Identification of aftermarket and legacy parts suitable for additive manufacturing : A knowledge management-based approach

A research stream identifying aftermarket and legacy parts suitable for additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged in recent years. However, existing research reveals no golden standard for identifying suitable part candidates for AM and mainly combines preexisting methods that lack conceptual underpinnings. As a result, the identification approaches are not adjusted to organizations and are not completely operationalizable. Our first contribution is to investigate and map the existing literature from the perspective of knowledge management (KM). The second contribution is to develop and empirically investigate a combined part-identification approach in a defense sector case study. The part identification entailed an analytical hierarchy process (AHP), semi-structured interviews, and workshops. In the first run, we screened 35,000 existing aftermarket and legacy parts. Similar to previous research, the approach was not in sync with the organization. However, in contrast to previous research, we infuse part identification with KM theory by developing and testing a “Phase 0” assessment that ensures an operational fit between the approach and the organization. We tested Phase 0 and the knowledge management-based approach in a second run, which is the main contribution of this study. This paper contributes empirical research that moves beyond previous research by demonstrating how to overcome the present challenges of part identification and outlines how knowledge management-based part identification integrates with current operations and supply chains. The paper suggests avenues for future research related to AM; however, it also concerns Industry 4.0, lean improvement, and beyond, particularly from the perspective of KM.© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Mobility and vulnerability in school-to-work transition of Mexico rural youngsters

RESUMEN: En los poblados rurales del centro de México, la paulatina desagrarización del campo tiene como una de sus consecuencias más determinantes que las generaciones más jóvenes vean limitado su acceso a espacios educativos e ingresos económicos e, igualmente, protagonicen una intensa dinámica de desplazamientos entre sus localidades de residencia y áreas metropolitanas de medio y gran tamaño. Las teorías socio-antropológicas actuales vinculan tal movilidad con estrategias de sobrevivencia en condiciones de precariedad y vulnerabilidad que derivan en una significativa diversificación de espacios ocupados. En este contexto, el objetivo del artículo es identificar e interpretar las dinámicas de movilidad geográfica en la transición escuela-trabajo de jóvenes rurales en condiciones estacionarias de privación socioeconómica. La investigación se desarrolla entre 2013 y 2020 bajo una metodología propia de la antropología que combina diversas técnicas de trabajo de campo, información etnográfica y estudio de caso. Además, de manera congruente con los jóvenes que transitan cotidianamente entre diferentes espacios, se lleva a cabo un estudio de sujetos multisituados. Se concluye con una reflexión sobre cómo, en contextos de precariedad estructural, la prioridad de los jóvenes por las actividades remuneradas variadas y distantes, junto con el consecuente abandono temprano e intermitente de la escuela, conforman un recorrido acumulativo de desventajas que se aprende y socializa en el hogar de origen. En este marco, las movilidades cotidianas son parte consustancial de tales trayectorias desfavorables y, en definitiva, coproducen de maneras muy heterogéneas pero constantes condiciones de alta vulnerabilidad para los jóvenes rurales.ABSTRACT: In central Mexico?s rural towns, the gradual lack of agricultural activities brings, as one of its most decisive consequences, that youngsters see both their access to educational spaces and their economic income limited. Likewise, they carry out an intense dynamic of mobility from their residence towns to medium-high-sized metropolitan areas. Current socio-anthropological scholarship link such a mobility with surviving strategies in precarious and vulnerable conditions deriving into a significant diversification of occupied spaces. Within this context, the objective of this work is to identify and to understand the dynamics of geographical mobility in the school-to-work transition among rural youngsters in seasonal conditions of socio-economic hardship. This research has taken place from 2013 to 2020 under an anthropological-based methodology, thus combining several techniques of fieldwork, ethnographic information and case-study. Moreover, consistently with the studied subjects who move daily through different spaces, we have carried out a study of multi-placed subjects. Research findings allow us to reflect about how, in contexts of structural precariousness, youngsters? promptness to diverse and distant salaried activities, together with the subsequent early and intermittent leave of school, make up an accumulative path of disadvantages which are learnt and socialized at the home of origin. Within this framework, daily-mobility becomes a consubstantial part of such unfavorable trajectories, thus co-producing conditions of high vulnerability for rural youngsters in very heterogeneous but constant ways.Esta investigación recibió financiación del Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México: proyecto titulado “Estudio etnográfico de pueblos rurales del sur de Tlaxcala especializados en actividades productivas no agrícolas” (IN303419

