Opportunities & Challenges for the Intelligent Factory

CCAM continued its Research Day program with Automation Research Day on February 6, 2019. Approximately 70 attendees participated in a day that included speakers from industry, academia and government sharing their vision for the Intelligent Factory and how edge computing will play a role.

Nigel Pearce, Director for Digital Manufacturing for Rolls-Royce plc., kicked off the day with a presentation on Rolls-Royce’s vision for the smart factory. He shared challenges with interconnectivity across the ISA95 Hierarchy levels and a futuristic view of how the Rolls-Royce supply chain could look using digital innovations.

Industry speakers also included Roger Hart, U.S. R&D Manager for Siemens Digital Factory – Motion Control, who spoke on the many possibilities that IPCs bring to combine cloud computing with edge computing, and Dr. Robert Yancey, Director of Manufacturing Business Strategy for Autodesk, who spoke about trends and opportunities with configurable micro factories.

Addressing issues of trust in AI/ML systems, Dr. Milos Manic from Virginia Commonwealth University discussed the challenges related to machine trusting humans and humans trusting machine decisions in the context of the intelligent factory.

Dr. Bruce Kramer from NSF presented on the multiple opportunities, challenges, and limitations that are present using data in current design to manufacturing and process control.

CCAM’s Matt Stremler, Research Manager for Adaptive Automation and Researcher Dr. Tim Bakker provided an overview of CCAM research in measurement and edge compute for the intelligent factory. Their session was followed by a closed sessions for members-only, which involved a deeper dive into CCAM capabilities and member needs.

“CCAM’s Research Day events continue to draw compelling speakers on topics that are relevant to CCAM’s members and the manufacturing community,” says CCAM Chief Technology Officer, Jamie Camelio.

“Solutions for smart manufacturing and the intelligent factory are going from theory to implementation in the blink of an eye and companies are doing their best to make smart choices. These research days allow our network to add new information and resources to their toolkits.”

A highlight of the event was demonstrations of CCAM capability in areas including adaptive robotic finishing, tele-operated robotics, computer vision for automated image analysis, and multi-modal monitoring for additive manufacturing.

Agenda

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