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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the importance of redesigning, reusing, remanufacturing, recovering, recycling and reducing (6R) to sustainable manufacturing and discuss the general procedure to reconfigure robots. Two critical challenges in adopting industrial robots in small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) are flexibility and cost, as the number of tasks of the same type can be limited because of the size of an SME. The challenges can be alleviated by 6R. The 6R processes allow a robot to adopt new tasks, increase its utilization rate and reduce unit costs of products.

There is no shortcut to implement sustainable manufacturing. All of the manufacturing resources in a system should be planned optimally to reduce waste and maximize the utilization rates of resources. In this paper, modularization and reconfiguration are emphasized to implement 6R processes in sustainable manufacturing; robots are especially taken into consideration as core functional modules in the system. Modular architecture makes it feasible to integrate robots with low-cost customized modules for various tasks for the high utilization rates. A case study is provided to show the feasibility.

Finding the ways to reuse manufacturing resources could bring significant competitiveness to an SME, in the sense that sophisticated machines and tools, such as robots, can be highly utilized even in a manufacturing environment with low or medium product volumes. The concepts of modularization and 6R processes can be synergized to achieve this goal.

The authors propose the strategy to enhance the utilization rates of core manufacturing resources using modular architecture and 6R practice. The axiomatic design theory can be applied as the theoretical fundamental to guide the 6R processes; however, a universal solution in the implementation is not available. The solutions have to be tailored to specific SMEs, and the solutions should vary with respect to time.

To operate a sustainable manufacturing system, a continuous design effort is required to reconfigure existing resources and enhance their capabilities to fulfill new tasks in the dynamic environment.

The authors focus on the importance of sustainable manufacturing to modern society, and they achieve this goal by reusing robots as system components in different applications.

Sustainable manufacturing has attracted a great deal of attention, although the operable guidance for system implementation is scarce. The presented work has thrown some light in this research area. The 6R concept has been introduced in a modular system to maximize the utilizations of critical manufacturing resources. It is particularly advantageous for SMEs to adopt sophisticated robots cost-effectively.

Aims to show how sensor networks can be used to effectively allow industrial robots to handle unpredicted movements within their workcells.

Presents the concept of using sensor networks, using off‐the‐shelf technologies, to sense in real time movements within the workcell, and to feed this information, in real time, to the industrial robot controller, to allow adaptation of the robot to the movements. Results of numerous experiments in intercept and grasp of moving objects using a prototype of the system are reported.

Finds that the prototype system operates effectively and in a robust fashion in over 1,000 trials.

Provides new insight and understanding for engineers working in the area of visually guided robots.

Results are of significant value to practitioners seeking to expand the markets of industrial robots by showing how to expand the capabilities of current systems with off‐the‐shelf technology.

Introduces the concept of using sensor networks to drive the controllers of industrial robots to intercept unpredictable moving objects in their workcells. Results are of value to practitioners working to expand the capabilities of their systems.

Robots come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from manipulators in the industrial assembly line, to house cleaners, and to carebots of the elderly and sick. In recent years entertaining robots have been developed to engage adults and children into playing and learning. There are however no robots that have been specifically designed to entertain pets. The purpose of this paper is to present a prototype developed to engage pets into outdoor playing.

A prototype that can engage a dog or a cat into playing was designed, built, and tested by a group of senior students. The enclosure of the prototype has the shape of a round shell. Within this shell there is a sensor interfacing unit, which can interpret sounds generated by the animals, and a light and sound system designed to interact with the animals.

The testing results showed that the prototype was able to fulfill requirements for outdoor playing, such as being waterproof and able to travel through grass. Testing of the individual sensor interfacing circuits demonstrated the interactive capability. Dogs were chosen to be the subjects to be entertained. However, it is envisioned that a smaller version of this prototype can be suitable for cats.

This is the first prototype that explores ways to entertain pets when their human owners are absent or busy. The prototype developed is a good start for any intelligent robotic systems specifically designed to entertain pets.

This study proposes a moderated mediation model that examines the roles that openness to change and psychological capital (PsyCap) may play in the relationship between climate for innovation and employee creativity.

Path modeling analysis with software Mplus 7 is conducted to test our moderated mediation model.

The results show that climate for innovation promotes openness to change, which in turn encourages employee creativity, and PsyCap moderates not only the relationship between climate for innovation and openness to change but also the indirect effect of climate for innovation on employee creativity through openness to change.

Although we attempt to avoid common method bias by collecting data in two waves, the six-month time interval separating the two waves of data collection may not be long enough to detect the causal relationship between climate for innovation and employee creativity. In addition, this study is conducted in companies located in China, which may raise the question of generalizability to other cultures.

The main contribution is building a moderated mediation model to uncover the potential mediating mechanism and boundary conditions associated with the influence of climate for innovation on employee creativity.

The purpose of this paper is to study the tribological properties of a thiazole derivatives (T561), overbased alkyl benzene calcium sulfonate (T106A) compounded with T561 and overbased alkyl benzene magnesium sulfonate (T107) compounded with T561 in rapeseed oil (RSO).

