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The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of a platform-based project execution in the industrialised construction sector, with a focus on systematically balancing cost and value. Offering custom-tailored buildings at reasonable costs has been a growing concern for many construction companies. A promising approach adapted by operations management and design theory regards individual building projects as the adjustment and recombination of components and processes from a set of predefined platforms, while configuration systems assure feasible building solutions.

After adapting some of the underlying assertions of platform design to the engineer-to-order (ETO) situation in construction, the practical implications are evaluated on a case study of a precast manufacturer using high performance concrete.

Based on empirical findings from three distinct platform strategies, this research highlights key aspects of adapting platform-based developed theory to industrialised construction. Building projects use different layers of product, process and logistics platforms to form the right cost – value ratio for the target market application, while modelling methods map structural platform characteristics so as to balance commonality and distinctiveness.

This paper proposes a general theory of platform-based development and execution in the industrialised construction sector, which goes beyond concurrent approaches of standardising and systemising buildings projects. It adapts and extends established frameworks for platform development to the ETO situation in construction and empirically validates their cost and value effects.

The earth’s carrying capacity cannot withstand the pace of consumption resulting from current economic models, mainly the linear economy (LE) built on a throwaway culture. In the last few decades, the concept of a circular economy (CE), aiming to design waste out of the economy and mimic ecosystems, emerged as a strong alternative to LE. Being at the heart of the economic landscape, supply chains (SCs) need to respond to the necessary shift to CE. In so doing, the planning and execution of circular supply chains (CSCs) require a broader comprehension of CE and more sophisticated and large-scale analytical decision models. This chapter surveys extant literature on available best practices and quantitative models for sustainable supply chains (SSCs) and offers a new definition of CSC. Mapping on the knowledge extracted from this classification, potential gaps and strengths in the literature are identified. Key research papers on the “closed-loop” and “open-loop” ends of CSCs are highlighted. Challenges in developing CSC performance indicators and prescriptive models are emphasized.

In the construction industry, it has proven difficult to implement and realize innovation efforts, for example in the development of industrialized construction and use of platform concepts. Thus, the purpose of this study is to characterize the innovation diffusion process in the social system of a large Swedish contractor company. Specifically, the diffusion of three innovative industrialized house-building (IHB) platforms and factors affecting their adoption and implementation (particularly effects of their perceived radicality in relation to the company’s decentralized characteristics) are identified and discussed.

A case study approach was applied, using empirical material including semi-structured interviews and archival records (research reports from earlier studies at different points in time related to each innovation and annual corporate reports). The material was analyzed using Rogers’ (2003) five-stage innovation process model, acknowledging the importance of social systems’ structures.

Structural characteristics of the social system strongly affect innovation diffusion. In subsystems that had not been involved in initiation of the innovations, they were regarded as radical, which hindered their adoption and implementation.

This study builds upon the recent findings that successful innovation implementation depends on a range of contingencies in the construction context. Although the diffusion of the innovations per se has been traced over a ten-year period, generalizability is limited because the results come from one construction company.

Contractors have invested substantially in the development of industrialized construction and use of platform concepts, but less in their implementation, so they have obtained little gain. How innovations are perceived and implemented in different subsystems affects the success of their implementation in the overarching social system.

This study adheres to previous calls for more research on firm level in the complex social system of construction companies by adopting a ten-year perspective on the diffusion of innovation at a large contractor addressing in particular the impact of the innovations perceived radicality in relation to the decentralized characteristics of the company.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a calibration method developed to improve the accuracy of a six degrees-of-freedom medical robot. The proposed calibration approach aims to enhance the robot’s accuracy in a specific target workspace. A comparison of five observability indices is also done to choose the most appropriate calibration robot configurations.

The calibration method is based on the forward kinematic approach, which uses a nonlinear optimization model. The used experimental data are 84 end-effector positions, which are measured using a laser tracker. The calibration configurations are chosen through an observability analysis, while the validation after calibration is carried out in 336 positions within the target workspace.

Simulations allowed finding the most appropriate observability index for choosing the optimal calibration configurations. They also showed the ability of our calibration model to identify most of the considered robot’s parameters, despite measurement errors. Experimental tests confirmed the simulation findings and showed that the robot’s mean position error is reduced from 3.992 mm before calibration to 0.387 mm after, and the maximum error is reduced from 5.957 to 0.851 mm.

This paper presents a calibration method which makes it possible to accurately identify the kinematic errors for a novel medical robot. In addition, this paper presents a comparison between the five observability indices proposed in the literature. The proposed method might be applied to any industrial or medical robot similar to the robot studied in this paper.

The purpose of this research is to support the customization ability for industrial house building companies striving to offer individualized products but with a strategy which includes a production facility. This is accomplished by analyzing the as-is state in terms of existing engineering assets and by proposing a to-be state using the design platform and product lifecycle management (PLM) support.

This study is based on design research methodology and collected data are in-depth interviews, document reviews and workshops and method development. The theoretical baseline is product platforms and the design platform.

The analysis showed that despite use of a platform, inherent assets are disorganized. Still, the identified object-based engineering assets were possible to include in a conceptual proposal for better management, both in the process and product view, using an asset relationship matrix and a PLM system.

The results should be applicable for industrial house building and off-site construction companies and offers an approach to identify and manage their assets and platforms which are crucial to stay competitive.

Previous research on design platforms has focused on engineer-to-order companies within the mechanical industry. The contribution of this paper lies in the application and support of the design platform for industrial house building and the introduction of PLM system support.

