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Yong-Hong Kuo; Francesco Pilati; Ting Qu; George Q. Huang. Digital twin-enabled smart industrial systems: recent developments and future perspectives. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing 2021, 1 -5.
AMA StyleYong-Hong Kuo, Francesco Pilati, Ting Qu, George Q. Huang. Digital twin-enabled smart industrial systems: recent developments and future perspectives. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing. 2021; ():1-5.
Chicago/Turabian StyleYong-Hong Kuo; Francesco Pilati; Ting Qu; George Q. Huang. 2021. "Digital twin-enabled smart industrial systems: recent developments and future perspectives." International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing , no. : 1-5.
The development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in health care contexts is a concurrent research and management question. Especially for hospitals, the expectations regarding improved efficiency and effectiveness by the introduction of novel AI applications are huge. However, experiences with real-life AI use cases are still scarce. As a first step towards structuring and comparing such experiences, this paper is presenting a comparative approach from nine European hospitals and eleven different use cases with possible application areas and benefits of hospital AI technologies. This is structured as a current review and opinion article from a diverse range of researchers and health care professionals. This contributes to important improvement options also for pandemic crises challenges, e.g., the current COVID-19 situation. The expected advantages as well as challenges regarding data protection, privacy, or human acceptance are reported. Altogether, the diversity of application cases is a core characteristic of AI applications in hospitals, and this requires a specific approach for successful implementation in the health care sector. This can include specialized solutions for hospitals regarding human–computer interaction, data management, and communication in AI implementation projects.
Matthias Klumpp; Marcus Hintze; Milla Immonen; Francisco Ródenas-Rigla; Francesco Pilati; Fernando Aparicio-Martínez; Dilay Çelebi; Thomas Liebig; Mats Jirstrand; Oliver Urbann; Marja Hedman; Jukka Lipponen; Silvio Bicciato; Anda-Petronela Radan; Bernardo Valdivieso; Wolfgang Thronicke; Dimitrios Gunopulos; Ricard Delgado-Gonzalo. Artificial Intelligence for Hospital Health Care: Application Cases and Answers to Challenges in European Hospitals. Healthcare 2021, 9, 961 .
AMA StyleMatthias Klumpp, Marcus Hintze, Milla Immonen, Francisco Ródenas-Rigla, Francesco Pilati, Fernando Aparicio-Martínez, Dilay Çelebi, Thomas Liebig, Mats Jirstrand, Oliver Urbann, Marja Hedman, Jukka Lipponen, Silvio Bicciato, Anda-Petronela Radan, Bernardo Valdivieso, Wolfgang Thronicke, Dimitrios Gunopulos, Ricard Delgado-Gonzalo. Artificial Intelligence for Hospital Health Care: Application Cases and Answers to Challenges in European Hospitals. Healthcare. 2021; 9 (8):961.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMatthias Klumpp; Marcus Hintze; Milla Immonen; Francisco Ródenas-Rigla; Francesco Pilati; Fernando Aparicio-Martínez; Dilay Çelebi; Thomas Liebig; Mats Jirstrand; Oliver Urbann; Marja Hedman; Jukka Lipponen; Silvio Bicciato; Anda-Petronela Radan; Bernardo Valdivieso; Wolfgang Thronicke; Dimitrios Gunopulos; Ricard Delgado-Gonzalo. 2021. "Artificial Intelligence for Hospital Health Care: Application Cases and Answers to Challenges in European Hospitals." Healthcare 9, no. 8: 961.
The problem is the vaccination of a large number of people in a short time period, using minimum space and resources. The tradeoff is that this minimum number of resources must guarantee a good service for the patients, represented by the time spent in the system and in the queue. The goal is to develop a digital twin which integrates the physical and virtual systems and allows a real-time mapping of the patient flow to create a sustainable and dynamic vaccination center. Firstly, to reach this goal, a discrete-event simulation model is implemented. The simulation model is integrated with a mobile application that automatically collects time measures. By processing these measures, indicators can be computed to find problems, run the virtual model to solve them, and replicate improvements in the real system. The model is tested in a South Tyrol vaccination clinic and the best configuration found includes 31 operators and 306 places dedicated for the queues. This configuration allows the vaccination of 2164 patients in a 10-h shift, with a mean process time of 25 min. Data from the APP are managed to build the dashboard with indicators like number of people in queue for each phase and resource utilization.
