Variant design for mechanical artifacts: A state-of-the-art survey

Variant design refers, to the technique of adapting existing design specifications to satisfy new design goals and constraints. Specific support of variant design techniques in current computer aided design systems would help to realize a rapid response manufacturing environment. A survey of approaches supporting variant design is presented. Capabilities used in current commercial computer aided design systems are discussed along with approaches used in recent research efforts. Information standards applicable to variant design are also identified. Barriers to variant design in current systems are identified and ideas are presented for augmentation of current systems to support variant design.     

A model-driven software engineering workflow and tool architecture for servitised manufacturing

Modern manufacturing businesses increasingly engage in servitisation, by offering advanced services along with physical products, and creating “product–service systems”. Information Technology infrastructures, and especially software, are a critical part of modern service provision. However, software development in this context has not been investigated and there are no development methods or tools specifically adapted to the task of creating software for servitised businesses in general, or manufacturing in particular. In this paper, we define the requirements for software engineering in servitised manufacturing. Based on these, we describe a model-driven software engineering workflow for servitised manufacturing, supporting both structural and behavioural modelling of the service system. Furthermore, we elaborate on the architecture of an appropriate model-driven Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The proposed workflow and a prototype implementation of the IDE were evaluated in a set of industrial pilots, demonstrating improved communication and collaboration between participants in the software engineering process.     

Manufacturing Enterprise Control and Management System Engineering: paradigms and open issues

Over several decades, control theory has developed its own set of more or less formal modelling techniques designed to automatically control the dynamic behaviour of complicated manufacturing systems and processes. The emerging Internet society is addressing new enterprise control and management integration (ECMI) challenges for agile business to manufacturing (B2M) purposes which enlarge the traditional setting of Automation Engineering to the systems engineering (SE) approach. In order to cope with the increasing complexity of integrating intelligence/information-intensive manufacturing automation within the networked manufacturing enterprise, Automation Engineering should be integrated into the systems engineering approach to achieve a holistic approach that treats in fine the technical operational manufacturing system emerging from the deployment of an ad hoc combination of formal and informal partial models. This paper emphasises that a Holonic Manufacturing Execution System Engineering (HMESE) approach should be a relevant B2M SE approach along with other relevant scientific, industrial and educational areas dealing with information and intelligence control and management issues in agile automation.     

A framework for XML schema naming and design rules development tools

Many organizations are facing enormous challenges today in trying to integrate a wide range of software systems. These systems span the functional areas within an organization, as well as, the multitude of organizations and countries involved in a business process. To address the needs of information integration a number of organizations are developing standards to define the information units that will be shared. Many of these standards are an application of the XML family of software standards, hence the proliferation of content standards or xML standards. To ensure quality in the emerging content standards, the organizations producing them also define guidelines for how the XML standards, especially XML Schema, will be used in a given context. These guidelines are published as sets of Naming and Design Rules (NDR). Unfortunately, a single set of these rules do not meet the needs of the wide range of standards being developed. Moreover, the guidelines are being published as prose (e.g., English text) rather than in a computational form.To address these shortcomings and allow for the more rapid creation of high quality NDR, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is developing a set of tools to facilitate NDR development. The tools support the development of executable tests to support NDR, collaboration on the use of those tests, the grouping of tests into testing profiles, as well as, the association of NDR documentation with executable tests. The grouping mechanism allows rules to be selected from a larger set for use in a particular context. By also providing for the association of guidelines with executable tests, a testing suite can be quickly assembled. Furthermore, the pool of guidelines and their tests can be collaboratively developed, thereby leveraging resources and creating higher quality test sets in the end.The report describes a framework for tools to support the development of NDR for XML Schema. The tools aid in producing high quality XML schemas using a standards-based approach to information integration. The tools are based on open standards, making them highly configurable and reusable. The three primary functional areas of the tools described are authoring, testing, and sharing.     

