Practical problem solving in manufacturing technologies

Manufacturing technologies have increased their significance in industrialized societies. However, this raises great challenges for practitioners and scholars in research, enterprises, and industries. It becomes apparent that the development of successful industrial applications may provide important benefits to all parties. Consequently, the practical problem solving will focus on new technologies, ideas, frameworks, and applications in dealing with practically successful studies of manufacturing technologies.

Practical problem solving is the processes or methods to be used for solving realistic problems in order to achieve goals. This research focus on all aspects of practical problem solving, which aims to collect successful studies regarding practical problem solving in manufacturing technologies. All of the collected papers provide novel methods and state-of-the-art techniques in this field.

The article “Short-term output power forecasting of photovoltaic systems based on the deep belief net” by Li et al. proposed a forecasting model based on deep belief nets to improve stability of power grid from photovoltaic power. The results demonstrate that the proposed deep belief net model can improve the prediction errors with rapid convergence significantly and much better than traditional methods. ¹

The paper “Manufacture of high quality chopped carbon fibers based on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation” by Liu et al. employed an entropy-weighted fuzzy evaluation method to assess the quality of chopped carbon fibers in mass production. This study obtained the optimal processing parameters through the calculation of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation in order to achieve high-quality chopped carbon fibers in mass production. ²

The paper “Automatic machining system for the refurbishment of degraded welds in piping systems” by Rovný et al. presented a design of an automatic orbital milling system intended for machining degraded welds in piping systems of power plants. The system could remove degraded dissimilar metal weld, and simultaneously prepared rapidly and flexibly the weld groove of desired geometry, without the need for customized profile cutters. This was the main contribution of the proposed design. ³

In the paper “Six sigma methodology advantages for SMEs: a case study in the plumbing industry in USA,” Takao et al. described the application of the six sigma method in a plumbing products to reduce cycle time and to increase sales for a small and medium-sized enterprise in North American. The results offer evidence of six sigma effectiveness for small and medium-sized enterprises. ⁴

The research “A dispatching method for the lots of different priorities in 450 mm semiconductor manufacturing” by Wang et al. proposed a conveyor dispatching rule to detect the dispatching of lots within different priorities and to reduce the handling delay of hot lots in 450 mm semiconductor manufacturing. The rule reduced 97.57% and 0.28% of the total average delivery variable times for hot lots and normal lots, respectively. This proves the rule could efficiently improve productivity and reduce the cycle time in 450 mm semiconductor manufacturing. ⁵

The study “Hierarchical Markov model used in the reliability assessment and management of low-voltage switchgear” by Wang et al. used Hierarchical Markov model to realize a fast analysis of system reliability of low-voltage switchgear. The results illustrated theoretical supports for management strategy, developing rational maintenance, and identifying key modules for repairable complex systems. ⁶

The paper “Effects of DRIE parameters on etching rate and surface morphology in extremely deep silicon etch process with high aspect ratio” authored by Xu et al. utilized linear regression to obtain experiential function formulas of the relationships among passivation time, etching time, etch depth, and structure width. This experience was applied as a critical structure in a gas turbine structure system with good results of achieving 12-µm-wide and 377-µm-deep (aspect ratio 31.4) trenches with sidewall angles of 89°. ⁷

In the manuscript “Optimize tool size and tool path of five-axis flank milling with bounded constraints via normal mapping,” Yu et al. established the correspondence among the design ruled surface, envelope surface, and tool axis trajectory surface to formulate the flank milling optimization of tool size and tool path. Numerical example is given to confirm the validity of the proposed method. ⁸

Finally, in “Motion process monitoring using optical flow based PCA-ICA method,” Fan et al. combined optical flow and principal component analysis followed by independent component analysis for monitoring the motion process of robotic-arm-based system. The study developed the monitoring schemes of corresponding motion process. A case study of robotic-arm-based marking system was discussed to evaluate the performance of these methods. The results demonstrated the proposed method with good capability and efficiency. ⁹

The selected papers allow readers to have an inspired idea of ongoing research in this field and motivate further work toward the development of new techniques for practical problem solving in manufacturing technologies.

Chia-Nan Wang¹and Kuei-Hu Chang²¹Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan²Department of Management Sciences, R. O. C. Military Academy, Kaohsiung, Taiwan