I.A.R. Torn MSc (Robbert-Jan)

Introduction to my research

The competitive position of the European manufacturing sector, over the past few decades, has been diminished by the emergence and growth of economies as China, South Korea, Brazil and India. In addition to increased global competition, European manufacturers are affected by an aging population, and new consumers preferences, including an increasing demand for personalized products. Meanwhile, the manufacturing has experienced a rapid rise of promising new technologies, such as additive manufacturing and digital twins.  In response to these challenges and trends, several competitive strategies have been developed in European countries, including Smart Industry in The Netherlands. Of these strategies the German initiative Industry 4.0 has become the most well-known. But the strategies by other countries are similar in nature and can thus, for the sake of clarity, be grouped under the denominator Industry 4.0.  In essence, Industry 4.0 resembles the digitalization of manufacturing. One of the ambitions of Industry 4.0 is the realization of products in series sizes of one, also called lot-size one production. Compared to existing manufacturing practices, lot-sizes of one dramatically increase product variability. In fact, a trend towards individualization of production can be perceived, enabled by upcoming technologies.

Reducing the gap between what the customer really needs and what manufacturers can provide is one of the incentives of lot-size one production. By bringing the customer requirements closer to the realized product specifications, customer satisfaction can be increased. In this sense, the current developments in the manufacturing industry draw similarities to the era of crafts manufacturing during which products were tailored to the needs of individual customers. Similar to crafts, lot sizes of one involve customers in the decision-making process for the design of the intended product. But, while crafts production was slow, labour intensive and thus costly, lot-size one production needs automatization to realize times-to-market and production efficiency that is competitive to mass production.

Small- and Medium-sized Manufacturing Enterprises (SMME’s) face serious problems in achieving high levels of automation for the production of small lot sizes, despite their awareness of the current trends in manufacturing and advances in technology. On a strategic level a transition to lot-sizes of one is supported by a multitude of tools such as Industry 4.0 roadmaps and maturity models, but such models do not address the operational challenges.  Nonetheless, a growing number of companies experiment with high mix, low volume scenarios in branches of the manufacturing sector that are well suited to automatization, such as robotic welding. Based on successful cases and experiences in practices it can be anticipated that more sectors in the manufacturing industry will move towards lot-sizes of one. However, in other branches and particularly in assembly a transition from series production to lot-sizes of one will expectedly be more difficult. It is because automated assembly depends on high precision and repeatability. Currently these requirements for automated assembly are mitigated by extensive use of standardization, but by definition standardization is at odds with customization. This makes it difficult to achieve high levels of automation in assembly of small series sizes.

My research explores opportunities for cost-effectively manufacturing high variety products in small series sizes, with the ultimate aim of lot-size one production. The overall aim of the research is to develop a design method for supporting decision making in (re-)designing manufacturing systems to enable lot-size one production.

Publications

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Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.

 

• 202000163 - Industry 4.0 with Human Touch

• 202000163 - Industry 4.0 with Human Touch