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Distributed Information & Automation Laboratory |
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DIAL News ArchivesT Systems visit DIALJuly 26, 2005On the 26th of July, three representatives from the senior management (Dr. Stephen Verclas, Vice President; Thomas Schuh, Head of Innovation Management; Mr. Hartmut Feuchtmuller, Senior Consultant) at T Systems visited DIAL. The aim of the visit was to explore opportunities for collaboration and to discuss ongoing involvement in the Aerospace ID technologies programme. Please contact Alan Thorne for further details at ajt The Technology Partnership (TTP) visits DIALJuly 25, 2005On the 25th of July, four executives from The Technology Partnership (Neil Pollock, Dr. Aylwyn Scally, Dr. Roger Clarke, Dr. Justin Buckland) visited DIAL to investigate future collaboration in research in the area of networked sensor technologies. TTP is a leading technology consulting company in the Cambridge area. Please contact Alan Thorne for further details at ajt Alan Thorne attends EAP meeting in BarcelonaJuly 14, 2005Mr. Alan Thorne, Director of Auto-ID Labs attended the European Adoption Programme (EAP) in Barcelona on the 14th of July. This meeting was to investigate the latest RFID developments within Europe and the ongoing deployment strategies. Mr. Thorne's focus was in the tags testing forum part of the meeting. Please contact Alan Thorne for further details at ajt DIAL researcher visits CIMRUJuly 14-15th, 2005Mr. Ajith Parlikad, researcher at DIAL visited the Computer Integrated Manufacturing Research Unit (CIMRU) at the National University of Ireland, Galway to explore opportunities for collaborative research in product end-of-life decision support systems, The visit was in conjunction with the PROMISE project that both universities are involved in. Please contact Ajith Parlikad for further details at aknp2 VI Agents CEO visits DIALJuly 11, 2005Mr. Kurt Kammerer, CEO of VI Agents visited DIAL on the 11th of July to discuss ongoing involvement within the aerospace id technologies programme and other research collaboration opportunities with the centre. Please contact Alan Thorne for further details at ajt Dr. Duncan McFarlane speaks at the International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management in FranceJuly 11-13th, 2005Dr. Duncan McFarlane, head of DIAL delivered the keynote speech on the third day of PLM'05, an International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management held in Lyon, France. Dr. McFarlane talked about "Identity and Product Lifecycle Management: A role for RFID?". This international conference aim at bringing together researchers, developers, and users of PLM. The program consisted of presentations on all aspects of PLM, including product innovation and creativity, CAD tools for early design, collaborative product development, capture and resuse of design information, supply chain and product recycle management. Dr. McFarlane's presentation can be accessed here. Pratt & Whitney visits DIALJune 17th, 2005 Mr. David Loda, Manager of Innovation Strategy Group at Pratt and Whitney
visited DIAL on the 17th of June to present the work that United Technologies
Corporation (Pratt & Whitney's parent company) has been doing on networked
RFID - in both the aerospace and smart building environment. The visit
included a debrief from the Cambridge Auto-ID Lab's meetings at the Paris
Air Show, and concluded with a discussion about future collaboration between
P&W and DIAL. Please contact James Lyon for further details at jal21 The Aerospace ID Technologies Programme at the Paris Air ShowJune 15-16th, 2005 The Cambridge Auto-ID Lab's Aerospace ID Technologies team was at the
Paris Air Show and held two meetings for discussions with the programme's
Founding Members and potential new members. Click here for more information about the Aerospace ID Technologies programme. One-day seminar on "Understanding Manufacturing Operations under Stress"June 7th, 2005Understanding Manufacturing Operations under Stress - a one day seminar - was held in the impressive surroundings of Jesus College, Cambridge on Tuesday 7th June. Fifteen delegates representing industries which stretched from waste disposal management and recycling to large electrical machine manufacturing enjoyed a day of two complementary halves. Andy Shaw spoke on responsiveness of manufacturing operations in its broadest sense and Gerry Frizelle discussed the issue of complexity in manufacturing. Both workshops illustrated their topics by reference to the delegates' practical experiences and the use of games. Delegates took home copies of the two audits in the form of a simple user guide to apply back in their own companies. Please contact Andy Shaw for further details at as2 Dr. Duncan McFarlane speaks at the GS1 UK EPCglobal Conference in LondonJune 7th, 2005On the 7th of June, Dr. Duncan McFarlane, Head of DIAL gave a talk on "RFID implementation: Reducing the uncertainty" at the GS1 UK EPCglobal