Development Of Manufacturing Systems Research Articles

Design and Fabrication of Fibrous Nanomaterials Using Pull Spinning

The assembly of natural and synthetic polymers into fibrous nanomaterials has applications ranging from textiles, tissue engineering, photonics, and catalysis. However, rapid manufacturing of these materials is challenging, as the state of the art in nanofiber assembly remains limited by factors such as solution polarity, production rate, applied electric fields, or temperature. Here, the design and development of a rapid nanofiber manufacturing system termed pull spinning is described. Pull spinning is compact and portable, consisting of a high‐speed rotating bristle that dips into a polymer or protein reservoir and pulls a droplet from solution into a nanofiber. When multiple layers of nanofibers are collected, they form a nonwoven network whose composition, orientation, and function can be adapted to multiple applications. The capability of pull spinning to function as a rapid, point‐of‐use fiber manufacturing platform is demonstrated for both muscle tissue engineering and textile design.image

Efficient generation of hPSC-derived midbrain dopaminergic neurons in a fully defined, scalable, 3D biomaterial platform

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) have major potential as an unlimited source of functional cells for many biomedical applications; however, the development of cell manufacturing systems to enable this promise faces many challenges. For example, there have been major recent advances in the generation of midbrain dopaminergic (mDA) neurons from stem cells for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) therapy; however, production of these cells typically involves undefined components and difficult to scale 2D culture formats. Here, we used a fully defined, 3D, thermoresponsive biomaterial platform to rapidly generate large numbers of action-potential firing mDA neurons after 25 days of differentiation (~40% tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) positive, maturing into 25% cells exhibiting mDA neuron-like spiking behavior). Importantly, mDA neurons generated in 3D exhibited a 30-fold increase in viability upon implantation into rat striatum compared to neurons generated on 2D, consistent with the elevated expression of survival markers FOXA2 and EN1 in 3D. A defined, scalable, and resource-efficient cell culture platform can thus rapidly generate high quality differentiated cells, both neurons and potentially other cell types, with strong potential to accelerate both basic and translational research.

Structure and mechanical behavior of Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) materials

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the deposited structure and mechanical performance of printed materials obtained during initial development of the Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Issues unique to large-scale polymer deposition are identified and presented to reduce the learning curve for the development of similar systems.Design/methodology/approachAlthough the BAAM’s individual extruded bead is 10-20× larger (∼9 mm) than the typical small-scale systems, the overall characteristics of the deposited material are very similar. This study relates the structure of BAAM materials to the material composition, deposition parameters and resulting mechanical performance.FindingsMaterials investigated during initial trials are suitable for stiffness-limited applications. The strength of printed materials can be significantly reduced by voids and imperfect fusion between layers. Deposited material was found to have voids between adjacent beads and micro-porosity within a given bead. Failure generally occurs at interfaces between adjacent beads and successive layers, indicating imperfect contact area and polymer fusion.Practical implicationsThe incorporation of second-phase reinforcement in printed materials can significantly improve stiffness but can result in notable anisotropy that needs to be accounted for in the design of BAAM-printed structures.Originality/valueThis initial evaluation of BAAM-deposited structures and mechanical performance will guide the current research effort for improving interlaminar strength and process control.

Operational parameters estimation for a flexible manufacturing system. A case study

The complex structure of flexible manufacturing systems and rapid changes currently taking place with the evolution of the market and increase product diversity involves a detailed analysis of manufacturing processes. Manufacturing systems analysis can be done using methods based on analytical models and simulation. By applying these techniques one can view, analyze and forecast the performance of a dynamic system or of a new implemented system. Performance is one of the main factors affecting the design, development and configuration of any flexible manufacturing system. In this context, the present research will be directed to flexible manufacturing system structure analysis, to assess its performance, as well as simulating and validating these systems. It will generate and analyze key performance parameters, for the designed system by the use of specific software. Thus, it will study: the influence of the initial conditions or parameters on the behaviour of the flexible manufacturing system, the influence of the developing commands and system states on output or the influence of changes in the system structure on its behaviour.