Tekes projekti SuperMachines loppuraportti

Tutkimuksessa kerättiin best practice aineistoa ja kehitettiin internet alusta kerätyn aineiston tutkimiseen ja hakujen suorittamiseen. Aineisto löytyy internet osoitteesta: http://www.amcase.info/. Rekisteröitymällä kuka vain voi syöttää alustalle lisää aineistoa. Kappaleiden suunnitteluohjeet on julkaistu Suomen pikavalmistusyhdistyksen sivuilla: http://firpa.fi/html/am-tietoa.html. Ohjeesta löytyy mm. suositeltu minimi seinämänvahvuus, suositellun pienimmän yksityiskohdan koko, tyypillinen markkinoilta löytyvä rakennuskammin koko, sekä tyypilliset materiaalit. Valmiiden kokoonpanojen ja mekanismien suunnitteluun muodostettiin Objet 30 ja UPrint SE+ laitteelle ohjeistus josta löytyy pienin radiaalinen välys, aksiaalinen välys, sekä pienin rako riippuen rakennussuunnasta. Tutkimusprojektin aikana seurattiin alan teknologian kehitystä. Kahden vuoden aikana markkinoille ilmaantui noin. 50 uutta laitevalmistajaa, sekä noin 300 erilaista laitetta, sekä lukuisia materiaaleja. Merkittävimmät uudistukset listattiin ja pohdittiin mahdollisia kehityssuuntia. Kaikki uudet toimijat ja laitteet päivitettiin Firpan ylläpitämään tietokantaan: http://firpa.fi/html/am-tietoa.html. Markkinoilla on selvä suuntaus tuotantokomponenttien valmistamiseen, kotitulostimien hintojen laskemiseen, sekä isompien kappaleiden valmistamiseen. Muovilevy komponenttien muovaamista tutkittiin laserin ja alipaineen avulla DDShape laitteella. Laitteella onnistuttiin tekemään testikappaleita ja laitetta saatiin kehitettyä eteenpäin. Laitteiston kehittämiseksi ja kaupallistamisen tueksi Tekes on myöntänyt "Tutkimusideoista uutta tietoa ja liiketoimintaa" (TUTLI) rahoituksen. ISF mini projektissa onnistuttiin kehittämään edullinen pienten kappaleiden painomuovauskone. Samalla kartoitettiin laitteelle soveltuvat parametrit ja rajoitukset. Laseravusteisella muovaamisella päästään kuparilla isompaan seinämän kaltevuuteen ja pinnalaatu pysyy hyvänä. Teräksellä laserista ei ollut juuri hyötyä ja alumiinilla muovattavuus kyllä parani, mutta pinnalaatu huononi. AM kappaleiden viimeistelykoneistuksessa tutkittiin muovisten kappaleiden viimeistely jyrsimällä, sekä metallikappaleiden automaattista hiontaa. Jyrsinnässä vertailtiin eri menetelmillä tehtyjä kappaleita, sekä mitattiin kappaleiden mittatarkkuutta ja geometrisia toleransseja. Huonosta kotitulostimella tehdystä kappaleesta on vaikea saada hyvää kappaletta vaikka se viimeisteltäisiin koneistamalla. Suurimmat ongelmat liittyvät kappaleiden vääntymiseen johtuen lämpöjännityksistä valmistusprosessin aikana. Kappaleiden automaattisessa hionnassa parhaat tulokset saatiin DMLS kappaleille käyttämällä hionta-aineena teräshauleja ja pyörittämällä niitä hiottavat kappaleen kanssa rummussa. Ra arvo parani tällöin noin seitsemästä mikrometristä kolmeen mikrometriin