Cross-industry standard test method developments: from manufacturing to wearable robots

Manufacturing robotics is moving towards human-robot collaboration with light duty robots being used side by side with workers. Similarly, exoskeletons that are both passive (spring and counterbalance forces) and active (motor forces) are worn by humans and used to move body parts. Exoskeletons are also called ‘wearable robots’ when they are actively controlled using a computer and integrated sensing. Safety standards now allow, through risk assessment, both manufacturing and wearable robots to be used. However, performance standards for both systems are still lacking. Ongoing research to develop standard test methods to assess the performance of manufacturing robots and emergency response robots can inspire similar test methods for exoskeletons. This paper describes recent research on performance standards for manufacturing robots as well as search and rescue robots. It also discusses how the performance of wearable robots could benefit from using the same test methods.     

Assessment of interoperability in cloud manufacturing

Cloud manufacturing is defined as a resource sharing paradigm that provides on-demand access to a pool of manufacturing resources and capabilities aimed at utilising geographically dispersed manufacturing resources in a service-oriented manner. These services are deployed via the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and its underlying IT infrastructure, architecture models, as well as data and information exchange protocols and standards. In this context, interoperability has been identified to be a key enabler for implementing such vertically or horizontally integrated cyber-physical systems for production engineering. Adopting an interoperability framework for cloud manufacturing systems enables an efficient deployment of manufacturing resources and capabilities across the production engineering life-cycle. In this paper, the authors investigate interoperability in the context of cloud manufacturing to identify the key parameters that determine whether or not a change-over from traditional cloud manufacturing to interoperable cloud manufacturing is financially viable for a given scenario of service providers and manufacturing orders. The results obtained confirm that interoperable cloud manufacturing systems cannot be considered a one-size-fits-all option. Rather, its applicability depends on a number of driving parameters that need to be analysed and interpreted to determine whether or not it provides a financially viable alternative to cloud manufacturing without an overarching interoperability framework.     

Cooperative control in production and logistics

Classical applications of control engineering and information and communication technology (ICT) in production and logistics are often done in a rigid, centralized and hierarchical way. These inflexible approaches are typically not able to cope with the complexities of the manufacturing environment, such as the instabilities, uncertainties and abrupt changes caused by internal and external disturbances, or a large number and variety of interacting, interdependent elements. A paradigm shift, e.g., novel organizing principles and methods, is needed for supporting the interoperability of dynamic alliances of agile and networked systems. Several solution proposals argue that the future of manufacturing and logistics lies in network-like, dynamic, open and reconfigurable systems of cooperative autonomous entities.The paper overviews various distributed approaches and technologies of control engineering and ICT that can support the realization of cooperative structures from the resource level to the level of networked enterprises. Standard results as well as recent advances from control theory, through cooperative game theory, distributed machine learning to holonic systems, cooperative enterprise modeling, system integration, and autonomous logistics processes are surveyed. A special emphasis is put on the theoretical developments and industrial applications of Robustly Feasible Model Predictive Control (RFMPC). Two case studies are also discussed: (i) a holonic, PROSA-based approach to generate short-term forecasts for an additive manufacturing system by means of a delegate multi-agent system (D-MAS); and (ii) an application of distributed RFMPC to a drinking water distribution system.     

Establishing information requirements for supervisory controllers in a flexible manufacturing system using GTA

In this article we consider the technological change that has occurred in complex manufacturing systems within the past two decades and the implications it has had on the role of human operators in manufacturing systems control. Our examination ranges from the traditional production line manned by skilled machinists to flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) under supervisory control. On the basis of this study, we raise the question as to whether new advanced manufacturing technology interfaces are supportive of human operators in their responsibilities to manufacturing systems. We address this problem by analyzing supervisory controller information requirements for intervening in complex process control tasks as part of FMS operation. This analysis was conducted using a cognitive engineering research methodology, which has not previously been applied, in the domain of manufacturing. The method of GTA was applied to supervisory control of an FMS and produced detailed information requirements, which facilitated the formulation of general design guidelines for FMS interface design. The guidelines are aimed at supporting human operator process strategy development and decision making. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A B-spline based framework for volumetric object modeling

