Teaching Axiomatic Design for a Long-Term Sustainable Introduction of Industry 4.0 in SMEs

This work shows how to teach axiomatic design (AD) of manufacturing processes and systems in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to achieve long-term sustainability in the introduction of Industry 4.0. This is about how to develop profitable and ethical design solutions by exploiting emerging technologies, especially for companies with limited resources. Suh’s axiomatic approach to design selects the best solution among plausible candidates early in the design process so that resources can be focused most effectively. It is important that engineers know how to develop ethical design solutions efficiently and effectively. Sustainability rests on three pillars, economic, ecological and social. Therefore, ethical design can be achieved, with responsible use of natural resources and protection of the environment, meeting the needs of people and society as well as profitability to ensure long-term prosperity for all. Literature on Industry 4.0 shows several approaches on how Industry 4.0 can be sustainable and human-centered. However, few works focus on SMEs and there is little on teaching. Here, AD is used to create a program for teaching how to apply AD to design problems in the context of Industry 4.0 for SMEs. AD theory states that the best design solutions are those that, 1- maintain the independence of the functional elements, and 2- minimize the information content, i.e., maximize the probability of success. In AD, needs of customers and other stake holders are considered first, so that the right problems are addressed. Then top-down, parallel, functional-physical decompositions, are followed by physical integrations, all guided by Suh’s axioms to select the right solutions. In order to test new technologies in a practice-oriented way in advance of introduction for SMEs, learning factory laboratories are used.