Affordable Space Systems Manufacturing: Intelligent Synthesis Technology, Process Planning, and Production Scheduling (original) (raw)
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2010
The Aerospace domain is one of the several domains addressed by the COIN Project. This paper reports the work done in the adoption of innovative Production Planning and Knowledge Interoperability Utility and Value-Added Services in the end-user business processes. With knowledge interoperability it is here intended to exploit at best, by using semantics-based technologies, the knowledge of enterprises cooperating in a cluster, leveraging on their complementarities, and avoiding unnecessary overlapping. With Production Planning it is here addressed the enhancement of collaboration among cluster partners in the creation of production plans and complementary activities. The work is applied to a test case in the aerospace technological district located in the Lazio region of Italy. The test case has been extensively documented with a particular focus on the description of scenario challenges and on the expected benefits coming from the adoption of COIN services. Results and business benefits are presented. A specific section is devoted to the presentation of the innovative services in which their functionalities are outlined.
Digital Availability of Product Information for Collaborative Engineering of Spacecraft
Lecture Notes in Computer Science
In this paper, we introduce a system to collect product information from manufacturers and make it available in tools that are used for concurrent design of spacecraft. The planning of a spacecraft needs experts from different disciplines, like propulsion, power, and thermal. Since these different disciplines rely on each other there is a high need for communication between them, which is often realized by a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) process and corresponding tools. We show by comparison that the product information provided by manufacturers often does not match the information needed by MBSE tools on a syntactic or semantic level. The information from manufacturers is also currently not available in machine-readable formats. Afterwards, we present a prototype of a system that makes product information from manufacturers directly available in MBSE tools, in a machine-readable way.
A Knowledge Based Collaborative Platform for the Design and Deployment of Manufacturing Systems
IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 2013
PLM systems do not provide any link to actual performance indicators, related to cost, time, and quality parameters. This paper describes a collaboration platform, based on a semantic core that expresses knowledge about Products, Processes and Resources. The platform is internet based, connecting engineers in the extended enterprise with shopfloor personnel. The concept is based both on a series of distinct components and elements comprising the knowledge base, and on a set of software agents. The latter are interfaced with a set of Computer Aided (CAx) systems and provide decision support capabilities for the design of a production line.
Dynamics of Long-Life Assets, 2017
This chapter describes the Space cluster use case using the innovative Space Tug project as an example. It provides an overview of the objectives (customer in the loop, quicker technical response) and related methods to support foreseen improvements through a dedicated toolchain. The IT infrastructure used for the demonstration is used as an enabling and demonstrative system with a focus on modelling and collaboration aspects, as outlined in Chapter "Extending the System Model", on the flow of information, and on tool infrastructure and project costs. Descriptions of the developed tools are as follows: • A web-based toolchain that includes functional analysis, discipline analysis, 3D modelling and virtual reality for project team collaboration. • A workflow manager for collaboration between different companies. • Small devices called 'probes' to ensure security and data protection in intercompany collaboration. • A configurable customer front-end to ensure that the customer remains informed.
NASA is not unique in its quest for a product development cycle that is better, faster, and cheaper. Major advances in technical information management will be required to achieve significant and obvious process improvement goals. A vision of order for the associated systems of unstructured and unconnected files and databases is the first step towards organization. This is provided by examining the basic nature of technical information, item relationships, change and knowledge processing demands to be placed on any management system that supports all aspects of data representation and exchange during the product's full propose, design, develop and deploy life cycle. An infrastructure that partitions product technical information relative to the perspectives of creation time phase, type and the cause of change provides sufficient structure. This enables maximal use of existing CAD/CAE/CAM/… software tool systems and digital library data mining capabilities. Introducing the concept of packaging technical information in a machine interpretable manner, at key life cycle deliverable and product review milestone points, provides the fastener needed for the attachment of the relevant soft computing and intelligent support capabilities discussed at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Soft Computing and reported elsewhere within this volume. It also provides the basis upon which task automation capabilities can evolve.
A Service Oriented approach for the Interoperability of Space Mission Planning Systems
The ambitious long term goal of evolving planning systems in use at the European Space Agency for Mission Operations is generating a debate on how to define a set of standardized interfaces to allow rapid and efficient construction of co-operating space systems. The current scenario sees a set of software systems that perform, at various levels, planning and scheduling tasks, with little or no standardization of interfaces and services offered, with the result that to use these systems you have to know in detail the system and how to use it. The introduction of AI technologies can simplify the problem on one side, because the use of the modelbased approach moves the complexity from the software to the model, but on the other side is turning a purely software engineering problem (the interoperability of the systems) into a Knowledge Engineering problem: how to define and standardize the objects manipulated and the services offered by these model-based systems. This paper presents a proposal for a definition of classes and levels of services to be used as basis for the implementation of a Service Oriented Architecture to support interoperability between Planning and Scheduling systems in space domains.
A web-based manufacturing service system for rapid product development
This paper proposes a novel integrated system of rapid product development based on rapid prototyping, and develops a networked manufacturing service system which offers better support for the rapid product development in small and medium sized enterprises by taking full advantage of the quickly evolving computer network and information technologies. The architecture of the networked manufacturing service system is presented. Furthermore, some of the key issues, including modelling and planning a manufacturing chain, selecting feasible collaborative manufacturers, queuing a manufacturing task, using the synchronously collaborative work environment, and constructing a suitable running platform, are described in detail. Java-enabled solution, together with web techniques, is employed for building such a networked service system. Finally, an actual example is provided illustrating the application of this service system. #
A Web-based Framework for Distributed and Collaborative Manufacturing
Collaborative Product Design and Manufacturing Methodologies and Applications
To develop a distributed and collaborative manufacturing system at an enterprise level, different domains like manufacturability evaluation, resource coordination, process planning, scheduling, fabrication, and logistics, have to be seamlessly integrated for product and process development. This integration necessitates a need to formalize, encode and share manufacturing related knowledge. Collaborative manufacturing provides a mechanism for information sharing and decision making between the various domains. Further, with the introduction of software agents, individual manufacturing elements are able to cooperate to promote collaborative manufacturing. This chapter addresses the development of a web-based framework for distributed and collaborative manufacturing.
Despite the fast development and the continuous evolution of computer-aided systems for product design, analysis and manufacturing, an unlinked gap appears between the interfaces of computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided process planning (CAPP) modules. Various CAPP systems have been built to address this problem and forward a ''passage'' to link the design phase and the planning of manufacturing processes; hence, providing precise technical instructions in the shop-floor. To support the manufacturing trends and contribute to the research efforts for the realization of precise, reliable and efficient process plans, a set of programmable support functions are presented in the form of an object-oriented software application that enable process planners to produce accurate process plans for aircraft parts and components. NOMENCLATURE API Application program interface CAD Computer aided design CAM Computer aided manufacturing CAPP Computer aided process planning ...