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Profile measurement with boundary information plays a vital role in the detection of quality in the assembly of aviation parts. The purpose of this paper is to improve the evaluation accuracy of the aerodynamic shapes of airplanes, the profiles of large-sized parts need to be measured accurately.

In this paper, an accurate profile measurement method based on boundary reference points is proposed for the industrial stereo-vision system. Based on the boundary-reference points, the authors established a priori constraint for extracting the boundary of the measured part. Combining with the image features of background and the measured part, an image-edge compensation model is established to extract the boundary of the measured part. The critical point of a laser stripe on the edge of the measured part is extracted corresponding to the boundary constraint. Finally, as per the principle of binocular vision, the profile of the measured part is reconstructed.

Laboratory experiments validate the measurement accuracy of the proposed method which is 0.33 mm. In the analysis of results between the measured data and the theoretical model, the measuring accuracy of the proposed method was found to be significantly higher than that of the other traditional methods.

An aviation part was measured in the part-assembly shop by the proposed method, which verified the feasibility and effectiveness of this method. The research can realize the measurement of smooth surface boundary which can solve existing profile reconstruction problems for aviation parts.

According to the two-dimensional contour constraint, critical points of the laser strip sequence at the edge of measured part are extracted and the accurate profile reconstruction with the boundary is realized.

What's Happening? The industrial training boards, as organised at present, are an example of that peculiarly British trait of thinking of a good idea and then modifying it in the interests of “pragmatism” and “individual freedom” so that it becomes ineffective. As a nation we seem to believe that a collection of tactical initiatives added together equal a total strategy. They do not. As conceived, ITBs were intended to ensure an adequate supply of trained personnel at all levels of British industry, to secure an improvement in the standard of industrial training and to share the cost of training more equitably amongst firms. In other words, they were meant to make a very direct contribution to industrial efficiency and economic growth.

Vital signs displayed by organisations approaching the limits of size and complexity: a symptomology of bureaucratic breakdown ‐ I would like to tackle the problem of managing complex organisations by making a list of observations about characteristics or symptoms I believe organisations start to show when they reach a threshold where size and complexity become the basic internal causes of a decline in performance, and herald fundamental changes, such as decentralisation, fragmentation or on the other hand further centralisation.

This article is about managing industrial buyer‐supplier relations as seen from the customer perspective. Two successful examples of supplier network management are described, and the limits to broader applicability of these supply management principles discussed. Next the focus is on managing the dyadic relation. Contributions from four of the most influential groups of researchers on the subject are overviewed. Empirical findings from a case study from industry are presented, leading to a short conceptual presentation of an alternative supply management approach. The empirical contribution comes from two case studies carried out at the Danish industrial company Danfoss Drives, which produces frequency converters and is a division of the Danfoss industrial corporation. One case study is about the characteristics of a supplier network supplying aluminum components to Danfoss Drives. The other is about the evolution of one of the industrial buyer‐supplier relations in the aluminum network – between Danfoss Drives and a supplier of extruded aluminum components.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic analysis about the effects of additive manufacturing (AM) technology adoption on supply chain management (SCM) processes and SCM components in an engineer-to-order environment.

Based on two explorative case studies from the hearing systems industry, the impact of AM technology adoption on SCM processes and SCM components is investigated. General systems theory and the contingency approach serve as theoretical underpinning.

Not only the internal processes and management activities, e.g. in manufacturing and order fulfillment, of producers are affected by a changeover to AM, but also the SCM processes and components relating to the supply and demand side of a firm’s supply chain. Endogenous and AM technology-related factors are contingency factors that help to explain differing effects of AM technology adoption on SCM processes and SCM components.

It is proposed that AM’s ability to economically build custom products provides the potential to alleviate the common dilemma between product variety and scale economies.

Manufacturing firms are encouraged to consider the potential effects of AM on SCM processes and SCM components when deciding whether to adopt AM technologies in the production of industrial parts.

The research adds to the widely unexplored effects that AM technology usage in customized parts production has on SCM processes and components. Moreover, the general lack of case studies analyzing the implications of AM technology adoption from a supply chain perspective is addressed. The resulting propositions may serve as a starting point for further research on the impact of AM in engineer-to-order supply chains.

