REVISTA DYNA MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

The Reborn Project (2013-2016) leads us to the upcoming of a new industrial revolution based in innovative flexible production lines.

The "ReBorn Project: Innovative Reuse of modular knowledge Based devices and technologies for Old, Renewed and New factories", includes more than 15 research institutions and enterprises of different sectors as automation, assembly, robotics, informatics and engineering from 9 different European countries. This is developed through three main objectives.

Its objectives are of priority interest for the European Commission because they represent a transformation of conventional industries to flexible ones through a wide range of developments. These achieved goals are the creation of in-line equipment for modular and adaptive manufacturing, the release of innovative factory design systems and the development of new flexible and low-cost mechanical systems for fast and easy assembly. These three main objectives are presented below.

MODULAR PLUG & PRODUCE EQUIPMENT, IN-LINE ADAPTIVE MANUFACTURING

The industrial change involves that equipment of a production line not only fulfils one isolated task, but rather acts as a dynamic, multipurpose yet highly specialized part of an orchestra of intelligent cells. Imagine that decision on the usage of the equipment for a given task can be taken in-line based on the equipment's capabilities, current performance status and occupancy. Thus, flexible (Plug & Produce) production systems are enabled by intelligent components capable of communicating with each other in a network. These components are self-aware of their state and performance as well as their evolution over time. In ReBorn, these intelligent components (the so-called VERSONs) will be developed as logically encapsulated entities that gather, store and analyze process data. The obtained information will be converted into knowledge about the equipment piece within the system and can be used for e.g. dynamic scheduling of task operation, possible maintenance and refurbishment and for prognostic analytics on the equipment's remaining lifetime performance. Furthermore, the intelligent components will be designed as modules in order to allow for reconfiguration, e.g. in case of changing demands of the products to be produced. The modular structure also allows for easy integration (Plug & Produce) into both new and existing hardware. These developments will be the basis for flexible and adaptable production relying on machines and devices with built-in intelligence for self- and condition monitoring.

INNOVATIVE FACTORY LAYOUT DESIGN TECHNIQUES AND ADAPTIVE (RE)CONFIGURATION

The Reborn project focuses on improving equipment and its re-use and reconfiguration of existing factory layouts according to conditions required for rapidly changing customers' demands. The re-use considers both a local, product-oriented re-use as well as the re-use after de-manufacturing and dismantling of a device at different locations. For this purpose, an environment interconnection is made between the equipment and planning tools, through which an optimum choice on the resource allocation, task distribution and task sequence according to the capability status of the equipment a planning level can be made. The required information comes from the collected data by the intelligent devices themselves, which here, although autonomous, are embedded in the larger context of the production system layout design. By taking into account the usage of re-used and renovated equipment implies also the maximum extension of equipment life-time.

FLEXIBLE AND LOW-COST MECHANICAL SYSTEMS FOR FAST AND EASY ASSEMBLY AND DISASSEMBLY

Pay attention to automated processes for companies which depend on the changes of demand. It can be seen that mechanical systems such as grippers or fixtures rely on specific, product-tailored hardware solutions. In case of product changes, time-intensive manual adaptions of the systems are required. Future solutions target on flexible, modular systems which are composed of standard components and allow for easy re-configuration and extension. A further strategy for flexible and resource economical manufacturing is based on Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. AM enables direct manufacturing from designs (CAD files) by 3D printing of the desired product. This allows the ReBorn team to develop a flexible, multipurpose and low-cost handling cell for producing a light-weight gripping device. The design and production process will be just-in time and fully automated thereby eliminating intermediate manual steps and reducing the adaption of handling devices during change-over towards zero. Optionally, integrated sensors can gather and provide data to further enhance the components capabilities and self-analysis baseline. This development will allow for highly flexible processing of parts with small lot sizes and an increasing variety.

WORK METHODOLOGY

The project development is started on the analysis of the industrial requirements and use-cases, both of which are of critical importance for an industrially driven demonstration project. It provides the basis for the subsequent development, demonstration activities, the industrial needs and standardization issues to be considered and taken up during the course of the project.

Building on real-life demands, the technological basis and prototyping is done within three tandems of a Research, Technology and Development and a Demonstrator, respectively. One of them focuses on the modular Plug & Produce equipment and in-line adaptive manufacturing. Another one pays attention to the innovative factory lay-out design techniques and adaptive reconfigurations. At last, other of the tandems puts the look into the flexible and low-cost mechanical systems for fast and easy assembly and disassembly. This new model of industrial organization is validated on the different partner industries.

CONCLUSIONS

The model here exposed represents a new way of manufacturing, that leads to a new industrial revolution. It represents a new paradigm for the re-use of production equipment in factories. They give new life to decommissioned production systems and equipment, making their "reborn" in new production lines possible.

The deployment of the knowledge at production life-cycle planning and design level marks important steps towards the knowledge-based and agile manufacturing enterprise. Their future will be based on innovative flexible and fast reconfigurable manufacturing solutions. These strategies will decrease the ramp-up time of assembly lines to reduce investment costs for new equipment and to respond to rapidly changing consumer needs while saving costs.

The optimization of the production lines and the layout design it will be accessible within this model thanks to a flexible library in which new and old equipment are classified depending on the industrial case, both for automated and manual manufactures.

Such new strategies will contribute to sustainable, resource-friendly and greener manufacturing and, at the same time, deliver economic and competitive advantages for the manufacturing sector.