Techno-economic prospects and desirability of 3D food printing:perspectives of industrial experts, researchers and consumers

3D food printing is an emerging food technology innovation that enables the personalization and on-demand production of edible products. While its academic and industrial relevance has increased over the past decade, the functional value of the technology remains largely unrealized on a commercial scale. This study aimed at updating the business outlook of 3D food printing so as to help entrepreneurs and researchers in the field to channel their research and development (R&D) activities. A three-phase mixed methods approach was utilized to gain perspectives of industrial experts, researchers, and potential consumers. Data were collected from two sets of interviews with experts, a survey with experts, and consumer focus group discussions. The results gave insights into key attributes and use cases for a 3D food printer system, including the techno-economic feasibility and consumer desirability of identified use cases. A business modelling workshop was then organized to translate these results into three refined value propositions for 3D food printing. Both the experts and consumers found personalized nutrition and convenience to be the most desirable aspects of 3D food printing. Accordingly, business models related to 3D printed snacks/meals in semi-public spaces such as fitness centers and hospitals were found to offer the highest business potential. While the technology might be mature enough at component level, the successful realization of such high-reward models however would require risk-taking during the developmental phase

Movilidad y vulnerabilidad en la transición escuela-trabajo de jóvenes rurales en México

In central Mexico’s rural towns, the gradual lack of agricultural activities brings, as one of its most decisive consequences, that youngsters see both their access to educational spaces and their economic income limited. Likewise, they carry out an intense dynamic of mobility from their residence towns to medium-high-sized metropolitan areas. Current socio-anthropological scholarship link such a mobility with surviving strategies in precarious and vulnerable conditions deriving into a significant diversification of occupied spaces. Within this context, the objective of this work is to identify and to understand the dynamics of geographical mobility in the school-to-work transition among rural youngsters in seasonal conditions of socio-economic hardship. This research has taken place from 2013 to 2020 under an anthropological-based methodology, thus combining several techniques of fieldwork, ethnographic information and case-study. Moreover, consistently with the studied subjects who move daily through different spaces, we have carried out a study of multi-placed subjects. Research findings allow us to reflect about how, in contexts of structural precariousness, youngsters’ promptness to diverse and distant salaried activities, together with the subsequent early and intermittent leave of school, make up an accumulative path of disadvantages which are learnt and socialized at the home of origin. Within this framework, daily-mobility becomes a consubstantial part of such unfavorable trajectories, thus co-producing conditions of high vulnerability for rural youngsters in very heterogeneous but constant ways.En los poblados rurales del centro de México, la paulatina desagrarización del campo tiene como una de sus consecuencias más determinantes que las generaciones más jóvenes vean limitado su acceso a espacios educativos e ingresos económicos e, igualmente, protagonicen una intensa dinámica de desplazamientos entre sus localidades de residencia y áreas metropolitanas de medio y gran tamaño. Las teorías socio-antropológicas actuales vinculan tal movilidad con estrategias de sobrevivencia en condiciones de precariedad y vulnerabilidad que derivan en una significativa diversificación de espacios ocupados. En este contexto, el objetivo del artículo es identificar e interpretar las dinámicas de movilidad geográfica en la transición escuela-trabajo de jóvenes rurales en condiciones estacionarias de privación socioeconómica. La investigación se desarrolla entre 2013 y 2020 bajo una metodología propia de la antropología que combina diversas técnicas de trabajo de campo, información etnográfica y estudio de caso. Además, de manera congruente con los jóvenes que transitan cotidianamente entre diferentes espacios, se lleva a cabo un estudio de sujetos multisituados. Se concluye con una reflexión sobre cómo, en contextos de precariedad estructural, la prioridad de los jóvenes por las actividades remuneradas variadas y distantes, junto con el consecuente abandono temprano e intermitente de la escuela, conforman un recorrido acumulativo de desventajas que se aprende y socializa en el hogar de origen. En este marco, las movilidades cotidianas son parte consustancial de tales trayectorias desfavorables y, en definitiva, coproducen de maneras muy heterogéneas pero constantes condiciones de alta vulnerabilidad para los jóvenes rurales

