Bogdan Mocan

A Literature Survey on Reconfigurable Industrial Robotic Work Cells

As the unpredictability of market needs and the mass customization trends increase, employing reconfigurable industrial robotic work cells becomes a viable solution for manufacturers. A reconfigurable manufacturing system is a system designed for a quick change in structure, both in hardware and software, in order to rapidly adjust production capacity and functionalities. However, the approach is quite general; a simple search within scientific literature, patent databases or the world-wide-web returns thousands of results, covering a time period from the 80s to date. Among the results, different approaches on reconfigurable industrial robotic work cell implementations can be easily noticed. This paper surveys the literature in reconfigurable industrial robotic work cells, aiming to identify, besides the most important approaches on this topic, also performance criteria associated to robotic workcell reconfigurability and means of measuring the reconfigurability degree of such cells. The survey also aims to identify command and control architectures used to achieve various levels of reconfigurability. The survey was conducted by using a specific search methodology, which is also presented in the paper.

Framework for eco-innovative design with application in low-voltage electric appliance industry

Following several years of incremental improvements in green-design, nowadays, step changes have to be considered for developing competitive environmentally friendly products. However, many companies still see environmental issues as economical burden because eco-innovations usually require new capital investments as well as changes in product design and the related production processes and after-sale services. In this respect, a methodology for guiding decision-makers towards a superior balance between quality, cost and environmental issues in product design is introduced in this paper. A case study on a product from the family of electric appliances reveals the effectiveness of the methodology.

Software platform for supporting open innovation

Nowadays business processes are subjected to a multitude of conflicts and constrains, both from technical and economic perspectives. This requires continuous process innovation. In this context, dissemination of good practices throughout business community is of real benefit. For doing this in an efficient way, Internet-based software platforms for managing knowledge on process innovation are of real support. Moreover, the use of scientific methods of innovative problem solving within such platforms is welcome. The present paper introduces a novel, highly ergonomic Internet-based platform for supporting ldquoopen innovationrdquo initiatives across business communities. It also incorporates process innovation algorithms, derived from TRIZ philosophy.

Expert System for Quality Cost Planning, Monitoring and Control

On the market, there are some commercial available software tools for quality cost management. However, these tools do not incorporate specialized agents for handling complex tasks related to the current needs in quality cost planning, like interpretation of the results over a horizon of time and automatic generation of reliable guidelines to prioritize resources in order to improve the quality of the business processes. This paper is going to introduce the results of some researches performed by the authors in designing and developing an expert system for comprehensive monitoring, controlling and planning of quality costs within business processes. Results are already successful implemented in a large enterprise from chemical industry

Designing a Multimodal Human-Robot Interaction Interface for an Industrial Robot

This paper presents a framework for multimodal human-robot interaction. The proposed framework is intended to bring important contributions to the development of human robot interaction to facilitate intuitive programming and to enable easily adapting to changes in robot task without the need of using skilled personnel. The key elements of this system are speech and hand gesture recognition, text programming, and interaction capabilities that allow the user to take over the control of the robot at any given time. Furthermore, our approach is focused on robot tasks. A user can express his/her preference for one or more modalities of interaction so that selected modalities fit user’s personal needs.

Development of a Robotic Driven Handheld Laparoscopic Instrument for Non-invasive Intraoperative Detection of Small Endoluminal Digestive Tumors

The present paper introduces the development of a sensing laparoscopic instrument based on a framework design for guiding decision-makers towards a superior balance between quality, efficiency and surgical procedure issues in medical instruments development. A prototype of the robotic handheld sensitive laparoscopic instrument for non-invasive intraoperative detection of small endoluminal digestive tumors was designed and developed for validation the instrument. The developed prototype was evaluated by two surgeons in ex vivo experimental conditions by different medical approaches—open and laparoscopic surgery. The surgeons found that the developed prototype is easy to use, satisfactory and useful in precise detection of small endoluminal digestive tumors in 85 % of cases.

Economic development of peripheral/lagging zones through smart innovation

In a globalised world, macro-economic policies are insufficient to properly handle the complex game of economic development and stabilisation. Significant differentiations and specificities are visible at the regional level due to new ways of communication, mobility, education, and access to information. A change of focus is therefore necessary from a macro- to a meso-economic approach. The meso level of analysis reveals significant imbalances between knowledge hubs, industrial zones and rural areas. Of special concern are rural areas, which in most cases fall into the category of lagging zones where local social capital and other basic factors show little potential to break down vicious circles in economic development. Under these circumstances, this paper introduces the concept of smart innovation as a means of supporting accelerated economic development within lagging zones. Innovation can be defined as smart when it embraces nonlinear paths to economic growth in areas with poor active endowments. An approach for operationalising smart innovation is also presented in this paper. Its potentiality is demonstrated using the example of a rural lagging zone with 25,000 inhabitants, a low level of economic activity, and significant structural gaps.

Increasing the Efficiency of Robotic Manufacturing Systems by Layout Optimization

To achieve high efficiency in a robotic manufacturing system, an optimized layout arrangement and material flow path design are important due to the large percentage of product cost that is related to material handling, equipment positioning, material flow path, and products variety and volume (flexibility). Facility layout problem (FLP) can be considered as a multi-criteria problem due to presence of the qualitative criteria such as flexibility and the quantitative criteria for instance total cost of handling material. In this paper, we combined a well-known facility layout algorithm (CRAFT) with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique and decision matrix method to facilitate a multi criteria evaluation. The proposed approach aims to incorporate qualitative criteria in addition to quantitative criteria for evaluating facility layout patterns. A case study on a robotic system for manufacturing plate type oil coolers reveals the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Managing Emotional Aspects of PSS Functionalities for Sustainability

For an organization to become sustainable, turning towards PSSs seems appealing. However, the PSS approach is rather a support in this respect, not the solution itself. Although there has been lately a strong focus on methodologies and approaches of designing competitive PSSs, tackling with emotional aspects of functionalities to be provided is still a challenge. This paper addresses this issue by introducing a mean of sketching such unique functionalities and even triggering customer desires. Thus, sustainability is envisaged in two ways: (one) by making customers loyal in a constructive and creative way, and (second) by fitting up the SME with a distinctive (and difficult-to-copy) offer. The approach in this paper is applied within a case study in the domain of railway modelling, in which customers - apart from willing to spend much money for their hobby - are extremely demanding, and the emotional component of their buying behaviour is predominant.