Design Of Production Systems Research Articles

Systems analysis, design, and optimization of geothermal energy systems for power production and polygeneration: State-of-the-art and future challenges

Geothermal energy has significant potential to reduce fossil fuel consumptions and environmental impacts. To improve energy conversion efficiency of geothermal energy systems, numerous systems designs have been proposed and their optimization sought. At this point, it is worth reviewing current developed geothermal energy systems because understanding configurations and principles of basic and state-of-the-art technologies is important for developing advanced energy systems. A comprehensive review of the geothermal energy systems is carried out from the perspective of systems analysis, design, and optimization. Results illustrate that limited sets of parameters have been considered in most studies on design and optimization, though these studies provide great insight into specific designs. However, all influential factors have to be fully considered for practical applications. This study identifies and organizes influential factors for geothermal energy systems. In addition, critical analyses of studies on systems design and optimization are performed to determine limitations of current studies. As polygeneration systems produce various energy products (electricity, heat, and/or cooling), it might play key roles to maximize utilization of geothermal energy. Especially, polygeneration systems with binary technology, which can effectively produce electricity from moderate temperature geothermal resources, have significant potentials to enhance the overall performance. In this regard, the energy production strategy and technology selection are of significant importance to meet electric, heating, and cooling loads efficiently. To fill the knowledge gaps and to maximize geothermal energy utilization, this review proposes state-of-the-art multi-scale modeling and optimization framework.

New Approaches to Designing Production System Structures

This article is oriented on the new approaches to designing production system structures. It is divided into four main sections. First main section deals with philosophical aspects of production structure designs and their complexity. Second main section is about new approaches to designing customer-oriented productions and there are summarized technologies for viewing virtual scenes. Third main section treats with innovative process design in mechanical production and you can find their pillars of customer oriented production systems of the future. Fourth main section is oriented on production systems supported by design using virtual reality.

Automation Technologies for Sustainable Production [TC Spotlight

Sustainability has become a major component of competition among manufacturers worldwide. Approximately one-third of the energy consumed in the United States is used for manufacturing. Sustainable production is the top concern for manufacturers and consumers because generating greenhouse gases and harmful emissions and disposing of waste generated during the manufacturing processes could pollute the environment. Therefore, production system design, analysis, and control play key roles in providing cleaner energy and reducing emissions, waste, and pollution, as well as minimizing the impact of climate change and conserving natural resources and energy during the product’s entire life cycle. Therefore, sustainable production automation (SPA), which involves designing, structuring, and engineering operations and products, is a significant part of manufacturing. The technical committee (TC) on SPA promotes the idea of developing innovative algorithms, models, heuristics, hardware, and software in broad areas.

Plant factories

Plant factories

The Synergy in the Economic Production System: An Empirical Study with Chinese Industry

Due to the difference in pollutants discharged, along with heterogeneous abatement technology, the structural and model design of the economic production system needs to consider these differences. This study first proposes a network slacks-based model (SBM) to address the inefficiency of the production system after considering pollutant abatement technology heterogeneity for different kinds of pollutant. Then, we employ the model to study the inefficiency of the Chinese industrial production system, analyzing the inefficiency in the stages of economic production and pollutant treatment. Furthermore, the regional distribution of inefficiencies concerning SO2 (NOx) generation (emission) are discussed and compared. The results show that only the joint reduction of NOx in two sub-stages simultaneously is feasible, and the synergistic pollutant reductions seems limited.