Francesco Pilati; Riccardo Tronconi; Giandomenico Nollo; Sunderesh Heragu; Florian Zerzer. Digital Twin of COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Centers. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7396 .
AMA StyleFrancesco Pilati, Riccardo Tronconi, Giandomenico Nollo, Sunderesh Heragu, Florian Zerzer. Digital Twin of COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Centers. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (13):7396.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesco Pilati; Riccardo Tronconi; Giandomenico Nollo; Sunderesh Heragu; Florian Zerzer. 2021. "Digital Twin of COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Centers." Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7396.
Prognostic Health Management (PHM) is a predictive maintenance strategy, which is based on Condition Monitoring (CM) data and aims to predict the future states of machinery. The existing literature reports the PHM at two levels: methodological and applicative. From the methodological point of view, there are many publications and standards of a PHM system design. From the applicative point of view, many papers address the improvement of techniques adopted for realizing PHM tasks without covering the whole process. In these cases, most applications rely on a large amount of historical data to train models for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Industries, very often, are not able to obtain these data. Thus, the most adopted approaches, based on batch and off-line analysis, cannot be adopted. In this paper, we present a novel framework and architecture that support the initial application of PHM from the machinery producers’ perspective. The proposed framework is based on an edge-cloud infrastructure that allows performing streaming analysis at the edge to reduce the quantity of the data to store in permanent memory, to know the health status of the machinery at any point in time, and to discover novel and anomalous behaviors. The collection of the data from multiple machines into a cloud server allows training more accurate diagnostic and prognostic models using a higher amount of data, whose results will serve to predict the health status in real-time at the edge. The so-built PHM system would allow industries to monitor and supervise a machinery network placed in different locations and can thus bring several benefits to both machinery producers and users. After a brief literature review of signal processing, feature extraction, diagnostics, and prognostics, including incremental and semi-supervised approaches for anomaly and novelty detection applied to data streams, a case study is presented. It was conducted on data collected from a test rig and shows the potential of the proposed framework in terms of the ability to detect changes in the operating conditions and abrupt faults and storage memory saving. The outcomes of our work, as well as its major novel aspect, is the design of a framework for a PHM system based on specific requirements that directly originate from the industrial field, together with indications on which techniques can be adopted to achieve such goals.
Francesca Calabrese; Alberto Regattieri; Marco Bortolini; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. Predictive Maintenance: A Novel Framework for a Data-Driven, Semi-Supervised, and Partially Online Prognostic Health Management Application in Industries. Applied Sciences 2021, 11, 3380 .
AMA StyleFrancesca Calabrese, Alberto Regattieri, Marco Bortolini, Mauro Gamberi, Francesco Pilati. Predictive Maintenance: A Novel Framework for a Data-Driven, Semi-Supervised, and Partially Online Prognostic Health Management Application in Industries. Applied Sciences. 2021; 11 (8):3380.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesca Calabrese; Alberto Regattieri; Marco Bortolini; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. 2021. "Predictive Maintenance: A Novel Framework for a Data-Driven, Semi-Supervised, and Partially Online Prognostic Health Management Application in Industries." Applied Sciences 11, no. 8: 3380.
The assembly of large and complex products such as cars, trucks, and white goods typically involves a huge amount of production resources such as workers, pieces of equipment, and layout areas. In this context, multi-manned workstations commonly characterize these assembly lines. The simultaneous operators’ activity in the same assembly station suggests considering compatibility/incompatibility between the different mounting positions, equipment sharing, and worker cooperation. The management of all these aspects significantly increases the balancing problem complexity due to the determination of the start/end times of each task. This paper proposes a new mixed-integer programming model to simultaneously optimize the line efficiency, the line length, and the workload smoothness. A customized procedure based on a simulated annealing algorithm is developed to effectively solve this problem. The aforementioned procedure is applied to the balancing of the real assembly line of European sports car manufacturers distinguished by 665 tasks and numerous synchronization constraints. The experimental results present remarkable performances obtained by the proposed procedure both in terms of solution quality and computation time. The proposed approach is the practical reference for efficient multi-manned assembly line design, task assignment, equipment allocation, and mounting position management in the considered industrial fields.
Francesco Pilati; Emilio Ferrari; Mauro Gamberi; Silvia Margelli. Multi-Manned Assembly Line Balancing: Workforce Synchronization for Big Data Sets through Simulated Annealing. Applied Sciences 2021, 11, 2523 .
