Professor Kai Cheng

Chair in Manufacturing Systems
Brunel University, London


Multiscale sustainable manufacturing: the industrial-feasible approach and its implementation and application perspectives

Abstract:

The presentation aims to explore the generic nature and fundamental issues in sustainable manufacturing associated with the tooling - machine/process - shopfloor - factory - manufacturing supply chains, to achieve the comprehensive and scientific understanding of sustainable manufacturing in a multiscale and multi-dimensional context. Furthermore, the industrial feasible approach towards multiscale sustainable manufacturing is presented using the following five delicate application exemplars with their implementation and application perspectives, including:

(1) Design of internally cooled smart cutting tools, which can be employed for contamination-free machining and "dry" cutting, and thus likely lead to environmentally-friendly machining processes.

(2) Development of the ERWC (energy-resource-waste-carbon footprint) approach to quantitative analysis of energy consumption and carbon footprint of CNC milling machines, its ultimate goal is to implement ERWC-based algorithms onto CNC controllers and lead to development of next generation Eco-CNC machine tools operating in a sustainable manufacturing manner.

(3) Further development of the ERWC approach to quantitative analysis of energy consumption and carbon footprint at Automotive paint-shop, and the associated shop-floor processes mapping and optimization.

(4) Development of the energy management system for automotive manufacturing factories, industrial feasible real-time decision makings are the essential research focus by likely applying advanced modeling and big data techniques. The correlation analysis on quality, productivity and energy consumption in a multi-dimensional manner and the associated complexity impose scientific challenge while in manufacturing terms.

(5) Investigation on Point-of-Use (POU) manufacturing systems with application to food industry, the research and development is carried out in close collaboration with industrial companies, particularly on design of POU systems, their use in food manufacturing in light of geographically distributed manufacturing supply chains, and the new business model.

The presentation concludes with a further discussion on the potential, applications and challenges of the sustainable manufacturing approaches in broad manufacturing industries.


Martin Anda

Biography:

Professor Kai Cheng was appointed as Chair Professor in Manufacturing Systems and Head of Advanced Manufacturing & Enterprise Engineering (AMEE) Department at Brunel University on 1 May 2006. Professor Cheng has been enjoying his teaching and professional life in the broad area of manufacturing engineering. He is the European editor of the International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology and a member of the editorial board at other three leading international journals in the field. He is a member of the UK COMEH (Consortium of Manufacturing Engineering Heads) Committee (2001-present), and a member of the IMechE Academic Standards Committee/Panel (2008-present).

Over the last decade or so, Professor Cheng has developed close academic and research collaborations with a number of leading institutions/universities and industrial companies particularly in the USA, Germany, Japan, Korea, Italy, France, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada, China and Hong Kong. In the past four years, Professor Cheng was invited to give keynote speeches at some leading international conferences organized by the ASME, IEEE, IET, IMechE, CSME and KSMTE respectively. In June 2016, he received the BOSS Award from ASME for his contribution at ASME Academic and Research activities. Professor Cheng has published over 200 papers in learned international journals and refereed conferences, authored/edited 6 books and contributed 2 book chapters. Professor Cheng became a Charted Engineer in 2000 and a Fellow of the IMechE and IET in 2006 and 2004 respectively. Professor Cheng was also honored as the visiting professor at Harbin Institute of Technology since September 2010.




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