Characterisation of source-separated, rigid plastic waste and evaluation of recycling initiatives: Effects of product design and source-separation system

Recycling of plastic from household waste (HHW) is crucial in the transition towards a circular plastic economy. Plastic from HHW consists of numerous immiscible polymers, product types and product designs (e.g. colour, polymer separability), which often lead to considerable physical losses during sorting, and low-quality recycled plastic. Consequently, recycling initiatives have been proposed to enhance the quantity and quality of plastic recycling from HHW. To quantify the potential effects of such initiatives, a detailed composition of plastic waste is necessary. The aim was to provide such detailed composition of Danish source-separated rigid plastic waste, including information regarding the polymer of the main product component, product type, polymer design and separability as well as colour. The potential effects on recycled quantity and quality from implementing selected recycling initiatives were quantified and recommendations provided. PET, PE and PP made up >90% of the source-separated plastic and both food- and non-food packaging existed in all three polymers. In total, 10–11% of the plastic was black, and around 44% consisted of multiple polymers, of which one-third was non-separable. Initiatives improving product design for recycling will likely result in increased quantity of recycled plastic. By effectively separating food from non-food packaging, e.g. by introducing two bins in the households or politically aligning polymers and product types (all food packaging in PET and PP, all non-food packaging in PE), 39–63% of the waste could potentially be recycled in a closed loop into food-grade quality packaging. The overall highest benefits were reached by combining initiatives.

A simulation-based approach for time allowances assessment during production system design with consideration of worker’s fatigue, learning and reliability

Health and safety of human operators in production systems is tightly linked to overall work system design. Well-designed production systems must grant adequate allowances to operators, to cope with the variability of predictable situations, whether normal or not. In this article, time allowances concept is presented from two standpoints: industrial engineering and occupational risk prevention field. This is followed by an introduction of a new time allowances indicator. Combined with an agent-based simulation model, this indicator can be used to assess time allowances in a given work organization during its design process. The proposed model integrates worker’s fatigue, learning and reliability as relevant human factors. To uphold the article proposal, three production system configurations are investigated: a classical production line designed based on Ford work paradigm, a cellular configuration with autonomous breaks, inspired from Volvo Uddevalla plant and finally, a hybrid configuration, cellular with planned breaks. The simulations showed that cellular configuration with autonomous breaks grants to operators the time allowances they need to carry out their work activity safely and efficiently.

Integrated Design and Control of Various Hydrogen Production Flowsheet Configurations via Membrane Based Methane Steam Reforming.

This work focuses on the development and implementation of an integrated process design and control framework for a membrane-based hydrogen production system based on low temperature methane steam reforming. Several alternative flowsheet configurations consisted of either integrated membrane reactor modules or successive reactor and membrane separation modules are designed and assessed by considering economic and controller dynamic performance criteria simultaneously. The design problem is expressed as a non-linear dynamic optimization problem incorporating a nonlinear dynamic model for the process system and a linear model predictive controller aiming to maintain the process targets despite the effect of disturbances. The large dimensionality of the disturbance space is effectively addressed by focusing on disturbances along the direction that causes the maximum process variability revealed by the analysis of local sensitivity information for the process system. Design results from a multi-objective optimization study, where only the annualized equipment and operational costs are minimized, are used as reference case in order to evaluate the proposed design framework. Optimization results demonstrate the controller’s ability to track the imposed setpoint changes and alleviate the effects of multiple simultaneous disturbances. Also, significant economic improvements are observed by the implementation of the integrated design and control framework compared to the traditional design methodology, where process and controller design are performed sequentially.

The work activity as an interface among different logics: The case of distributing food in a university restaurant.

Work activity integrates the tasks to be performed, the means of work available, the instructions, the rules to be observed, the particular factors related to the individuals (skills, inner state), and the effects both on the task and on the operator. By analyzing the activity, the different logics and conflicts in the design of production systems are revealed. To show how the work activity can support the transformation of the working conditions, when revealed by an ergonomic intervention, by integrating the different design standpoints, which are always present in the project's work situations. For this case study, the Ergonomic Work Analysis (EWA) was used on the staff that serves meals at a new university restaurant in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) with a focus on the portioning of the transported ready-cooked meals and the variability related thereto. The results of observations, verbalizations, self-confrontations and strategy analysis, collected through field notes and audio and photographic records, became a final report submitted to the directors of the university restaurant. This research showed that the work activity of the serving maids helped to reveal the different logics of the heterogeneous actors in the design of the work situation under analysis. The work activity, when revealed by an ergonomic intervention, can be an interface during the design process to articulate these different logics and to support the dialog among different design standpoints. Thus, the concept of fixed portioning became a concept of flexible portioning, which provided the serving maids with an increased autonomy level at the counter, thus improving both the quality of services and the working conditions of those involved therewith. The activity-focused design can be understood as an ongoing, multiple logical process whereby workers bring the design into their workplaces, which reveals aspects of their own activity, thus helping to change the initial concepts. The ergonomic intervention, based on the revealed activity, helps to highlight the existence of different logics and also to support the actors in articulating their own logics during the design process.