AMA StyleFrancesco Pilati, Emilio Ferrari, Mauro Gamberi, Silvia Margelli. Multi-Manned Assembly Line Balancing: Workforce Synchronization for Big Data Sets through Simulated Annealing. Applied Sciences. 2021; 11 (6):2523.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesco Pilati; Emilio Ferrari; Mauro Gamberi; Silvia Margelli. 2021. "Multi-Manned Assembly Line Balancing: Workforce Synchronization for Big Data Sets through Simulated Annealing." Applied Sciences 11, no. 6: 2523.
Industry 4.0 emerged in the last decade as the fourth industrial revolution aiming at reaching greater productivity, digitalization and operational efficiency standard. In this new era, if compared to automated assembly systems, manual assembly systems (MASs) are still characterized by wide flexibility but poor productivity levels. To reach acceptable performances in terms of both productivity and flexibility, higher automation levels are required to increase the skills and capabilities of the human operators with the aim to design next-generation assembly systems having higher levels of adaptivity and collaboration between people and automation/information technology. In the current literature, such systems are called adaptive automation assembly systems (A3Ss). For A3Ss, few design approaches and industrial prototypes are available. This paper, extending a previous contribution by the Authors, expands the lacking research in the field and proposes a general framework guiding toward A3S effective design and validation. The framework is applied to a full-scale prototype, highlighting its features together with the technical- and human-oriented improvements arising from its adoption. Specifically, evidence from this study show a set of benefits from adopting innovative A3Ss in terms of reduction of the assembly cycle time (about 30%) with a consequent increase of the system productivity (about 45%) as well as relevant improvements of ergonomic posture indicators (about 15%). The definition of a general framework for A3S design and validation and the integration of the productivity and ergonomic analysis of such systems are missing in the current literature, representing an element of innovation. Globally, this research paper provides advanced knowledge to guide research, industrial companies and practitioners in switching from traditional to advanced assembly systems in the emerging Industry 4.0 era matching current industrial and market features.
Marco Bortolini; Maurizio Faccio; Francesco Gabriele Galizia; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. Adaptive Automation Assembly Systems in the Industry 4.0 Era: A Reference Framework and Full–Scale Prototype. Applied Sciences 2021, 11, 1256 .
AMA StyleMarco Bortolini, Maurizio Faccio, Francesco Gabriele Galizia, Mauro Gamberi, Francesco Pilati. Adaptive Automation Assembly Systems in the Industry 4.0 Era: A Reference Framework and Full–Scale Prototype. Applied Sciences. 2021; 11 (3):1256.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMarco Bortolini; Maurizio Faccio; Francesco Gabriele Galizia; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. 2021. "Adaptive Automation Assembly Systems in the Industry 4.0 Era: A Reference Framework and Full–Scale Prototype." Applied Sciences 11, no. 3: 1256.
The great diffusion of renewable energy sources in the latest decades led to a pervasive diffusion of hybrid energy systems (HESs), in which several sources of energy are combined to fulfil the user demand. As the number of HES sources and related hardware components raise, the number of interconnections between these latter increases more than proportionately. Such condition determines high HES complexity, that can be exploited to achieve greater overall efficiency. This research deals with the HES designed to meet the electricity load required by a single user. Furthermore, the considered HESs leverage single or multiple components in charge of electricity production (e.g. PV module, wind turbine, etc.) a battery energy storage system (BES) and a connection with the national grid that allows the electricity purchase and sale processes. A two-step approach is proposed to deal firstly with the HES sizing, by exploiting an iterative method to identify the optimal size of each energy component. The second step consists in the energy flows management, i.e. the hourly dispatching between the HES components. Indeed, two different strategies are proposed to intelligently manage the hourly electricity flows. On the one hand, the proposed heuristic algorithm (HA) aims to minimize the purchased energy from grid imposing a constant dispatching of the electricity flows according to the amount of produced energy, the state of charge of the BES and the user request. On the other hand, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model leverages the short-time forecasts of environmental parameters, energy tariffs, and load request to optimise in real-time the electricity trade process from an economic point of view. The overall approach, including the comparison between the HA and the MILP, has been tested and validated on several case studies, concerning specific HES architectures, a range of European countries, both domestic and non-domestic users as well as multiple values of energy request. The results justify the HES installation in all the considered case studies, leading to an economic saving greater than 35% compared to electricity purchase from grid uniquely. However, the MILP adoption for the management of energy flows is recommended only for HESs fuelled by multiple energy sources.
