Ronen Hadar

Manufacturing Concepts of the Future – Upcoming Technologies Solving Upcoming Challenges

This paper presents an examination of Western European manufacturers‘ future challenges as can be predicted today. Some of the challenges analyzed in the paper are: globalization, individualism and customization and agility challenges. Hereafter, the paper presents a broad analysis on manufacturing concepts and technologies that are being developed today which may be used to solve manufacturing challenges in the future, such as: (self) reconfigurable manufacturing systems, (focused) flexible manufacturing systems, and Al inspired manufacturing. The paper will try to offer a critical point of view on manufacturing hallenges, concepts, and technologies, and is meant to address both academia and industry.

Reconfigurable Manufacturing System Design and Implementation - An Industrial Application at a Manufacturer of Consumer Goods

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) have been an increasing area of interest in the research arena. However, it seems that current literature is lacking application and implementation cases where RMS are simulated, tested, and evaluated as a feasible manufacturing concept. A Manufacturer of Consumer Goods identified the potential of the RMS concept and decided to investigate the concept in a real production installation. The result of this development is a proof of concept of a changeable and reconfigurable assembly and decoration system based on the principles of RMS. This proof of concept is meant primarily to show the physical feasibility of the system and provide a first-look into a real production application of the RMS ideas. The purpose of this paper is to present the design of the manufacturer’s RMS proof of concept, its implementation, and evaluation results.

Design and Evaluation of a Reconfigurable Manufacturing System

In modern manufacturing industry, reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) is a promising concept in the research arena. A new RMS system structure has been recently designed by a large consumer goods manufacturer in Europe, aiming to improve its production efficiency. This paper shows an exploratory research on the (re)configuration procedure and evaluation of the RMS philosophy based on the new RMS structure, which is part of the RMS research in University of Southern Denmark. Tecnomatix Plant Simulation is used for system analysis and optimization. Results from simulation show that the RMS implemented in this consumer goods manufacturer can be effectively (re)configured as part of the daily operations, and the configuration is analyzed by computer simulation before release. Flexibility can be increased considerably meanwhile the system can maintain an acceptable productivity.