Andrea Zangiacomi

Process planning and scheduling for mass customised shoe manufacturing

In the scenario of mass customization, production is a crucial phase of the whole product life cycle. Production planning and scheduling must therefore evolve and adopt new tools that help to obtain a deeper control of what has to be produced in order to satisfy efficiently customer’ needs. This is very important in the clothing and footwear (fashion) industry where customers taste and choices change rapidly according to fashion dictates. In this paper an application in the footwear sector is presented and tested on a prototype of a new factory – an agile production unit – based on the concepts of agile and flexible production. The planning and scheduling module proposed is mainly focused on the short term in order to respond quickly to market needs and changes in a flexible manner. The module is composed of a finite capacity scheduler integrated with a new software based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process decision support system, which considers all the aspects related to order importance as complexity or urgency and assign each order a priority. This SW is able to take into account many intangible factors, as trademark, that are usually submitted to the subjective judge of the production manager (planner) and is completely configurable according to user’ needs. The result of the elaboration, that is the priority value, constitutes a fundamental input for the scheduler in addition to the due date of the order. The scheduler has a daily horizon because it is unnecessary to cover a long-time period if things can change every day following market requirements. The scheduler is configured to create all cycle operations for each single item even in order to manage orders composed of one pair or even one single shoe. This is a fundamental condition under a custom-made production focus. This also allows operation fine control and monitoring of the manufacturing process because the control system can identify exactly where each item at each time is in the system. Concluding, further developments are considered within a more integrated ad extended scenario applied to the automated production system in a new project where the full product life cycle including the customer, retailer shop and suppliers are taken into consideration.

A structured approach for customised production in SME collaborative networks

This research aims to provide a model for SMEs to address needs and expectations of specific target groups – such as elderly, obese, disabled, or diabetic persons – to customise functional and fashionable clothes and footwear of high quality, affordable price and eco-compatible. This will be achieved by the development of a new framework for the textile, clothing and footwear industry (TCFI) based on methods and tools for (co-)design, development, configuration, production, and distribution of small order quantities in collaborative networks. The aim of this paper is to describe the reference model depicting its structure and the related tools for collaborative networks enabling products to stay as long as possible digital in order to be produced on-demand.

A cost evaluation approach for trucks maintenance planning

This article proposes a decision support system to improve the management of the middle-of-life phase according to product life cycle (LC) cost evaluation. A new maintenance approach integrates information gathered from different actors in order to obtain data which may impact on the whole value chain. A specific algorithm calculating residual LC costs is used for the optimisation of maintenance interventions of a fleet of trucks. The proposed system enables to create new value-transforming information into knowledge available for all LC phases and meant to support improvements in product and service quality, efficiency and sustainability. The solution described here goes in the direction of predictive maintenance for trucks aiming to reduce the number of unexpected stops and minimise product LC costs, avoiding component breakdowns.

Web cost simulation service for footwear sector

Companies, wanting to access new ICT tools, have to go through new technology acquisition. Firms in the manufacturing sector, as in our case shoe producers, increasingly have the need to improve collaboration and co-operation across the company. They are more and more interested in building networks with the support of business integrators as service providers that can offer services and tools and guarantee security standards. This study proposes a new tool, that has been developed by a service provider of the footwear sector, to support shoe producers in managing automatically through a web application the costs of their orders to compare their and other shoe producers processes and to support what-if analysis. A first prototype for such kind of service is proposed and further developments are suggested.

Virtual Environments for Cognitive and Physical Training in Elderly with Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Pilot Study

This work aims at providing an evaluation of the acceptability and the usability of a virtual reality-based intervention developed for the physical and cognitive training of mild cognitive impaired elderlies. To perform this evaluation, participants enrolled in the intervention group (n = 4) of a randomized controlled trial to test the system were interviewed, and their adherence and their performances in the virtual environments for cognitive training were evaluated. In spite of the small sample, the active participation and the unanimous positive judgement of all the participants led to the conclusion that the training program was well accepted and enjoyable. Participants also claimed reduced level of anxiety in their ADL. On the basis of these encouraging results, a second trial, with enlarged sample and with a system implementing the improvements required to overcome the limitations and the problems highlighted with this pilot study, will be performed in the next future.