Francesco Pilati; Giovanni Lelli; Alberto Regattieri; Mauro Gamberi. Intelligent management of hybrid energy systems for techno-economic performances maximisation. Energy Conversion and Management 2020, 224, 113329 .
AMA StyleFrancesco Pilati, Giovanni Lelli, Alberto Regattieri, Mauro Gamberi. Intelligent management of hybrid energy systems for techno-economic performances maximisation. Energy Conversion and Management. 2020; 224 ():113329.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesco Pilati; Giovanni Lelli; Alberto Regattieri; Mauro Gamberi. 2020. "Intelligent management of hybrid energy systems for techno-economic performances maximisation." Energy Conversion and Management 224, no. : 113329.
The authors regret that The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Francesco Pilati; Maurizio Faccio; Mauro Gamberi; Riccardo Tronconi; Alberto Regattieri. Corrigendum: Corrigendum to ‘Learning manual assembly through real-time motion capture for operator training with augmented reality”. Procedia Manufacturing 2020, 45, 552 .
AMA StyleFrancesco Pilati, Maurizio Faccio, Mauro Gamberi, Riccardo Tronconi, Alberto Regattieri. Corrigendum: Corrigendum to ‘Learning manual assembly through real-time motion capture for operator training with augmented reality”. Procedia Manufacturing. 2020; 45 ():552.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesco Pilati; Maurizio Faccio; Mauro Gamberi; Riccardo Tronconi; Alberto Regattieri. 2020. "Corrigendum: Corrigendum to ‘Learning manual assembly through real-time motion capture for operator training with augmented reality”." Procedia Manufacturing 45, no. : 552.
The current fourth industrial revolution significantly impacts on production processes. The personalized production paradigm which distinguishes Industry 4.0 enables customers to order unique products, defined by the specific features selected. The operators involved in the manual assembly of such workpieces have to process an enormous component variety adapting their tasks from product to product with limited learning opportunities. On the other hand, digital technologies significantly evolved in the last decade and their adoption in industrial shop floors in increasingly wider. In particular, camera-based marker-less motion capture achieved a large popularity since it represents a cheap, reliable and non-invasive solution to track, trace and digitalize human movements in different environments. Considering the presented framework, this research proposes an original hardware/software architecture to assist in real-time operators involved in manual assembly processes during the training phase to support their learning process, both in terms of rate and quality. A marker-less depth camera captures human motions in relation with the workstation environment whereas an augmented reality application based on visual feedback guides the operator through consecutive assembly tasks during the training phase. An experimental campaign is performed at the Learning factory of the Digital production university laboratory to validate the proposed architecture compared to traditional paper-based instructions provided for trainings. A real industrial case study is adopted to test and quantitatively evaluate the benefits of the developed technology compared to traditional approach in terms learning rate, which increases by 22% with a reduction in manual process duration up to -51% during the first assembly cycles.
Francesco Pilati; Maurizio Faccio; Mauro Gamberi; Alberto Regattieri. Learning manual assembly through real-time motion capture for operator training with augmented reality. Procedia Manufacturing 2020, 45, 189 -195.
AMA StyleFrancesco Pilati, Maurizio Faccio, Mauro Gamberi, Alberto Regattieri. Learning manual assembly through real-time motion capture for operator training with augmented reality. Procedia Manufacturing. 2020; 45 ():189-195.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesco Pilati; Maurizio Faccio; Mauro Gamberi; Alberto Regattieri. 2020. "Learning manual assembly through real-time motion capture for operator training with augmented reality." Procedia Manufacturing 45, no. : 189-195.
Sustainability in parcel delivery is a growing area of interest, especially for third-party logistics providers (3PLs). The recent increase of urban population is directly related to the increase request of goods in urban areas, and consequently to the growth of the urban freight transport and CO2 emissions. For these reasons, national and local institutions carried out regulations and incentives to reduce urban pollution and promote zero-emission vehicles. In particular, daily tickets to access to city centers is a common regulation applied to reduce freight transport. This paper presents a new SPD model that compares Eclectic Vehicles (EVs) and Fossil Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) considering economic savings and CO2 emissions, for parcel delivery from a single distribution center to a set of delivery point located inside and/or outside an urban area. Limitations as the daily ticket, the fuel cost, the battery duration are considered to provide 3PLs an innovative model to evaluate both the economic convenience and the environmental impact of its vehicles fleet. Through an explanatory study, economic considerations are carried out, related to the length of the route, the daily ticket cost, and the fuel cost to evaluate and to assess the different transportation options. It demonstrates that EVs are more convenient in terms of economic savings when the route (urban distances) and the daily ticket cost increase.