Development of IOT-based Reconfigurable Manufacturing System to solve Reconfiguration Planning Problem

Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) appeared as a solution to high variation in customer demands allowing manufacturers to satisfy different amount of demands in each single period. In RMS, the system satisfies demands by reconfiguring the machines exactly when and where needed by adding and removing machines whose number depends on the demand of every single period. The reconfiguration process brings a critical issue within the RMS that is called as reconfiguration planning (RP) problems in this paper. However, with the rise of Internet of Things (IoT) that has been a global issue, many companies or manufacturers are trying to integrate it into their smart systems. RMS as well needs to apply IoT in order to establish the internetworking between machines and the logic, so that RP problems can be solved, automated, and controlled. This paper addresses the importance of the integration of IoT into RMS and the development of mathematical model to solve RP problems in order to save reconfiguration time, cost, and effort. The contribution of the proposed idea is evaluated by using simulation software.

Preliminary development of a Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing system (WAAM)

Additive manufacturing has experienced a remarkably growth over the last few years, making possible not only to make prototypes, but also to produce final products, so nowadays most of recent works are focused in metal additive manufacturing. The main objective of this work is to show the first experiences in the development of a cost effective metal additive manufacturing system on the basis of gas metal arc welding (GMAW). The proposed system, wire and arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), integrates a cold metal transfer (CMT) welding equipment patented by Fronius®, and a CNC milling machine Optimus with three axis and it presents the advantages to reduce the heat accumulation originated using a conventional GMAW equipment and the possibility to implement surface finish operations by milling. Preliminary results are also presented.

Towards Practical Guidelines for Conversion from a Fixed to a Reconfigurable Manufacturing Automation System

It is generally considered to be a key requirement in the development of reconfigurable manufacturing systems, that economic feasibility is only attainable if the system is defined to be reconfigurable at the outset of its design. In this work we consider the potential exception to this requirement, in the context of a common industrial scenario where a specialized and expensive manufacturing machine or system will otherwise be rendered useless due to loss of business of the particular product being manufactured. Specific guidelines to convert from a fixed to a reconfigurable system are proposed, and evaluated through a case study.

Study of manufacturing resource perception and process control of a radio-frequency-identification-enabled decentralized flexible manufacturing system

The fusion of mechatronics, communication, control, and information technologies has introduced new automation paradigms into the production environment. Plug-and-play flexible manufacturing systems will become suitable approaches in the future for the development of modular, flexible, and reconfigurable manufacturing systems, addressing the requirements of global markets. This article introduces a Petri Net model-driven methodology for the development, validation, and operation of a radio-frequency identification-enabled decentralized flexible manufacturing system. After analyzing the manufacturing processes and resources of a flexible manufacturing system, the manufacturing resources are classified into active and passive resources. Each active resource is equipped with a radio-frequency identification reader and each passive resource is banded with a radio-frequency identification tag. Real-time state and behavior logic models are built for manufacturing resources based on extended Petri Nets; the models are translated into XML and integrated with the manufacturing resources. In this fashion, each manufacturing resource becomes an autonomous agent, and it can make self-decisions and update its status through the twinned models. In this manner, automatic perception and process control are realized. Finally, the effectiveness and feasibility of the method are verified in an experimental system.

Model-based collaborative development of manufacturing and control systems

This paper presents a collaborative model-based development method for a manufacturing system and its control system. The method is aimed towards improving the traditional manufacturing and control ...

Integrated Monitoring System of Production Processes

Abstract Integrated monitoring system for discrete manufacturing processes is presented in the paper. The multilayer hardware and software reference model was developed. Original research are an answer for industry needs of the integration of information flow in production process. Reference model corresponds with proposed data model based on multilayer data tree allowing to describe orders, products, processes and save monitoring data. Elaborated models were implemented in the integrated monitoring system demonstrator developed in the project. It was built on the base of multiagent technology to assure high flexibility and openness on applying intelligent algorithms for data processing. Currently on the base of achieved experience an application integrated monitoring system for real production system is developed. In the article the main problems of monitoring integration are presented, including specificity of discrete production, data processing and future application of Cyber-Physical-Systems. Development of manufacturing systems is based more and more on taking an advantage of applying intelligent solutions into machine and production process control and monitoring. Connection of technical systems, machine tools and manufacturing processes monitoring with advanced information processing seems to be one of the most important areas of near future development. It will play important role in efficient operation and competitiveness of the whole production system. It is also important area of applying in the future Cyber-Physical-Systems that can radically improve functionally of monitoring systems and reduce the cost of its implementation.