Implementation of customisation strategies in collaborative networks through an innovative Reference Framework

Abstract Consumer needs and expectations of specific target groups – such as elderly, obese, disabled or diabetic persons – are arising as challenging opportunities for European companies which are asked to supply innovative customised goods of high quality at affordable price. This is particularly true in the fashion as well as in the orthopaedic sector where there are many different competences to conjugate to offer dedicated products to the mentioned target groups. This paper aims at proposing a reference model to support companies in defining collaborative supply networks for customised production. In particular, this work describes the implementation of the developed model in a real case highlighting the changes implied at network level to address the need for fashionable and healthy products.

A virtual reality system for strengthening awareness and participation in rehabilitation for post-stroke patients

This paper presents a system called REAPP, a virtual environment aiming at supporting upper-limb robotic neurorehabilitation for post-stroke patients. In the last few years different systems using either or both virtual environments and robots have been developed. However, such advanced systems often lack attention on the physical and psychological conditions perceived by the patient, who should be the key focus in therapies. In this context, REAPP aims not to be just an entertaining interface but also a means to investigate patients’ feelings toward the therapy and to enhance their self-perception while performing the rehabilitation exercises. Before and after the rehabilitation session the patients are inquired about their emotional state, their physical condition and a self-evaluation of the performance is done. While performing the exercises patients look at a 2D/3D interface which has the aim of enhancing their self-awareness by showing them, through an avatar, the movements they are doing. Widgets and a virtual assistant provide additional feedback about the quality of the movements which is computed through a specifically developed arm model that can be customized on the residual capabilities of each patient.

Reference Model Framework for Production of Small Series of Innovative and Fashionable Goods in Manufacturing Networks

In fashion business, consumer needs and expectations of specific target groups—such as elderly, obese, disabled, or diabetic persons—are arising as challenging opportunities for European companies that are asked to supply small series of innovative and fashionable goods of high quality, affordable price and eco-compatible. This paper aims at proposing a reference model to support collaborative supply networks in addressing the need for Fashionable and Healthy Clothing and Footwear products. In particular this work describes the implementation of the model in a real case highlighting the developments and changes implied at network level.

Customer-Oriented and Eco-friendly Networks for Health Fashionable Goods – The CoReNet Approach

The design, production and distribution of small series of health fashionable goods for specific target groups of wide impact in terms of market for the European industry as elderly, disables, diabetics and obese people represents a challenging opportunity for European companies which are asked to supply the demand with affordable price and eco-compatible products. Added to this challenge, textile, clothing and footwear manufactures seek for innovative collaborative networking solutions that could provide an entire digital life-cycle for the products and services required by the market. Aligned with this need, the EU CoReNet project aims to design and develop a new smart collaborative consumer-driven framework with the related services and components. This paper addresses the multidisciplinary complexity of customer-oriented and eco-friendly networks for health fashionable goods in particular addressing business requirements analysis, value chain issues, co-planning production and co-design topics in collaborative business processes tailored for high variability of the consumers demand and expectations.

Supporting Physical and Cognitive Training for Preventing the Occurrence of Dementia Using an Integrated System: A Pilot Study

The project proposes a comprehensive preventive program of dementia in elderlies with minor cognitive disorders due to neurodegenerative diseases. The program combines physical and cognitive training, by means of an integrated technological system composed of a Virtual Environment, simulating daily activities, a smart garment measuring physiological parameters, a bicycle ergometer and tailoring the system to the specific patient’s status. Preliminary results confirm the feasibility of this intervention and appear promising in order to contrast age-related cognitive neurodegeneration.