Special Sessions/Tracks

Lean Production 

Description: This track aims to deepen the academic foundations of lean production. We are looking for papers that contribute to our understanding of how to reduce waste, unevenness, and overburden along the entire value chain. Areas of interest include lean manufacturing, lean management, lean shop-floor control, lean and green, lean in services, and the role of lean in Industry 4.0. Particularly valuable is research that merges academic rigor with practical applications in industry. Case reports of practical experiences in manufacturing and comparison of manufacturing approaches are very welcome.

Organizers:

• Christoph Roser, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, christoph.roser@hs-karlsruhe.de
• Torbjorn Netland, ETH Zürich, D-MTEC, Chair of POM, tnetland@ethz.ch

Smart Production for Mass Customization

Description: Mass customization aims at turning customer heterogeneities into opportunities and meeting individual customer needs with near mass production efficiency. The current trends of Industry 4.0, digitalization, new technologies, as well as changeable, reconfigurable, and flexible production concepts have the possibility to elevate mass customization to new levels. The special session welcomes research contributions in cutting-edge research on manufacturing enabling Mass Customization, including changeable and reconfigurable manufacturing, modular production platforms, as well as how to manage variety, product families, and platforms in production. Furthermore, the special session welcomes case studies, success factors for Mass Customization manufacturing, and best practice in industry.

Organizers: 

• Ann-Louise Andersen – Department of Materials and Production, Aalborg University, Denmark.ala@mp.aau.dk
• Carin Rösiö – Department of Industrial Product Development, Design, and Production, Jönköping University, Sweden. Carinrosio@ju.se
• Kjeld Nielsen – Department of Materials and Production, Aalborg University, Denmark. kni@mp.aau.dk
• Thomas D. Brunoe – Department of Materials and Production, Aalborg University, Denmark. tdp@mp.aau.dk

Production Management in Food Supply Chains

Description: This track invites papers that discuss the processes and actions related to managing production within food supply chains. Topics include integrated expansion of private and governmental policy towards reducing environmental impacts of food supply chains.

Topics:

• National strategies, policy initiatives, and incentives
• Government regulations and standards
• Logistics in agribusiness
• Networking and partnership
• Technology transfer and innovation opportunities
• Corporative governance and sustainability
• Application of IT in food supply chains

Track Organizers: 

The Graduate Program in Production Engineering at the Paulista University-UNIP.

• Irenilza de Alencar Nääs, irenilza@gmail.com
• João Gilberto Mendes, betomendesreis@msn.com
• Oduvaldo Vendrametto, oduvaldov@uol.com.br

Sustainability and Reconfigurability of Manufacturing Systems

Description: There are two challenges for the Factories of the Future. Reconfigurability is a key issue to make manufacturing systems adaptable to a higher pace of changes in customer demands and requirements. With increase of the uncertainty of the market, FoF technologies like digitalisation, artificial intelligence, and optimization are keys to obtain more reactive production systems. Also, industries are confronted with a sustainability challenge to integrate the ecological, socio-human, and economical dimensions of industrial performance. Research trends in manufacturing research address issues like green manufacturing, energy efficiency for production systems, human-machine collaboration, and impacts of socio-human factors in production control and management.

The paper submissions from these two scientific communities, aim to open a new dialog at the convergence between reconfigurability of manufacturing systems and sustainability. Papers should come either from the area of reconfigurable manufacturing systems or the field of sustainable production systems, which would open perspectives on the complementarity or possible convergence among these two key challenges.

Topics:

• Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems
• Evolvable Assembly Systems
• Sustainability of Manufacturing Systems
• Manufacturing Systems for customized product and services
• Green manufacturing and Energy control
• Human-machine collaboration for flexible manufacturing systems
• Impacts of ergonomic factors in production planning and control
• Lifecycle Management for production systems

Track Organizers: 

• Prof. Dr. Ing.X. Boucher, Institut Fayol, IMT Mines Saint Etienne, boucher@emse.fr
• Prof. Dr.X. Delorme, Institut Fayol IMT Mines Saint Etienne, delorme@emse.fr
• Prof. Dr.Ing.Alexandre Dolgui,Dptof Automatics, Productics and Computer Science,IMT Mines Nantes, alexandre.dolgui@imt-atlantique.fr
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gunther Reinhart, iwb -Chair of Industrial Management and Assembly Technologies, Technical University of Munich, Gunther.Reinhart@igcv.fraunhofer.de

Product and Asset Life Cycle Management in Smart Factories

Description: With disruptive digital technologies, some companies face challenges and opportunities. Advanced manufacturing systems are important to help make technologies and new products more competitive, affordable, and accessible as well as fostering their economic and social impact. This track addresses aspects of product and asset life cycle management in smart factories of Industry 4.0. Topics of interest include,but are not limited to, the following.