Research concerned with standardization of the construction process has generally considered the challenges from only rational and instrumental perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to foreground a social perspective of this challenge. Specifically, the work of construction site managers is explored through a professional work lens in order to emphasize significant misalignments with the principles of standardized production in the construction industry.

Data are drawn from a longitudinal (2014–ongoing) case study of site managers’ work in a large Swedish construction company. The research design is characterized by an explorative approach, altogether consisting of 44 in-depth interviews at the site manager level (28) and at other managerial levels (16). All the interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed particularly to highlight two contrasting dominant discourses: “standardized construction production” and “site manager work.”

The findings show that site manager’s work is enmeshed with a particular type of professional expertise and identity that is ideologically crafted around a proclivity for free and independent work. It is outlined in detail how these social dimensions of work are enacted to form an ongoing (and successful) resistance to organizational initiatives that are based on principles of standardization.

This study improves our understanding of an unresolved social challenge that impedes the transformation toward more standardized construction production. It adds new perspectives and value to current research by reminding that (and how) significant changes in production processes also seriously implicate professional work.

Articulated robots are widely used in industrial applications owing to their high repeatability accuracy. In terms of new applications such as robot-based inspection systems, the limitation is a lack of pose accuracy. Mostly, robot calibration approaches are used for the improvement of the pose accuracy. Such approaches however require a profound understanding of the determining effects. This paper aims to provide a non-destructive analysis method for the identification and characterisation of non-geometric accuracy effects in relation to the kinematic structure for the purpose of an accuracy enhancement.

The analysis is realised by a non-destructive method for rotational, uncoupled robot axes with the use of a 3D lasertracker. For each robot axis, the lasertracker position data for multiple reflectors are merged with the joint angles given by the robot controller. Based on this, the joint characteristics are determined. Furthermore, the influence of the kinematic structure is investigated.

This paper analyses the influence of the kinematic structure and non-geometric effects on the pose accuracy of standard articulated robots. The provided method is shown for two different industrial robots and presented effects incorporate tilting of the robot, torsional joint stiffness, hysteresis, influence of counter balance systems, as well as wear and damage.

Based on these results, an improved robot model for a better match between the mathematical description and the real robot system can be achieved by characterising non-geometric effects. In addition, wear and damages can be identified without a disassembly of the system.

The presented method for the analysis of non-geometric effects can be used in general for rotational, uncoupled robot axes. Furthermore, the investigated accuracy influencing effects can be taken into account to realise high-accuracy applications.

This paper aims to design a novel jaw gripper with human-sized anthropomorphic features to be suitable for precise in-hand posture transitions, such as twisting and re-positioning. The growing demand from traditional high-mix low-volume and new massive customized manufacturing industry requires the robot with configurability and flexibility. In the electronic manufacturing industry particularly, the design of the robotic hand with sufficient dexterity and configuration is important for the robot to accomplish the assembly task reliably and robustly. It is important for the robot to be able to grasp and manipulate a large number of assembly parts or tools.

In this research, a novel jaw-like gripper with human-sized anthropomorphic features is designed for online in-hand precise positioning and twisting. It retains the simplicity feature of traditional industrial grippers and dexterity features of dexterous robotic hands.

The gripper is able to apply suitable gripping force on assembly parts and performs reliable twisting movement within limited time to meet the industrial requirements. Manipulating several cylindrical assembly parts by robot, as an experimental case in this paper, is studied to evaluate its performance. The effectiveness of proposed gripper design and mechanical analysis is proved by the simulation and experimental results.

The main originality of this research is that a novel jaw gripper with human-sized anthropomorphic features is designed to be suitable for precise in-hand posture transitions, such as twisting and re-positioning. With this gripper, the robotic system will be sufficiently flexible to deal with various assembly tasks.

Product configurators are expert systems that support product customization by defining how predefined entities and their properties may be combined. Developers of configuration systems act as designers, although they do not often recognize that they are performing as such. Moreover, exploring solution spaces is typically not integral to configuration projects, as this task is typically perceived as mapping existing knowledge to the configurator. This article argues that developing configurators may be understood by distinguishing between the problem and solution spaces using design thinking (DT).

A multiple-case-study approach with four configuration projects is adopted to study two projects involving DT and compare them to two similar projects not involving DT. Data collection depended on multiple data sources via workshops and semi-structured interviews.

First, DT methods and concept–knowledge (C-K) theory are integrated into configuration projects. Second, the application of DT during configurator development is presented through workshops and interviews, which demonstrates the benefits of DT in overcoming existing challenges.

The case studies demonstrate the successful implementation of DT in developing configurators. However, a limited number of cases in only one company limits the generalizability of the results.

The framework's individual steps create a structured approach to supporting industrial companies with a toolbox of DT techniques and methods for configuration projects.

The results show that the application of DT to configuration projects can improve user motivation, stakeholder satisfaction and knowledge acquisition.

Most studies on Sentiment Analysis are performed in English. However, as the third most spoken language on the Internet, Sentiment Analysis for Spanish presents its challenges from a semantic and syntactic point of view. This review presents a scope of the recent advances in this area.

A systematic literature review on Sentiment Analysis for the Spanish language was conducted on recognized databases by the research community.

Results show classification systems through three different approaches: Lexicon based, Machine Learning based and hybrid approaches. Additionally, different linguistic resources as Lexicon or corpus explicitly developed for the Spanish language were found.

This study provides academics and professionals, a review of advances in Sentiment Analysis for the Spanish language. Most reviews on Sentiment Analysis are for English, and other languages such as Chinese or Arabic, but no updated reviews were found for Spanish.