Use of an assembly digital twin to improve working integration

我研究的目的是改善人类工人互动的方式，并了解他们正在制造的部件的变化。由于我刚刚开始我的研究，这个项目的确切方向仍然是开放的。我目前的想法是以一种富有成效的方式给员工一些反馈，无论从短期还是长期来看，都能减少他们工作的可变性。我们的目标是提高装配标准，同时又不会因为完全自动化而造成成本过高和熟练劳动力的流失。这一目标是由一次CIRP会议和对吉凯恩航空公司（GKN Aerospace）旗下一家制造工厂的参观共同激发的。我将与吉凯恩航空公司合作。会议上的一位发言人强调了教育基层工人的重要性。这包括讨论诸如公差之类的话题，尽管主要集中在机器人的集成上。参观工厂让我大开眼界，因为它让我亲眼看到了当前研究和工业制造实践之间的差距。我受到启发，试图找到一种方法来弥合这一差距。正如我所提到的，我将研究向这些员工提供反馈的不同方式，提高他们对变化的理解，以及这些变化是如何相互作用和叠加的。这可以采取两种主要形式之一；概述应用于一个或几个组装场景的多种不同技术和方法，另一个是详细研究一种技术在各种组装场景中的应用。这项研究将以一种新颖的方式将产品设计、装配和公差分析的各个方面联系在一起。虽然我在这个阶段设想使用的大多数方法已经被开发出来，但我希望以一种新的方式使用它们，从中获得新的、意想不到的好处。该项目属于EPSRC制造技术研究领域，通常是工程的一个分支。它与这一领域非常吻合，因为它旨在提高组件的精度和可靠性，这是EPSRC指出的两个关键点。由于广泛的装配场景，它有可能与所有四个生产性国家的结果相结合，而互联国家的结果C5，因为它提高了装配过程的整体“智能”和互联性。如前所述，我的整个博士学位的工业合作伙伴将是吉凯恩航空。他们对这一领域的兴趣源于飞机组装的复杂性。这样的组件对非常大的部件要求非常严格的公差，这很难以经济有效的方式实现。许多零件需要重新加工，这对公司来说是一笔很大的开支。许多流程的完全自动化将减少这种错误，但初始设置成本太高，他们的高级管理层不允许。引入一种混合方法，包括装配线的全部或部分孪生，将允许更低的成本选择，同时仍然提高他们的产品质量。

The aim of my research is to improve the way in which human workers interact and understand the variations of the parts that they are making. As I am just at the beginning of my research the exact direction of this project is still open. My current thoughts are to give some feedback to a worker in a productive way that will, either in the short or long term, reduce the variability of their work. The goal being a better standard of assembly without the excessive cost and loss of skilled labour associated with fully blown automation. This goal was inspired jointly by a CIRP meeting and a visit to a manufacturing facility owned by the company that I will be working with, GKN Aerospace. One speaker during the meeting emphasised the importance of educating the workers on the floor. This included discussing topics such as tolerances although mainly focussed on the integration of robots. The facility visit was very eye-opening as it showed me first hand the gap between current research and industry manufacturing practices. I was inspired to try find a way to bridge this gap. As I mentioned, I will be looking into the different ways one can give feedback to these workers, improving their understanding of variations and how these variations interact and stack up. This could take one of two broad forms; an overview of multiple different techniques and methods as applied to one, or a few, assembly scenario(s), the other being a detailed look into the application of one technique over a variety of assembly scenarios. This research will tie together various aspects of product design, assemblies and tolerance analysis in a novel way. Although the majority of the methods that I envisage using at this stage have already been developed, I hope to use them in an new way to derive new, unexpected, benefits from them. This project falls within the EPSRC Manufacturing Technologies research area, a subsection of engineering generally. It aligns very well with this area as it aims to improve the precision and reliability of assemblies, two of the key points noted by the EPSRC. It has potential to tie into all 4 of the Productive Nation outcomes, thanks to the wide range of assembly scenarios, and the Connected Nations outcome C5 as it improves the overall 'intelligence' and interconnectedness of the assembly process. As mentioned previously, my industrial partner throughout my PhD will be GKN Aerospace. Their interest in this area stems from the complexity of aircraft assembly. Such assemblies require incredibly tight tolerances over very large parts, which is hard to achieve in a cost effective manner. Many parts need to be re-worked at a large expense to the company. Full automation of many processes would reduce this error yet the initial set-up cost of this is too large for their senior management to allow. The introduction of a hybrid method involving a full or partial twin of the assembly line would allow for a lower cost option whilst still improving the quality of their product.