conference. This talk addressed issues of dealing with RFID read uncertainty in an application environment and also discussed methods for addressing the other great uncertainty: "How can I actually determine whether RFID will improve the operations of my business?" Click here to download the presentation. Dr. George Huang, University of Hongkong visits DIALJune 1st, 2005Dr. George Huang from University of Hongkong visited DIAL on the 1st of June. Dr. Huang is an Associate Professor in the department of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering. He gave a presentation about his research project which uses RFID systems for collaborative product data management and supply chain management. He spoke in length about the use of RFID-enabled kanbans in line production. Please contact Jonathan Hughes for further details at jtlh2 Seventh Auto-ID Lab appointedApril 14th, 2005During the bi-annual Research Directors meeting, held March 31st to April 1st, in Sydney, Australia, the Board of Directors announced that they have appointed a new Auto-ID Lab in Korea, to be hosted by ICU (Information and Communications University). Click here for the Auto-ID labs press release. BT Payphones CEO visits DIALApril 13th, 2005On the 13th of April, John Hendron, CEO of BT Payphone division visited DIAL to learn about the centre's research activities in RFID and Supply Chain Management. Mr. Hendron expressed particular interest in developing further research collaboration with the centre. Please contact Andy Shaw for further details at as2 Alan Thorne, Associate Director of Cambridge Auto-ID Labs speaks at the Aviation RFID Forum in Orlando.
March 29-30th, 2005
Alan Thorne, Associate Director Cambridge Auto-ID Labs presented the research programme at the Airbus and Boeing Global Aviation RFID Forum in Orlando. Both he and Andy Shaw, Cambridge Auto-ID Labs Business Manager, attended the forum and talked to end users and technology providers about the exciting Aerospace ID technologies programme and the opportunities it provides. Andy and Alan had discussions with Rolls Royce, UPS, Pratt & Whitney, British Airways. Emirates, Aviall Services, Smitts Aerospace, Hamilton Sundstrand, IBM, Intermec and the ATA amongst others. Please click here to download Alan's presentation. Microsoft researchers visit DIALMarch 15th, 2005On the 15th of March, Steven Shafer, Senior Researcher from MS Richmond, USA and Simon Holloway, Senior Architectural SE from Microsoft UK visited DIAL and Cambridge Auto-ID Labs to learn about the centre's research activities in RFID applications and middleware topics. Both researchers presented Microsoft's view of the RFID world and talked about Microsoft RFID development plans. Andy shaw gave them an overview of DIAL's research activities and Dr. Mark Harrison gave an update on the developments in the EPCIS front. The visitors were also given a tour and demo of the automation lab by Dr. James Brusey. Erasmus University explores research opportunities with DIALMarch 7th, 2005On the 7th of March, Dr. Erwin van der Laan, Asst. Prof. of Operations Management & Logistics at Erasmus University, Rotterdam visited DIAL to explore possible links for research collaboration. Dr. van der Laan specialises in Reverse Logisitcs and is a key member of the RevLog group. Ajith Parlikad and Anand Kulkarni, DIAL's researchers in the Reverse Logistics arena discussed collaboration opportunities and Alan Thorne gave him an overview of the Automation lab. Please contact Ajith Parlikad for further details at aknp2 DIAL researchers talk at Erasmus UniversityFebruary 25th, 2005On the 25th of February, Ajith Parlikad and Anand Kulkarni spoke at a seminar on "RFID in Reverse Logistics" at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Ajith Parlikad gave an overview of DIAL's activities and spoke about the role of networked RFID in product recovery management. Anand Kulkarni presented a summary of his case studies and explored the link between RFID and inventory management within reverse logistics. Both researchers had extensive discussions with the members of the RevLog research group and explored links for research collaboration between Erasmus University and DIAL. The trip to Rotterdam also included a visit to Oce's remanufacturing facility at Venlo. Oce' is one of the major manufacturers of photocopying equipment based in Netherlands. Please contact Ajith Parlikad for further details at aknp2 DIAL appoints Aerospace ID Technologies Programme Manager |
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On March 4th, two executives - Morgan Johnson, Managing Director, and Paul Dumpleton, General Manager - from MIREC Asset Management, a Europe-wide asset management firm, visited DIAL to discuss the feasibility of using RFID tags for returns management. The EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, which is due to become a UK law by Aug 2004 has lead manufacturers and retailers to explore the use of next generation product identification technologies to manage their reverse logistics channels.
