An advanced IoT system for assisting ubiquitous manufacturing with 3D printing

• Published in: International journal of advanced manufacturing technology Vol. 103; no. 5-8; pp. 1721 - 1733
• Main Authors: Chen, Toly, Wang, Yu-Cheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Springer London 01.08.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: 3-D printers; Algorithms; CAE) and Design; Computer-Aided Engineering (CAD; Cycle time; Engineering; Industrial and Production Engineering; Internet of Things; Mechanical Engineering; Media Management; Optimization; Original Article; Three dimensional printing; Workload; Internet of things; Ubiquitous manufacturing; 3D printing; Cycle time
• ISSN: 0268-3768; 1433-3015
• DOI: 10.1007/s00170-019-03691-5

An advanced Internet-of-things (IoT) system for assisting ubiquitous manufacturing with three-dimensional (3D) printing was designed. The system receives orders from customers on the move online and then distributes the required pieces to nearby 3D printing facilities. After the printing is completed, a freight truck visits the printing facilities sequentially to collect the printed pieces. To minimize the cycle time for delivering the order, an optimization approach that combines workload balancing and finding the shortest delivery path was proposed in this study. However, the optimization problem remained difficult; to solve this, an algorithm was developed. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology was assessed through an experiment conducted in Taichung City, Taiwan. According to the experimental results, the proposed methodology outperforms two existing methods by reducing the cycle times by an average of 33%. It also successfully balances the workloads of the 3D printing facilities, incentivizing these facilities to join the system.