Mixing real and virtual components in automated manufacturing systems using PLM tools

Project-based collaborative engineering learning to develop Industry 4.0 skills within a PLM framework

Computer-Aided Design tools (CAX: CAD/CAE/CAM) have dramatically changed the structure and activities of the product development process used by companies to develop and deliver product. Recent developments in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategies and tools are also causing changes in the product development process. As important as the selection of the right product to develop, is the choice of the right process to develop it with. The proper process ensures that CAX tools and PLM strategies and tools are implemented and executed to the utmost advantage through product development deployment. Virtual product development is a process design and simulation strategy that provides techniques for preplanning the product development process and its deployment. Recent changes in the international market and business environments are also impacting product development processes. This paper presents research in methods to design and model the impact of global issues on potential product developmen...

A decision support system for design of mass production machining lines composed of stations with rotary or mobile table

Purpose – This paper aims to propose and implement an integrated augmented-reality (AR)-aided assembly environment to incorporate the interaction between real and virtual components, so that users can obtain a more immersive experience of the assembly simulation in real time and achieve better assembly design. Design/methodology/approach – A component contact handling strategy is proposed to model all the possible movements of virtual components when they interact with real components. A novel assembly information management approach is proposed to access and modify the information instances dynamically corresponding to user manipulation. To support the interaction between real and virtual components, a hybrid marker-less tracking method is implemented. Findings – A prototype system has been developed, and a case study of an automobile alternator assembly is presented. A set of tests is implemented to validate the feasibility, efficiency, accuracy and intuitiveness of the system. Research limitations/implications – The prototype system allows the users to manipulate and assemble the designed virtual components to the real components, so that the users can check for possible design errors and modify the original design in the context of their final use and in the real-world scale. Originality/value – This paper proposes an integrated AR simulation and planning platform based on hybrid-tracking and ontology-based assembly information management. Component contact handling strategy based on collision detection and assembly feature surfaces mating reasoning is proposed to solve component degree of freedom.

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The objective of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, provide guidance to best implement end to end traceability from program requirements to physical implementation, and Secondly provide techniques to review and understand large scale complex systems. Even with a Digital Engineering Environment (DEE) being an enabler towards applying Systems Engineering practices to develop large scale complex systems, many organizations are unclear on the methodology for modeling their architectures and enabling stakeholders to easily review, understand and assess those architectures. An architecture can be a conceptual, logical or physical architecture, depending on the system’s lifecycle state. For the context of this paper, the modeling environment is any System’s Modeling Language (SysML) based tool along with modeling tools for electrical, mechanical and software development and product life cycle management tool. The intended audience is any engineering organization defining end-to-end architecture within a DEE, and all stakeholders tasked with reviewing conceptual, logical and physical architecture. The outcome of this paper is to provide engineering organizations with guidance on underlying principles for modeling and understanding or assessing architecture that describe large complex systems.</div></div>

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) due to its ability of being flexible in nature is concerned with automatic production of different parts in medium range. In short, it can be regarded as an automated manufacturing system. In this paper, an insight on previous work in the area of FMS modelling has been provided with an overview of research and development for better understanding of FMS. It serves as a medium for investigation of work that are accomplished by using different modelling techniques in FMS like mathematical, artificial intelligence, hierarchical, multi criteria decision-making method, Petri Nets and simulation. This paper will help researchers who are keen to do research in the area of FMS modelling, by highlighting contribution of available techniques in the field of FMS. It will also help them in deciding which modelling techniques can be used for a given problem. At last, comparison of different parameters considered in the recent papers of modelling FMS has been provided in the form of Table, along with a clear vision related to those works that still need to be investigated.

