Open AccessFrugal manufacturing in smart factories for widespread sustainable development
Author(s) -
Balkrishna C. Rao
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
royal society open science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 51
ISSN - 2054-5703
DOI - 10.1098/rsos.210375
Subject(s) - resource efficiency , manufacturing engineering , advanced manufacturing , product (mathematics) , resource (disambiguation) , manufacturing operations , sustainable development , new product development , process (computing) , aerospace , 3d printing , computer science , engineering , business , mechanical engineering , ecology , computer network , geometry , mathematics , marketing , law , political science , biology , operating system , aerospace engineering
Manufacturing is a crucial activity of product development that feeds into and is also influenced by the design process. Any material conservation gained during manufacturing directly affects the green credentials of a product. Manufacturing waste can be contrived to approach zero through a recently developedfrugal design approach that quantifies resource conservation at all stages of development of a product engineered for frugality. Accordingly, this effort presentsfrugal manufacturing (FM), integral to thefrugal design approach , for utmost reduction of waste while aiming for good surface integrity, better properties, minimal number of processes and low cost. Other than saving on energy and hence emissions, the new concept of FM also goes beyond currentnear net shape technologies, which advocate mainly for zero wastage and suitable properties while using a narrow range of manufacturing processes. Case studies involvinghigh-speed machining ,superplastic forming andadditive manufacturing of aerospace alloys have been presented that bring out the features and benefits of FM. As such the multipronged objectives of FM should be dovetailed with those ofsmart factories for creating novel technologies that abet widespread sustainable development. Such enhancement of thesmart factories concept has been argued to support unusual applications such as the fight against pandemics including the current one involving COVID-19.