Steve Hodges gave an overview of Auto ID systems and the EPC Network. Alan Thorne presented a demo highlighting the various aspects of using RFID tags on different types of products and associated issues. It was mutually agreed that a field trial should be set up in coordination with retailers selling electrical and electronic equipment to see how RFID could bring improvements to the management of returned/end-of-life products.
DIAL is organising the spring series of IfM evening workshops for local industry this year. The theme of the workshops is "New Perspectives in Product Management" and the focus is on taking the lessons gained from research and case studies out to industry as a whole.
The first workshop on responsiveness and agility, subtitled "They want it when?" was conducted on 25th February and was an enjoyable success with very active and vociferous participation from the delegates. The event was fully booked, as are the rest of the series. There are three more workshops each centering around a specific research topic. The next is on Mass Customisation (Sales said it would do what?) followed by Managing Complexity (How did we get in this mess?) and Product Lifecycle Management (But it's yours now!).
Tailored events on these themes for specific company needs are available from DIAL. Please contact: dial-enquiries@ eng.cam.ac.uk for more information.
Professor Kenneth Preiss of Ben Gurion University visited the Institute for Manufacturing and gave a lecture on Agility. Professor Preiss together with Professors Goldman and Nagel produced the influential report for the US government in 1991 entitled 21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy: An Industry Led View. This led to the establishment of the Agility Forum in the US and the best selling book Agile Competitors and Virtual Organisations: Strategies for Enriching the Customer(1995).
A video of the lecture by Professor Preiss and a hardcopy of the associated
overheads are available on loan to members of DIAL. Please contact dial-enquiries
eng.cam.ac.uk
for further details.
A new company, easyEPC Ltd, has been set up to deal with course administration, leaving Auto-ID staff free to concentrate on developing and delivering a high quality product. easyEPC Ltd has set up a mechanism to pass a percentage of revenue onto the Labs and Cambridge University, in order to support further research and development of the technology itself. There are also plans to extend easyEPC globally, with involvement from the other Auto-ID Labs where appropriate. Whether you are a business person wanting to know if your organization should adopt or an IT manager who needs to know how you implement this new technology, there is an easyEPC course to help.
James' thesis won the 2004 "Best PhD Thesis" award from the Australian Computer Science Association.
His PhD is available online from http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~jpb54.
On January 29th and 30th, members of Rockwell Automation Research center Prague visited DIAL to initiate their full membership status. Over the two days of meetings, Rockwell and DIAL summarized recent research work and shared their current research ideas. Specifically, Dr. Vladimir Marik spoke of Rockwell's recent usage of agents in manufacturing. The two research centres agreed to to collaborate in the future in the fields of Multi-Agent control, Holonic Manufacturing and Auto-ID technologies. Additionally, Rockwell agreed to donate hardware to the DIAL automation laboratory that would aid directly in the research aims.
Numerous retailers have announced their commitment to RFID tagging technology at the pallet and case level, and several field trials have been conducted at the item level. Hence, the availability of RFID technology in retail stores may occur sooner than expected and the implications of this on in-store retail processes are potentially significant. This forum focused specifically on the impact of Auto-ID technology on shelf replenishment processes in retail stores. Participants also discussed the role of Auto-ID in challenging the fundamentals of retail store operating models. Participants were also given the opportunity to observe how Auto-ID works through our lab demonstration. Participants included representatives from Tesco, Safeway, Syncra, and Information Resources.
DIAL hosted a visit for the Cambridge Branch of the BCS. Andy Shaw gave an introduction on the IfM and DIAL and Steve Hodges followed with a talk explaining the Auto-ID initiative and RFID technology. James Brusey then discussed intelligent software agents and their use in manufacturing and supply chains. The delegates were shown a short demo in the robot lab and there was a final Q&A session. A number of delegates expressed keen interest in the work of the Centre including those from Symbian and AGThames Holdings Ltd, a company that supplies fresh produce to high street supermarkets.
