Cloud manufacturing for industrialized construction: Opportunities and challenges for a new manufacturing model

More widespread use of industrialized construction (IC) is hampered by the high capital cost of advanced production facilities paired with low profit margins. A novel service-oriented cloud manufacturing (CMfg) model could in theory increase utilization and profitability of distributed production facilities. However, little research has...

Digital twin for ship life-cycle: A critical systematic review

The focus on digitalisation in manufacturing is spreading to other industry fields, including large and complex objects like ships. Such interest introduces the concept of Digital Twins in supporting designers and operators through the whole ship-life cycle. However, the term Digital Twin is typically abused in the shipping industry, many...

Systems-theoretic interdependence analysis in robot-assisted warehouse management

The safe and efficient application of collaborative robots requires an understanding of actual work practices transformation, emerging from the adoption of new technological instruments. Functional systems-thinking is largely absent in literature about collaborative robot applications. In this context, this study proposes a framework that...

Closed-loop active object recognition with constrained illumination power

Some applications require high level of image-based classification certainty while keeping the total illumination energy as low as possible. Examples are minimally invasive visual inspection in Industry 4.0, and medical imaging systems such as computed tomography, in which the radiation dose should be kept “as low as is reasonably achievable”...

5G++ FlexiCell: 5G location-based context-aware agile manufacturing

Manufacturing machines need to be retooled approximately 15 times per week and in the future even more often because of decreasing batch sizes and increasing short-cyclic demands. Collaborative robots promise to offer a versatile automation approach for priorly manual tasks in small and medium-sized enterprises. However, their configuration...

Dialogues on Architecture

Dialogues on Architecture is a series of dialogues between researchers and practitioners, who are embracing the intellectual model of high technology and are involved in its advancement and application in architecture. Dialogue #4 focuses on the technology transfer between on-and off-Earth research and its impact on society, and in particular...

Digital Twins for Wind Energy Conversion Systems: A Literature Review of Potential Modelling Techniques Focused on Model Fidelity and Computational Load

The Industry 4.0 concept of a Digital Twin will bring many advantages for wind energy conversion systems, e.g., in condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and the optimisation of control or design parameters. A virtual replica is at the heart of a digital twin. To construct a virtual replica, appropriate modelling techniques must be...

Sustainable human-robot co-production for the bicycle industry

Bicycle production has not changed much over the last 100 years, it is still performed mainly by manual labor in mass production. During the global pandemic, the demand for ecologically friendly and customized transport has increased. Hence, customers start to impose the same requirements on bikes as on cars: they want more customized...

An information architecture to enable track-and-trace capability in Physical Internet ports

The Physical Internet (PI), a new vision for the future of the global freight transport and logistics system, describes a geographical hierarchy of interconnected networks of networks, from the urban, to the national, the continental, and the global level. Like today, in PI the maritime ports will fulfil roles as continental and global hubs....

Using Virtual Reality for scenario-based Responsible Research and Innovation approach for Human Robot Co-production

This paper proposes to use Virtual Reality scenarios to explore the reaction of stakeholders within an innovation process in the context of the introduction of robots working in close collaboration with users. The goal is to design the system upfront in such a way, that it is not perceived as a threat to the worker or his/her job. Within the...

Mirrorlabs - Creating accessible Digital Twins of robotic production environment with Mixed Reality

How to visualize recorded production data in Virtual Reality? How to use state of the art Augmented Reality displays that can show robot data? This paper introduces an opensource ICT framework approach for combining Unity-based Mixed Reality applications with robotic production equipment using ROS Industrial. This publication gives details on...

Implementing Industry 4.0: assessing the current state

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce, summarize and combine the results of 11 articles in a special issue on the implementation of Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 emerged as a phenomenon about a decade ago. That is why, it is interesting now to explore the implementation of the concept. In doing so, four research questions are...

More Than Meets the Eye? Robotisation and Normativity in the Dutch Construction Industry

Construction robots are becoming more common in the Netherlands, but remain rarities in contexts aside from state-of-the-art factories owned by wealthy or technologically-orientated companies. In its current state, the construction industry would have to change significantly to make room for robots. To understand whether these changes are...

State-of-the-art of intelligent building envelopes in the context of intelligent technical systems

The high and increasing requirements concerning energy consumption and the interior comfort of buildings result in a demand for more efficient façade constructions. In its role as a mediator between the exterior and interior of a building, the façade takes on a multitude of functions with effect on the building’s performance. Intelligent...

Transdisciplinary systems engineering: Implications, challenges and research agenda

Transdisciplinary processes have been the subject of research since several decades already. Transdisciplinary processes are aimed at solving ill-defined and socially relevant problems. Many researchers have studied transdisciplinary processes and have tried to understand the essentials of transdisciplinarity. Many engineering problems can be...

A Review of the Principles of Designing Smart Cyber-Physical Systems for Run-Time Adaptation: Learned Lessons and Open Issues

Smart cyber-physical systems (S-CPSs) are complex engineered systems empowered by cyber-physical computing and equipped with the capability of reasoning, learning, adapting, and evolving. As an outcome of data-driven dynamic computing, reasoning capabilities, and the run-time obtained own knowledge, nonlinear and emergent behavior of S-CPSs...

Portable Rapid Visual Workflow Simulation Tool for Human Robot Coproduction

Within the European Factory-in-a-day project, the aim is to improve communication between automation integrator and factory owner, in their analysis of feasibility and appropriateness of automating a manual task. A visualisation tool with preconfigured workflows and working principles, with specific focus on efficient human-robot coproduction...