Francesco Pilati; Ilenia Zennaro; Daria Battini; Alessandro Persona. The Sustainable Parcel Delivery (SPD) Problem: Economic and Environmental Considerations for 3PLs. IEEE Access 2020, 8, 71880 -71892.
AMA StyleFrancesco Pilati, Ilenia Zennaro, Daria Battini, Alessandro Persona. The Sustainable Parcel Delivery (SPD) Problem: Economic and Environmental Considerations for 3PLs. IEEE Access. 2020; 8 (99):71880-71892.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesco Pilati; Ilenia Zennaro; Daria Battini; Alessandro Persona. 2020. "The Sustainable Parcel Delivery (SPD) Problem: Economic and Environmental Considerations for 3PLs." IEEE Access 8, no. 99: 71880-71892.
Assembly line balancing problems aim to an efficient and effective assignment of all the required tasks to workstations in a flow oriented production system. Nowadays, assembly lines have to face the manufacturing of extremely personalized products (e.g. cars) as requested by an increasingly higher portion of the market demand. Several literature contributions focus on different balancing problems affected by the wide variety of the final product, e.g. mixed and multi model assembly lines. However, no contribution seems to tackle the personalized production of goods. Such products require to assemble a certain number of tasks whatever the final product personalization is, and a variable number of optional of different type determined by the specifications of every single costumer. This paper faces the generalized assembly of personalized goods proposing an innovative two step methodology to optimize the workload balancing between the assembly line stations, considering traditional tasks and the optional required by the product personalization, which could occur with different frequencies and pairings. The first phase of the developed methodology executes a clustering of product options required by the costumers based on a similarity index. This phase leads to the definition of several sets of optional typically requested together by the customer and with similar mounting time. The methodology second phase leverages the defined clusters of optional. Indeed, optional of the same cluster shouldn’t be assigned to the same workstation to reduce the overload or underload of the assembly operators. An integer programming model is proposed to assign both traditional tasks and optional to stations, to maximize the assembly line balancing considering the order frequency and assembly time of the clusterized optional. An industrial case study is adopted to test and validate the proposed two steps methodology. The obtained results highlight a consistent time balancing between assembly line workstations and a significant limitation of the operator overloads.
Francesco Pilati; Giovanni Lelli; Maurizio Faccio; Mauro Gamberi; Alberto Regattieri. Assembly line balancing for personalized production. IFAC-PapersOnLine 2020, 53, 10261 -10266.
AMA StyleFrancesco Pilati, Giovanni Lelli, Maurizio Faccio, Mauro Gamberi, Alberto Regattieri. Assembly line balancing for personalized production. IFAC-PapersOnLine. 2020; 53 (2):10261-10266.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFrancesco Pilati; Giovanni Lelli; Maurizio Faccio; Mauro Gamberi; Alberto Regattieri. 2020. "Assembly line balancing for personalized production." IFAC-PapersOnLine 53, no. 2: 10261-10266.
The advances in Industry 4.0 provide both challenges and opportunities for digital manufacturing and assembly systems. This paper first addresses the state-of-the-art readiness for Industry 4.0 concerning assembly and manufacturing systems through a literature review of the relevant papers recently published. Then it assesses the challenges faced nowadays by assembly and manufacturing systems. Third, it focuses on the most promising future developments and evolution of such production systems as well as their digitalisation. Finally, this manuscript illustrates the content of the papers selected for this special issue. Through the study presented in this special issue, valuable contributions to both theory and application in this area have been achieved, and a useful reference for future research is given.
Yuval Cohen; Maurizio Faccio; Francesco Pilati; Xifan Yao. Design and management of digital manufacturing and assembly systems in the Industry 4.0 era. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 2019, 105, 3565 -3577.
AMA StyleYuval Cohen, Maurizio Faccio, Francesco Pilati, Xifan Yao. Design and management of digital manufacturing and assembly systems in the Industry 4.0 era. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. 2019; 105 (9):3565-3577.
Chicago/Turabian StyleYuval Cohen; Maurizio Faccio; Francesco Pilati; Xifan Yao. 2019. "Design and management of digital manufacturing and assembly systems in the Industry 4.0 era." The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 105, no. 9: 3565-3577.