On the evening of 12th November 2003, DIAL held an evening workshop on 'Auto-ID Awareness', covering the background of the Auto-ID Centre, an introduction to the various technology components and a discussions of how Auto-ID can be used in industrial control and manufacturing environments, including various factors to consider when deploying Auto-ID technology. Dennis Luckett (Visiting Industrial Fellow from BT) also gave a talk on business and legislative drivers such as the WEEE directive, for which Auto-ID offers a promising solution. The evening concluded with a demonstration of our Auto-ID automation laboratory, including features from the latest phase of development, such as use of the gantry robot, product recalls and unpacking/repacking operations. Attendees included representatives from Amadeus Capital Partners, Messier-Dowty and Linx Printing Technologies.
A distinguished group of Taiwanese academics visited the Institute for Manufacturing on Thursday 30th October 2003. They had come to Cambridge to visit three key technology research centres: the Superconductivity Interdisciplinary Research Centre at the Cavendish, the Nanoscience Centre in Engineering and the Centre for Distributed Automation and Control in the Institute for Manufacturing.
Their interest in DIAL focused on the work of the Auto-ID centre and presentations were given by Peter Templeton on the Institute, Andy Shaw on DIAL and the Auto-ID research work and James Brusey on the application of Auto-ID technology to robust manufacturing systems. They also made a brief visit to the robot laboratory and saw RFID tags and readers in action. Members of the group expressed interest in possible collaborative research.
The group were:
| Professor Zone-Ching Lin |
Dean of College of Engineering, |
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology |
| Dr. Wen-Shiow Hsu |
Section Chief & Program Manager,
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National Science Council, Taiwan |
| Professor Lien-Chang Lin |
President |
National Huwei Institute of Technology |
| Po-Whei Huang |
Vice-President |
National Huwei Institute of Technology |
| Professor Wenyuh Jywe |
Dean of R & D office |
National Huwei Institute of Technology |
| Professor Han-Pang Huang |
Associate Dean of College of Engineering |
National Taiwan University |
| Professor Jao-Hwa KUANG |
Department of Mechanical and Electromechanical Engineering |
National Sun Yat-Sen University |
| Professor Cheng-Kuo Sung |
Department Head, |
National Chung Cheng University |
| Professor Yeau-Ren Jeng |
Department of Mechanical Engineering |
National Chung Cheng University |
| Professor You-Min Huang |
Department of Mechanical Engineering |
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology |
| Professor Chinghua Hung |
Department of Mechanical Engineering |
National Chiao Tung University |
| Professor Amy J. C. Trappey |
Chairman, Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management |
National Tsing Hua University |
| Professor Shang-Liang Chen |
Chairperson, Institute for Manufacturing Engineering |
National Cheng-Kung University |
The Industrial Applications of Intelligent Agents workshop, held at the Institute for Manufacturing on 22nd July, provided a stimulating environment where UK business leaders, consultants, researchers and journalists could learn about how the technology of intelligent software agents is leading a revolution in the way decentralised organisations are managed. During this one-day event, presentations were given by some of the world's leading experts in agent technology on topics ranging from how agents help organise working schedules for telecommunications engineers, through the role agents play in managing the global supply chain, to how teams of agents can control unmanned tanks on a battlefield. To compliment the breadth of these agent application domains, a key focus throughout the day was the role agents are playing in the next generation of responsive manufacturing systems (also called holonic manufacturing) where mass-customisation of products and agile production typify how goods will be made to better satisfy consumers' changing demands and the need of factories to maximise capacity. The workshop gave the delegates a rare chance to discuss their industrial problems with some of the gurus of intelligent software agents and gave the presenters opportunity to highlight their progress in this ever-advancing technology. The workshop had delegates from as far afield as Australia and the USA, and was described as useful and very interesting.
PROMISE, the 'Product Lifecycle Management and Information Tracking using Smart Embedded Systems' proposal, has successfully reached the second phase of competition for EU funding. DIAL is part of the PROMISE team and we look forward to working with the other members to achieve similar success in the forthcoming evaluation process.
