Bath Engineering Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre

1. Bath Engineering Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre Overview

2. Introduction to the E-IMRC • Established in 2001 as part of a joint IMRC with the University’s School of Management. • Funding (Engineering) £3.9 million over 5 years. • Origins in the Bath Engineering Design Centre and in leading-edge research in manufacturing processes and systems and machine design. • Located in the recently completed CPTMC building. • Facilities include a virtual-reality suite, video conferencing and rapid prototyping systems • 11 members of Academic Staff • 22 PhD students and 19 Research Officers

3. The Centre’s Research Focus • Research context: • Complex products and processes • Globally distributed design and manufacture • Move from physical prototypes to simulation-based engineering • Movement towards sustainable engineering. • The key importance of knowledge management. • The Bath Engineering IMRC’s mission is to develop tools, methods and knowledge, underpinned by appropriate theory and fundamental research, to support engineering enterprises in these new circumstances.

4. IMRC Themes The research programme is divided into three complementary themes: Design Technologies THEME 3 Design Information & Knowledge THEME 2 Manufacturing Processes & Systems THEME 1

5. The Thrust of Research Activities • Creation of tools and methods, characterised by support for engineering design, manufacturing systems design, reverse engineering and information management. • Research on the development of specific knowledge characterised by “design for X” e.g. design for changeover, design for remanufacturing, design for intrinsic safety. • Development of analytical engineering techniques and simulation capabilities in a number of areas characterised by machine-material interaction – for example in packaging, forming and electroplating.

6. Portfolio Balance Long-term BATH ENGINEERING IMRC DESIGN INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES & SYSTEMS DESIGN TECHNOLOGIES Short-term CSA = volume of work

7. Future Direction BATH ENGINEERING IMRC BEYOND 2004 GRAND CHALLENGE - THROUGH LIFE INFORMATION BATH ENGINEERING IMRC 04 DESIGN INFORMATION & KNOWLEDGE DESIGN MANUFACTURE IN-SERVICE NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTION PROCESS / FULL LIFE CYCLE • CREATION OF: • Supportive Tools • Modelling Tools • Design Methodologies • New Processes • FOCUSING ON: • Design For X • Machine-Material Interaction • Flexibility • Subsystem interface

8. Grand Challenge – Product-Service Systems

9. Information Push Technologies in Design DELIVERY (or AUTONOMOUS RETRIEVAL) SYSTEMS • 3 main elements to the model: • Representation of information needs (Profile): • Information set or stream (content): • Profile-content unification mechanism: • Generic Strategies: • Pushing historical items of information to a user that become relevant to the user’s current activity focus • Pushing newly created items of information in accordance with the predefined profiles of the user. FILTERING SYSTEMS

10. Design Transaction Monitoring

11. Remanufacturing, Business and the Environment Remanufacturing concept & significance • Integrates waste in production cycle to generate revenue, and limit landfilling, pollution, energy and other resource. Recycle Remanufacturing Re-use (inc. repair, reconditioning) Raw material Manufacturer / Remanufacturer User Primary producer Disposal Conventional manufacturing Earth Earth Earth

12. Document Decomposition Theme A: Document Structures & Decomposition Schemes Theme B: Engineers’ Exploration Behaviour & Document Use Patterns Theme C: Computational Methods & Mark-up Languages

13. Information Access Research Continuum None None Medium Plain text Text plus (progressively more complex) structure (e.g. styles, indexing, classification, &etc)) Document tagged using, e.g. XML RDF & OWL-marked up documents Reasoning paradigms Semantic Content no meaning representation Limited meaning representation None Some Free text search Advanced free-text search (synonym ID, more like this) Browsing classification hierarchies Waypoint-like browsing of hierarchies Semantic Web (marked-up documents, ontologies) Search paradigms Inference Support No inference Manualinference Automaticinference High Document Structures & Information Use Patterns

14. Design Technology: Machine Modelling • Machine/system modelling • Product modelling • Human modelling • Interaction modelling

15. Two main IMRC funded projects • IMPACT – machine-material interaction • OBSERVER – cervical smear analysis

16. Related projects DEFRA and FPF funded projects • “YOGHURT” - modelling of yoghurt properties and manufacture • “COFFEE” - modelling and evaluation of food processing equipment • “ARCHAPS” - confectionary handling systems

17. Related projects • “VIXION” - use of X-ray techniques for inspection • “MIXED” - surface modelling for use with product design and RP systems

18. Current Projects – Manufacturing Systems • Design for Changeover (DFC) SWMAS, Boothroyd and Dewhurst, Erlson, Cooper Avon, Clares, SUIKO WCS, Renishaw • Builds on research embeddedin a leading book • Several new collaboratorshave been secured includingDaimler-Chrysler of Germany • Professor Winston Knight from the University of Rhode Island USA and a Director of Boothroyd and Dehurst DFMA Ltd, has made an input as a visiting professor/collaborator • A DFC index tool is being developed for machine design

19. Current Projects – Manufacturing Processes • Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) process: Corus, Dyson, Renishaw, Delcam, Aga The objective is to develop and model this new sheet metal, rapid prototyping technique aimed at producing complex sheet metal components without the use of dies. Four visiting researchers have made an input to the project An international ISF group has been formed with members from 6 countries (Canada, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Japan and the UK) Bath organised an international group meeting in November 2004, that was partially funded by EPSRC. The group is to co-author a key note paper in the Annals of CIRP 2005. The researcher is to have an extended research visit to the group in Italy.