Purpose The current study aims to propose a new analytical approach by considering energy consumption (EC), maximum tardiness and completion time as the primary objective functions to assess the performance of parallel, non-bottleneck and multitasking machines operating in dynamic job shops. Design/methodology/approach An analytical and iterative method is presented to optimize a novel dynamic job shop under technical constraints. The machine’s performance is analyzed by considering the setup energy. An optimization model from initial processing until scheduling and planning is proposed, and data sets consisting of design parameters are fed into the model. Findings Significant variations of EC and tardiness are observed. The minimum EC was calculated to be 141.5 hp.s when the defined decision variables were constantly increasing. Analysis of the optimum completion time has shown that among all studied methods, first come first served (FCFS), earliest due date (EDD) and shortest processing time (SPT) have resulted in the least completion time with a value of 20 s. Originality/value Considerable amount of energy can be dissipated when parallel, non-bottleneck and multitasking machines operate in lower-power modes. Additionally, in a dynamic job shop, adjusting the trend and arrangement of decision variables plays a crucial role in enhancing the system’s reliability. Such issues have never caught the attention of scientists for addressing the aforementioned problems. Therefore, with these underlying goals, this paper presents a new approach for evaluating and optimizing the system’s performance, considering different objective functions and technical constraints.
Maurizio Faccio; Mojtaba Nedaei; Francesco Pilati. A new approach for performance assessment of parallel and non-bottleneck machines in a dynamic job shop environment. International Journal of Energy Sector Management 2019, 13, 787 -803.
AMA StyleMaurizio Faccio, Mojtaba Nedaei, Francesco Pilati. A new approach for performance assessment of parallel and non-bottleneck machines in a dynamic job shop environment. International Journal of Energy Sector Management. 2019; 13 (4):787-803.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaurizio Faccio; Mojtaba Nedaei; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "A new approach for performance assessment of parallel and non-bottleneck machines in a dynamic job shop environment." International Journal of Energy Sector Management 13, no. 4: 787-803.
Within cellular manufacturing systems (CMSs), families of parts are assigned to manufacturing cells, composed by homogeneous sets of machines. In conventional CMSs, each cell is devoted to the production of a specific part family, reducing material handling and work-in-process. Despite their flexibility, such systems still suffer from coping with the present market challenges asking for dynamic part mix and the need of agility in manufacturing. To meet these challenges, the recent literature explores the idea of including elements of the emerging reconfigurable manufacturing paradigm in the design and management of CMSs, leading to the cellular reconfigurable manufacturing system (CRMS) concept. The aim of this paper is to propose an original linear programming optimization model for the design of CRMSs with alternative part routing and multiple time periods. The production environment consists of multiple cells equipped with reconfigurable machine tools (RMTs) made of basic and auxiliary custom modules. By changing the auxiliary modules, different operations become available on the same RMT. The proposed approach determines the part routing mix and the auxiliary module allocation best balancing the part flows among RMTs and the effort to install the modules on the machines. The approach discussion is supported by a literature case study, while a multi-scenario analysis is performed to assess the impact of different CMS configurations on the system performances, varying both the number of cells and the RMT assignment to each of them. A benchmarking concludes the paper comparing the proposed CRMS against a conventional CMS configuration. The analysis shows relevant benefits in terms of reduction of the intercellular travel time (− 58.6%) getting a global time saving of about 53.3%. Results prove that reconfigurability is an opportunity for industries to face the dynamics of global markets.
Marco Bortolini; Francesco Gabriele Galizia; Cristina Mora; Francesco Pilati. Reconfigurability in cellular manufacturing systems: a design model and multi-scenario analysis. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 2019, 104, 4387 -4397.
AMA StyleMarco Bortolini, Francesco Gabriele Galizia, Cristina Mora, Francesco Pilati. Reconfigurability in cellular manufacturing systems: a design model and multi-scenario analysis. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. 2019; 104 (9-12):4387-4397.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMarco Bortolini; Francesco Gabriele Galizia; Cristina Mora; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "Reconfigurability in cellular manufacturing systems: a design model and multi-scenario analysis." The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 104, no. 9-12: 4387-4397.
