Lihui Wang is a Chair Professor of Sustainable Manufacturing at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. His research interests are focused on cyber-physical systems, human-robot collaborations, real-time monitoring and control, predictive maintenance, adaptive and sustainable manufacturing systems. Professor Wang is actively engaged in various professional activities. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, and International Journal of Manufacturing Research, as well as the Associate Editor of International Journal of Production Research. He has published 8 books and authored in excess of 450 scientific publications. Professor Wang is a Fellow of CIRP, SME and ASME, a Board Director of North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME, and Chairman of Swedish Production Academy.

Title: Sustainable Cybernetic Manufacturing in the Era of Industry 4.0

Abstract: Cybernetic manufacturing aims for flexible and adaptive manufacturing operations locally or globally by using integrated technologies that can combine the advanced computing power with manufacturing equipment. In recent years, research on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), and Big Data has been active in such areas like transportation, smart home, robotic surgery, aviation, defence, critical infrastructure, etc. The advancements in CPS, IoT, and Big Data also affected manufacturing positively in the form of Cyber-Physical Production Systems, Industrial Internet of Things, and Big Manufacturing Data Analytics. The ambition is to largely enhance manufacturing automation and control through machine-embedded intelligence. Moreover, the advancements in Web-, Internet-, and Cloud-based systems and applications have opened up the possibility for industries to utilise the cyber workspace to conduct efficient and effective daily operations from anywhere around the clock, e.g. in cloud manufacturing environments. On the other hand, manufacturing sustainability and related directives have become unavoidable issues that future factories must address. Research works, in particular in the context of Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet, are emerging. Altogether they contribute to the realisation of Sustainable Cybernetic Manufacturing.

Américo Azevedo [PhD, University of Porto] is an Associate Professor in Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto (FEUP). He has gained large experience in the academic, industrial and consultancy environments. He teaches in the academic programmes of FEUP and PBS (Porto Business School) and in specific programmes such as EDAM (Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing) of the MIT-Portugal Program. His research and teaching focuses on operations management, business processes management and enterprise collaborative networks. He has been active in supervising PhD and M.Sc research thesis on this research areas. He is a registered professional engineer and Head of Unit at INESC TEC1. He has been author of many articles in international journals and technical publications and also active in preparing and participating in R&D projects involving industrial companies. He has been reviewer and evaluator of several international R&D Industrial projects and member of several scientific programmes committees. Responsible for leading more than 38 company based national and international R&D and consulting projects in the domain of enterprise networks and industrial and operations management. He has been responsible in several consulting assignments with industrial companies, with special emphasis in operations and industrial management as well as in designing and developing new facilities, process optimization and development of decision support and planning tools and digital transformation of make-to-order and engineer-to-order companies. Experience in several sectors/industries: machinery, semiconductors, ceramics, furniture, packaging, shoes and cork processing.

Title: Digital Twins: path for a better real-time decisions

Abstract: Throughout the past decades, many factors have stimulated the competitiveness of the manufacturing industries. The increasing product diversity, allied with ever-more demanding consumers, shaped manufacturing systems towards increased levels of complexity and size. On top of that, manufacturing systems frequently contain stochastic behaviours and changing dynamics that, in practice, induce extra sources of variability. In that context, simulation-based techniques can be used both to develop and to evaluate complex systems. In this way, aspects such as the physical configuration or operating rules of a system can be considered. With simulation, it is possible to have full control of experimental scenarios and test disparate conditions on not yet existent systems. Thus, simulation models can be used as an analytical tool to predict the effect of changes on existing systems and as a design tool to predict the performance of new systems subject to different sets of circumstances. The integration of analytical and simulation models leads to hybrid models, representing a viable option to capture the best potentialities of both techniques. Recently, the Digital Twin, as a digital representation of a real-world entity, has become very popular, appearing as one of key technologies of industry 4.0. A digital twin (sometimes also “digital shadow”) is a digital replica of real-world devices, processes or even persons. The technology draws on domains like machine learning, artificial intelligence and software analytics to provide a dynamic digital representation of its physical counterpart. The rational for adoption of digital twin approaches grounds on the idea of simulating an experimenting a production system using precise models and real-time data with the promise of increasing productivity through the optimization of physical assets, processes or systems as well as the optimization of production plans. In this talk we will present the concept and advances around digital twins in the context of production/operations systems.

Enrique Romero-Cadaval receives the Ph.D. from the Universidad de Extremadura in 2004. His active research lines are integration of renewable energies, distributed generation, smart grids and electric vehicles. In these areas, he is author of more than 200 contributions listed in the main databases and of many conference contributions and book chapters. Regarding research, he has been the main researcher of 5 national research projects, and more than 10 collaboration contracts with companies. He has also participated as researcher in 10 projects and in a national network about distributed generation, in topics related with “Smart Inverter for Distributed Energy Resources”, “Minicorner development with motor wheel in Electrical Vehicle”, “Systems for electrified mobility in the urban environment”, “Control Strategies for Isolable NanoGrids”, “Energy management system for an smart community: micro-hybrid storage system”, “Hybrid Energy Storage System for manageable photovoltaic generation facilities”, “Performance evaluation and diagnosis of photovoltaic plants”, “National Instrument hardware and software platform evaluation for designing and prototyping of motor drive algorithms and comparison with others technologies available on the market”, or “Conversion and protection solutions in power electrical system scenarios with high penetration level of distributed energy resources”. He has evaluated projects for ANEP (Spanish National Agency for Project Evaluation) and R+D project evaluator for EQA (European Quality Assurance), one of the main projects certification company. He has eventually participated in research project revision of the Czech Science Foundation, National Science Centre Poland, Colciencias (Colombia), Estonian Research Information System (ETIS) and FONDECYT (Chilean National Science and Technology Commission). He has participated as a consultant in various European projects within the Leonardo program as SOLTEC/AIRE (2011), EUVET (2013) and SYMBI (2017, INTERREG EUROPE) and as International expert in A3ES (Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education, Portugal) External Teams for evaluating Higher Education program studies. He has participated as technical expert in legal processes of some companies, related with the determination of the power evacuation capacity of the distribution grid for photovoltaic plants, or with possible patent infractions. He is the Coordinator of the Energy Group for the Intelligent Specialization (RIS3) of the Extremadura Region (Spain), member of the management council of the Energy Companies Associations of Extremadura, representing the University of Extremadura. He is CRO and Co-founder of “Smart Energy Products and Services”, Spin-off Company of the University of Extremadura. He is actually the president of the Power Electronics and Industrial Electronics Jointed Spanish Chapter of the IEEE.

Title: Integration of Photovoltaic Electric Energy Generation to Smart Grids

Abstract: The climate change mitigation, the need of reducing and rationalize the use of exhausting conventional resources and the increasing requirements of energy all over the world, has forced governments and administrations entities to increase the share of technologies that can produce electric energy from renewable resources as sun light, wind or water. In this session, it will be analysed and highlighted the trends and requirements to safely integrate these kinds of facilities into the actual electric grids, and identify how future Smart Grids could really help to achieve the objective to transit from conventional resources to the so-called green energy resources that are mainly depending on climatic condition and, as result, non-manageable. Photovoltaic Electric Energy Generation, as one of the most promising renewable technologies, will be taken as an example of how they could help not only to substitute conventional resources, but also to promote the change to a more intelligent grid using the available possibilities of their associated electronic converters and to a more sustainable and cooperative energy system by taking advantage of their distributed location. During the session, it will be also analysed the changes the grid has to face for being able to deals with the transition to be a totally green energy powered system integrating energy storage systems, operating as cluster of microgrids and changing the way in which it has been planned and operated.