Design and Development of a Novel Frozen-Form Additive Manufacturing System for Tissue Engineering Applications

High-quality scaffolds play a vital role in tissue engineering. The frozen-form method (FFM) (also known as low-temperature deposition manufacturing) can be used to fabricate scaffolds from biomedical polymers. These scaffolds may have both macroporous and microporous characteristics and may incorporate bioactive compounds or biomolecules during the process. In addition, scaffolds produced at low temperatures can prevent the occurrence of thermal hydrolysis, thereby improving the mechanical properties of scaffolds. In fabricating high-quality (without deformation and collapse) bioscaffolds through the FFM, the most crucial requirement is the creation of a uniform low-temperature environment. This study developed a frozen-form additive manufacturing system that includes a uniform cryogenic device to generate the uniform distribution of a low-temperature environment over a local region to produce large scaffolds that will not deform and collapse. A large square scaffold block and a high aspect ratio tubular scaffold were fabricated to verify the efficiency of this system. Furthermore, this study employed a selective compliance assembly robot arm to traverse two-dimensional deposition paths, unlike the conventional Cartesian gantry system. This study investigated the challenges stemming from the use of such a device for scaffold production and suggests methods for resolving such issues.

Simulation based energy-resource efficient manufacturing integrated with in-process virtual management

As energy efficiency is one of the key essentials towards sustainability, the development of an energy-resource efficient manufacturing system is among the great challenges facing the current industry. Meanwhile, the availability of advanced technological innovation has created more complex manufacturing systems that involve a large variety of processes and machines serving different functions. To extend the limited knowledge on energy-efficient scheduling, the research presented in this paper attempts to model the production schedule at an operation process by considering the balance of energy consumption reduction in production, production work flow (productivity) and quality. An innovative systematic approach to manufacturing energy-resource efficiency is proposed with the virtual simulation as a predictive modelling enabler, which provides real-time manufacturing monitoring, virtual displays and decision-makings and consequentially an analytical and multidimensional correlation analysis on interdependent relationships among energy consumption, work flow and quality errors. The regression analysis results demonstrate positive relationships between the work flow and quality errors and the work flow and energy consumption. When production scheduling is controlled through optimization of work flow, quality errors and overall energy consumption, the energy-resource efficiency can be achieved in the production. Together, this proposed multidimensional modelling and analysis approach provides optimal conditions for the production scheduling at the manufacturing system by taking account of production quality, energy consumption and resource efficiency, which can lead to the key competitive advantages and sustainability of the system operations in the industry.

The Objectives of a National Project of ‘Manufacturing Innovation through Development of Next Generation 3D Printers’ in Japan

Technology Research Association for Future Additive Manufacturing (TRAFAM) was established in 2014 to achieve the development of innovative additive manufacturing systems to meet the world's highest standards and the development of manufacturing technologies for high value-added products. In this presentation, the current status of the TRAFAM project is introduced.

(Invited) Radical-Controlled Plasma Nano Processing for Green and Life Innovations