This paper reviews research on the intersection between additive manufacturing technologies (AMTs) and business models (BM). The purpose of the review is to synthesize past research for the benefit of researchers, to describe the dominant research themes and aggregated research questions and to identify research gaps in the literature.

A systematic literature review of secondary data was conducted. The 288 publications in the review appeared in peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings papers and book chapters. All publications are listed in this paper by publication year and publication source. The review also distinguishes between empirical and non-empirical studies, describes methodological approaches and categorizes the publications by unit of analysis and by theme.

Research on the intersection between AMT and BM, which has increased significantly in the last three years, reflects firms' and industries' growing interest in digital manufacturing processes. This review identifies twelve dominant themes in the literature that contribute important insights to the field. Aggregated research questions are identified in each theme. Research advances and gaps are presented. Four themes relate directly to BM: (1) BM types, (2) BM and technology, (3) BM design and processes and (4) BM value and supply chains.

This review is the first systematic literature review on the intersection between AMT and BM. As such, the review provides a guide for researchers as they explore gaps in the research and develop research questions on an aggregated level. The review also supports users of such technologies as they review their business practices and models in the so-called Digital Revolution.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the published slicing methods for additive manufacturing (AM), especially the multi-direction and non-layerwise slicing methods, which are particularly suitable for the directed energy deposition (DED) process to improve the surface quality and eliminate the usage of support structures.

In this paper, the published slicing methods are clarified into three categories: the traditional slicing methods (e.g. the basic and adaptive slicing methods) performed in the powder bed fusion (PBF) system, the multi-direction slicing methods and non-layerwise slicing methods used in DED systems. The traditional slicing methods are reviewed only briefly because a review article already exists for them, and the latter two slicing methods are reviewed comprehensively with further discussion and outlook.

A few traditional slicing approaches were developed in the literature, including basic and adaptive slicing methods. These methods are efficient and robust when they are performed in the PBF system. However, they are retarded in the DED process because costly support structures are required to sustain overhanging parts and their surface quality and contour accuracy are not satisfactory. This limitation has led to the development of various multi-direction and non-layerwise slicing methods to improve the surface quality and enable the production of overhangs with minimum supports.

An original review of the AM slicing methods is provided in this paper. For the traditional slicing methods and the multi-direction and non-layerwise slicing method, the published slicing strategies are discussed and compared. Recommendations for future slicing work are also provided.

Welding is becoming increasingly unacceptable as a manual job and this is causing an acceleration in the trend towards automation. This paper briefly reviews some recent efforts at automating welding processes, including a program in the UK by the National Engineering Laboratory and the Welding Institute, and considers the future progress and effects of automation in this field.

WHAT EFFECT is Mr Selwyn Lloyd's suspended pay‐roll tax likely to have on apprentices and other young workers? According to a remarkable statement put out by the Industrial Training Council, it could well “affect the willingness of employers to expand training arrangements for young people and do much to undermine the council's work”. While the Council's work might be undermined, we doubt whether the pay‐roll tax would make any real difference to the expansion of facilities for training young people in industry. In the short run it might make a marginal difference. In the long term it could do nothing but good. If the Chancellor has real convictions about the way an employee surcharge could lead to more effective use of the country's manpower — by more rapid introduction of automatic and labour saving devices and, concomitantly, by provision of adequate arrangements to train and retrain the skilled workers to man them — we hope he will follow those European countries which have had a pay‐roll tax for years and where the arrangements for training apprentices are much more advanced than those in Great Britain. Why should we be afraid to follow the Continental example?

THE determination of the shape and position of the various constructional elements in an aircraft must be based on principles different from those used in the case of an ordinary machine such as, for example, a lathe. In the latter case, the position of the parts in relation to each other can be given by measurements to existing plane base surfaces and centre lines. In aircraft work, on the other hand, where such base surfaces and centre lines are lacking, an attempt was made from the beginning to work with certain imaginary base planes named according to their position in the aircraft, such as datum plane, plane of symmetry, wing datum plane, and so on. This was unsatisfactory, however, and now the conception of co‐ordinates forms the basis for dimensioning.