Question

i. Assuming you are new engineer working in R & D division at manufacturing company which has decided to evaluate CAD/CAM system to adopt in your company in order to meet Industrial 4.0. (Select your company such plastic moulding, automotive, aerospace, marine etc). The company are required yourself to outline executive report for them to decided which suitable CAD/CAM system can be selected. Your report must discuss the suitable CAD/CAM system by referring to current trend which available can be accessed in the journals, articles, books, market/industrial report etc. You are assigned to this assignment with an individual work.

Answer 1

Hi, thanks for the question.

Before we analyze the best practices for CAD/CAM in Industry 4.0 (or Enterprise 4.0), let's first understand what Industry 4.0 is.

The industrial revolution has been around since the 1800s. The first industrial revolution or industry 1.0 was the invention of the steam engine and the usage of steam-powered machines in everyday households. The second industrial revolution or industry 2.0 came about at the beginning of the 20th century or 1900s. Since electricity had already been invented, the introduction of the production line, just-in-time practices, and lean manufacturing methods paved the way for the era.

The 20th century was the century of true inventions. The last decades of the century saw the emergence of the third industrial revolution or industry 3.0. This was marked by the invention of small scale electronic devices like the transistor and Integrated circuit (IC) chips that allowed miniaturization of devices and pave the way for automation of processes and techniques.

The 21st century is the home of industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 concerns itself with the Internet of Things (IoT) that connects manufacturing techniques which further enables systems to share information, analyze it, and use it to guide intelligent actions.

So, as industry 4.0 is the digitalization of manufacturing techniques, CAD and CAM play an ever more imperative role. In industry 4.0, cognitive technologies, robotics, artificial intelligence are given prime importance to reduce dependence on human labor. Further, additive manufacturing techniques, system integrations, and big data are the big drivers.

One of the best CAD and CAM methods to adopt in industry 4.0 is additive manufacturing. The usage of additive manufacturing allows reduction of waste, and lean-production whilst reducing costs. For small scale productions, the upfront costs of prototyping, designing, and optimizations are minimized whilst the revenues are boosted. Depending on the production volume, this can also be scaled up and turned into a usable business model hence boosting the creation of wealth and jobs in a country.

Other CAD/CAM practices that can be incorporated as part of industry 4.0 are the analysis and optimization of pre-laid systems like the usage of manual labor being replaced with automated robots hence increasing the precision and accuracy of manufacturing and reducing the dangers to human life. Applications like welding involve the production of harmful fumes, and automation of this can reduce or eliminate the exposure of humans and hence promote the digitalization of CAM techniques.

Further, using IoT, systems can be controlled remotely and incorporation of cognitive technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning will allow the machines to learn from its mistakes and evolve in its task hence becoming the best at its job. The manufacturing sector can be boosted by allowing inter-connectivity amongst systems. So, using additive manufacturing allows the company to do all that and more and even introduce new ways on how to do things as part of the industry 4.0 initiative.

With various companies introducing new software for automatization of manufacturing and designing, the industry 4.0 revolution is the age of growth and inclusiveness. It is the era when machines are finally becoming independent and intelligent at their task and allowing humans to concentrate on the real-life uses of human-machine interactions. Robotics and artificial intelligence are one of the best ways to do just this and allow the incorporation of automated machines in the design and manufacturing processes.