The 4th industrial revolution (Industry 4.0, I4.0) is based upon the penetration of many new technologies to the industrial world. These technologies are posed to fundamentally change assembly lines around the world. Assembly systems transformed by I4.0 technology integration are referred to here as Assembly 4.0 (A4.0). While most I4.0 new technologies are known, and their integration into shop floors is ongoing or imminent, there is a gap between this knowledge and understanding the form and the impact of their full implementation in assembly systems. The path from the new technological abilities to improved productivity and profitability has not been well understood and has some missing parts. This paper strives to close a significant part of this gap by creating a road map to understand and explore the impact of typical I4.0 new technologies on A4.0 systems. In particular, the paper explores three impact levels: strategic, tactical, and operational. On the strategic level, we explore aspects related to the design of the product, process, and the assembly system. Additionally, the paper elaborates on likely changes in assembly design aspects, due to the flexibility and capabilities that these new technologies will bring. Strategic design also deals with planning and realizing the potential of interactions between sub-assembly lines, kitting lines, and the main assembly lines. On the tactical level, we explore the impact of policies and methodologies in planning assembly lines. Finally, on the operational level, we explore how these new capabilities may affect part routing and scheduling including cases of disruptions and machine failures. We qualitatively assess the impact on performance in terms of overall flow time and ability to handle a wide variety of end products. We point out the cases where clear performance improvement is expected due to the integration of the new technologies. We conclude by identifying research opportunities and challenges for advanced assembly systems.
Yuval Cohen; Hussein Naseraldin; Atanu Chaudhuri; Francesco Pilati. Assembly systems in Industry 4.0 era: a road map to understand Assembly 4.0. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 2019, 105, 4037 -4054.
AMA StyleYuval Cohen, Hussein Naseraldin, Atanu Chaudhuri, Francesco Pilati. Assembly systems in Industry 4.0 era: a road map to understand Assembly 4.0. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. 2019; 105 (9):4037-4054.
Chicago/Turabian StyleYuval Cohen; Hussein Naseraldin; Atanu Chaudhuri; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "Assembly systems in Industry 4.0 era: a road map to understand Assembly 4.0." The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 105, no. 9: 4037-4054.
The management of the production and procurement of the assembled parts in an assembly to order (ATO) environment is a challenging problem. Due to the high variety and high inventory space utilization of the sheet metal plate parts, many companies choose to include in their production the cutting, blending, welding and if necessary, painting processes, reducing the lead time and consequently the stocks levels. The related trade-off between the setup times and the inventory space utilization is clear. This paper aims to propose a bi-objective optimization model to properly set the MTO/MTS policy to adopt. A case study is reported to test the model and to demonstrate the practical implication of this research.
M. Bortolini; M. Faccio; M. Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. MTO/MTS policy optimization for sheet metal plate parts in an ATO environment. Procedia CIRP 2019, 81, 1046 -1051.
AMA StyleM. Bortolini, M. Faccio, M. Gamberi, Francesco Pilati. MTO/MTS policy optimization for sheet metal plate parts in an ATO environment. Procedia CIRP. 2019; 81 ():1046-1051.
Chicago/Turabian StyleM. Bortolini; M. Faccio; M. Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "MTO/MTS policy optimization for sheet metal plate parts in an ATO environment." Procedia CIRP 81, no. : 1046-1051.
Mixed-model Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs) and, more recently, Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) are widely studied as diffuse solutions for complex production environments, targeting variable markets and highly dynamic production plans. Their design and management are challenging both in new plants and for plant-redesign actions. In this field, the literature suggests the adoption of cellular configurations as effective solutions. These configurations partition the FMS and RMS machines into manufacturing cells and assign the working parts to the cells to reduce the so-called intercellular flows, causing costs and inbound congestions. This paper advances the current literature presenting and applying an optimal linear programming cost model for the redesign of mixed-model FMS/RMS cellular production environments. The model goes beyond the widely studied partitioning of the FMSs among the cells and it best balances machine relocations and redundancies, the production area layout optimization and the intercellular flow reduction. The major industrial operative constraints are included in the model together with a reference case study to exemplify its advantages toward the standard approaches.
Marco Bortolini; Emilio Ferrari; Francesco Gabriele Galizia; Cristina Mora; Francesco Pilati. Optimal redesign of Cellular Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems. Procedia CIRP 2019, 81, 1435 -1440.
AMA StyleMarco Bortolini, Emilio Ferrari, Francesco Gabriele Galizia, Cristina Mora, Francesco Pilati. Optimal redesign of Cellular Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems. Procedia CIRP. 2019; 81 ():1435-1440.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMarco Bortolini; Emilio Ferrari; Francesco Gabriele Galizia; Cristina Mora; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "Optimal redesign of Cellular Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems." Procedia CIRP 81, no. : 1435-1440.