Petri nets are an effective way to model, analyze, and control deadlocks in automated manufacturing systems (AMS). There are three important criteria in designing and evaluating a liveness-enforcing supervisor for a system to be controlled: behavioral permissiveness, structural complexity, and computational complexity. A maximally permissive supervisor can lead to high utilization of system resources. A supervisor with a simple structure can decrease the hardware and software costs. As for the computational complexity, means that a deadlock control policy can be applied to large systems. The objective of this paper is to design liveness-enforcing supervisors for different flexible manufacturing systems, simulate the controlled systems, and estimate the utilization of resources and throughput of the system. The siphon control methods (Strict Minimal Siphons and Elementary Siphons) are used to solve the deadlock control problems for a number of AMSs with different sizes. Moreover, the paper aims to evaluate the performance of selected methods such as utilization of resources, throughput, and the number of monitors, arcs, and states. Finally, the computational results indicate that the elementary siphons based policy provides better structural complexity and computational complexity than the strict minimal siphons based policy. However, strict minimal siphons based policy leads to better behavioral permissiveness than elementary siphons methods.

A chain restaurant's meal planning and design process include evaluating the ingredient specifications creating tastes and appearance, and finally receiving the approval of the set-meal by headquarters. The data sharing during the meal creation cycle, controlling especially information flows between branches and headquarters are inefficient. This research overcomes the product information management (PIM) issue by reengineering the meal creation process using modular product design and system engineering. A product data system provides a platform for the organizing, saving and controlling of information related to the product design, production and lifecycle management. Managing the product data is a complicated process, particularly in a competitive high-end restaurant chain. Using the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) concept, we design and develop a decision support system called the Integrated Meal Planning (IMP) system, to enhance the efficiency of the meal planning and designing process. The conventional (as-is) and newly defined IMP (to-be) operations between headquarter and branches are carefully studied to demonstrate the benefits of IMP. In the first phase of the study, the current data exchanging model are derived. In the second phase, the to-be PLM model and process are derived. To evaluate the performance of the proposed models, a case study of a high-end Japanese restaurant chain used to demonstrate the to-be IMP solution.

An automated manufacturing system (AMS) is a complex network of processing, inspecting, and buffering nodes connected by system of transportation mechanisms. For an AMS, it is desirable to be capable to increase or decrease the output with the rise and fall of demand. Such specifications show the complexity of decision making in the field of AMSs and the need for concise and accurate modeling methods. Therefore, in this paper, a flexible jobshop automated manufacturing system is proposed to optimize the material flow. The flexibility is on the multi-shops of the same type and also multiple products that can be produced. An automated guided vehicle is applied for material handling. The objective is to optimize the material flow regarding the demand fluctuations and machine specifications. An illustrative example is presented to test the validity of the proposed mathematical model.

New Product Development (NDP) is a major source of competitive advantage to automobile manufacturers. More specifically, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has proven to have a positive impact on the effectiveness of the product development effort. One of the many reasons for that is the fact that PLM requires detailed attention to the constraints a firm will face, depending on the stage of the product. Widely accepted references outline the important of decision making in PLM. This trend is also is reinforced by the number of research projects in known, global centers of excellence in product development and innovation. Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) approach is in the stake to supply the plan to best use of resources allocated to the project. Another revered trend is the idea of integrating the whole supply chain from a value-adding perspective. Thus, the Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Manufacuturing Engineering Systemas (MES) of current and new suppliers for newly developed parts or products are the key players for the competitiveness in the market. Conversely, strategies, methodologies, and PLM tools present themselves as agile, lean, safe yet collaborative approach to NPD. This paper presents an integration of ERP into PLM with a special emphasis on SCM. The automobile industry, as an example is to contextualize the discussion.

As a result of tool wear in machining processes there is a change in the dimensions of parts produced. To minimize the cost of producing parts out of specifications and to minimize the overall tooling cost, the optimal tool resetting and replacement intervals need to be determined. In this paper, the optimal cost models are proposed for tool replacement and resetting by using renewal functions. The tool life as well as tool reset times are modelled as inverted normal distributions. Numerical solutions are presented for the proposed models. To illustrate the application of the models, a case study of machining a part on a Mazak CNC machine is presented. The dimensional changes of various surfaces of the machined parts are monitored along with the corresponding tool wear as a function of time. The data obtained have demonstrated the validity of the proposed models, their underlying assumptions, and they illustrate the utilization of such an analysis in a flexible manufacturing system, where such CNC machines are the integral part of the system.

