Michael Abramovici

An Indicator Framework for Monitoring IPS² in the Use Phase

An Industrial Product Service System (IPS²) in the use-oriented business model is delivered to customers with the guarantee of high performance. Due to dynamic changes and uncertainties in the IPS² use phase, suppliers carry risks when trying to achieve the expected high performance or keeping the budget. In order to reduce these risks and to keep the balance between IPS² performance and cost, suppliers have to improve IPS² based on the decisions taken on its management level. These decisions can only be made, when an accurate monitoring of IPS² has been achieved. This paper introduces an indicator framework for decision-makers of IPS² suppliers to monitor IPS² in the use-oriented business model in the use phase. Indicators are defined with regard to IPS² performance, IPS² lifecycle cost and influencing factors. A monitoring method with early risk warning against risks using indicator corridors will also be introduced.

Application of PDM technology for Product Life Cycle Management

Product data management (PDM) is an emerging enabling technology to support product life cycle (PLC) management. The first part of this paper gives an overview of general and customized isolated PDM applications in different stages of the PLC. The second part of the presentation surveys the main approaches for an integrated PDM throughout the PLC and shows some of the ITM as well as national and international research activities in this area, including distributed multi-system PDM environments, federated databases, web-based PDM and integrated product data and process management. Finally research activities for future integration of PDM technology in enterprise wide information repositories and workflow engines are presented.

Smart Engineering as Enabler for the 4th Industrial Revolution

The convergence and synergies of the latest ICT developments in the areas of embedded micro-devices, mobile communication, hardware infrastructures, as well as Internet and software technologies penetrate any artifact and product in our real lives. Traditional products are becoming more and more multidisciplinary, intelligent, networked, agile, and include product-related services. However, not only consumer goods (i.e. smartphones) but also industrial goods are becoming ‘smart’. Smart Product Service Systems (smartPSS) will dominate most industrial sectors in the near future and lead to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Thus, the engineering of these smartPSS will be of crucial importance for the competitiveness of industrial companies. This contribution summarizes the related ICT developments and describes their successive penetration of industrial products. It points out the need for new Smart Engineering approaches, which also use the latest ICT innovation and similarly smart features like smartPSS. Smart Engineering defines the highest level of requirements for engineering processes, methods, and tools.

Industrial integration of ICT: opportunities for international research cooperation under the IMS scheme

Within the framework of a European Seminar organised in Zürich in November 2007, a session dedicated to “Industrial Integration of ICT” aimed to explore the role of ICT in manufacturing. Participating experts concluded that the following four ICT-related trends will profoundly impact manufacturing in the future: (1) increased enterprise agility and adaptability; (2) the growth of embedded intelligence in products and processes; (3) the transition from physical products to product/service systems; (4) the reorientation towards a holistic perspective of the product lifecycle. The paper attempts to synthesise the contributions made and to further develop the vision for research that could be undertaken under the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) scheme, set up and run across major industrialised countries. The conclusions drawn by the paper refer to one of the major challenges of industry today: to reconcile competitiveness and environmental friendliness of products and processes. To address this challenge in a holistic way, a new generation of ICT-based industrial methods, systems and tools will be needed. The sheer complexity of the task requires enormous research efforts which cannot be realised at national level alone. IMS could prove to be an adequate scheme for addressing this challenge at global level.

A flexible Web-based PDM approach to support virtual engineering cooperation

The objective of the work presented in this paper is to provide a methodology and tools for distributed PDM environments especially suited for virtual project based cooperation in engineering design. A research project called WebFlex-PDM (Web-enabled Flexible PDM federation) is introduced. This project mainly deals with extensions to existing PDM systems to provide the capability for easy integration into different PDM environments of cooperation partners and to enable use of various geographically dispersed WWW-based engineering information resources. In order to analyze the requirements for a flexible management of distributed engineering information resources the paper first describes an application case study. The requirements are compared to the state of the art of distributed PDM solutions and the existing deficits are shown. Finally the main ideas, the architecture, and prototype modules of the WebFlex-PDM approach are presented.

