Computer Integrated Manufacturing

Web site: http://cimweb.polito.it/

Research activities

Modern manufacturing systems need methods for optimizing and automating their production processes, with the aim of increase their efficiency and reach the flexibility and reactivity requested by the global market.
Hence, it is necessary to develop flexible and powerful methods usable at every level of the production process: from the inter-factory logistics, to the cohordination of the production in a factory, to the monitoring and control of a single robot. Our research group cover all these levels of the automation chain: robotics, industrial automation, logistics, scheduling, inter-factory logistics, supply-chain management.

Main academic research results

Main theoretical results recently obtained by the research group are about optimization methods for distribuite supply chain management, and for production planning and scheduling. These research can be seen as a part of a more general scheme, which is the "global automation" concept, developed by the responsible of our research unit in the last decade.
The most interesting results have been the definition of models and communication protocols for cohordinating a distribuite supply chain together with optimization methods able to solve local problems at each single decision unit of the chain.

Main applied research results

Our research group is particularly active in the field of applied research. In particular, project "Isaac" aims to apply the most modern techniques of automatic control on a biped robot built in our laboratories (www.isaacrobot.it). We had in recent years many collaborations with enterprises interested in our research, which permitted us to obtain consulting contracts and collaborations.
Moreover, we have had different collaborations with high schools, about using LEGO instruments in their labs, with the aim to explain by-example the robotic/automation field to the students.

Other initiatives

We participate (in particular through the Isaac project) in many demostrations, fairs, meeting with enterprises, with the aim of promoting the knowledge and the use of new technologies in the automation field.

Research projects and contracts

Research staff