In order to reduce product development (PD) costs and duration, PD cycles are being accelerated in order to reduce the time to market and satisfy the end customer needs. Another key challenge in PD today, is product diversification in the technologies used, requiring improved collaboration amongst local and dispersed multi disciple PD teams. A main stream tool that aids and support engineers in PD to collaborate and share information/knowledge is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). This research explores the benefits and requirements of implementing a PLM system for a PD and manufacturing company within the automotive supply chain. This paper first provides a brief background of the subject area, followed by an explanation of the initial industrial investigation for the implementation of a PLM system, from which investigation the resulting conclusions and recommendations are presented as the building blocks of the implementation project.

<div class="htmlview paragraph">For over 20 years, automotive manufacturers have been harnessing the power of 3D to help create, optimize and produce great vehicles. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) capabilities such as concurrent development, seamless integration, simultaneous engineering, single source database, and real-time visibility have long been capable within the automotive development process. However, the reality is that these tools have existed for a select few within a corporation, and have never been pervasive to every person involved in a product’s development process.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">Today, there are certain market drivers requiring more from PLM technology. This includes the fact that companies must drive innovation to survive in today’s increasingly competitive and global auto industry. The next generation of 3D PLM tools, referred to as PLM 2.0 can bring real-time, global collaboration to life with features such as a single PLM platform for Intellectual Property (IP) management (one database and one server), and the open Server-Oriented Architecture (SOA) development platform. With only a web connection, product authoring and collaboration are enabled for real time, concurrent work, across multiple remote locations all in a 3D lifelike environment.</div> <div class="htmlview paragraph">This presentation will point out how by expanding 3D PLM beyond engineering and manufacturing to include everyone who has a role in the life of a vehicle from business users to end consumers, vehicles will be developed in a shorter time frame, and better-suited to the public desires, with improvements made along the whole product development process.</div>

Technologies such as Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and the Internet of Things (IoT) increasingly disrupt traditional manufacturing and production systems. However, there is a scarcity of empirical studies synthesising and evaluating the impact of disruptive technologies on existing manufacturing systems. This study examines the impact of AGVs applying IoT on Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) through a case study demonstrating the integration of AGVs with IoT in a manufacturing company. As a concept, FMS was conceived decades ago; this study uses socio-technical systems theory to elaborate the concept of FMS into the current context. Key themes uncovered from the literature review include (i) AGVs in warehouse systems, (ii) AGV scheduling and routing, (iii) Human-machine interface, and (iv) integrating and controlling AGVs/IoT. The case study demonstrates how AGVs can create smart, flexible manufacturing systems by taking the following steps: (a) problem identification, (b) performance measurement, (c) designing the proposed solution, (d) evaluate IoT systems, (e) implementation of the new solution, and (f) future improvements. The study concludes with specific recommendations to implement Industry 4.0 in manufacturing companies.

Industrial companies collaborating to develop new products need to implement an effective management of their design processes and product information. Unfortunately, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) systems, which are dedicated to support product design activities, are not efficient as it might be expected. Indeed, product design processes are continuously changing, are sometimes emergent and non deterministic whereas PLM systems, based on workflow technology, don’t support process flexibility. Needs in terms of process support flexibility are necessary to facilitate the coupling with the business enactment. Furthermore, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) enhances flexibility and adaptability of composed solutions. Systems based on SOA have the ability to inherently being evolvable. This paper proposes an approach to deal with product design process flexibility in PLM systems by making profiles from SOA. The objective is to specify, design and implement product design processes in a very flexible way so that business changes are rapidly considered in PLM solutions.