The centre is intensely focused on reaching implementation by combining research challenges with industrial usefulness. Whilst we work on challenging research questions, we also strive for beneficial solutions to make our research useful for the industry.
Implementation cases
We take pride in the fact that we have been able to show that research results with a high level of scientific excellence also have been possible to implement in industry. Welcome to take part of some examples of what we have implemented in recent years.
1. GKN Aerospace Engine Systems: Functional Architecture Evaluation
Research theme: Platform-based Development
Industrial need
GKN Aerospace and Chalmers are two of some 35 partners within the European aerospace and PLM SW industries engaged in the EU project TOICA. The TOICA consortium needs new methods and IT tools to conduct collaborative novel aircraft architecture design.
2. Volvo Group Trucks Technology: PDM Configurator
Research theme: Platform-based Development
Industrial need
Product variants are described with configuration rules stored in in-house developed Product Data Management (PDM) systems. The development process for configuration rules has been time-consuming and error-prone, as the configuration rules previously have required complicated manual computations. Volvo GTT and others have expressed a need to find automated alternatives.
3. Atlas Copco: Geometry Assurance Process
Research theme: Smart Assembly
Industrial need
For the business area Atlas Copco Rock Drills, a major problem has been to secure the geometrical quality and assembleability. The production is characterized by fairly low volumes and a large number of unique variants. When the project started, no general, documented working procedure for geometry assurance existed. However, some basic design and assembly concepts were used/reused in many product variants. For Atlas Copco, the purpose of the project was to understand the individual steps in their own product realization process, identify the critical tasks and define a general process for geometry assurance that could be adapted to a wide range of products.
4. Volvo Car Group: Line Balancing and Path Planning
Research theme: Smart Assembly
Industrial need
Complex assembled products such as an automotive car body consists of about 300 sheet metal parts joined by up to 4000 spot welds. Sheet metal assembly is indeed investment intense and in the body factory, there are welding lines with several hundreds of robots. The balancing of welds has a significant influence on achievable production rate and equipment utilization. Robot line balancing is a complex problem, where each weld is to be assigned to a specific station and robot, such that line cycle time is minimized. Industrial robot line balancing has been manually conducted in computer aided engineering (CAE)-tools based on experience and trial and error rather than mathematical methods.
5. Volvo Car Group: Inspection Preparation & OLP for Scanning
Research theme: Smart Assembly
Industrial need
Fast and efficient inspection is important both for securing geometrical quality and cutting lead time in the plant. Within Wingquist Laboratory one research group is focusing on geometry assurance and one group is focusing on geometry and motion planning. During Stage 2, these two research groups collaborated to develop methods and algorithms for inspection planning for efficient geometry inspection and offline programing (OLP). The solution resulted in approximately 25% faster programs for coordinate measure machines (CMMs) and up to 90% shortened offline programing time for creating the programs. The result was implemented at Volvo Cars based on the software packages RD&T and IPS.
6. Volvo Car Group: Virtual Commissioning Including PLC
Research Theme: Smart Assembly
Industrial need
Volvo Car Group has together with Wingquist Laboratory identified the need of a completely integrated work chain from virtual preparation, including automatically generated PLC code, to virtual and physical commissioning. Having such an integrated work chain, involving software tools for optimization and verification, achieves sustainable production facilities which are adaptable to future requirements on flexibility, availability, product variety, and human safety.
Software for demonstration and use
In the centre, two commercial software packages are being used and developed. These software packages are also used by some of the industrial partners and serve as a very efficient way for fast implementation of research results. Another two software tools are under development and in progress of being commercialized.
Scientific impact
The centre involves around 80 researchers who continuously push the state of the art forward and strengthen research in virtual product realization. Traditionally, scientific impact reflects both a researcher's number of publications and number of citations per publication. Researchers in the centre have published over 770 peer reviewed publications (a constantly increasing number).
To provide you with a widened horizon of the centre impact, we have chosen to list a few important activities that belong to the academic community. A membership in a scientific organization, as well as being invited as key note speaker or even receiving the trust to host a scientific conference show a level of recognition in the community.
Publications
Explore the list of publications from each research group and/or research theme leader. You can also find our work in these prominent journals:
- IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
- IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
- Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering
- Journal of Engineering Design
- Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering (ASME)
- Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology (CIRP)
- Journal of Manufacturing Systems
Scientific organizations
The centre finds it important to support scientific organizations for knowledge sharing, collaboration and global technology advancement. Our researchers are either fellows or members of these organizations:
- ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
- CIRP (The International Academy for Production Engineering)
- Design Society
- IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
- IVA (The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences)
Conferences
Wingquist Laboratory has been either host or active sponsor of the following international scientific conferences:
- CIRP CAT 2016 – 14th Conference on Computer Aided Tolerancing
- CIRP CATS 2016 – 6th Conference on Assembly Technologies and Systems
- CASE 2015 – IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering
- NordDesign 2010
- NordPLM 2009
- WODES 2008 – 9th International Workshop on Discrete Event Systems