• Digital transformation in advanced manufacturing systems
• Industrial big data analytics and cyber physical systems for product and asset lifecycle management
• Predictive maintenance strategies and technologies to increaseoperating life of production systems
• Decision-making tools for industrial assets management and the role of advanced technologies
• Zero-defect manufacturing strategies, tools, and methods towards on-line production management
• Manufacturing intelligence for innovative product-service design

 Organizers: 

• Irene Roda, Politecnico di Milano, irene.roda@polimi.it
• Damiano Arena, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, damiano.arena@epfl.ch
• Gökan May, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, gokan.may@epfl.ch

 Variety and Complexity Management in the Era of Industry 4.0 

Description: A century ago, Ford managed to invade the US market with any color the customer wants as far as it is black. This strategy does not apply anymore to so many markets with overwhelming customer demands. Companies are more and more concerned with offering higher variety with the hope to capture as many customers as possible, in B-to-B or B-to-C markets alike. However the variety goes hand in hand with increased operations complexity. This special session aims to explore the methods to deal with variety and complexity with a focus on the opportunities offered by the industry 4.0.

Organizers:  

• Khaled MEDINI, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne, khaled.medini@emse.fr
• Stefan WIESNER,BIBA – Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik, wie@biba.uni-bremen.de
• Thomas Ditlev Brunø, Aalborg Auniversity, tdp@mp.aau.dk
• Bjørn Christensen, Vestas Power Solutions, bjces@vestas.com
• Thorsten Wuest, West Virginia University, thwuest@mail.wvu.edu

Participatory Methods for Supporting the Career Choices in Industrial Engineering and Management Education

Description: Serious gaming, co-creation approaches, hackathons, role-playing workshops and other participatory methods have all proven successful in various areas of industrial engineering and management, especially in workforce training, various levels of academic education, managerial decision making, stakeholder analysis, requirement identification, and system design alternative investigation. A particular area for these participatory methods is that of persuasion: to raise awareness about difficult issues, increase understanding of complex interactions, mitigate conflicting views, align goals, and also persuade stakeholders to act together.

One of the neglected areas by extant research is how these methods are used for persuading young people to make specific career choices. The Special Session aims at collating and presenting recent research focusing on participative methods that persuade, enlighten, and encourage young people to choose a career in various areas of industrial engineering and management, including production, logistics, design and implementation.

Organizers:  

• Nick Szirbik, University of Groningen, n.b.szirbik@rug.nl
• Khaled Medini, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Etienne, Fayol Institute, khaled.medini@emse.fr

Blockchain in Supply Chain Management

Description: For a long time, the main focus of Industry 4.0 was on the digital connectivity in the shop floor. Meanwhile, the potential of cross-company digital data availability and interconnection increasingly gains more attention. From a supply chain management perspective, this means transparency both upstream and downstream.

Transaction-based event management poses a central challenge in this context, for example in enabling a seamless track & trace of raw materials or parts through to the delivery of the final products to the customer. To implement this, blockchain technology can be used as an enabler for secure data exchange and communication without a trusted intermediary. This session invites papers that address the application of blockchain technology in different phases of supply chain management.

Organizers:  

• Prof. Dr. Ing. Volker Stich, Institute for Industrial Management at RWTH Aachen University, Volker.Stich@fir.rwth-aachen.de
• Jan Reschke, Institute for Industrial Management at RWTH Aachen University, Jan.Reschke@fir.rwth-aachen.de

THE NEW FRONTIERS OF SERVICE ENGINEERING: Designing and Delivering Smart Services in The Digital Age

Description: This special session welcomes papers that offer novel research contributions on how technological innovation provides new methods and tools to review, design, develop, visualize, operationalize, manage, and evaluate smart services at a speed and level of detail unheard of before. This enables smart service designers to develop smart, integrated, robust, and flexible solutions, able to capture the needs and desires of a diverse set of customers in order to maximize value (monetary or other). Contributions may concern theoretical and empirical studies on smart service and product-service strategies and configurations, methodologies and technologies enabling smart service and product-service design and engineering.

