Deriving a systematic approach to changeable manufacturing system design

It has long been argued that Factories are long life and complex products. The complexity of designing factories, and their underlying manufacturing systems, is further amplified when dealing with continuously changing customer demands. At the same time, due to research fragmentation, little if any scientific explanations are available supporting and exploiting the paradigm that "factories are products". In order to address this weakness, this paper presents research results arising from a comparative analysis of systematic "product design" and "manufacturing system design" approaches. The contribution emerging from this research is an integrated systematic design approach to changeable manufacturing systems, based on scientific concepts founded upon product design theories, and is explained through a case study in the paper. This research is part of collaboration between the CERU University of Malta and IAO Fraunhofer aimed at developing a digital decision support tool for planning changeable manufacturing systems.peer-reviewe

A case for assisting ‘product family’ manufacturing system designers

Manufacturing system design is a complex and demanding activity and the system designer has to take many factors into consideration during the development process including the demand and technological requirements of the products or product families. Central to this activity is the synthesis decision making process, during which the designer defines the elements that will make up the manufacturing system. This research identifies in the decision making process a critical activity and contributes a phenomena that can be used by a framework to support designers to address complex issues such as changeability and the evolution of products over the manufacturing system life-cycle.This research work was partially funded through an ERDF Project (Project No. ERDF083). The first and second authors would therefore like to thank the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) who is administering this project.peer-reviewe

Safety 4.0 for collaborative robotics in the factories of the future

Technology changes present a constant drive for evolvement in the manufacturing industry. This development has brought about a complete change in the way the industry implements technologies. The complexity of state-of-the-art technologies is on the increase as new and unforeseen perils continue to emerge. One of the main challenges being faced is the adaptation of manufacturing systems to the latest safety and security considerations. The research hypothesis being investigated is that a logically structured procedure incorporating safety and security would be able to assist in designing an ergonomic and collaborative manufacturing system while identifying and analysing risks, eventually establishing feasible solutions for these specific burdens. This paper therefore contributes a methodology which was developed to address issues of safety and security in the design and implementation of cyber-physical production systems in collaborative environments.peer-reviewe

A decision consequence-based model to understand the phenomena in motorcycle engineering design from a human factor's perspective

Research has shown that motorcycle riders' persona and posture have a large impact on motorcycle safety, bringing these challenges into the domain of human factors. Besides these aspects, motorcycle designers must consider the emotional values of such artefacts for it to be successful in the market. Indeed, motorcycle designers must take into account multitude of factors when developing such artefacts. These all pose challenges to designers whilst carrying out motorcycle design. A study was carried out with motorcycle designers to investigate their current design practices, and challenges faced during motorcycle design. A critical literature review revealed that there is a research gap in decision consequence models which do not take a holistic view of the underlying phenomena during design decision-making of motorcycle designers. The gap in literature together with the outcome of the study, collectively led to the development of a decision consequence-based phenomena model during motorcycle design. The model is validated with two case studies from the motorcycle industry through the use of a comparative-validation approach.peer-reviewe

Design and implementation of an energy monitoring cyber physical system in pneumatic automation

In manufacturing, pneumatic powered components provide a safe and reliable opportunity to automate a production line. However, compressed air systems are notoriously expensive to operate as a result of incorporated system losses and inefficiencies. For this reason, typical systems have an output efficiency of 10 – 12%. This offers a significant improvement opportunity to meet sustainable targets concerning energy consumption. Amongst various inefficiencies, leakages and excessive pressures are commonly identified as some of the major sources of waste. The scope of this project involved the use of a designed and constructed compressed air test bed that was capable of simulating various operating conditions found in industry. Experiments were carried out under experimental conditions to measure the additional energy consumption and air volume required for different leakages at specific input pressures.peer-reviewe

Design of a cyber physical industrial robotic manipulator

A key component of Cyber Physical Production Systems (CPPS) are connected Cyber Physical Machines (CPMs), or smart machines, which can act independently to each other and communicate in situation dependant ways. This new era of connected manufacturing has brought about new requirements for machines which are being deployed to the manufacturing shop floor. Cyber physical machines are not only required to execute industrial or manufacturing process, but they need to be capable of meeting other requirements, such as self-diagnoses, intelligent decision making, modularity and networkability. This research explores the design process of cyber physical machines as it is applied to the design of an industrial robotic manipulator.peer-reviewe

Utilisation of a compressed air test bed to assess the effects of pneumatic parameters on energy consumption