Towards an Integrated Approach to Urban Decarbonisation in Practice: The Case of Vitoria-Gasteiz

How can local authorities effectively approach the decarbonisation of urban environments? Recent efforts to redirect cities into a less energy-intensive model have been mostly approached from a sectoral perspective, with specific energy policies and plans being issued without deeply considering their ties with other urban aspects. In this sense, well-established urban planning procedures have not been part of those, with the consequence of barriers in the implementation phase of those energy plans. The Cities4ZERO methodology was developed to guide effective integration between urban planning and energy policies, plans, and practices. It provides a holistic approach to strategic municipal processes for urban decarbonisation in the mid-long term, which includes key local stakeholders’ engagement into integrated energy planning processes, as well as tools for effective energy decarbonisation modelling. This paper analyses the application of the Cities4ZERO decarbonisation methodology on its strategic stage in the development of Vitoria-Gasteiz’s Action Plan for an Integrated Energy Transition 2030 (APIET 2030). It suggests that in order to accelerate urban decarbonisation, it is critical to: (a) foster interdepartmental collaboration; (b) allow for flexibility on the land-use planning regulations; (c) back decisions with detailed urban-energy models; and (d) truly engage key local stakeholders in the planning and implementation processes.European Commission for funding SmartEnCity project, the frame of this research, and Basque Government for its significant support to the Basque research and innovation paradigm

Utilización de redes bayesianas como método de caracterización de parámetros físicos de las terminales de contenedores del sistema portuario español

La planificación y gestión de las terminales portuarias tradicionalmente se realiza empleando ratios de gestión y explotación tomados de experiencias internacionales no con ratios determinados expresamente para sistemas portuarios concretos, por lo que se hace difícil planificar y gestionar la explotación de las terminales de contendedores españolas dado que muy heterogéneas. La finalidad del artículo es mostrar la aplicación de una nueva metodología, en este caso, inteligencia artificial, mediante el empleo de modelos gráficos probabilísticos, para determinar los parámetros óptimos de explotación y planificación portuaria, a través de la clasificación de las terminales añadiendo la inferencia de escenarios virtuales

Smart textile waste collection system – Dynamic route optimization with IoT

Increasing textile production is associated with an environmental burden which can be decreased with an improved recycling system by digitalization. The collection of textiles is done with so-called curbside bins. Sensor technologies support dynamic-informed decisions during route planning, helping predict waste accumulation in bins, which is often irregular and difficult to predict. Therefore, dynamic route-optimization decreases the costs of textile collection and its environmental load. The existing research on the optimization of waste collection is not based on real-world data and is not carried out in the context of textile waste. The lack of real-world data can be attributed to the limited availability of tools for long-term data collection. Consequently, a system for data collection with flexible, low-cost, and open-source tools is developed. The viability and reliability of such tools are tested in practice to collect real-world data. This research demonstrates how smart bins solution for textile waste collection can be linked to a dynamic route-optimization system to improve overall system performance. The developed Arduino-based low-cost sensors collected actual data in Finnish outdoor conditions for over twelve months. The viability of the smart waste collection system was complemented with a case study evaluating the collection cost of the conventional and dynamic scheme of discarded textiles. The results of this study show how a sensor-enhanced dynamic collection system reduced the cost 7.4% compared with the conventional one. We demonstrate a time efficiency of −7.3% and that a reduction of 10.2% in CO2 emissions is achievable only considering the presented case study.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Pienten kiertojen kehittämistä digitalisaatiolla

