5. Utilizing Data from the Production System

This is a special episode, because Maja Bärring and Daniel Nåfors are the first PhD students who have been interviewed in Digitalk Pod. Maja's research focuses on understanding the value of data brought by digital technologies in production, such as the 5G and blockchain, whereas Daniel's research focuses on supporting layout planning in factories via 3D laser scanner technology applied to virtual reality.

Daniel and Maja started by telling why they left their former thriving employer companies (Maja worked at Siemens and Daniel worked at Volvo Trucks) to become PhD students. The driving force was the possibility to understand complex phenomena and thanks to such an understanding, a contribution to innovate production systems more rapidly.

Then, Daniel and Maja illustrated the key activities of and findings from the research project which contributed to their education the most.

For Maja, the 5GEM (5G-enabled manufacturing) project was key. This project generated in SKF five pilots that demonstrate the use of advanced and mobile communication provided by the 5G network. Ericsson assisted with his telecommunications capabilities. A specific challenge was using the data in standardized and interoperable format when connecting machines, products and humans' activities in the shop floor.

For Daniel, the key project was 3D silver. The project provided the decision makers in the manufacturing industry with the technology enabled by point cloud data, 3D imaging, to facilitate layout planning with the highest accuracy possible and therefore avoiding costly mistakes.

Check out Maja's and Daniel's publications:

• Bärring, C. Lundgren, M. Åkerman, B. Johansson, J. Stahre, U. Engström, and M. Friis. "5G Enabled Manufacturing Evaluation for Data-Driven Decision-Making". Procedia CIRP 2018. Volume 72, pp. 266-271, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2018.03.169.Dsda
• Nåfors, E. Lindskog, J. Berglund, L. Gong, B. Johansson and J. Vallhagen, "Realistic virtual models for factory layout planning," 2017 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC), Las Vegas, NV, 2017, pp. 3976-3987. doi: 10.1109/WSC.2017.8248107