The current fourth industrial revolution significantly impacts on production processes. The personalized production paradigm enables customers to order unique products. The operators assemble an enormous component variety adapting their process from product to product with limited learning opportunities. Digital technologies are increasingly adopted in production processes to improve performance and quality. Considering this framework, this research proposes a hardware/software architecture to assist in real-time operators involved in manual assembly processes. A depth camera captures human motions in relation with the workstation environment whereas a visual feedback guides the operator through consecutive assembly tasks. An industrial case study validates the architecture.
Maurizio Faccio; Emilio Ferrari; Francesco G. Galizia; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. Real-time assistance to manual assembly through depth camera and visual feedback. Procedia CIRP 2019, 81, 1254 -1259.
AMA StyleMaurizio Faccio, Emilio Ferrari, Francesco G. Galizia, Mauro Gamberi, Francesco Pilati. Real-time assistance to manual assembly through depth camera and visual feedback. Procedia CIRP. 2019; 81 ():1254-1259.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaurizio Faccio; Emilio Ferrari; Francesco G. Galizia; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "Real-time assistance to manual assembly through depth camera and visual feedback." Procedia CIRP 81, no. : 1254-1259.
Food supply chains (FSCs) allow the effective and safe delivery of food products from farmed crops to consumer forks. The challenging properties of many varieties of food, that is, perishability, quality decay, and short shelf life, require shipping and storage conditions able to guarantee high standards of safety and quality for the final consumers. Behind these conditions lies the demand for large amounts of energy to power refrigerated storage and shipping modules, to speed handling and transportation, etc. A switch from fossil fuels to renewables is mandatory to increase the sustainability of modern FSCs. Traditionally, no integration has taken place between the renewable power system design and the supply chain infrastructure location and management. The attention placed on FSC designs for green energy is rising. Thus this chapter provides a high-level analytic model for efficient design of FSCs in the direction of integrating renewable plants, for example, solar, photovoltaics, wind, biomass, etc., as a key input for green operations, so that the node location and flow allocation is driven by both network efficiency and the green energy supply possibilities.
Marco Bortolini; Riccardo Accorsi; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. A model to enhance the penetration of the renewables to power multistage food supply chains. Sustainable Food Supply Chains 2019, 305 -315.
AMA StyleMarco Bortolini, Riccardo Accorsi, Mauro Gamberi, Francesco Pilati. A model to enhance the penetration of the renewables to power multistage food supply chains. Sustainable Food Supply Chains. 2019; ():305-315.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMarco Bortolini; Riccardo Accorsi; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "A model to enhance the penetration of the renewables to power multistage food supply chains." Sustainable Food Supply Chains , no. : 305-315.
The novel generation of production facilities fostered by the fourth industrial revolution widely adopts different technologies to digitalise the manufacturing and assembly processes. In this context, work measurement techniques are one of the main candidates for the application of these new technologies because of the time, cost, and competences required to analyse manual production activities and considering the limited precision of the traditional approaches. This paper proposes a new hardware/software architecture devoted to the motion and time analysis of the activities performed by human operators within whatsoever industrial workplace. This architecture, called Human Factor Analyser (HFA), is constituted by a network of ad hoc depth cameras able to track the worker movements during the task execution without any interference with the monitored process. The data provided by these cameras are then elaborated in a post-process phase by the HFA to automatically and quantitatively measure the work content of the considered activities through an accurate motion and time analysis. The developed architecture evaluates the worker in a 3D environment considering his interaction with the industrial workplace through the definition of appropriate control volumes within the layout. To test the accuracy of HFA, an extensive experimental campaign is performed at the Bologna University Laboratory for Industrial Production adopting several realistic industrial configurations (different workplaces, operators and tasks). Finally, the HFA is applied to a real manufacturing case study of an Italian company producing refrigerator metal grates. A wide and deep analysis of the obtained key results is presented and discussed.
Maurizio Faccio; Emilio Ferrari; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. Human Factor Analyser for work measurement of manual manufacturing and assembly processes. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 2019, 103, 861 -877.
AMA StyleMaurizio Faccio, Emilio Ferrari, Mauro Gamberi, Francesco Pilati. Human Factor Analyser for work measurement of manual manufacturing and assembly processes. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology. 2019; 103 (1-4):861-877.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMaurizio Faccio; Emilio Ferrari; Mauro Gamberi; Francesco Pilati. 2019. "Human Factor Analyser for work measurement of manual manufacturing and assembly processes." The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology 103, no. 1-4: 861-877.