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ISST - Sustainable design and manufacturing group (SDMG)

SDMG is one of the key research centres forming the University's flagship Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies within the Division of Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment.  This research group is multi-disciplinary and dedicated to the research, development, education and implementation of sustainable design and manufacturing.

Strategic focus

Due to the increased exposure to competition through globalisation and free trade agreements, Australian manufacturers are challenged to continuously provide high quality products at prices that low cost countries offer.  A key issue facing the Australian economy in this environment is the sustainability of its manufacturing sector.  Australian manufacturing industries need significant productivity improvements through technologies and management in order to be competitive.  The second key issue is environmental sustainability and Australian manufacturers need to address product sustainability during the entire life cycle of a product.  This issue has arisen not only due to public pressure but also due to the need to comply with an increasing number of government regulations.

Therefore the SDMG with expertise in the areas of robotics and automation, manufacturing engineering, supply chain management, environmentally friendly construction, and engineering design, focus their attention on finding the best solutions to the above issues.  This research group has a strategic focus on applying novel and innovative engineering solutions to productivity improvements and engineering sustainability.  The background of the team members allow this group to interact and adopt a multi-disciplinary approach in their research projects.  The primary strategic motivation of this group is academic and research excellence, and producing high quality researchers (PhD students).

Research objectives

In the first strategic area of productivity improvements the group focuses on the development and applications of automation technologies (robotics and machine vision), simulation and decision support systems for process improvements, and application of artificial techniques (genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic and neural networks) to solve NP-hard problems within the manufacturing plant and within the wider context (eg location-allocation problems) to address the area of supply chain management.

Control and automation and simulation are proven techniques for further process improvements within individual businesses particularly in terms of outputs and cost savings.  Examples of recent works carried out by group members are development of a robot-driver system for applications in the automobile industry, and an efficiency study of a robotic manufacturing cell using discrete-event systems.  This research area has been well supported by the CRC for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems and Technologies (CRC-IMST).

In addition to improvements within individual business, it has been widely recognised in recent years that scope for further improvements lies outside individual businesses.  As manufacturers need to interact with suppliers and customers, supply chain management provides new opportunities for productivity improvements and suply-related activities are a very significant component of business costs.  In the Australian context, supplier partnership has been successfully implemented in the vehicle industry with first-tiered suppliers.  Examples of recent works in this area are optimisation of distribution network design and integration of production and distribution planning.  Research into developing performance measurement systems for integrated supply chain management has been recently supported by funding from the automotive industry via Auto CRC.

In the second strategic area of engineering sustainability, the group focuses on developing tools to enable companies to consider sustainability during the design and modelling stages.  The work in this area involves the consideration of environmental issues during the product life cycle from product design to disposal.

Main achievements

Over the past few years the group has achieved significant outcomes including:

Group cohesiveness and research collaborations

The group supports its research work through three main mechanisms:

The group cohesiveness is clearly evident in a significant number of joint research projects and publications.

In line with the group's focus on applied research, it collaborates closely with many industry partners, either through formal mechanisms such as ARC Linkage and Technology diffusion scheme grants or through information arrangements.  In addition to industry collaboration, the group also works closely with other research centres and academic units within the University.  Examples of this include the Defence and Systems Institute, School of Natural and Built Environments, and the School of Management.

Externally this group has close collaborations with

Peer recognition

The group has made significant contributions to its strategic research areas and has been recognised in tangible and intangible ways:

 

 

 


 

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