Plasma nanosciences and technologies have been leading all industries with bringing about innovations in green and life fields. The non-equilibrium chemical reactions induced by the synergetic effect of ions and radicals in the plasma processing has enabled to realize the isotropic etching with a high aspect ratio, the synthesis of functional nanomaterials through the plasma assisted self-organization and the surface chemical modification and so on in low pressure plasmas. In precise etching processes, the critical size dimension for the nanoscale pattering will be below 1nm and then the control of radical based on reactions on the side wall in the fine pattern with a nanoscale in size is of crucial importance. Additionally, the precise control of radicals is also strongly demanded in nanomaterial plasma processing. Carbon nanomaterials such as nanotubes, nanographenes and nanowalls attracted much attentions. They were synthesized by the plasma assisted self-organization, which was controlled by ions and/or radicals. Recently, the atmospheric pressure plasma and the in-liquid plasma have been developed. These plasmas have been successfully applied not only to the nanomaterial processing in the green innovation but also to the medical and agriculture fields in the life innovation. In these extremely complicated reactions, spatiotemporal controlling of radicals is a key point. Therefore, the measurement of behaviors of radicals in plasma nanoprocesses and thus the control of radicals on the basis of measured results has become important. We have been synthesizing a carbon nanowall, which is a two dimensional grapheme layers are standing vertically on the substrate, by the radical-controlled plasma processing. The structural control of carbon nanowalls was successfully performed by the radical injection to the plasma. Varieties of morphologies of carbon nanowalls were synthesized by controlling radicals and applied to fuel cell devices, catalysis devices and bio template and so on. Furthermore, ultrahigh density plasmas in the atmospheric pressure and in the liquid produce high density radicals. We have synthesized nanographenes by using the in-liquid plasma with alcohols. These nanographenes were also applied to the fuel cell devices. The atmospheric pressure plasma has been exposed to various kinds of cancer cells resulting in killing them. We found that ovarian cancer cells were successfully killed selectively against normal cells by the atmospheric pressure plasma and/or the plasma activated medium. In the case of synthesis of the plasma activated medium, controlling of densities of O radicals together with N and NO radicals exposed to the liquid medium was important to produce the optimum chemical species in the medium, which will be effective to kill cancers in vitro and in vivo. The systematical control of radicals in the nanoscale space at the gas and the liquid phase is a key issue to develop the plasma medicine, too. Therefore, we have stressed on the importance of development of an autonomous control plasma manufacturing system in order to accelerate green and life innovations. This system has multi-monitors to detect chemical reactions in the gas, the surface and interface between the gas and liquid, and in the liquid. On the basis of integration of measured results, it will make the precise control of species, especially radicals in the low pressure, atmospheric pressure and in-liquid plasmas. In this article, cutting edge plasma nanoprocesses with the radical-control in the plasma nanoprocesses for the synthesis of nanocarbons in the green innovation and with that in the plasma medical treatment of cancers in the life innovation are introduced and the future vision for the next generation’s plasma nanoprocessing will be presented.

Use of the manufacturing system design decomposition for comparative analysis and effective design of production systems

The focus of this paper is on the use of the Manufacturing System Design Decomposition (MSDD) to make effective cost and production system design decisions. A comparative study is conducted to illustrate how and why the total cost is reduced when the functional requirements defined by the MSDD are achieved. The ultimate goal of this research was to advance manufacturing and production system development to being guided by engineering science and design rather than the common practice of duplicating another person’s or entity’s notion of the best physical implementation.

Flexible Manufacturing Systems Scheduling: A Systematic Review

Flexible manufacturing system, the word is simple to understand but indeed difficult to achieve. Many firms failed to achieve flexible manufacturing system, become history and firms who effectively achieved it, have pioneered themselves in manufacturing industry. The ultimate need to flexible manufacturing system arises from very basic rule of environment, nothing is permanent. The changing needs, choices, priorities and preferences of business or its stakeholder dynamic behaviour forces firms to be flexible enough to deliver what is required. A manufacturing company needs flexibility and system utilization for its high level of throughput. This review study emphasizes some of the major contributions to the flexible manufacturing system and recent development in the field. The study enfolds major components of flexible manufacturing system namely automatic guided vehicles (AGV), Scheduling, artificial neural network and simulation modeling.