With the recent development of Iso-geometric Analysis (IGA) (Cottrell et al., 2009) and advanced manufacturing technologies employing heterogeneous materials, such as additive manufacturing (AM) of functionally graded material, there is a growing emerging need for a full volumetric representation of 3D objects, that prescribes the interior of the object in addition to its boundaries. In this paper, we propose a volumetric representation (V-rep) for geometric modeling that is based on trimmed B-spline trivariates and introduce its supporting volumetric modeling framework. The framework includes various volumetric model (V-model) construction methods from basic non-singular volumetric primitives to high level constructors, as well as Boolean operations’ support for V-models. A V-model is decomposed into and defined by a complex of volumetric cells (V-cells), each of which can also represent a variety of additional varying fields over it, and hence over the entire V-model. With these capabilities, the proposed framework is able of supporting volumetric IGA needs as well as represent and manage heterogeneous materials for AM. Further, this framework is also a seamless extension to existing boundary representations (B-reps) common in all contemporary geometric modeling systems, and allows a simple migration of existing B-rep data, tools and algorithms. Examples of volumetric models constructed using the proposed framework are presented.     

Process control in CNC manufacturing for discrete components: A STEP-NC compliant framework

With today's highly competitive global manufacturing marketplace, the pressure for right-first-time manufacture has never been so high. New emerging data standards combined with machine data collection methods, such as in-process verification lead the way to a complete paradigm shift from the traditional manufacturing and inspection to intelligent networked process control. Low-level G and M codes offer very limited information on machine capabilities or work piece characteristics which consequently, results in no information being available on manufacturing processes, inspection plans and work piece attributes in terms of tolerances, etc. and design features to computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines. One solution to the aforementioned problems is using STEP-NC (ISO 14649) suite of standards, which aim to provide higher-level information for process control. In this paper, the authors provide a definition for process control in CNC manufacturing and identify the challenges in achieving process control in current CNC manufacturing scenario. The paper then introduces a STEP-compliant framework that makes use of self-learning algorithms that enable the manufacturing system to learn from previous data and results in eliminating the errors and consistently producing quality products. The framework relies on knowledge discovery methods such as data mining encapsulated in a process analyser to derive rules for corrective measures to control the manufacturing process. The design for the knowledge-based process analyser and the various process control mechanisms conclude the paper.     

A review of essential standards and patent landscapes for the Internet of Things: A key enabler for Industry 4.0

This paper is a formal overview of standards and patents for Internet of Things (IoT) as a key enabler for the next generation advanced manufacturing, referred as Industry 4.0 (I 4.0). IoT at the fundamental level is a means of connecting physical objects to the Internet as a ubiquitous network that enables objects to collect and exchange information. The manufacturing industry is seeking versatile manufacturing service provisions to overcome shortened product life cycles, increased labor costs, and fluctuating customer needs for competitive marketplaces. This paper depicts a systematic approach to review IoT technology standards and patents. The thorough analysis and overview include the essential standard landscape and the patent landscape based on the governing standards organizations for America, Europe and China where most global manufacturing bases are located. The literature of emerging IoT standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the Guobiao standards (GB), and global patents issued in US, Europe, China and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are systematically presented in this study.     

Using basic Statechart to program industrial controllers

Despite the many studies that have attempted to develop “friendly” methods for industrial controller programming, they are still programmed by conventional “trial-and-error” methods and in practice, there is little written documentation on these systems. The ideal solution is to use a computational environment that allows industrial engineers to implement the system using high-level language and that follows international standards. Accordingly, this paper proposes a methodology to model and validate control programs for manufacturing systems that include sequential, parallel and timed operations, using a formalism based on Statecharts, denominated Basic Statechart (BSC). To improve the formal aspects of the original Statecharts, we introduce the semantic of the BSC using only characteristics relevant to the industrial area. We also present an algorithm that translates the control model described in BSC into Ladder diagrams, thereby enabling tests with actual PLCs. Finally, one typical example of application in the manufacturing area is discussed as case study to illustrate the proposed methodology.     

