into cylindrical and prismatic, whereas the prismatic shape can be further divided in regard to the housing stability in Hard-Case and Pouch. Within this paper, the differences in manufacturing costs and efforts as well as the shape related advantages and disadvantages for an automobile application are discussed. Additionally, the process steps for manufacturing the prismatic hard-case and the pouch cell are analyzed in terms of their individual value contribution to the manufacturing costs. Within the analysis, manufacturing errors can be allocated to specific process steps and economically quantified.BMWi, 01MX12046G, Verbundprojekt: ProTrak - Produktionstechnik für die Herstellung von Lithium-Zellen; Teilvorhaben: Technologieportfoliomanagement und Wertschöpfungsanalys

Enhanced product functionality with life cycle units

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Cycle economy is not only ecologically reasonable but also a chance for new business. Selling utilization instead of selling products is advantageous once additional costs for information processing and logistics are less than costs for underutilized capacity. A competitive provider offers product functionality in quality, time and location as required by the user. Lifetime component monitoring is conditional for this performance. Modern microelectronic technology enables the acquisition of component deterioration with sensorial devices, information processing and storing with microcontrollers and initiating appropriate actions such as maintenance. The architecture of a microsystem called the life cycle unit (LCU) for product and component monitoring is introduced and specified. Product examples illustrate some application areas.DFG, SFB 281, Demontagefabriken zur Rückgewinnung von Ressourcen in Produkt- und Materialkreisläufe

Field of research in sustainable manufacturing

Sustainability has raised significant attention in manufacturing research over the last decades and has become a significant driver of the development of innovative technologies and management concepts. The current chapter aims to provide a structured overview of the wide field of research in sustainable manufacturing with a particular focus on manufacturing technology and management. It intends to describe the role of manufacturing in sustainability, outline the complementary approaches necessary for a transition to sustainable manufacturing and specify the need for engaging in interdisciplinary research. Based on a literature review, it provides a structuring framework defining four complementary areas of research focussing on analysis, synthesis and transition solutions. The challenges of the four areas of research manufacturing technologies (“how things are produced”), product development (“what is being produced”), value creation networks (“in which organisational context”) and global manufacturing impacts (“how to make a systemic change”) are highlighted and illustrated with examples from current research initiatives

Resource Efficiency Learning Game – electric Scooter Game

AbstractFostering ideas that de-couple the world's growth in population and wealth from the increase of resource consumption must be tackled through the education of engineers. Those have to understand environmental, economic and social effects. Games have the potential to make people reflect their actions and to let them try out new approaches within a safe environment. A game has been developed to make students understand the effects of a resource efficient enterprise. The two-wheeler industry was taken as example because mobility is crucial element of human needs and sustainable development. The participants of this game are leading their own company

Competitive Sustainable Globalization General Considerations and Perspectives

Globalization has essentially empowered both newly industrialized and early industrialized countries but also caused considerable global challenges on economic, environmental, and social stability. Trends and risks of globalization and sustainability are specified by reports of global stakeholders as IMF, OECD, UN and its related organizations, WEF, WTO, and WWF. Competitive Sustainable Globalization (CSG) is introduced as a new paradigm and as a means to cope with the respective challenges. Competitive Sustainable Manufacturing (CSM) can be a fundamental enabler for CSG, proposing a global as well as a local approach for manufacturing. Potentials of value creation by manufacturing with reference to business models, education, and innovation are presented

Gamification in factory management education : A case study with Lego Mindstorms

Research oriented teaching in universities provides opportunities to support the student's desire to explore. A student's learning success can benefit from gamified project work, especially when students face self-guided learning processes in demanding educational activities. Gamification is defined as the use of game elements in a non-game context. Games offer the chance to improve the motivation of students, support group work, train communication skills and introduce the capacity for experimenting in safe environments. Therefore the learning effect of prospective engineers can be increased through the integration of Gamification into educational activities. This leads to higher student participation in university courses and encourages the development of the student's social, personal and technical competences. In this paper a game concept for teaching in universities is introduced focusing on the impartment of the state of the art on manufacturing for value creation, e.g. production planning and control. The concept covers a level based storyline with rules and goals using physical artefacts of Lego Mindstorms. Due to the modular characteristic of Lego, which supports creativity by having a high number of possible combinations, a “free playing space” for students is established. In groups, the students work in a highly problem oriented way, e.g. finding cost savings for their factory due to a changing market condition. Feedback in the sense of the success of student's strategies is given directly through the designed Lego model and its functionality

Open Educational Resources as a Driver for Manufacturing-related Education for Learning of Sustainable Development

Since the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) launched its OpenCourseWare program in 2002, the idea of an open and democratic education has spread rapidly all over the globe. Under the name of “Open Educational Resources” (OER), innumerable working sheets, curricular and teaching units have been developed and shared digitally under free commons licenses, connecting teachers and learners worldwide. Especially with regard to the UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Program, the concept has been allocated a pole position. However, challenges arise when it comes to matters of repository design, traceability, quality control and user acceptance. In this paper studies are presented that assess German and English manufacturing-related OER for sustainability education, targeting high school students, showing challenges and potentials of open education for sustainable manufacturing. It will be shown that classic schoolbooks leave inacceptable gaps when covering sustainable development by ignoring both, core issues of sustainable development and central didactic standards of Education for Sustainable Development such as competency-orientation. Although there are a number of German and English OER initiatives that could help close these gaps, they often do not make use of the full OER potential, as will be shown via quality assessment and a comparative analysis. Finally, an OER development process of the Collaborative Research Centre 1026 “Sustainable Manufacturing” will be described as a best practice example.DFG, 199828953, SFB 1026: Sustainable Manufacturing - Globale Wertschöpfung nachhaltig gestalte