Recent Advances in Control Theory and Applications in Turkey

TOK’14, the National Symposium on Automatic Control, is an annually organized event bringing together the researchers from various universities and industry in Turkey. The symposium in 2014 was hosted by the Kocaeli University on 11–13 September in Kocaeli. The current special issue contains eight papers from the symposium programme, which had more than 200 contributions. Control theory is used for strategically cutting-edge high technologies, which provide important support for the sustainable development of flexible and autonomous manufacturing, medicine, automative, space, aerospace, finance, robotics, power and energy systems, defence, networking, etc. The focus of the special issue is to report the recent advances in control theory and applications in Turkey. Recently, national conferences and symposia are becoming hosts for more qualified research studies and industrial projects, as the research and development funds supported by the Turkish government have been rapidly increased. The goal of this special issue is to provide a forum for the latest research and projects, focusing on control theory and their industrial applications. The first paper, contributed by Morgul et al., proposed an alternative approach that steers away from explicit mechanical modelling towards data-driven system identification employed in vertical hopping robots. This identification approach treats the system as a black box and produces empirical models using harmonic transfer functions (HTF). Using this method reduces the complexity of the mathematical models and approximates unmodelled dynamics in legged locomotion robots. They showed that HTFs can be used as predictors of simple locomotion models on training data and their performance on sinusoid inputs is much better than on step inputs. The second paper, by Ozdogan and Leblebicioglu, presented modelling of a single axis (inner azimuth gimbal) of a four-axis gyro-stabilized electro-optic gimbal system using frequency response function (FRF). FRF is existing technique in the literature but its application to an electro-optic gimbal system is a challenging problem. The third paper, contributed by Efe et al., compared the performance of the controllers, namely proportional–integral–derivative control, sliding mode control, backstepping control, feedback linearization-based control and fuzzy control, based on integral absolute error (IAE), maximum absolute error (MAE), integral squared error (ISE), integral time squared error (ITSE) and error variance (EV) for Quadrotor-type aerial vehicles. They found that sliding mode control is better than the others in terms of simplicity and closed-loop control performance. In the fourth paper, Iplikci and Bahtiyar developed the Runge–Kutta model predictive controller (RKMPC) implemented in real time on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) in an electromagnetic levitation system. They compared performance of the RKMPC with a conventional nonlinear model predictive controller (NMPC) method for step and sinusoidal inputs. They found that the RKMPC provides very satisfactory control performance for a very fast experimental non-linear system. The fifth paper, authored by Alagoz and Kaygusuz, examined smart grid energy market management performance of a fractional-order proportional–integral (PI) controller in the case of communication and operation delays in a multisource energy market model. The simulation results showed that using of the fractional-order PI controller decreases the average energy shortage error and price volatility in the smart grid energy markets. Hence, it can be a good candidate for automated market management applications. In the sixth paper, Bagis and Konar studied a performance comparison of the Sugeno and Mamdani-type fuzzy models optimized by the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm with the other modelling approaches in the literature for a microstrip antenna. The ABC algorithm is found to be a powerful candidate for solving the numerical optimization of fuzzy models. In the seventh paper, Leblebicioglu et al. solved the path planning problem using a genetic algorithm (GA) with the proposal of novel evolutionary operators for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They obtained nearly global optimum flight path solutions regarding UAV dynamics. Real-world experiments conducted using small UAVs with

Manufacturing System Design for Business Value, a Holistic Design Approach

When designing and developing manufacturing systems, many aspects need to be considered. Typically, the manufacturing design objectives are specified to achieve certain operational requirements around quality, capacity, cost etc. They are also specified with the intention to ensure efficient processes related to manufacturing, such as maintenance, logistics, not to mention the main process of manufacturing the actual part. This study proposes that a wider company perspective should be considered during manufacturing system design, to achieve a greater business value. The manufacturing system should be designed to create value to other core business processes, such as product development, marketing, sales and services. This paper also presents examples on value perspectives to consider and how this approach can be implemented.

Prerequisites and Barriers for the Development of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems for High Speed Ramp-up

Intensified global competition, fast developing technologies, and changing customer demands have resulted in a trend towards increased differences in customer requirements, increased need for customization, shorter product life cycles, shorter windows for market opportunity, and rapid new product introductions. Thus, production ramp-up is becoming a more and more important stage in the lifetime of a product, which manufacturers need to be able to handle frequently and efficiently in order to gain competitive advantage. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs) are attractive options for handling this, as the system can be continuously reconfigured in accordance with the demanded volumes and products. However, the development of the RMS is a particularly challenging task compared to the development of a traditional manufacturing system. Therefore, the aim of the research presented in this paper is to investigate prerequisites and barriers for developing reconfigurable manufacturing. Initially, the paper presents a review of current literature on reconfigurable manufacturing with an identification of the prerequisites for its implementation. Moreover, through a long-term case study, their presence and the barriers towards their adoption and development in industry are investigated. The findings suggest multiple barriers for the successful development of reconfigurable manufacturing in industry. Conclusively, these findings are discussed and considerations for future research are proposed in order to aid the transition towards reconfigurability in industry.

An Integrated Method for Sustainable Manufacturing Systems Design

In the past decade, there has been an increasing awareness in development of sustainable manufacturing systems as governments in many countries have been enforcing ever-stricter environmental policies and regulations in industry by promoting energy saving and low emissions manufacturing activities. Lean manufacturing can be helpful for achieving a sustainable manufacturing system as it can reduce production wastes and increase manufacturing efficiency. Nevertheless, this lean approach does not include a consideration in energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions when designing a lean manufacturing system. This paper presents a methodology which can be useful for measuring energy consumption and CO 2 emissions for a typical manufacturing system design at an early stage. A case study was carried out for obtaining computational results using the developed methodology based on data collected from a real production line.