Human-centric design of cyber-physical production systems

Current developments of modern production systems mostly focus on technical solutions and often do not consider the integration of human stakeholders into the system. This paper investigates cyber-physical production systems from a human-centric perspective. The idea of cyber physical production system is evaluated concerning level of codetermination, participation, needed qualification, limitation and possible personal development. By identifying their weaknesses regarding human-centric design, implications for the design of modern production systems are derived. These implications are used for the practical implementation of dedicated requirements. Based on a change management driven approach production employees and engineers are involved in a collaborative way. Findings of the implementation regarding their applicability are used for the derivation of generalized design rules for the development of human-centric cyber-physical production systems.

Hybrid Artificial Intelligence System for the Design of Highly-Automated Production Systems

Abstract The automated design of production systems is a young field of research which has not been widely explored by industry nor research in recent decades. Currently, the effort spent in production system design is increasing significantly in automotive industry due to the number of product variants and product complexity. Intelligent methods can support engineers in repetitive tasks and give them more opportunity to focus on work which requires their core competencies. This paper presents a novel artificial intelligence methodology that automatically generates initial production system configurations based on real industrial scenarios in the automotive field of body-in-white production. The hybrid methodology reacts flexibly against data sets of different content and has been implemented in a software prototype.

Human diversity factors in production system modelling and design: state of the art and future researches

Workforce diversity effects in manufacturing systems have attracted a wide range of researches in the last years. Differences between workers in terms of age, gender, physical measures, culture and skills have a large impact on production systems performance. This study investigates workforce diversity factors in production system modeling and design in order to highlight strengths and weakness in the present published literature. The paper categorizes a selection of papers in the last ten years and discusses how human factors are incorporated into manufacturing systems optimization and design approaches. Finally, a discussion on future research steps is provided.

Conceptual manufacturing system design based on early product information

This paper presents a new approach for the conceptual design of manufacturing systems based on early product information supported by model-based systems engineering. The approach consists of three parts: First, an integrated process model for product design and manufacturing systems planning, second, a systematic method for the conceptual design of manufacturing systems based on early product information, and third, a modelling approach based on a common design language for the collaboration between product design and manufacturing systems planning. The proposed approach is validated using an example from the automotive industry.

Optimal buffer allocation for serial production lines using heuristic search algorithms: a comparative study

The buffer allocation problem (BAP) is one of the major optimisation problems faced by production system designers. BAP is widely studied in the literature since buffers have a great impact on efficiency of production lines. This paper deals with buffer allocation problem and compares the performance of three heuristic search algorithms, namely myopic algorithm (MA), degraded ceiling (DC), and adaptive tabu search (ATS) with respect to both throughput maximisation and also computational time. To generalise experimental findings the experiments have been conducted both for reliable and also unreliable serial production lines over various sizes of problem instances. It is hoped that the findings of this research study can serve as a guideline for the decision makers while designing and operating production lines.

