Advancing manufacturing systems research at NAMRC 46

Research on manufacturing systems is further enriched and becomes stronger at the 46th North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC 46) at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA. Advancing manufacturing systems is more prevalent than before due to recent industrial revolution (or Industry 4.0), continuous business decentralisation and needs for better overall resource efficiency and effectiveness. Manufacturers are competing in a global, dynamic marketplace that demands excellence in quality and service, throughput, innovativeness, agility in production, short response time to changing markets, and tight profitable margins. In the 21st century, manufacturing will be gradually pushed towards a distributed environment with increasing dynamism or uncertainty. It is envisioned that Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Cloud Manufacturing, Internet of Things, and Big Data Analytics will change the way of today’s manufacturing systems and convert them to smart cybernetic manufacturing systems in the years to come. In order to win a competition, locally or globally, smartness in manufacturing systems is treated with priority with support of digital power. This leads to process digitalisation, CPS integration and smart control on factory shop floors.