Organizers:  

• Paolo Gaiardelli, University of Bergamo, paolo.gaiardelli@unibg.it
• Thorsten Wuest, West Virginia University, thwuest@mail.wvu.edu
• Philipp Jussen, Institute for Industrial Management (FIR) at RWTH Aachen University, Philipp.Jussen@fir.rwth-aachen.de
• Vittal Prahbu, The Pennsylvania State University,vittal.prabhu@psu.edu
• Sergio Cavalieri, University of Bergamo, sergio.cavalieri@unibg.it

Operations Management in Engineer-to-Order Manufacturing

Description: 

Engineer-To-Order (ETO) is a manufacturing approach where design and engineering activities are included in the order fulfillment process. ETO manufacturing is used when engineering specifications of products are not known in detail upon receipt of customer order, and is common in mechanical industries, construction, shipbuilding, off shore supplier industries, and other types of project-based manufacturing, industries typically facing several unique challenges as the products are often one-of-a-kind and/or highly customized. This track welcomes research contributions on operations management enabling effective ETO manufacturing, including Industry 4.0 technologies, supply chain management, lean operations, planning and control, production strategies, and product platforms.

Organizers:  

• Erlend Alfnes, Associate Professor at NTNU, erlend.alfnes@ntnu.no  (contact person)
• Martin Rudberg, Professor at Linköping University, martin.rudberg@liu.se

Smart Manufacturing with Smart Data, An SM & CPPS SIG  Session

Description: Manufacturing industry is evolving rapidly to become more complex, interconnected, smart, and geographically distributed. As a result, more complex software systems and tools are being created to support different phases of product life cycle and enhance the intelligence of decision support systems. In this context, interoperability is a major challenge for the information systems that operate in such a heterogeneous eco-system and consume and generate data with varying syntax and semantics. Consensus-based controlled vocabularies, and the more advanced technology called ontologies have proved to be valuable technologies for achieving interoperability in various domains such as biology and finance. Recently, a global community, namely Industrial Ontology Foundry (IOF), has been formed to foster the development and use of ontologies in the manufacturing domain.  IOF is in its proof-of-concept stage. In that spirit, this session invites researchers and practitioners to share practical and theoretical experiences in developing and applying industrial ontologies to manufacturing and logistics applications. The session also looks for value propositions, success stories, and use cases related to adopting and applying ontologies in the production management domain.

Organizers:

•  Serm Kulvatunyou, NIST
• Farhad Ameri, Texas State University 

Supportive Smart Services for Dynamic Smart Manufacturing Environments, An SM & CPPS SIG  Session

Description: Smart Services are an important enabler for the operation of complex Smart Manufacturing environments. At the same time, the dynamic nature of these environments involving humans, things and services requires the constant adaptation or extension of Smart Services. The objective of this session is to discuss the challenges of developing and providing suitable Supportive Smart Services for the operator of Smart Manufacturing equipment. This includes

• Humans, things and service interaction – implications for supportive smart services
• Challenges and opportunities of Big Data / real-time data for service engineering
• Influence of a dynamic environment on service development and adaption
• New stakeholder roles along the life cycle of a smart manufacturing-service environment
• Innovative business models for smart services in smart manufacturing

Organizers: 

• Stefan Wiesner, BIBA, wie@biba.uni-bremen.de
• Khaled Medini, EMSE, khaled.medini@emse.fr

The Operator 4.0 and the Internet of Things, Services and People, An SM & CPPS SIG  Session

Description: This special session aims to explore the sustainable integration of people, the Operators 4.0*, into a holistic view of the technological landscape of the factories of the (near-)future and the Industry 4.0, characterized by “smart”, but also “social” things (e.g. machines, robots, co-bots, AGVs) and services (e.g. chatbots). The special session focuses on reconciling “humans vs. machines” scenarios at the emerging cyber-physical production systems and in finding ways to have “humans + machines” working together and in support of each other to improve the means and efficiency of production. APMS researchers, engineers, and practitioners are invited to present state-of-art advances, discuss open issues and identify research directions towards the successful and socially sustainable design and engineering of the future of production and its workforce.

Topics: Anthropocentric Production Systems; Socially Sustainable Manufacturing; Human-Centric Manufacturing; Human Cyber-Physical Systems; Human-Machine Symbiosis; Human-Machine Interfaces.

*The Operator 4.0 is “a smart and skilled operator who performs not only – ‘cooperative work’ with robots – but also – ‘work aided’ by machines as and if needed – by means of human cyber-physical systems, advanced human-machine interaction technologies and adaptive automation towards “human-automation symbiosis work systems” (Romero et al., 2016).

Organizers: 

• David Romero, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, dromero@tec.mx
• Johan Stahre, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, johan.stahre@chalmers.se
• Thorsten Wuest, West Virginia University, USA, thwuest@mail.wvu.edu
• Åsa Fasth Berglund, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, asa.fasth@chalmers.se
• Dominic Gorecky, Swiss Smart Factory, Switzerland, dominic.gorecky@sipbb.ch

Other Expected Speical Sessions
WG5.7 research workshop
Disaster & humanitarian logistics
Industry session
Cyber-physical systems