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The Internet is still used too rarely in the manufacturing processes
implemented by firms. And yet e-manufacturing, i.e. data sharing between
the various departments, makes it possible to increase machine productivity,
to reduce costs, and to be more reactive to fluctuating demand. At the
CNRS, the "Ingénierie de maintenance et e-maintenance"
(Maintenance engineering and e-maintenance) team led by Noureddine Zerhouni,
Professor at the LAB ("Laboratoire d’automatique de Besançon,"
the automation laboratory of Besançon), of the Communication and
Information Science and Technology Department, is studying the technical
and human consequences of e-manufacturing. It is taking part in two major
projects, one French and one European.
This team of about twenty people is specialized in e-maintenance or remote
maintenance, which is already very widespread in the sensitive world of
printing, in which printers purchased for several hundreds of thousands
of euros are continuously monitored so that they can operate 24 hours
a day. "What used to be known as 'computer-integrated manufacturing'
has changed considerably," explains Noureddine Zerhouni. "Today
the emphasis is on co-operation between sites via the Internet on virtual
reality or on augmented reality. Internet startups based solely on a financial
outlook are doing badly. But e-manufacturing, which is based on an industrial
outlook, is doing well. This is a sustainable trend."
This involves the "integrated factory" principle: the manufacturing
tools are admittedly in contact with the administrative management departments,
but they are also in contact with all the other departments of the firm
(sales, supplier relations, after-sales service, etc.) and in order to
obtain maximum efficiency by controlling quality and by monitoring manufacturing
at all levels. e-maintenance, in particular, makes it possible to reduce
industrial maintenance costs. It is proactive: it acts remotely both to
establish a diagnosis and to make a prognosis, in order to keep failure
risks under control.
In partnership with Cegelec and Schneider in particular, the LAB is taking
part in the European project Proteus, whose objective is to use communication
and information technologies in maintenance processes. Among other tools,
interactive videos are used to diagnose failures, and videoconferencing
is used to put the various players in contact with one another.
The Sympatic (decision assistance system for integrated management of
maintenance and production using communication and information technologies)
project is a French university project. Together, the LAB, and three other
laboratories–the CRAN ("Centre de recherche en automatique de
Nancy," the automation research center of Nancy), the LIFC ("Laboratoire
d'Informatique de Franche-Comté," the computer science laboratory
of Franche-Comté) and the LAG ("Laboratoire d'automatique
de Grenoble," automation laboratory of Grenoble)–are implementing
solutions for remote assessment, remote diagnosis, and remote maintenance.
Researcher
Contact:
Pr. Noureddine Zerhouni
Laboratoire d'Automatique de Besançon (LAB)
UMR CNRS 6596
25 rue Alain Savary
25000 Besançon
France
Tel: + 33 3 81 40 28 05
Fax: + 33 3 81 40 28 09
www.lab.cnrs.fr
Press contact
:
Marie-Noëlle Abat
Tel : +33 1 44 96 43 09
Fax: +33 1 44 96 49 93
e-mail : mn.abat@cnrs-dir.fr
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