工学 | SCI期刊专刊信息3条

全文截稿: 2021-04-01

影响因子: 2.685

中科院JCR分区:

• 大类 : 工程技术 - 3区

• 小类 : 工程：制造 - 3区

• 小类 : 工程：综合 - 3区

• 小类 : 仪器仪表 - 3区

• 小类 : 纳米科技 - 4区

网址: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/precision-engineering

The ideas behind leveraging quantum states of matter for enabling efficient and economically feasible technologies has existed for the past 40 years. Driven by basic research in quantum physics for over a century, the realm of quantum processing has given rise to quantum-enabled technologies with possible implications in improving communications, sensing, metrology, and computing. Analogous to binary states (0 and 1) used for developing logic gates in classical computing applications, information can be encoded, processed, and decoded with qubits in superposition states. Theoretically, since a qubit has 2 states, a quantum enabled technology should scale exponentially (2n) in terms of processing power. The bulk of the research in quantum engineering has been focused on designing architectures and quantum information algorithms, creating and assembling qubits, testing them out with proof-of-concept system designs, and developing the measurement capabilities to validate the outputs.

From a hardware engineer’s perspective, a quantum enabled technology has multiple design and metrology requirements, while operating under very strict constraints. For example, a quantum computer can be assembled with four abstract planes – 1) Quantum data plane – structures and physical residence of qubits 2) Control and measurement plane – hardware to carry out operations and measurements on qubits 3) Control processer – to determine the sequence of logical operations that are needed based on the measurements 4) Host processor – a classical computer interfacing with the control processor1. The two leading candidates for generating qubits are using ion traps and superconducting material. Additionally, electrical, and thermal fluctuations in these systems can be mitigated by additional hardware, metrology, and control systems to maintaining environmental conditions necessary for stable operation.

Currently, successful proof-of-concept quantum-enabled devices are being realized by academic groups and industry alike. However, there are only speculations about modularity and scaling the performance of these devices. Therefore, it is critical to understand the scalability of the design, modeling, assembly, metrology, and operation processes. The goal of this special issue is to address the current-state-of-art in design and manufacturing of the components in quantum devices, and develop perspectives on the challenges that need to be overcome to achieve low-cost, high performance devices. This special issue will explore advances in hardware systems involved in design and metrology of quantum-enabled technologies, with a specific focus on the following topics (not exhaustive):

1. Design and modeling challenges
2. Uncertainty budget approaches and challenges
3. Manufacturing and manufacturing process design challenges (for trapped ions, superconducting qubits, etc.)
4. Engineering challenges and opportunities in the surrounding environment for stable operation of the devices.
5. Advanced packaging challenges for 3D integration of qubits
6. The quantum engineer’s toolkit wish list- what are the emerging technology needs for the field to advance?

全文截稿: 2021-04-30

影响因子: 3.518

中科院JCR分区:

• 大类 : 工程技术 - 2区

• 小类 : 计算机：跨学科应用 - 2区

• 小类 : 工程：工业 - 2区

网址: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/computers-and-industrial-engineering

Aims of the Special Issue:

Advances in automation, digitalisation, and robotics have ushered a new age in which machines can substitute and/or complement human operators in an increasingly wider range of work activities, paving the way to the concepts of Operator 4.0 and Logistics Operator 4.0 (Cimini et al., 2020a; Romero et al., 2020). Among the plethora of technologies, which are mentioned under the umbrella of Industry 4.0, different impacts can be observed, in relation to the different technological capabilities. The operators of the future will be immersed in intelligent environments, with the possibility to share and receive real-time information from many smart objects (e.g., machines, robots, products) and they will be involved in new collaboration mechanisms and social interactions, which will highly affect the performance of the industrial system. The management and decision-making processes will become increasingly shared between humans and machines, requiring new models to govern the management and control of the manufacturing and logistics processes. New scenarios of Social Human-in-the-Loop Cyber-Physical Production Systems (Cimini et al., 2020b) and Human-Machine Cooperation (Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017) have been envisioned, suggesting that re-thinking manufacturing and logistics systems from a human-centred perspective makes it possible to use digital technologies to enhance the unique and irreplaceable capabilities of man, who will continue to play a fundamental role in the factories of the future. Indeed, in smart manufacturing and logistics systems, the available amount of information will not be manageable for the normal operator - just because of the variety and quantity. For this reason, new methods will be required to allow the operator to handle this amount and variety of information and make the right decision out of the chain "signal-data-information", since it can be assumed that Artificial Intelligence cannot solve every data-related issue.