The tenth Auto-ID Centre Board Meeting took place at the Dolder Grand Hotel, Zurich, with many members of DIAL both attending and giving presentations. The three-day event heralded the introduction of Auto-ID Inc., the UCC-EAN organisation charged with managing the successful implementation of the Auto-ID standard. With the Swiss summer temperature at record highs, the meeting's 250 delegates discussed the forthcoming roll-out of Auto-ID and a number of related issues at what was a very productive event.
Two 44" plasma displays have been installed in the Automation Laboratory, creating a bright, high-contrast and high-resolution electronic display area with a total diameter of seven feet. This will be used to aid presentations and demonstrations of the technology being researched and developed by the Centre for Distributed Automation and Control. Very many thanks are due to BT Exact who supplied the display hardware in order to enhance the Centre's ability to present its work to the frequent industrial visitors to the Lab.
The BT Major Business board held their Board Meeting at DIAL on the 30th April, beginning the day with a presentation from Duncan McFarlane and continuing with a demonstration in the Automation Laboratory. The demonstration was well-received, and DIAL look forward to working closely with BT in the future.
Tuesday 29th April saw a meeting of representatives from Auto-ID sponsor companies with substantial European interests at Sun Microsystems in London. The meeting was held to discuss the form and extent of future trials in Europe of the Auto-ID standards and technology, with reference to trials held in the USA and Japan. Companies represented at the meeting included BT, Tesco, CHEP, Kimberly-Clark, Manhattan Associates, Markem, Invensys, MeadWest Vaco, Ahold, Philips, Rafsec, Accenture, IBM, SAP, TagSys, Oat Systems and Sun Microsystems. Duncan McFarlane, Steve Hodges, Alan Thorne, Mark Harrison and Jonathan Hughes also attended from the Cambridge Laboratory. The meeting was very productive and clarified a number of issues regarding the scope of the trials and those to be involved in them.
On April 8th a one day workshop took place at the Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge University. The aim of the event, run by the Centre for Distributed Automation and Control was to share the results of recent research with the industrial community at large. The day was split into two halves with the morning being devoted to responsiveness of manufacturing operations and the afternoon to their complexity. Tools were described to assess both responsiveness and complexity and to identify ways to improve performance of manufacturing operations. Delegates took away draft workbooks to allow them to use the audit tools back at the workplace. Eighteen delegates attended from the following companies:
Arrow Electronics UK, Charpack Ltd, City Technology, Datong Electronics Ltd, HLA Ltd, Invensys, MTL, Nestle Purina, RM plc, Rolls-Royce plc, Stadco Ltd, and Toyota Motrsport GmbH.
Comments received on the most useful aspects of the day included:
"Tool to help prioritise which disturbances to tackle first"
"Disturbances and visualisation of capability"
"Create an understanding to apply to current role"
"Understanding what makes operations complex"
"Identifying problems"
"Dealing with bottlenecks"
"Understanding how easy it is to end up with a complex process"
There was a lot of interest from the delegates about extending the concepts and tools to the whole supply chain. This is the subject of current research on complexity and proposed research in responsiveness.
A joint event run by the Centre for Distributed Automation and Control and the Instrumentation Group, covering various aspects of wireless communication, proved to be very popular. Around 40 instrumentation industrialists learned about the operation and characteristics of various wireless standards such as IEE 802.11, Zigbee, GSM and GPRS. Particular detail was given to Bluetooth and also the emerging technology of mesh networking. Feedback from the event indicates that it was very well received.
Over a dozen industrialists from the South-East attended an evening workshop run by the Centre for Distributed Automation and Control (DIAL). The subject of discussion was a new technology being developed by DIAL in collaboration with 5 other universities worldwide and a number of industrial sponsors - a technology which will allow companies to keep a much better track of where their products are in the supply chain. The operation of this 'Auto-ID' system was explained and the use of Auto-ID in a manufacturing environment was demonstrated. Of particular interest to attendees was the Q&A session which ended the evening, in which issues of special relevance to the different companies represented were addressed.
Further information, please contact:
Centre for Distributed Automation and Control,
Institute for Manufacturing, Department of Engineering, Mill Lane, Cambridge,
CB2 1RX, UK
Telephone (+44) 1223 764306
Centre for Distributed Automation and Control
Email dial-enquirieseng.cam.ac.uk
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