WGAB

Manufacturing companies still have relatively few points of contact with the circular economy. Especially, extending life time of whole products or parts via remanufacturing is an promising approach to reduce waste. However, necessary cost-efficient assessment of the condition of the individual parts is challenging and assessment procedures are technically complex (e.g., scanning and testing procedures). Furthermore, these assessment procedures are usually only available after the disassembly process has been completed. This is where conceptualization, data acquisition and simulation of remanufacturing processes can help. One major constraining aspect of remanufacturing is reducing logistic efforts, since these also have negative external effects on the environment. Thus regionalization is an additional but in the end consequential challenge for remanufacturing. This article aims to fill a gap by providing an regional remanufacturing approach, in particular the design of local ...

Adaptation of work to humans instead of humans constantly adapting to work systems and work environments has been a goal of ergonomics since the 19th century. To date, an actual adaptation of work to the specific features, conditions and requirements of individual users has so far only taken place in rudimentary form. The possibilities have now opened up by the advances of Cyber Physical Production Systems (CPPS). This enables a renewed attempt to implement the goal of adapting work systems to workers. Integration of advanced sensory skills into work systems within manufacturing allows better recognition of the work environment and the actual state of the system. Together with actuator capabilities, it enables adaptive work systems to adjust their structure and behaviour to the anthropometric and the cognitive features and requirements of the systems’ users. However, a framework that integrates the concepts of adaptivity and personalization into the work system model and work system ...