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Research Area 1:Portable and smart automation

Goal

The overall goal of this research area is to develop portable and smart automation solutions that significantly contribute to production flexibility and responsiveness as a main solution towards circular production.

Research Directions

Portable automation solutions

An enabler for reconfiguration and recycling of production equipment is if the equipment could easily be moved to different locations within the production system and/or pos sibly between factories/customers. Mobile/portable automation solutions can contribute to production responsiveness as well as to circular production capabilities

Digital technologies for smart automation

Digital technologies for smart automation will be utilised to address the perceived complexity of develop ing, integrating, using, and maintaining automation. This is a key enabler to address the perception that automation technology is too complex and too technically advanced, which is sometimes the case among small- and medium-sized enterprises

Increased availability of automation through servitisation of manufacturing assets

Based on portable and smart automation, automation on demand will be investigated as a new innovative production solution that consists of a distributed automation system in which resources (including data and software) are offered as services, allowing manufacturing companies to access distributed providers to implement their manufacturing processes. The servitisation is enabled by automation suppliers with integration technologies, design, and offering interoperable services in close partnership with manufacturing companies. At the same time, other providers in the value chain can provide additional services.

Background

With changes and uncertainty in the business environment in combination with increased competition, there is an ever-increasing need for the ability to reconfigure the system for new products and variable volumes. At the same time, there is also an urgent need to accelerate industrial devel opment towards a transition from a linear economy to a circular economy. Consequently, production development towards more responsiveness and circularity has become a key concern for the industry. In this development, industrial digitalisation is a key enabler, supporting the transformation of tradi tional production into smart systems with the potential to shift the current economic-driven models of technological development towards a more balanced approach that takes into consideration the social, environmental, and human implications along with economic factors. Digitalisation opens for innovative production solutions such as "portable and smart automation" which would provide production capacity on demand and at different locations with possibilities for recycling and reusing of equipment. Despite the promising potential of portable and smart automation on demand, many companies struggle to take advantage of these opportunities. The shift towards small-scale and circular production creates en tirely new conditions for the industry, with a significant impact on all levels of manufacturing activities and throughout the entire product and production life cycle.

Methods

The research focuses on joint learning between the partner companies and researchers. Accordingly, we follow an "interactive research methodology" as an overall methodological approach by following production engineering principles in formulating industrial problems and use cases com bined with defining and implementing close-to-real demonstrator applications. Following the interactive research approach [1] means the research will run in two separate activity cycles. The researchers lead one activity cycle, and the business partners lead another through cases and internal project activities. We will define several interaction points to share feedback and reflections on each other's work, the respective outcomes, and the next steps.

The objectives of the research area will be achieved through the following steps:

Understanding the current situation and possible improvements.
Identifying and developing possible solutions by covering technology aspects and managerial and organisational dimensions. During this period, the researchers will work with partner companies in their cases and understand the respective gaps and the required capabilities in the practice.
Continuously evaluate the impact and readiness of new solutions, followed by joint learning between companies and researchers. In the final phase, the focus will be on demonstrators and new work processes to be implemented at the partner companies in real industrial settings as well as at the MITC technology centre to distribute the findings.

Expected results

Beyond technical development, we expect a shift towards small-scale and circular production, creating entirely new conditions for the industry that will significantly impact all levels of manufacturing activities and throughout the entire product and production life cycle. We will advance the area of responsive and circular production systems through cutting-edge research and development focusing on "portable and smart automation on demand."

Moreover, we envisage the application of our research in real-world scenarios through case studies. These studies, conducted in collaboration with our industry partners, will demonstrate our concept's practical effectiveness and generate potential industrial applications. The different application domains of our partners will allow for the development of solutions that can be general enough to be adopted even in contexts different than the ones considered in this project

In the area of Portable and Smart Automation, our project (see below) will deliver a range of transformative outcomes related to a new innovative production solution providing production capacity available on demand and at different locations with possibilities of recycling and reusing of equipment.