Combining visual natural markers and IMU for improved AR based indoor navigation

The operation and maintenance phase is the longest and most expensive life-cycle period of buildings and facilities. Operators need to carry out activities to maintain equipment to prevent functionality failures. Although some software tools have already been introduced, research studies have concluded that (1) facility handover data is still predominantly dispersed, unformatted and paper-based and (2) hence operators still spend 50% of their on-site work on target localization and navigation. To improve these procedures, the authors previously presented a natural marker-based Augmented Reality (AR) framework that digitally supports facility maintenance operators when navigating indoors. Although previous results showed the practical potential, this framework fails if no visual marker is available, if identical markers are at multiple locations, and if markers are light emitting signs. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper presents an improved method that combines an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) based step counter and visual live video feed for AR based indoor navigation support. In addition, the AR based marker detection procedure is improved by learning camera exposure times in case of light emitting markers. A case study and experimental results in a controlled environment reveal the improvements and advantages of the enhanced framework.

Integration and Complexity Management within the Mechatronics Product Development

Mechatronic products are the result of combining the engineering disciplines mechanics, electrics, electronics and IT. This requires coordinated trans-sectoral cooperation from the people developing the product as well as from the organisational unit. However, the systematic development of mechatronic systems has special demands to a multidisciplinary and holistic development process. Therefore implementing appropriate methods and tools is decisive for an effective product development. This article deals with the approach of integrating discipline-specific processes, applications and partial data models according to the SOA principle, based on the experience of developing PLM methods in the automotive industry.

Knowledge-Based Lifecycle Management Approach for Product Service Systems (PSS)

Product Service Systems (PSS) are new industrial offerings which integrate a product and related services into a customer-specific bundle and offer the customer an overall solution to a specific issue. The lifecycle of PSS is characterized by merged product and service structures and a close interaction among the provider, the suppliers, and the customer, not only in the development phase but especially during the operation of PSS. Therefore a lifecycle management approach for PSS has to merge both the virtual and real (operational) lifecycle of PSS. To reach that goal operational knowledge about a PSS instance must be gathered, aggregated, managed, and used by enhanced lifecycle management methods in order to support providers, suppliers, and customers by developing, delivering and operating PSS. The paper in hand presents a knowledge-based lifecycle management approach for PSS, which considers an ontological representation of PSS knowledge and 3 knowledge-based lifecycle methods to make engineering processes adaptive, to provide the involved actors with the appropriate PSS knowledge and support the stakeholders in their decision making processes. The components of this approach have been identified as key lifecycle management methods for managing PSS. They are still being developed within the collaborative research center TR29 funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), who investigate the overall engineering of PSS.

Advanced Condition Monitoring Services in Product Lifecycle Management

This paper describes a specialized PLM approach with operation monitoring and maintenance of the product during its usage based on a condition monitoring method framework. A coupling procedure integrates the PLM meta data model with associated condition monitoring and diagnosis method framework results. Graphical models dealing with a priori information play a key part based on modeling, learning from sensor data and probabilistic inference.

Development of a knowledge-based feedback assistance system of product use information for product improvement

Due to technological advancement, an increase in creating and storing digital data can be observed today, for instance throughout the product life cycle. Through especially product use, a large number of data are created. The data are mainly used during the product use phase (e.g. condition-based maintenance). However, those data can be used as feedback to generate knowledge and support the product developer through improving future product generations. This paper presents development and prototypical realisation of a feedback assistance system for the management, analysis and visualisation of feedback data. The system supports a product developer by improving the process of decision-making to discover development potentials. Thereupon, four modules have been developed to analyse related indicators statistically and to diagnose machine failures. The obtained knowledge about the current condition of machines should then be deployed to improve the next machine generations utilising the modules for decision support and prediction.