In the manufacturing industry, pneumatic powered components provide a safe and reliable opportunity to automate a production line. However, compressed air systems are notoriously expensive to operate as a result of system losses and inefficiencies. Typical systems have an output efficiency of 10–12%. This offers a significant improvement opportunity to meet sustainable targets concerning energy consumption in industry and lower life cycle energy impacts. Amongst various inefficiencies, leakages and excessive pressures are identified as some of the most common sources of waste. The scope of this study was to make use of a compressed air system which was designed in the form an experimental test bed in order to assess the sustainability impact of various compressed air shortcomings. Simulations were carried out under experimental conditions to measure the additional energy consumption and air volume required for different pneumatic scenarios. Some of the results showed that a noise level of 70 dB is attributable to a leakage of 1.5 mm at the industry standard of 6 bar. Such a single leak could incur more than €470 of additional electrical costs and would result in 1.8 tonnes of additional carbon dioxide emissions within one year of operation, highlighting a significant effect on the life cycle impacts of industrial production.peer-reviewe

Failure detection techniques on the demand side of smart and sustainable compressed air systems : a systematic review

The industrial sector is a crucial economic pillar, seeing annual increases in the production output. In the last few years, a greater emphasis has been placed on the efficient and sustainable use of resources within industry. The use of compressed air in this field is hence gaining interest. These systems have numerous benefits, such as relative low investment costs and reliability; however, they suffer from low-energy efficiency and are highly susceptible to faults. Conventional detection systems, such as ultrasonic leak detection, can be used to identify faults. However, these methods are time consuming, meaning that leakages are often left unattended, contributing to additional energy wastage. Studies published in this area often focus on the supply side rather than the demand side of pneumatic systems. This paper offers a novel review based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology of fault detection methods on the demand side of compressed air systems, leading towards a comprehensive understanding of smart and sustainable pneumatic systems. Fifty-three studies were classified and reviewed under the following three areas: (a) demand parameters which help in identifying fault sources; (b) approaches taken to analyse the parametric data; and (c) the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in pneumatic fault monitoring systems. This review shows that fault detection on the demand side has received greater importance in the last five years and that data analysis is crucial for AI to be implemented correctly. Nevertheless, it is clear that further research in this sector is essential, in order to investigate more complex systems. It is envisaged that this study can promote the adoption of such systems, contributing to an energy-efficient and cost-effective industry.peer-reviewe

Intelligent approaches for anomaly detection in compressed air systems : a systematic review

Inefficiencies within compressed air systems (CASs) call for the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies for financially viable and sustainable operations. A systematic literature review of intelligent approaches within CASs was carried out, in which the research methodology was based on the PRISMA guidelines. The search was carried out on 1 November 2022 within two databases: Scopus and Web of Science. The research methodology resulted in 37 papers eligible for a qualitative and bibliometric analysis based on a set of research questions. These aimed to identify specific characteristics of the selected publications. Thus, the review performed a comprehensive analysis on mathematical approaches, multiple machine learning (ML) methods, the implementation of neural networks (NNs), the development of time-series techniques, comparative analysis, and hybrid techniques. This systematic literature review allowed the comparison of these approaches, while widening the perspective on how such methods can be implemented within CASs for a more intelligent approach. Any limitations or challenges faced were mitigated through an unbiased procedure of involving multiple databases, search terms, and researchers. Therefore, this systematic review resulted in discussions and implications for the definition of future implementations of intelligent approaches that could result in sustainable CASs.peer-reviewe

Information support and interactive planning in the digital factory : approach and industry-driven evaluation

In the modern world we are continuously surrounded by information. The human brain has to analyse and interpret this information to transform into useable knowledge that is then used in decision making activities. The advent and implementation of Industry 4.0 will make it a requirement for systems within factories to interact and share large quantities of information with each other. This large volume of information will make it even more difficult for the human resources within the factory to sift through the large amount of information required since there is a limit to the information that our brains can cope with. Just in time information retrieval (JITIR) within the digital factory environment aims to provide support to the human stakeholders in the system by proactively yet non-intrusively providing the required information at the right time based on the users context. This paper will therefore provide an insight into the cognitive difficulties experienced by humans in the digital factory and how JITIR can tackle these challenges. By validating the JITIR concept, several industry scenarios have been evaluated: an exemplary model, concerning the machine tool industry, is presented in the paper. The results of this research are a set of guidelines for the development of a digital factory support tool.peer-reviewe