Some related relevant contributions have been already published on Computers & Industrial Engineering, demonstrating a high interest from the readers of the journal about these topics; in particular, the Special Issue entitled “The Operator 4.0: Towards socially sustainable factories of the future”, edited by David Romero, Johan Stahre and Marco Taisch, has been published in 2019. With this Special Issue, we aim at deepening further these researches, but enlarging the perspective with a more socio-technical systems approach, exploring more in detail the social interactions that occur in smart manufacturing systems. Moreover, currently, the manufacturing landscape has been heavily broken out by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is changing promptly and profoundly the industrial work, requiring urgent investigation about new practices of smart industrial work, able to allow social distancing without performance losses.

This special issue aims at attracting contribution from scholars and practitioners in the emerging research streams about Human-Technology integration in the next-generation manufacturing and logistics systems. Integrating humans in the smart manufacturing and logistics systems includes both technological aspects, such as the human-centred development of technological applications, workplaces and human-machine interfaces (Longo et al., 2017), and operational aspects, including multidisciplinary approaches to depict the role of humans in the loop of manufacturing and logistics process planning and control (Fantini et al., 2020). Along with this, deeply exploring human aspects, such as new competences and skillsets required to the human workforce to be efficient in Industry 4.0, the evolution of roles and the Human Factors affecting successful implementations of new technologies, will be of high relevance both from the academic and industrial communities.

Scope of the Special Issue:

Alongside the development of new technologies, developments in the human-related aspects (such as human factors concerning the technologies design and application as well as the impacts on operators’ capabilities) must be carried out. This analysis should be done both at theoretical level, highlighting the interdependences between technological implementation and the human capabilities, and at a practical level, providing industrial companies with effective tools to drive their workforce toward the new paradigm of Industry 4.0, aligning the technological innovations with a human-centred perspective of the smart manufacturing and logistics.

We invite authors to submit scientific papers that approach the human-technology integration in manufacturing and logistics systems. Submissions involving case studies and innovative applications in the field of smart manufacturing and logistics systems that affect the human work are welcomed.

Both empirical and conceptual, quantitative and qualitative original research studies are welcomed. Case studies and practical applications are encouraged. To that end, we seek submissions with an original perspective and advanced thinking on the development of the smart manufacturing and logistics field, instead of theoretical studies and frameworks on human-technologies integration. Although they can contain some review of the literature, we look for submissions that go beyond systematic reviews, and propose and discuss fresh conceptual and methodological avenues for further development of the field.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:


Multidisciplinary approaches in Human-centred smart technologies development in Manufacturing and Logistics

Human-centred development of assisting and augmenting technologies

5G and advanced technologies supporting Human-technology integration

Artificial Intelligence supporting Human-technology integration

Human Factors affecting implementations of smart technologies

New skills and competences for the workforce 4.0

全文截稿: 2021-09-30

影响因子: 4.998

中科院JCR分区:

• 大类 : 工程技术 - 2区

• 小类 : 工程：工业 - 1区

• 小类 : 工程：制造 - 2区

• 小类 : 运筹学与管理科学 - 1区

网址: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-production-economics

The globalization of trade increased firm’s reliance of international standards and conformity assessment, which paved way for harmonizing relationships in supply chains and facilitated access to international markets (Blind et al., 2018a). Standards and conformity assessment assisted firms to reduce transaction costs, improved information asymmetry (Anderson et al., 1999) and have a positive impact on international trade (Blind et al., 2018b). The importance of standards and conformity assessment has been also reflected in a large number of academic papers and special issues on the topic, including a special issue on Meta-standards in IJPE (Corbett and Yeung, 2008).

The operations management literature on standards dates back to the 90’s, where the studies mainly focused on mapping the motivations of firms and impacts of standards. The topic subsequently have broadened as it also addressed the diffusion of standards across the globe (Corbett and Kirsch, 2001), issues related to governance of standards (Castka et al., 2015) and conformity assessment (Blind et al., 2018b). However, in the operations management field, academics were typically focused on a relatively narrow set of management system standards (especially on ISO 9000 and ISO 14000) and paid less attention to broader issues of standards and conformity assessment (Castka and Corbett, 2015) or even the whole quality management infrastructure (Blind, 2015). Therefore, the overarching purpose of the special issue is to broaden the scope of the research in this field. Specifically, by considering a variety of standards (process, product, testing standards), the various forms of conformity assessment, including accreditation, and their impact on activities in global supply chains and in firms’ product life cycle – from R&D to product disposal.