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Topic Review
Factors Affecting Human Errors in Manual Assembly Processes
Human errors (HEs) are common problems in manual assembly processes, impacting product quality and resulting in additional costs. HEs refer to mistakes or deviations from intended actions made by individuals when implementing some tasks. These errors can occur due to various reasons, such as a lack of training, fatigue, poor work instructions, etc.
  • 1.5K
  • 15 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Friction Spot Stir Welding
In the last decade, the friction stir welding of polymers has been increasingly investigated by the means of more and more sophisticated approaches. Since the early studies, which were aimed at proving the feasibility of the process for polymers and identifying suitable processing windows, great improvements have been achieved. This owes to the increasing care of academic researchers and industrial demands. These improvements have their roots in the promising results from pioneer studies; however, they are also the fruits of the adoption of more comprehensive approaches and the multidisciplinary analyses of results. The introduction of instrumented machines has enabled the online measurement of processing loads and temperature, and critical understanding of the principal aspects affecting the material flow and welds quality. Such improvements are also clearly demonstrated by the increase of the strength of recent joints (up to 99% of joining efficiency) as compared to those reached in early researches (almost 47%). This article provides a comprehensive review of the recent progresses on the process fundamentals, quality assessment and the influence of process parameters on the mechanical behavior. In addition, emphasis is given to new developments and future perspectives.
  • 1.5K
  • 28 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Hydraulic Accumulators in Hydraulic Systems
Electric motors used in industrial machines and devices, as well as internal combustion engines (ICE) used in vehicles, mobile machines, and marine devices, participate in the transformation of mechanical power into hydraulic power. In power transmission, hydraulic drive systems have a high power density. Hydraulic pumps, as energy sources in hydraulic drive systems, are widely used due to their high working pressure and high flow rate. The hydraulic accumulator (HA) is a device that is used to store energy in the hydraulic system in the form of pressure energy. 
  • 1.5K
  • 14 Sep 2023
Topic Review
Blockchain Technology in Automobile Supply Chain
A robust traceability system would help organizations in inventory optimization reduce lead time and improve customer service and quality which further enables the organizations to be a leader in their industry sector. The traceability issues and waiting time at different nodes of the supply chain are considered to be priority issues that affect the overall supply chain efficiency in the automotive supply chain.  A new blockchain-based architecture was provided to improve traceability and reduce waiting time for the automotive supply chain. 
  • 1.5K
  • 06 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is an evolving field, and there is growing demand to integrate systems thinking into many fields. As this demand increases, so does the need for and importance of identifying systems thinkers.
  • 1.4K
  • 16 May 2022
Topic Review
Carbon Quantum Dots
Carbon dots have gained tremendous interest attributable to their unique features. Two approaches are involved in the fabrication of quantum dots (Top-down and Bottom-up). Most of the synthesis methods are usually multistep, required harsh conditions, and costly carbon sources that may have a toxic effect, therefore green synthesis is more preferable. Herein, the current review presents the green synthesis of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) and graphene quantum dots 
  • 1.4K
  • 06 Apr 2021
Topic Review
High-Temperature Materials in Ammonia/Hydrogen Gas Turbines
This entry reviews the critical role of material selection and design in ensuring efficient performance and safe operation of gas turbine engines fuelled by ammonia–hydrogen. As these energy fuels present unique combustion characteristics in turbine combustors, the identification of suitable materials becomes imperative. Detailed material characterisation is indispensable for discerning defects and degradation routes in turbine components, thereby illuminating avenues for improvement. With elevated turbine inlet temperatures, there is an augmented susceptibility to thermal degradation and mechanical shortcomings, especially in the high-pressure turbine blade—a critical life-determining component.
  • 1.4K
  • 17 Oct 2023
Topic Review
Surface Defect Detection
Automated visual inspection (AVI) instrument targeting on surface quality emerges as a standard configuration for metal planar materials (e.g., steel, aluminum, copper plates and strips, etc.) to improve product quality and promote production efficiency. A general AVI instrument provides two main functions of defect detection and classification. The former detection process recognizes defective regions from normal background without identifying what types of defects they are. The latter process is dedicated to identify and label detected defects to support finishing product grading. The classification accuracy is directly determined by the precision of defect detection; thus, the overall performance of an AVI system is mainly limited by the accuracy, time efficiency, and robustness of various algorithms in the process of defect detection. Both two-dimensional and three-dimensional surface defect detection technologies are used for defect detection. According to the algorithm properties, the existing two-dimensional methodologies are categorized into four groups: statistical, spectral, model, and machine learning-based methods. On the basis of three-dimensional data acquisition, the three-dimensional technologies are divided into stereoscopic vision, photometric stereo, laser scanner, and structured light measurement methods. 
  • 1.4K
  • 18 Feb 2021
Topic Review
A Product/Service System
Product/service system (PSS) is widely considered as a promising design object with the potential to enhance environmental sustainability of industrial solutions. The state of the art of PSS design research includes several prescriptive PSS design support tools, methods and procedures. This body of literature has been extensively reviewed in the past. However, there is a lack of consolidation of the available prescriptive knowledge in a condensed and practically useful format that can be used by practitioners to guide their conceptual PSS design activities and by researchers to build their work on. Thus, to address this gap in our knowledge, we use an intra-disciplinary literature analysis and meta-synthesis approach to consolidate the extant prescriptive PSS design knowledge in the form of a schema for conceptual PSS design.