A four-ball machine was used to evaluate the tribological properties of each compound and their combinations with T561 in RSO. Scanning electron microscopy, EDX and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were applied to analyze the tribofilm formed on the worn surfaces.

Results of tribotesting demonstrated that synergistic effects exist between the overbased sulfonates, T106A and T107, and the thiazole derivative, T561. The texts of tribofilm indicated that iron sulfide and iron oxides exist in T561 single agent lubricant film and two composite additives lubricant film, and no sulfates were detected. It suggested that the addition of alkyl benzene sulfonate did not hinder the formation of iron sulfides and iron oxides. Meanwhile, CaSO₄ (MgSO₄) and CaCO₃ (MgCO₃) were detected on the worn surface of the composite additives, which were not detected on the single agent friction surface.

A tribofilm mainly contains CaSO₄ (MgSO₄) and CaCO₃ (MgCO₃) formed on the worn surfaces, which is responsible for excellent extreme pressure and anti-wear properties of the compound agents because of their high melting point and high shear stress.

The alignment precision of existing methods is limited by the precision of detecting element and worker’s experience, which the parallelism between ball screw and guide way is not guaranteed effectively. Thus, this paper aims to propose a method of detecting ball screw’s alignment error (BSAE) via monitoring the average vibration magnitude induced by rotational frequency of ball screw (VMRFBS).

In this study, the ball screw is simplified as a freely supported beam. A mathematical model of the effect of BSAE on the contact angle of the ball and screw is established. The change of contact angle has effect on the deformation and contact stiffness according to the Hertz contact theory. To improve the accuracy of the experimental results, the VMRFBS are analyzed by using average method, and the average values of the VMRFBS at different BSAEs are calculated by using the least squares method.

The experimental results show that the average VMRFBS increases with the increasing of BSAE under the BSAE from 0 to 0.2 mm, while the other conditions are unchanged.

This method provides an approach to monitor the BSAE and improve the alignment accuracy of machine tools and automation equipment, which has a certain guide for improving the alignment accuracy of ball screw.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a moderated mediation model to examine the roles that psychological capital (PsyCap) and growth need strength may play in the relationship between humble leader behaviors and follower creativity.

Data were collected from a three-wave survey study with a sample of 165 matched leader-follower questionnaires in China. Multiple regression analyses, moderated regression analysis and bootstrapping analysis were used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that humble leader behaviors positively influence follower creativity, PsyCap mediates this influence and growth need strength not only moderates the relationship between humble leader behaviors and PsyCap, but also amplifies the indirect relationship between humble leader behaviors and follower creativity via PsyCap.

Common method bias may still exit, although the measures of research variables were gathered from different sources and with time separation. Additionally, this study is conducted in a single cultural context, which may raise the question about the generalizability of our findings to other cultural contexts.

The primary contribution is building and examining a conceptual model that focuses on the potential effect of humble leader behaviors on follower creativity. Additionally, by confirming the mediating role of PsyCap, the research further uncovers why followers under humble leader behaviors are more likely to engage in creativity, and the moderating role of growth need strength found in this study also offers additional insight into that followers may differ in the degree to which they are receptive to leader effect.

Water-based graphite lubricants have good lubricity in the process of metal forming, especially for hot-rolling seamless pipe. Although the use of water as a working fluid system instead of conventional mineral oil has many advantages for the fuel consumption, post cleaning and a new type of lubricant, the graphite contaminated the machine and workers for its physical properties. From the global environmental protection viewpoint, it is urgent to develop a kind of benign material.

Magnesium hydroxide which has the average particle size of 10 μm was chosen as a base material without further modification and pretreatments. On the HT-1000 high-temperature tribometer, the influence of temperature and lubricant materials on the friction coefficient was studied. The tribological performance at 900^°C provided evidence under high temperature for exploring a new lubricant material.

Tap water-based brucite lubricant will open a new chapter in the industrial lubrication, effectively avoiding many unfavorable factors caused by graphite lubrication, such as conductivity, pollution and energy loss. Meanwhile, it expanded the application of brucite as flame-retardant agent, catalyst, water treatment agent and so on.

It is a new and environmental lubricant to tap water-based brucite lubricant. And specially, the preparation process of lubricant is simple and economical.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of managerial coaching (MC) on employee creative performance (CP) based on the knowledge transfer theory and the roles of creative process engagement (CPE) and climate for innovation (IC) in the relationship between MC and CP.

A moderated mediation model was developed and tested on a dyadic sample of 74 leaders and 292 employees working in South China firms.

The results show that CPE mediates the relationship between MC and CP and IC amplifies the indirect relationship between MC and CP via CPE.

This research contributes to the MC and innovation literature by clarifying the linking role of engagement in transferring MC into employees' CP from a knowledge transfer perspective and identifies the critical role of IC in effectuating the impact of MC on CP.