The sixth session of 2024 ICIM lecture series focusing on addressing sustainable manufacturing through life cycle engineering and optimisation
On August 11, 2024, the International Coalition of Intelligent Manufacturing (ICIM) successfully held the sixth session of the "Win-win Cooperation: Intelligent Manufacturing in a Global Vision" online lecture series. The lecturer of the lecture " Address Sustainable Manufacturing through Life Cycle Engineering and Optimisation" is Professor Yuchun Xu from Aston University. His wonderful lecture has gained wide attention and attracted over 2,000 views.
Professor Yuchun Xu of Aston University
With the growing concern over global environmental issues, the manufacturing industry is facing unprecedented sustainability challenges. In this lecture, Professor Xu made an in-depth analysis on how to achieve sustainable manufacturing from both product and manufacturing system, combined with relevant cases. From the perspective of product, sustainable manufacturing not only includes the manufacturing process, but also involves the monitoring of product status, as well as the maintenance, optimization and recycling, which has a long time span. From the perspective of manufacturing, the boundaries of manufacturing systems continue to expand to include both the supply chain and the user, which makes the factors needed to be considered to advance sustainable manufacturing more complex and diverse. He said that the challenges spanned the whole life cycle of products and the entire manufacturing process, which needed to be considered and dealt with from multiple dimensions, multiple stages and multiple departments.
The essence of sustainable manufacturing is to meet the needs of product usage with the least investment, which involves the efficient use of resources and the reduction of waste from physical design and production process to energy consumption and human resources. Professor Xu emphasized that in the optimization process of product life cycle management, time, quality and cost are three factors that cannot be ignored. He pointed out that the ultimate pursuit of product life cycle optimization is to minimize the whole-life cost while delivering product quality and service level that meets customers’ requirements. This means that through efficient resource allocation and strategy selection, from product design, production, sales to after-sales service, all stages need to be carefully balanced. Manufacturers have to find the best balance point between cost, quality and time.
Life cycle optimisation
In the era of Industry 4.0, the leverage of digital technology has become one of the key approaches to promote sustainable manufacturing. Combined with his own practice, Professor Xu pointed out that through the collection and analysis of data, the whole life cycle of the product can be predicted and planned, and the optimization plan can be formulated. Through digital interconnection, the combination and interaction of dispersed information can realize more efficient automated manufacturing, reduce resource costs and error rates.
Finally, Professor Xu looked forward to the future of sustainable manufacturing. He said that the manufacturing industry will enter into circular manufacturing, where the manufacturer's responsibility will cover the entire product life cycle. It is necessary to cooperate in multiple domains and to realize green production and manufacturing based on digital technology.
At the end of the lecture, Professor Xu answered questions around the entry points for sustainable manufacturing, the iteration and optimization of algorithmic tools in sustainable manufacturing process, and possibilities for a competitive market to realize sustainable manufacturing.
Mr. Xiang Li, e-works Executive Vice President hosted the lecture and discussed with Professor Xu.
The lecture was successfully concluded. Professor Xu drilled down into the green transformation of manufacturing industry from the product life cycle perspective. The wonderful sharing gathered global wisdom and demonstrated both practical cases and technological innovation power, and also stimulated the audience's attention and enthusiasm for green manufacturing, which provided new ideas and motivation for the sustainable development of global manufacturing.
Professor Yuchun Xu of Aston University
With the growing concern over global environmental issues, the manufacturing industry is facing unprecedented sustainability challenges. In this lecture, Professor Xu made an in-depth analysis on how to achieve sustainable manufacturing from both product and manufacturing system, combined with relevant cases. From the perspective of product, sustainable manufacturing not only includes the manufacturing process, but also involves the monitoring of product status, as well as the maintenance, optimization and recycling, which has a long time span. From the perspective of manufacturing, the boundaries of manufacturing systems continue to expand to include both the supply chain and the user, which makes the factors needed to be considered to advance sustainable manufacturing more complex and diverse. He said that the challenges spanned the whole life cycle of products and the entire manufacturing process, which needed to be considered and dealt with from multiple dimensions, multiple stages and multiple departments.
The essence of sustainable manufacturing is to meet the needs of product usage with the least investment, which involves the efficient use of resources and the reduction of waste from physical design and production process to energy consumption and human resources. Professor Xu emphasized that in the optimization process of product life cycle management, time, quality and cost are three factors that cannot be ignored. He pointed out that the ultimate pursuit of product life cycle optimization is to minimize the whole-life cost while delivering product quality and service level that meets customers’ requirements. This means that through efficient resource allocation and strategy selection, from product design, production, sales to after-sales service, all stages need to be carefully balanced. Manufacturers have to find the best balance point between cost, quality and time.
Life cycle optimisation
In the era of Industry 4.0, the leverage of digital technology has become one of the key approaches to promote sustainable manufacturing. Combined with his own practice, Professor Xu pointed out that through the collection and analysis of data, the whole life cycle of the product can be predicted and planned, and the optimization plan can be formulated. Through digital interconnection, the combination and interaction of dispersed information can realize more efficient automated manufacturing, reduce resource costs and error rates.
Finally, Professor Xu looked forward to the future of sustainable manufacturing. He said that the manufacturing industry will enter into circular manufacturing, where the manufacturer's responsibility will cover the entire product life cycle. It is necessary to cooperate in multiple domains and to realize green production and manufacturing based on digital technology.
At the end of the lecture, Professor Xu answered questions around the entry points for sustainable manufacturing, the iteration and optimization of algorithmic tools in sustainable manufacturing process, and possibilities for a competitive market to realize sustainable manufacturing.
Mr. Xiang Li, e-works Executive Vice President hosted the lecture and discussed with Professor Xu.
The lecture was successfully concluded. Professor Xu drilled down into the green transformation of manufacturing industry from the product life cycle perspective. The wonderful sharing gathered global wisdom and demonstrated both practical cases and technological innovation power, and also stimulated the audience's attention and enthusiasm for green manufacturing, which provided new ideas and motivation for the sustainable development of global manufacturing.