Reconfigurable, component-based systems and the role of enterprise engineering concepts

General requirements of next generation enterprise systems are considered and classified. This highlights the potential importance of emerging component-based approaches that facilitate the detailed design of IT systems and their rapid implementation and ongoing development. It also highlights the need for complementary systems engineering approaches that address enterprise engineering on a broad scale, taking into account business and human aspects of large scale projects as well as technical aspects. This characterises the role that current generation enterprise engineering concepts can play in support of the conceptual design of future enterprise engineering systems and in the specification of sets of enterprise components from which large scale, change-capable enterprise systems can be constructed.     

A survey of feature modeling methods: Historical evolution and new development

Initially developed for geometric representation, feature modeling has been applied in product design and manufacturing with great success. With the growth of computer-aided engineering (CAE), computer-aided process planning (CAPP), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), and other applications for product engineering, the definitions of features have been mostly application-driven. This survey briefly reviews feature modeling historical evolution first. Subsequently, various approaches to resolving the interoperability issues during product lifecycle management are reviewed. In view of the recent progress of emerging technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, social manufacturing, and additive manufacturing (AM), the focus of this survey is on the state of the art application of features in the emerging research fields. The interactions among these trending techniques constitute the socio-cyber-physical system (SCPS)-based manufacturing which demands for feature interoperability across heterogeneous domains. Future efforts required to extend feature capability in SCPS-based manufacturing system modeling are discussed at the end of this survey.     

Rapid design and reconfiguration of Petri net models for reconfigurable manufacturing cells with improved net rewriting systems and activity diagrams

To respond rapidly to the highly volatile market, the emerging reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) have brought forward two challenging issues, namely, how to build rapid a formal model of an initial manufacturing configuration and how to yield the goal model from the existing one along with manufacturing configuration changes (reconfiguration). As for the issues, we present in this paper a method for rapid design of Petri net (PN) formalized models of RMS, intended for supervisory control and logic control of RMS, as well as a method for automated reconfiguration of the models. Firstly, we present an improved net rewriting system (INRS) for dynamically operating net transformation, unlike its predecessor-net rewriting system, where the initial behavioral properties of the underlying PN rewritten can be preserved during the transformation. Subsequently, the paper proposes the three-phase method for rapid design of initial full PN models of reconfigurable manufacturing cells (RMCs). In this method, activity diagrams of Unified Modeling Languages version 2 (UML 2) are used to describe manufacturing configurations, firstly; then the sub-activity diagrams are transformed into PN sub-models; finally, the PN sub-models are automated synthesized into a full model by the approach of INRS. Further, we present a model reconfiguration method for this class of PN models. The method compares changes in activity diagrams of the existing and goal manufacturing configurations and converts them into net rewriting rules of INRS. By applying the rules obtained, the existing PN model can reconfigure into a new one for the goal manufacturing configuration. No matter the design method or the reconfiguration method, the behavioral properties of the obtained PN models, e.g., liveness, boundedness, or reversibility, can be guaranteed and thereby the efforts of verification can be avoided. Finally, rapid design of a PN model of a reconfigurable manufacturing cell, as well as its automated reconfiguration, is illustrated with the help of an example. The result indicates the validity of the methods.     

Historical survey and emerging challenges of manufacturing automation modeling and control: A systems architecting perspective

An architecting perspective is derived as part of a more global perspective, related to manufacturing automation modeling and control through four industrial revolutions. This historical survey (Pereira et al., 2017) highlights the impact of digitalization both on isolated machines and devices, and on the architecting of large-scale manufacturing and logistics systems. To distribute the holistic control over related components, two main paradigms have been followed for the engineering of those System of Systems (SoS): (1) technology-enhanced, and (2) bio-inspired. In both, the cognitive orchestration of the knowledge and skills involved in a system project remains challenging for the interdisciplinary togetherness and harmony required beyond the disciplinary boundaries. Finally, lessons learned, as well as acquired knowledge through this innovative history are addressed with several open questions and emerging challenges related to the cyber-physical systems evolution.     

