Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics

The community Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics is dedicated to the challenges of competitive, sustainable manufacturing (CSM) and its implications towards engineering and logistics processes. On the one hand, global competition and, on the other hand, the rapid demographic change forces Europe to rethink their manufacturing operations. The challenge of demographic change will be addressed by innovative approaches of Ambient Assisted Working (AAW).
Free membership is open to everyone willing to contribute in order to shape the future of design and management of European Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics. The overall goal of this website is to provide valuable information about research fields defined in the community Research Topics (see the Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics list of Research Topics) as well as supporting members’ discussion and interaction.

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[edit] Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics Community Context

Currently the CSM paradigm forces manufacturing companies to a major transition. An interesting example of an innovative and very competitive industry is the automotive industry. Automotive companies face the challenge of e-mobility which will have a tremendous ground shaking impact on the industry. Consulting companies such as BCG or McKinsey already speak of a revolution. The left picture shows the VW Emden plant focusing on the VW Passat production. Whereas the right picture focuses on the production of the Toyota Prius, representing the new generation of Hybrid cars. The European manufacturing industry has to take these developments and trends into consideration and shift their focus on new production processes supporting these technologies.

The Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics community is one among several communities of the Ambient Intelligence At Work (AMI@Work) family of communities that has been launched in 2004 by the New Working Environments unit of the European Commission’s Information Society Directorate-General. The main objective of AMI@Work is to foster Information Society Technologies (IST) research to catalyze systemic innovation, in order to enable high-quality and productive person-centric and collaborative new working environments in Europe. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to link European communities of research and deployment in a cross-disciplinary manner.
The AMI@Work family of self-organizing communities links people in all 27 EU Member States (and beyond) for a European Research and innovation Area (ERA) at work. This family can be seen as a foundation to facilitate new working environments. The various communities can be seen as cross-fertilizing development organizations or transition arenas to reach for crucial systemic changes collaboratively, and to create a path to the future, together with technological and societal innovators, in order to reach the targeted systemic innovation.
The Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics community, among other communities, has the ambition to create a new comprehensive vision of CSM supported by enhanced future internet developments, Internet of Things technologies and future collaborative workspaces and environments.

[edit] Vision

By 2015, Made in Europe (MiE) industry will become the worldwide booster in harmonizing the often diverging requirements coming from Competitive and Sustainable Manufacturing (CSM). That can be traced back to the full adoption in most of its European Smart Factories (ESF) of next generation Future Internet platforms, which will allow a seamless penetration of energy efficiency and reduction of waste policies into integrated and socio-economically sustainable shop-floor and enterprise systems.

[edit] Community Mission and Goals

The Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics community is to become an attractor for significant cross-sectoral industrial and multidisciplinary stakeholders’ participation, in order to attract the most talented individuals, and aggregating marketing, servicing, design, engineering and manufacturing disciplines. The community itself is a self-organized group of individuals, with a dynamic leadership “core team” composed of those members proposing and coordinating community projects.

The mission and main goals of the community are:

• Update the vision up to 2020 for CSM, following a holistic approach that includes considerations for organization, product and service, technology, as well as people. Such a vision is to promote the development of service-oriented innovative work environments creating smart factories;
• Identify medium and long term key challenges and relevant research topics in the field of CSM, and contribute to activities of the research community, e.g. by developing visions, scenarios, RTD roadmaps, research proposals, and disseminating information;
• Assemble a critical mass (of at least more than 500 main actors throughout Europe) of people from various industry sectors. Bring together these people, e.g. leaders, experts, users, and developers into groups, especially in the area of ubiquitous engineering, and aggregate complementary competences targeting common objectives;
• Create a well-known competitive sustainable manufacturing image, recruit key players in Europe in areas of interest for the community and establish a committed core group, manage the community, support Web interactions between all the community members, and organize dedicated meetings;
• Establish connections with existing relevant communities (e.g. ESoCE-NET) and complementary networks, across the 27 EU Member States - and beyond;
• Define continuously a yearly agenda of activities for the community;
• Ambient Assisted Working: To overcome social and economic exclusion due to demographic ageing is and will be a major challenge for our society. Most of today’s working environments are still characterized by poor access for older workers to ICT products and services. Consequently, this can be seen as a barrier to the employees’ lifelong participation in their preferred working environments. Given that between now and 2025 the proportion of the population over 65 will increase from 20% to 28%, there are enormous implications for the society and economy of the future. These issues must be addressed today by fostering a new class of accessible and assistive ICT solutions in enterprise environments. The key intention of Ambient Assisted Working (AAW) is not only to support employees and workers during their daily work, but also to help integrate employees who are at risk of exclusion. The fact that information technology literacy of the ageing society is improving, offers a new major economic opportunity for the European industry.

[edit] Objectives and Impacts

The Community objectives are as follows:

• Exploration of future ambient workspaces and working relationships for the manufacturing and logistics sector to improve the life-cycle productivity and competitiveness in a global market;
• Elaboration of ubiquitous IT infrastructure, leading to an establishment of a Future Internet with a key role of European companies.
• Discussion of AAW concepts in the European manufacturing industry.

Expected impacts are to be considered from several perspectives – including People, Organization and Product:

• Workers: better manufacturing working environments (active ageing, demographic change, work life balance, safety, social interaction, creativity, learning, …);
• Users: better products and services, particularly customized and on-demand services;
• Society at Large: STEEP (Social, Technological, Economical, Environmental, Political) sustainability objectives;
• Organization: improved productivity, competitiveness, agility, collaborative networks, improved human assets, etc.;
• Products and Services: new dimensions of Quality (Life cycle performance, embedded intelligence, sustainable serviceability), increased fit for purpose.

Targeted initial sectors are: Aerospace, Automotive, Construction, and White Goods.

[edit] Key challenges and research topics in a Nutshell

The R&D domains and topics identified so far by the community are:

• Building a European CSM paradigm. A major challenge herby is, how to instantiate the need to have energy efficiency, environmental and climate low footprint, greener products and services within the MiE socio-economic context, characterized by social solidarity and sustainability as well as global economic competitiveness and yield/quality increase? A special consideration shall be given to SMEs.
• Raising awareness about CSM and influencing European Society. This means not just To perform impact creation activities (i.e. dissemination, exploitation, influence to standardization and policy making), but also to set up a complete training and formation programme (at University, High school, White and Blue Collars levels) as well as a set of awareness raising communication measures to inform and stimulate European citizens at all levels about the importance to implement now a CSM policy in Europe.
• Development of new concepts supporting Ambient Assisted Working.
• New Business Models for future product-services (access vs. ownership, etc.).

[edit] Contact Points / Leaders for Engineering, Manufacturing and logistics main topics

• Building a European CSM paradigm: Dr. rer. pol. Jens Eschenbächer (e-mail) - BIBA / Germany
• Raising awareness about CSM and influencing European Society etc.

[edit]

News

Registered members can create a news article.

• COIN Promotional Video Published
• COIN Joint Action Plan
• COIN Results: The COIN Book and the COIN Final Conference - Vienna 8-9 Nov 2011
• COIN in the Enlarged European Union - Final Event - and COIN Final Conference - Vienna 7-8-9 November 2011
• COIN Multipliers Price – The three best COIN ideas awarded on 22 June in Aachen

[edit] New Members

Welcome to the lastest 10 new members:

• Altamash Mamsa
• Elizabeth Maria Barbosa Maciel
• SOBHA GV
• kiran patil
• pankaj joshi
• Adam Yeoh
• Benzy Thomas
• Winifred Awour
• RISHAB KUMAR
• Vinay Ravi