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Nano Copper Lubricant Additives
Nanoparticles have as characteristics super sliding, extreme pressure, self-healing, etc., which can improve the friction reduction and anti-wear performance of sliding components, when used as lubricating oil additives. Nano-copper particles have a good synergistic effect with other antifriction agents, anti-wear agents, antioxidants and grease additives because of their low shear strength and grain boundary slip effect, showing a better anti-friction and anti-wear effect. However, nanoparticles are prone to conglomerate, and this causes a bottleneck in the application of dispersant for nano-copper in a lubricating oil system. The regulation of nanosized effect and surface properties has great engineering significance in compensating for the precision in manufacturing accuracy. 
  • 1.4K
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Autonomous Haulage Systems
Mining is an industry that inherits the full advantage of Industry 4.0 by using cutting-edge driverless vehicles called Autonomous Haulage Systems (AHS) or Autonomous Haulage Trucks (AHT). These trucks can carry up to four hundred tons of ore and accurately transport it without human interaction. AHS is the state-of-the-art in the mining industry for autonomous vehicles.
  • 1.4K
  • 25 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Biopolymers in Textiles
Given the significant contamination of our ecosystem caused by synthetic fibers involved in the textile industry, biomaterials derived from renewable resources or endowed with biodegradability characteristics have been proposed as a possible green solution for reducing the environmental impact of fabric production. The use of polymers derived from renewable sources (both biodegradable and non-biodegradable) would result in reduced greenhouses emissions (GHG) and fossil fuel consumption (FFC) when compared to common fossil-based, non-biodegradable polymers, the most common polyester (PET), polyamide (PA), polypropylene (PP). Although less biodegradable compared to natural-based fibers (wool, cotton), aliphatic polyester bio-based fibers are biodegraded more quickly compared to PET fibers. Furthermore, the larger moisture vapor transmission of bio-based polymers compared to PET, PA and PP materials, allows greater breathability by corresponding fabrics. Biobased fibers are also endowed with good mechanical resistance and antibacterial properties, low flammability and less smoke generation.
  • 1.4K
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
The Truck Appointment Scheduling Problem
Scheduling the arrival of external trucks in container terminals is a critical operational decision that faces both terminal managers and trucking companies. This issue is crucial for both stakeholders since the random arrival of trucks causes congestion in the terminals and extended delays for the trucks.
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Calcium Carbonate
Technologies for the management of various types of waste and the production of useful products from them are currently widely studied. Both carbon dioxide and calcium-rich waste from various production processes are problematic wastes that can be used to produce calcium carbonate. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide an overview about the state of the development of processes that use these two wastes to obtain a valuable CaCO3 powder.
  • 1.3K
  • 15 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Model-Based Enterprise Approach in the Product Lifecycle Management
Innovations in product development and process technologies represent a promising strategy to face the increasing competitiveness of modern markets in the global economy. Also, customer requirements become more and more specific and the complexity of products is still increasing. Industries need to adopt effective solutions during the product development process and to support, for sustainable purposes, all the phases of the product lifecycle. Advanced model-based solutions emerge for digitally supporting these industrial needs. In this context, a Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) represents an organization that adopts modeling technologies, such as Model-Based Definition (MBD) solutions, to integrate and manage both technical and business processes related to product design, production, support, and retirement. Past research discusses the model-based approaches focusing on technical product development, mainly referring to the design and the manufacturing phases.
  • 1.3K
  • 08 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Structural Health Monitoring Systems
Structural health monitoring (SHM) is a rapidly evolving field, and there is a vast literature covering several topics that are related to this field. This entry is focused on the analysis of the state of the art of sensors for guided ultrasonic waves for the detection and localization of impacts for structural health monitoring (SHM).
  • 1.3K
  • 06 May 2021
Topic Review
Lean Six Sigma Impact Analysis on Sustainability
Many world-class manufacturing companies use the concept of lean (L) as an improvement method. Its objectives are eliminating waste and non-value activities in production processes, cost reduction, and achieving faster service with less human effort, time, and equipment by applying tools and techniques that fulfill these objectives. Six Sigma (SS) is used in manufacturing industries to reduce and eliminate defects and variability in production, delivery and cycle times, forecasting, quality, customer service, and logistics, among others. It uses various methods, such as “define, measure, analyze, improve and control” (DMAIC) for existing processes, and “define, measure, analyze, design, and verify” (DMADV) for new products or processes. Both L and SS are complementary approaches to achieving good performance. Their integration is known as Lean Six Sigma (LSS). LSS identifies customer needs and eliminates waste while reducing process variability. 
  • 1.3K
  • 23 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Industry 4.0 Manufacturing Systems
Manufacturing systems are generally “physical” systems in a physical world. The internet is a cyber-world. The internet has allowed for global connectedness. At the same time, infused with this connectedness, is a “dark web.” The dark web constitutes malware, viruses, “ransomware-as-a-service,” and other divisive instruments. Industry 4.0 brings together in the form of “cyber-physical” systems a new range of opportunities for additive manufacturing. While the opportunity of connectedness maps, at the same time, the challenges of the “dark web” also maps into this world of manufacturing. On a growing basis, measures to improve cybersecurity continue to develop. These measures include the lever of machine and deep learning. In this entry, the authors use engineering control systems and other relevant theories, including augmented artificial intelligence, as a way of making more secure cyber-physical systems and thereby making practical the considerations for Industry 4.0.
  • 1.3K
  • 14 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Flux Classification
Flux is a granular material that primarily consists of oxides and CaF2. The manufacturing method plays an important role in shaping the flux features.
  • 1.3K
  • 09 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Product/Service System Family Design
Product/service system (PSS) family design is a kind of designing a group of PSSs in order to provide the PSSs efficiently to a defined set of multiple customer segments, and was conceptualized with analogy to product family design. PSS is widely considered as a promising design object with the potential to enhance environmental sustainability of industrial solutions. PSS family design is potentially powerful to PSS customization and thereby expected to contribute to the competitiveness of PSS providers.
  • 1.3K
  • 28 Oct 2020
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