Convergence Design Lab to prepare manufacturers, workers for the ‘factory of the future’

by | Oct 11, 2018

Factory of the Future and the Future of Work

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Today’s manufacturers struggle to keep pace with rapid changes in technology because of the inability to adapt and the new skills required of their workforce.  The Future of Work is at stake.

Purdue University researchers in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Indiana University will be developing new technologies alongside a platform that will allow manufacturers to realistically simulate interactions between workers, robots, and machines to prepare for the factories of just five to 10 years from now. The work is supported by a $2.5 million grant by the National Science Foundation’s Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier program, one of 10 new Big Ideas for Future Investment.

Simulating factory settings with new technologies before they are available would help manufacturers assess business success and risks, offset costs, scale efforts for training workers and stay competitive.

The work aligns with Purdue’s Giant Leaps celebration, acknowledging the university’s global advancements made in artificial intelligence, algorithms and automation as part of Purdue’s 150th anniversary. This is one of the four themes of the yearlong celebration’s Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues.

“Any time you introduce a technological advancement or a new piece of equipment, the learning curve is pretty steep until you get comfortable with the technology and how it interfaces with the human,” said Doug Mansfield, the president and chief operating officer of manufacturing at Kirby Risk, an Indiana-based private enterprise that specializes in electrical supply, wiring harness and control panel assembly, precision machining and motor repair and power transmission.

The simulation platform would involve artificial intelligence and “augmented reality,” which means that objects in the real world are “augmented,” or enhanced, by what a computer helps the user to perceive. The platform will also use the “Internet of Things” to wirelessly connect machines with humans and robots, allowing them to communicate and collaborate with one another.

“Augmented reality and the Internet of Things would allow robots to extend the mind and hands of a worker, so workers could do much more challenging tasks that robots cannot do, like repairing a compressor, with minimal training,” said Karthik Ramani, the project lead and Purdue’s Donald W. Feddersen Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering.  Simulations could be of an entire factory, warehouse or of a specific new workflow, such as simulating how robots working with humans would pick up packages and deliver them to a conveyor belt.

Continue Reading… (News Release – Purdue University)