Web-based solution to automate capability matchmaking for rapid system design and reconfiguration

Modern manufacturing companies desire rapid responsiveness from their production systems, in order to operate efficiently in highly dynamic environments. There is a need for design tools, which can support production system design and reconfiguration by providing automatic matchmaking between product requirements and resource capabilities. Such matchmaking is currently time consuming and heavily dependent upon designer’s experience. This paper introduces a prototype of a web-based software service, which carries out this matchmaking task automatically, and how it is designed to meet the requirements of manufacturing industry. Software engineering process has been followed for the development. We also describe a case example, which illustrates how the production system designer can interact with matchmaking activity through its web service interface. We expect that web service-based approach to matchmaking will reduce the technical barrier for adoption by the manufacturing industry as existing planning and reconfiguration systems can utilize the service with small efforts.

A method to evaluate interface compatibility during production system design and reconfiguration

Manufacturing companies operate in volatile environment, where agility and responsiveness to change are desired from the production systems. Such responsiveness could be facilitated by computerized methods for resource selection and system design. We have developed a capability based matchmaking method, which compares the product requirements against resource capabilities, and which proposes resource combinations meeting these requirements. One part of this method is interface matchmaking algorithm, which is presented in this paper. Interface matchmaking method evaluates if the proposed set of resources can be connected physically together. It utilizes the formalized interface information provided by the resource descriptions.

SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING: AN INTRODUCTION

Sustainable engineering is the process of using natural resources without compromising the environment or depleting the materialsfor future generations. It implies living well within the ecological limits of a finite planet. It involves the integration of social, environmental, and economic considerations into the design of product, process, and energy systems. This paper provides a briefintroduction to the field of sustainable engineering.

Formulation of a Manufacturing Strategy Using the House of Quality

This paper describes a framework to formulate a manufacturing strategy based on the House of Quality (HOQ). This method consists of two main phases. The phase I relates what the market wants (the WHATs) with the manufacturing decision categories (the HOWs). The WHATs are expressed as the manufacturing objectives (i.e. cost, quality, delivery, flexibility and innovation) and the HOWs are expressed as the strategic manufacturing decisions areas (such as, facilities, capacity, process technology, new product design and control systems). A matrix is built, where the rows are the WHATs and the columns are the HOWs. The entries of the matrix are the relationships between both types of concepts. The “roof” of the house is the relationships between the manufacturing decisions (the HOWS). The analysis of this House allows managers to generate strategic action plans in order to fill the gap between what the market wants and what manufacturing is achieving. The phase II builds another house, where the WHATs are the manufacturing decision areas and the HOWS are strategic manufacturing plans. In this phase the strategic action plans are ranked. The application of the proposed method in a company that manufactures industrial tanks is shown.

Life Cycle Modelling of End-of-Life Products: Challenges and Opportunities towards a Circular Economy

Product circularity has been promoted globally to improve the efficiency of material use, and to reduce the consumption of natural resources. This concept emphasises utilising waste from a single product to produce secondary material to be reused in the same product through a closed-loop recycling system. The manufacturing of aluminium cans is often used as an example product reaching near circularity. However, how does the learning from aluminium cans apply to more complex multi-material products? This paper uses the System Dynamics approach to model a simple product (aluminium cans) with a specific focus on the interaction between product design and recycling phases. This assessment highlights characteristics of the product design and recovery systems that realise near circular material recovery. The characteristics of the product life cycle assessed include material and manufacturing choices, product recovery systems, public education, and economic value. Based on this assessment the key focus areas for more complex products are discussed. This work provides insight into future directions for product design and research to realise a circular economy.

Generic Production System Model of Personalized Production

Manufacturing companies are operating in a turbulent business ecosystem that calls for product variety, product mix flexibility, volume scalability and high efficiency. Personalized production arises as new production paradigm to replace mass personalization. The paper proposes a generic model for the design of production systems for the paradigm of personalized production. The model applies the system design methodology Axiomatic Design and uses the notation of Axiomatic Design Theory for Systems combined with the product precedence graph for product structure modeling. The model represents the static system structure, decomposed into its subsystems, and explains the dynamic behavior of the system during operation, depending on the product’s architecture. It is intended as a reference model for production system planning.