Mini-factories for Close-to-customer Manufacturing of Customized Furniture: From Concept to Real Demo

Barni, Andrea; Corti, Donatella; Pedrazzoli, Paolo; Rovere, Diego; Lucisano, Giuseppe

doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2017.07.188

Cited by 15 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Relying on the previous experiences in the design and development of small scale manufacturing environments (Barni et al, 2017), the guiding principles chosen for the SUPSI Mini-Factory development have been: 1) Modularity; the use of flexible automation enables the demonstration of factory resilient behaviour and easily re-configurability 2) Integration of diverse technology vendors; demonstrating realistic industrial scenarios and overcoming communication barriers 3) Innovation; demonstrating the effectiveness and production efficiency of I4.0 technologies 4) Product customizability; demonstrating aptitude to successfully meet different evolving customer requirements. These carefully selected principles reflect the modern I4.0 vision enabling the usage of such an environment for research purposes, seeking, testing pioneering technological and organizational approaches but, above all, for educational purposes improving the hard and soft capabilities of young engineers.…”

Section: The Design Of the Supsi Mini-factorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Innovative Educational Approach in the Supsi Mini-Factory

Daniele¹,

Confalonieri²,

Ferrario³

et al. 2022

Proceedings of INTCESS 2022- 9th International Conference on Education &Amp; Education of Social Sciences

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The manufacturing industry constantly faces complex challenges: fierce competition, shorter product lifecycles, increased variability, fluctuating demand and, lately, pandemic related issues are just a short list. In this continuously evolving scenario, industries are trying to enhance their resiliency, efficiency and longterm planning capabilities through the exploitation of the latest advances in information and communication technology. The resulting demand for a digital transformation impacts each phase of a company's life cycle, from product and process design to the optimization and day-to-day management. In this novel manufacturing environment, the human's activities are still essential and significant but are unavoidably changing their nature, increasing complexity and heterogeneity. In order to deal with the educational needs of handling these new issues, in the last decade numerous learning factories have been developed. Learning factories, as a teaching and learning ecosystem, have shown to be effective for developing theoretical and practical knowledge in a real production environment and are, hence, a suitable testing bed for both validating new technologies and concurrently delivering peculiar training through innovative, hands-on methodologies.This paper portrays, with a strong focus on educational aspects, the specificities of the learning factory implemented at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland: the SUPSI Mini-Factory. The SUPSI Mini-Factory is a learning factory in the narrow sense, providing a real value chain, where participants can perform, evaluate, and reflect their own actions through a hands-on learning approach. Firstly, the guiding principles, chosen for the SUPSI Mini-Factory development, are clearly introduced and justified considering both the didactical purposes and the arising companies' requirements. Secondly, the equipment composing the SUPSI Mini-Factory are outlined emphasizing their functions, both as individual and as part of the whole system, within the SUPSI educational offer. Finally, the innovative didactic approach enabled by a pervasive use of key digital technologies is presented proving its educational effectiveness.

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Section: The Design Of the Supsi Mini-factorymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Innovative Educational Approach in the Supsi Mini-Factory

Daniele¹,

Confalonieri²,

Ferrario³

et al. 2022

Proceedings of INTCESS 2022- 9th International Conference on Education &Amp; Education of Social Sciences

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This project identifies and evaluates the opportunities that digital technologies offers to disrupt traditional industry models when combined with big data. Barni et al, (2017) propose a new business model, "Close To Customer" (CTC), relying on the concept of mini-factory as a production system able to move the manufacturing industry within urban environments, creating sensible added value in the furniture industry. The basic idea of CTC is designing, producing and selling the goods directly in the shopping mall.…”

Section: Distributed Manufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology enablers for the implementation of Industry 4.0 to traditional manufacturing sectors: A review

Jimeno-Morenilla

Azariadis

Molina-Carmona

et al. 2021

Computers in Industry

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The traditional manufacturing sectors (footwear, textiles and clothing, furniture and toys, among others) are based on small and medium enterprises with limited capacity on investing in modern production technologies. Although these sectors rely heavily on product customization and short manufacturing cycles, they are still not able to take full advantage of the fourth industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 surfaced to address the current challenges of shorter product life-cycles, highly customized products and stiff global competition. The new manufacturing paradigm supports the development of modular factory structures within a computerized Internet of Things environment. With Industry 4.0, rigid planning and production processes can be revolutionized. However, the computerization of manufacturing has a high degree of complexity and its implementation tends to be expensive, which goes against the reality of SMEs that power the traditional sectors. This paper reviews the main scientific-technological advances that have been developed in recent years in traditional sectors with the aim of facilitating the transition to the new industry standard.

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“…For Yusuf et al (1999), agile manufacturing refers to the integration of reconfigurable resources and best practices to efficiently reach higher levels of speed, flexibility, innovation and profitability. Mini-factories are flexible and compact manufacturing systems suited to fabricate personalized items close to customers (Barnia et al , 2017) and MFs refer to fabrication units optimized for the small-to-medium-scale manufacture of a variety of products by heavily using digital manufacturing technologies (Montes and Olleros, 2019).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local on-demand fabrication: microfactories and online manufacturing platforms

Barrera

Olleros

2020

JMTM

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PurposeThis article explores a particular on-demand fabrication unit, the microfactory (MF). It identifies and contrasts several MFs and proposes a taxonomy. This research also explores online manufacturing platforms (OMP) that complement certain MFs.Design/methodology/approachThis research implements a multiple case study (71 cases in 21 countries), triangulating data available on the web with interviews, virtual/physical tours and experiential research.FindingsThe results suggest that automation and openness are the main dimensions that differentiate the MFs. Using these dimensions, a taxonomy of MFs is created. MFs with relatively low automation and high openness tend to be innovation-driven microfactories (IDMFs). MFs with high automation and low openness levels tend to be customization-driven microfactories (CDMFs). And MFs with relatively low automation and low openness tend to be classic machine shops (MSs). There are two types of OMP: closed (COMPs) and multisided (MOMPs). MOMPs can be low-end or high-end.Practical implicationsIn a world where online platforms are becoming central to the reinvention of manufacturing, multisided online platforms and small fabricators will become strongly symbiotic.Originality/valueThis paper offers a clearer conceptualization of MFs and OMPs, which may help to better understand the reality of local on-demand fabrication. Moreover, it explores a new type of experiential research, which tries to describe and interpret firms through transactional activities. Many details of a firm that are difficult to capture via interviews and netnography can be revealed this way.

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Mini-factories for Close-to-customer Manufacturing of Customized Furniture: From Concept to Real Demo

Cited by 15 publications

References 12 publications

The Innovative Educational Approach in the Supsi Mini-Factory

The Innovative Educational Approach in the Supsi Mini-Factory

Technology enablers for the implementation of Industry 4.0 to traditional manufacturing sectors: A review

Local on-demand fabrication: microfactories and online manufacturing platforms

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