Smart Manufacturing and Industry 5.0

During strategic network design, not only strategic but also operational decisions must be made long before a production network is put into operation. These include determining the location and size of inventories within the production network and setting operational parameters for production lines, such as the shift model. However, the large solution space comprising a high number of highly uncertain design parameters makes these decisions challenging without decision support. Therefore, data farming offers a potential solution, as synthetic data can be generated via the execution of multiple simulation experiments spanning the solution space and then analyzed using data mining techniques to provide data-based decision support. However, data farming has not yet been applied to strategic network design due to the lack of adequate solution space management. To address this shortcoming, this paper presents a structured solution space management approach that integrates production network-specific requirements and Design of Experiment (DoE) methods. The approach enables converting the solution space in strategic network design into individual input data sets for simulation experiments, generating a comprehensive database that can be mined for data-based decision support. The applicability and validity of the comprehensive approach are ensured via a case study in the automotive industry. Full article

The outcome economy is a relatively new economic and business paradigm that promotes focusing on the effects that the use of provided products and services create for customers in their markets, rather than focusing on these products or services themselves from the providers’ perspective. This paradigm has been embraced in various fields of business but has not yet been fully integrated with the concept of smart industry. To fill this gap, in this vision paper we provide a framework that does make this integration, showing the full structure of customer outcome management in smart manufacturing, from both business and digital technology perspectives. In applying this structure, a feedback loop is created that spans the markets of provider and customer and supports data-driven product evolution, manufacturing, and delivery. We propose a business reference framework that can be used as a blueprint for designing practical scenarios. We show how integrated digital support for such a scenario can be realized using a well-structured combination of technologies from the fields of the internet of things, business intelligence and federated learning, blockchain, and business process management. We illustrate all of this with a visionary case study inspired by industrial practice in the automotive domain. In doing so, we provide both an academic basis for the integration of several currently dispersed research fields that need to be integrated to further smart manufacturing towards outcome management and a practical basis for the well-structured design and implementation of customer outcome management business cases in smart manufacturing. Full article

Under the new geometric product specification (GPS), a two-dimensional chain cannot completely guarantee quality of the product. To optimize the allocation of three-dimensional tolerances in the conceptual design stage, the geometric variations of the tolerance zone to the deviation domain will be mapped in this paper. The deviation-processing cost, deviation-quality loss cost, and deviation-sensitivity cost function relationships combined with the tolerance zone described by the small displacement torsor theory are discussed. Then, synchronous constraint of the function structure and tolerance is realized. Finally, an improved bat algorithm is used to solve the established three-dimensional tolerance mathematical model. A case study in the optimization of three-part tolerance design is used to illustrate the proposed model and algorithms. The performance and advantage of the proposed method are discussed in the end. Full article

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) belongs to the high-resolution surface morphology investigation methods. Since it can, in many cases, be applied in air, samples can more easily be inspected than by a scanning electron microscope (SEM). In addition, several special modes exist which enable examination of the mechanical and other physical parameters of the specimen, such as friction, adhesion between tip and sample, elastic modulus, etc. In tapping mode, e.g., phase imaging can be used to qualitatively distinguish between different materials on the surface. This is especially interesting for polymers, for which the evaluation by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is mostly irrelevant. Here we give an overview of phase imaging experiments on different filaments used for 3D printing by fused deposition modeling (FDM). Furthermore, the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), especially different poly(lactide acids) (PLAs) with special features, such as thermochromic or photochromic properties, are investigated and compared with SEM images. Full article

Augmented (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) technologies are enablers of the Industry 4.0 paradigm and are spreading at high speed in production. Main applications include design, training, and assembly guidance. The latter is a pressing concern, because assembly is the process that accounts for the biggest portion of total cost within production. Teaching and guiding operators to assemble with minimal effort and error rates is pivotal. This work presents the development of a comprehensive MR application for guiding novice operators in following simple assembly instructions. The app follows innovative programming logic and component tracking in a dynamic environment, providing an immersive experience that includes different guidance aids. The application was tested by experienced and novice users, data were drawn from the performed experiments, and a questionnaire was submitted to collect the users’ perception. Results indicate that the MR application was easy to follow and even gave confidence to inexperienced subjects. The guidance support was perceived as useful by the users, though at times invasive in the field of view. Further development effort is required to draw from this work a complete and usable architecture for MR application in assembly, but this research forms the basis to achieve better, more consistent instructions for assembly guidance based on component tracking. Full article

Visual servoing has been widely employed in robotic control to increase the flexibility and precision of a robotic arm. When the end-effector of the robotic arm needs to be moved to a spatial point without a coordinate, the conventional visual servoing control method has difficulty performing the task. The present work describes space constraint challenges in a visual servoing system by introducing an assembly node and then presents a two-stage visual servoing control approach based on perspective transformation. A virtual image plane is constructed using a calibration-derived homography matrix. The assembly node, as well as other objects, are projected into the plane after that. Second, the controller drives the robotic arm by tracking the projections in the virtual image plane and adjusting the position and attitude of the workpiece accordingly. Three simple image features are combined into a composite image feature, and an active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC) is established to improve the robotic arm’s motion sensitivity. Real-time simulations and experiments employing a robotic vision system with an eye-to-hand configuration are used to validate the effectiveness of the presented method. The results show that the robotic arm can move the workpiece to the desired position without using coordinates. Full article

When constructing a three-dimensional model of a transformer substation, it is critical to quickly find the 3D CAD model corresponding to the current point cloud data from a large number of transformer substation model libraries (due to the complexity and variety of models in the model base). In response to this problem, this paper proposes a method to quickly retrieve a 3D CAD model. Firstly, a 3D CAD model that shares the same size as the current point cloud model bounding box is extracted from the model library by the double-layer bounding box screening method. Then, the selected 3D CAD model is finely compared with the point cloud model by the multi-view method. The 3D CAD model that has the highest degree of corresponding to the point cloud data is acquired. The proposed algorithm, compared to other similar methods, has the advantages of retrieval accuracy and high efficiency. Full article

In the era of Industry 4.0, manufacturing and production systems were revolutionized by increasing operational efficiency and developing and implementing new business models, services, and products. Concretely, the milestone set for Industry 4.0 was to improve the sustainability and efficiency of production systems. By extension, the emphasis was focused on both the digitization and the digitalization of systems, providing room for further improvement. However, the current technological evolution is more system/machine-oriented, rather than human-oriented. Thus, several countries have begun orchestrating initiatives towards the design and development of the human-centric aspect of technologies, systems, and services, which has been coined as Industry 5.0. The impact of Industry 5.0 will extend to societal transformation, which eventually leads to the generation of a new society, the Society 5.0. The developments will be focused on the social and human-centric aspect of the tools and technologies introduced under the framework of Industry 4.0. Therefore, sustainability and human well-being will be at the heart of what comes next, the Industry 5.0, as a subset of Society 5.0. Industry 5.0 will build on the foundations laid during Industry 4.0 by emphasizing human-centered, resilient, and sustainable design. Consequently, the authors in this research work, through a critical literature review, aim to provide adequate reasoning for considering Industry 5.0 as a framework for enabling the coexistence of industry and emerging societal trends and needs. The contribution of this research work extends to the provision of a framework to facilitate the transition from Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0. Full article