A review and framework of laser-based collaboration support

New technologies are emerging to enable and support physical, implicit and explicit collaborations. They are essential for dealing with increasingly complex systems in unstructured, dynamic environments. The purpose of this article is to review the role of laser technology in enabling better, more precise interactions and their control, and to identify opportunities and challenges in this area. While the most common applications of laser technology are found in medical and health care, manufacturing, and communication, other domains such as safety, quality assurance, agriculture, construction, entertainment, defense, transportation, and law enforcement also benefit from it. In spite of the rapid dissemination of this technology, its role in support of collaboration and discovery is still in its infancy. Research activities concerning new ways of using lasers as a collaboration supporting technology that may strengthen new areas have been relatively limited. Nevertheless, the translation to this domain of collaboration support has been recognized as vital for activities that demand increasingly more coordinated effort among interacting agents (e.g., humans, machines, particles) and digital, possibly also photonic agents. Recent advances in laser technology in a number of application domains are reviewed in this article, focusing primarily on lasers’ role for supporting different forms of precision interactions and collaboration. In addition, a framework with five collaboration support functions and five collaboration dimensions is defined for this review. The taxonomy framework is useful for enabling better understanding of the existing and emerging opportunities that laser-based technology offers for collaboration support, its advantages and several research gaps.     

Paradigm shift: unified and associative feature-based concurrent and collaborative engineering

With widely used concurrent and collaborative engineering technologies, the validity and consistency of product information become important. In order to establish the state of the art, this paper reviews emerging concurrent and collaborative engineering approaches and emphasizes on the integration of different application systems across product life cycle management (PLM) stages. It is revealed that checking product information validity is difficult for the current computer-aided systems because engineering intent is at best partially represented in product models. It is also not easy to maintain the consistency among related product models because information associations are not established. The purpose of this review is to identify and analyze research issues with respect to information integration and sharing for future concurrent and collaborative engineering. A new paradigm of research from the angle of feature unification and association for product modeling and manufacturing is subsequently proposed.     

材料对手机概念设计多样性的影响

随着材料科学和工程的发展,新的材料不断涌现,恰当地运用材料可以实现产品概念设计中的创新。本文从材料这一角度,以手机概念设计为实例,探讨由于产品材料、材料工艺的不同而导致的产品概念设计步骤多样化和产品设计结果的多样化,为设计师掌握材料信息、运用材料进行设计并实现产品概念设计的多样性提供参考方法和意见。     

Smart manufacturing process and system automation – A critical review of the standards and envisioned scenarios

Smart manufacturing is arriving. It promises a future of mass-producing highly personalized products via responsive autonomous manufacturing operations at a competitive cost. Of utmost importance, smart manufacturing requires end-to-end integration of intra-business and inter-business manufacturing processes and systems. Such end-to-end integration relies on standards-compliant and interoperable interfaces between different manufacturing stages and systems. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of the current landscape of manufacturing automation standards, with a focus on end-to-end integrated manufacturing processes and systems towards mass personalization and responsive factory automation. First, we present an authentic vision of smart manufacturing and the unique needs for next-generation manufacturing automation. A comprehensive review of existing standards for enabling manufacturing process automation and manufacturing system automation is presented. Subsequently, focusing on meeting changing demands of efficient production of highly personalized products, we detail several future-proofing manufacturing automation scenarios via integrating various existing standards. We believe that existing automation standards have provided a solid foundation for developing smart manufacturing solutions. Faster, broader and deeper implementation of smart manufacturing automation can be anticipated via the dissemination, adoption, and improvement of relevant standards in a need-driven approach.