An Application of HRI in Low-Cost Digital Manufacturing

Abstract

Digital Manufacturing (DM) broadly refers to applying digital information to enhance manufacturing processes, supply chains, products and services. In past work we proposed a low-cost DM architecture, supporting flexible integration of legacy robots. Here we discuss a demo of our architecture using an HRI scenario.

Monitoring on a shoestring: Low cost solutions for digital manufacturing

“…In response, the authors have been involved in an approach which was launched in 2018 to address a common concern that recent developments in digital manufacturing are unlikely to be accessible to SMEs (McFarlane & Ratchev , 2018;Schönfuß et al, 2019;Hawkridge et al, 2019, de Silva et al, 2020. The project proposes an approach to the digital transformation for small and medium sized manufacturing companies that focusses on simple, low-cost, non-industrial solutions to industrial automation and information challenges.…”

Towards a comparison of low-cost technologies for monitoring the consumption of power

“…Having solution demonstrators or pilots ready is important since they can be integrated into real manufacturing production environments while enabling early industrial assessment. Examples of demonstrators achieved with the DMS approach are the low-cost monitoring system reported in [34], the human robot monitoring system and the low-cost part tracking demonstrator reported in [35], the voice commanded digital drawing navigation or the voice commanded turntable reported in [36] as well as others detailed in [37]. Examples of industrial pilots deployed in companies are a dental manufacturer who wanted to start digitalising with a process temperature monitoring solution to improve wax production process, and help build staff confidence on digitalisation (see more at [38]), a bespoke shoemaking company who needed a job location tracking solution to track the production of each pair of orthotic footwear on the shop floor (see more at [39]) as well as the timber manufacturer who wanted a job location tracking solution to have visibility of the production status of doors across the shop floor at any one time (see more at [40]).…”

Designing Shoestring Solutions: An Approach for Designing Low-Cost Digital Solutions for Manufacturing

“…This paper considers the design of such solutions (which is also required to be simple and low in cost). This work forms part of a research program aimed at developing an approach to digital transformation which addresses a common concern that recent developments in digital manufacturing are unlikely to be accessible to SMEs [11,12,13,14]. Although this research has focused on SMEs, larger companies have indicated that there are simple practical problems within their operations where such an approach could also be beneficial as their existing digital transformation processes are overly complex and onerous for such problems.…”