The technologies, methods and systems used to produce goods are undergoing substantial change. The digital age has also arrived in the world of industrial production and appears to be radically transforming established practices. The ‘Digital Manufacturing Future Symposium 2015’, taking place on 18 February at the Kamp-Lintfort campus of Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, will focus on the digital age in the manufacturing industry.
Kleve/Kamp-Lintfort, 18 December 2014: “New manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing processes, hold the promise of a new level of flexibility in production. With this increased flexibility, it will in future be possible to manufacture not only the most complex product geometries but also fully customised goods in very small batches in a cost-effective manner,” says Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Haag. At the same time, the paradigms governing the planning and control of manufacturing are changing. Technologies for transmitter-receiver systems (such as RFID chips) enable manufactured objects to communicate with one another and to assign production orders to highly flexible machining centres locally and on an ad hoc basis. In future, a workpiece – such as a gear blank, or the carrier on which the workpiece is loaded – will use a transponder to tell the production station how it is to be machined next. Combined with increasingly flexible machine cells, this will make it economically viable to achieve a new level of product variety in the future. At the same time, production will become location-independent, as flexible machines will be able to carry out the same manufacturing tasks anywhere in the world.
Under the leadership of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Haag, Professor of Procurement and Value Chain Management, and Prof. Dr Torsten Niechoj, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the Faculty of Communication and Environment at Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences, the symposium will feature exciting and interesting discussions and presentations on the topic of ‘Technologies, Methods and Systems of the Digital Age’. Representatives from academia and industry will offer symposium participants an interdisciplinary perspective on questions such as: Is the era of centralised factory structures drawing to a close? Will consumers in future become producers of the goods they themselves demand? What role will social networks play in this production context? And what economic effects can we expect?
We would be delighted to receive your informal registration, stating your company or institution and email address, by 13 February 2015 via email at dmfs@hochschule-rhein-waal.de or by fax on 02842/90825-160.
Attendance at this symposium is free of charge for all interested parties. The symposium will take place at the Kamp-Lintfort campus of Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Friedrich-Heinrich-Allee 25, Building 4, 1st floor, Room 04 01 305.
