Towards the Innovations and Smart Factories

A special issue of Applied System Innovation (ISSN 2571-5577).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 7471

Special Issue Editors

Department of Power Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Rijeka Croatia, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Interests: power electronics; electric drives; mechatronics; wind energy conversion systems; photovoltaic systems; power electronics applications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Faculty of Engineering, University of Rijeka, Vukovarska 58, HR-51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Interests: industrial and manufacturing engineering; operations management
Department of Polytechnics, University of Rijeka, Sveučilišna avenija 4, HR-51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Interests: information systems
Department of Polytechnics, University of Rijeka, Sveučilišna avenija 4, HR-51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Interests: industrial automation - advanced technologies to enhance the quality of Industry 4.0.; maintenance management; quality management
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering, University of Rijeka, HR-51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Interests: metal cutting and metal forming processes; modeling and optimization of processes; machine tools; DoE, application of evolutionary algorithms and other natural-based algorithms; process efficiency; energy savings in production processes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Modern factories are getting more and more sophisticated. Production, supply, transport and other activities are planned in detail. The standard level of automation includes programable logic controllers, simulation of programed logics, different simulation tools, etc. Further levels of automation include Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, collaborative robots and other advanced technologies. Such systems are known as Industry 4.0, putting these sophisticated systems in the historical context of four industrial revolutions. The last development step includes smart factories, which could achieve such a level of automation that particular industrial facilities could operate in different environments compared to the older factories. Absence of the workers in the production processes means that production could exist in buildings without windows, air or light. This approach has already been used in the semiconductor industry; however, this trend could be expanded to other applications. The target of this Special Issue is to analyze problems in modern production facilities and to offer solutions to improve production (to offer innovations) and decision-making efficiency, to find new applications for robots, and to solve particular problems considering the different machines, materials and product design.

In particular, the topics of interest includes, but are not limited to

  • Smart factories;
  • Collaborative robots;
  • Programable logic controllers;
  • Artificial intelligence applications;
  • Industrial electronics.

Prof. Dr. Sasa Sladic
Dr. Sandro Doboviček
Dr. Damir Purković
Dr. Marko Fabić
Prof. Dr. Zoran Jurkovic
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied System Innovation is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • industrial automation
  • industrial electronics
  • artificial intelligence applications
  • smart factories
  • Industry 4.0
  • industrial production

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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27 pages, 4283 KiB  
Article
Raw Material Flow Rate Measurement on Belt Conveyor System Using Visual Data
by Muhammad Sabih, Muhammad Shahid Farid, Mahnoor Ejaz, Muhammad Husam, Muhammad Hassan Khan and Umar Farooq
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2023, 6(5), 88; https://doi.org/10.3390/asi6050088 - 30 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2575
Abstract
Industries are rapidly moving toward mitigating errors and manual interventions by automating their process. The same motivation is carried out in this research which targets to study a conveyor system installed in soda ash manufacturing plants. Our aim is to automate the determination [...] Read more.
Industries are rapidly moving toward mitigating errors and manual interventions by automating their process. The same motivation is carried out in this research which targets to study a conveyor system installed in soda ash manufacturing plants. Our aim is to automate the determination of optimal parameters, which are chosen by identifying the flow rate of the materials available on the conveyor belt for maintaining the ratio between raw materials being carried. The ratio is essential to produce 40% pure carbon dioxide gas needed for soda ash production. A visual sensor mounted on the conveyor belt is used to estimate the flow rate of the raw materials. After selecting the region of interest, a segmentation algorithm is defined based on a voting-based technique to segment the most confident region. Moments and contour features are extracted and passed to machine learning algorithms to estimate the flow rate of different experiments. An in-depth analysis is completed on various techniques and convincing results are achieved on the final data split with the best parameters using the Bagging regressor. Each step of the process is made resilient enough to work in a challenging environment even if the belt is placed in an outdoor environment. The proposed solution caters to the current challenges and serves as a practical solution for estimating material flow without manual intervention. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards the Innovations and Smart Factories)
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26 pages, 8953 KiB  
Article
Evolution of the Human Role in Manufacturing Systems: On the Route from Digitalization and Cybernation to Cognitization
by Elvis Hozdić and Igor Makovec
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2023, 6(2), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/asi6020049 - 03 Apr 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2530
Abstract
Modern society is living at a time of revolutionary changes in all areas of human life. For example, the field of industrial manufacturing has greatly influenced the role of human beings during the past 30 years. Modern manufacturing systems are in a phase [...] Read more.
Modern society is living at a time of revolutionary changes in all areas of human life. For example, the field of industrial manufacturing has greatly influenced the role of human beings during the past 30 years. Modern manufacturing systems are in a phase of transition, in accordance with the concept of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). A new manufacturing paradigm based on the principles of Industry 4.0 is presented by Smart Manufacturing Systems (SMS). A basic building block of SMS is cyber-physical production systems (CPPS), which together with innovative-management principles of emergence, self-organization, learning, open innovation, collaboration and the networking of people and organizations are the key principles of Industry 4.0. The three key enablers of Industry 4.0, i.e., the connectivity, the digitization and the cybernation of work processes in manufacturing systems, have paved the way for a new industrial revolution, i.e., Industry 5.0 concept that is bringing about a new paradigm in the field of manufacturing systems, the so-called Adaptive Cognitive Manufacturing Systems (ACMS). A fundamental building block of ACMS is the new generation of manufacturing systems called Cognitive Cyber-Physical Production Systems (C-CPPS), which are based on CPPS concepts and incorporate cognitive technologies and artificial intelligence. This paper presents the revolutionary development of manufacturing and manufacturing systems through the industrial revolutions and the evolution of the role of humans in manufacturing systems towards Industry 5.0. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards the Innovations and Smart Factories)
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Review

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18 pages, 5454 KiB  
Review
Development and Future Trends of Digital Product-Service Systems: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach
by Slavko Rakic, Nenad Medic, Janika Leoste, Teodora Vuckovic and Ugljesa Marjanovic
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2023, 6(5), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/asi6050089 - 30 Sep 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1726
Abstract
As a plan, Industry 4.0 encourages manufacturing companies to switch from conventional Product-Service Systems to Digital Product-Service Systems. Systems of goods, services, and digital technologies known as “Digital Product-Service Systems” are provided to improve consumer satisfaction and business success in the marketplace. Previous [...] Read more.
As a plan, Industry 4.0 encourages manufacturing companies to switch from conventional Product-Service Systems to Digital Product-Service Systems. Systems of goods, services, and digital technologies known as “Digital Product-Service Systems” are provided to improve consumer satisfaction and business success in the marketplace. Previous studies have looked into various elements of this area for industrial companies and academic institutions. Digital Product-Service Systems’ overall worth and expected course of growth are still ignored. The authors use bibliometric analysis to organize the body of prior knowledge in this discipline and, more significantly, to identify areas for further study in order to cover the literature deficit. The results of the most esteemed authors, nations, and sources in the subject were given by this study. The findings also show that terms like digitization, sustainability, and business have grown in popularity over the previous year. This study also offered insight into how Industry 5.0, a new manufacturing strategy, would include Digital Product-Service Systems. Finally, the findings of this research demonstrate three new service orientations, namely resilient, sustainable, and human-centric, in manufacturing firms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards the Innovations and Smart Factories)
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