Kiertodigi-hankkeen tavoitteena on ollut kehittää uusia konsepteja pienten jäte- ja kierrätysmateriaalivirtojen kiertojen hallintaan digitalisaation avulla. Pienillä virroilla tarkoitetaan sellaisia kierrätysmateriaalilähteitä, joiden kerääminen on haastavaa tarvittavan keräyskapasiteetin ja niistä syntyvien kustannusten vuoksi. Tarkastelun kohteina olivat materiaalivirrat, jotka liittyvät tuotteiden tai pakkausten loppukuluttajiin. Tarkasteltuja pieniä materiaalikiertoja olivat esimerkiksi bio-, muovi-, tekstiili-, rakennusmateriaalit. Osana hanketta pieni ryhmä tarkasteltujen avainalojen pk-yrityksiä haastateltiin käyttämällä hyväksi kiertotalouden arviointityökalua, jonka tavoitteena on auttaa pk-yrityksiä tunnistamaan paremmin kiertotalouden tarjoamat liiketoimintamahdollisuudet. Haastattelut on tehty pääosin Etelä-Pohjanmaan maakunnan alueella. Raportti esittelee alueella näihin kiertovirtoihin kehitettyjä ratkaisumalleja, joista osaa on pilotoitu. Pilotoituja hankkeita kuvataan esimerkkitapauksina ja näihin esimerkkitapauksiin on liitetty hankkeen aikana tehdyissä haastatteluissa saatuja taustatietoja kunkin alan yrityksistä. Kuhunkin esimerkkitapaukseen on liitetty myös pohdintaa käsiteltävän materiaalin kierrätysasteen parantamis- ja kehittämismahdollisuuksista. Osin avataan yleisellä tasolla myös kunkin materiaalin kierrättämiseen hankkeen aikana esiin nousseita uusia liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia ja niiden rajaehtoja. Esimerkkitapauksina käsitellään: älykäs vaatekeruu, maatalousmuovi, biojätteet, mobiilisovellus kuluttajille, keruukuljetukset, rakentaminen, mikrokiertojen syntypaikkalajittelu ja muovilaadut. Huomiota kiinnitettiin erityisesti logistiikka-analyyseihin, analyysityökaluihin ja kiertotalouden alustoihin kierrätyksen vauhdittajina, sekä digitaalisten teknologioiden hyödyntämiseen pienten kiertojen lisäämisessä.fi=vertaisarvioimaton|en=nonPeerReviewed

Optimisation-driven design to explore and exploit the process–structure–property–performance linkages in digital manufacturing

An intelligent manufacturing paradigm requires material systems, manufacturing systems, and design engineering to be better connected. Surrogate models are used to couple product-design choices with manufacturing process variables and material systems, hence, to connect and capture knowledge and embed intelligence in the system. Later, optimisation-driven design provides the ability to enhance the human cognitive abilities in decision-making in complex systems. This research proposes a multidisciplinary design optimisation problem to explore and exploit the interactions between different engineering disciplines using a socket prosthetic device as a case study. The originality of this research is in the conceptualisation of a computer-aided expert system capable of exploring process–structure–property–performance linkages in digital manufacturing. Thus, trade-off exploration and optimisation are enabled of competing objectives, including prosthetic socket mass, manufacturing time, and performance-tailored socket stiffness for patient comfort. The material system is modelled by experimental characterisation—the manufacturing time by computer simulations, and the product-design subsystem is simulated using a finite element analysis (FEA) surrogate model. We used polynomial surface response-based surrogate models and a Bayesian Network for design space exploration at the embodiment design stage. Next, at detail design, a gradient descent algorithm-based optimisation exploits the results using desirability functions to isolate Pareto non-dominated solutions. This work demonstrates how advanced engineering design synthesis methods can enhance designers’ cognitive ability to explore and exploit multiple disciplines concurrently and improve overall system performance, thus paving the way for the next generation of computer systems with highly intertwined material, digital design and manufacturing workflows. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].publishedVersionPeer reviewe