Smart Production & Organization

The "Industry 4.0 Readiness" project aims to create a standard framework in the sense of a matrix of terms and methods and thus to offer small and medium-sized companies the opportunity to incorporate the currently widely used term "Industry 4.0" into their own entrepreneurial thinking and actions.

The EMPATHIC (Empathic, Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly) project aims at exploring and validating new paradigms and platforms, laying the foundation for future generations of Personalized Virtual Coaches to assist elderly people living independently at and around their home. Innovative multimodal face analytics, adaptive spoken dialogue systems and natural language interfaces are part of what the project investigates, in order to help dependent aging persons and their carers. The project uses remote non-intrusive technologies to extract physiological markers of emotional states in real-time for online adaptive responses of the coach, and advance holistic modelling of behavioral, computational, physical and social aspects of a personalized expressive virtual coach. It further aims at developing causal models of coach-user interactional exchanges that engage elders in emotionally believable interactions keeping off loneliness, sustaining health status, enhancing quality of life and simplifying access to future telecare services.

In the course of the feasibility study, the entire manufacturing process should be recorded and analyzed. Processes that show potential for automation are collected and initial concepts for solutions are developed. As a result, a rough concept for the implementation of the automation is created for each automatable process. A risk analysis, a required security concept and an associated workflow are created for each process. The risk analysis includes both technical difficulties of implementation and integration into the existing manufacturing process, as well as financial risks of implementation. The safety concept considers all risks of the human-machine interface, all possible contact areas and the necessary safety technologies. A created workflow describes the integration of the possible solution into the existing processes or the redesign of these.

The DIH West aims to support SMEs in Western Austria in the process of digital transformation. Further, it aims to strengthen these companies' innovation potential by providing them with institutionalized access to the know-how of research institutions through various activities. In accordance with the needs of SMEs in Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg, the DIH West focuses on the following application areas: Industry 4.0 for manufacturing companies, and e-services for companies in the tourism, trade, and commerce industry. The activities of the DIH West concentrate on information, individual counselling, further education, thematic networking of SMEs and research institutions through working groups, and the transfer of research results into standardized services such as guidelines, modular systems, etc. These services will be accompanied by individual coaching and support measures as well as access to the relevant infrastructure of the research institutions. The DIH West consists of region-specific agencies, interest groups, and research institutions from Salzburg, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg, which contribute their respective expertise in order to support SMEs.

This scientific study is used to take stock and analyze existing operational excellence approaches in the process industry. The analysis is carried out with the help of selected companies in the process industry. This is intended to identify critical success factors for operational excellence. The focus is on the analysis of the currently existing obstacles to implementation of operational excellence approaches as well as the development of potentials for an integrative, holistic production system.

The aim of this project is the development of a holistic strategy for long-term (i) flexibility and automation of production capacities as well as (ii) data integration and networking. This should enable smaller batch sizes in particular to be produced more efficiently and orders with high traceability requirements - e.g. from the aerospace sector - to be accepted. For the long-term flexibility and automation of production capacities, concepts for flexible machine equipment with the help of collaborative robot systems are to be developed and evaluated using functional prototypes. For data integration and networking, in the course of the project (i) a project planning of customers to be advised in the long term, (ii) derived requirements for the systems, (iii) an inventory of the current systems and (iv) a project planning of the systems to be created are carried out.

The WTZ West (Knowledge Transfer Center West) has set itself the goal of intensifying and professionalizing the transfer of knowledge in the long term through joint measures, opening up potential for exploitation, deepening and expanding cooperation with business and society as a whole, pursuing transdisciplinary and innovative approaches and possible synergies to use to achieve these goals. Six universities and five technical colleges from Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Salzburg and Upper Austria form the consortium of the Knowledge Transfer Center West.

As an "innovation engine", German medium-sized companies are one of the central pillars of innovation and technological performance - and thus of the international competitiveness of German industry. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a prominent role in industrial innovation chains when it comes to bringing new technologies into industrial application. The project team, consisting of researchers from MCI, Fraunhofer ISI and Free University of Berlin, focuses on the extent and distribution of different innovation patterns of SMEs in the German manufacturing sector. Among other research goals, on the basis of the existing innovation patterns, the extent to which the different types are captured by existing instruments and programs of public funding policy in Germany and Europe are examined. It will also be evaluated, how the specific needs and challenges of the different innovation patterns can become more targeted and more efficiently in the future through tailored policy measures.

The aim of the project is to develop an automated evaluation of qualitative data using an algorithm. For the first time, qualitative data can be evaluated deterministically and in real time. For the first time, any number of qualitative data should be evaluated and analyzed in one click. As a result, a significant time saving by the researcher can be achieved and it qualitative data in representative sample sizes are analyzed. In addition, the qualitative data can be evaluated in real time. Companies can be informed about critical deviations of planned customer experiences in real time. This innovative approach represents a new product in a new and rapidly growing market.

In industry, due to increasing complexity, there is an increasing demand to integrate image processing systems into machines and systems. In most cases, standard image processing methods with object-recognizing properties are used. Basically, a system is created with sample images that can recognize the orientation or dimensions as well as edges and shapes in an image. The comparison with so-called target images is also a common method. The problem with such processes is the high susceptibility of the systems to small changes to the product. Likewise, complex structures can only be evaluated with difficulty or not at all. Another disadvantage is very high computing power in order to be able to guarantee the cycle times required for industrial plants. The objective of this project is the integration of machine learning algorithms into industrial quality control. Other areas of application of such neural networks suggest that the disadvantages of conventional image processing methods can be minimized in many applications and that there are numerous cases in which it is only possible to achieve a positive result using such a method.

The present project concept examines the potential of different collaborative robots in relation to different industrial applications such as packaging, checking, assembling etc. and deals with the development, elaboration and integration of possible applications in an industrial environment. The individual systems are examined with regard to their positioning accuracy, repeatability, handling capacity, safety and user ergonomics. Short- and medium-term potential use cases are collected as comprehensively as possible and grouped according to various criteria, such as area of application, potential benefits and necessary effort. Representative for each group, selected use cases are implemented with collaborative robots from different manufacturers in order to be able to assess the short and medium-term feasibility and necessary technical developments.

Individualized products in the dental field, such as bridges and crowns, are increasingly replacing standardized dentures. This development goes hand in hand with a change in the supply chain or production chain: Classically, these are planned by the dentist using precision impressions and then produced by external dental technicians or prosthetists using steps such as pouring plastic, plaster and pressed ceramic processes. The technicians are increasingly turning to digitizing the impressions or converting them into digital production data and - mostly externally - to have them manufactured using e.g. 5-axis machining centers or additive manufacturing (AM) processes. As a consequence, the generation of the digital production data takes place in some cases directly at the dentist, who then assigns their production directly to the contract manufacturer. For each discrete manufacturing process, 5 - 50 products, e.g. crowns, are produced at the same time in one installation space and, due to their very similar appearance, can only be assigned to individual orders (or patients or dentists) with great difficulty. Previous labeling, e.g. by numbered flags or similar, has reached its limits. They mean additional work and in some cases cannot be used at all in modern manufacturing processes. The aim of this project is the conception and prototypical implementation of a complete system including (i) feed to image processing, (ii) implementation through image processing, (iii) image processing and connection to CAD database, (iv) return and reorientation of unrecognized parts, (v) kinemetics , (vi) various gripper modules, (vii) order-related intermediate storage and (viii) removal and picking of finished orders.