„An inclusive and learning evaluation system for customised production“, No. 01.2.2-LMT-K-718-01-0076

Project No. 01.2.2-LMT-K-718-01-0076              
Project title: „An inclusive and learning evaluation system for customised production ”.
Project duration: from 2017-12-20 to 2022-01-30.
Project manager: prof. dr. Birutė Mikulskienė.

Summary: The aim of the project is to develop a fast-acting system for complex production order estimation, based on employee involvement and machine learning. In order to achieve this goal, the theoretical principles of standardisation of furniture production processes will be explored, and a scale for the evaluation, rating and recognition of company employees as experts will be developed in the context of the inclusive enterprise and knowledge management paradigm.

Result to be achieved: In Lithuania, the engineering industry contributes positively to the country’s GDP growth. However, the manufacturing sector is facing significant challenges common to Europe as a whole: increasing global competition and consumers’ desire for customised solutions, with design as a priority. ROI requires completely new technological solutions, long and painstaking prototyping and testing. This increases the cost of the product, increases production time and leads to fromlative errors in product quality. Therefore, the IG sectors are intensively looking for new solutions, with quite specific requirements: to perform predictive evaluation of a customised order quickly (in less than 30 minutes) and accurately (to reduce the number of prediction errors). Even if a lot of time is spent on order evaluation, errors due to the complexity of the design elements and the innovativeness of the design elements occur at a rate of 70 %. This situation creates tensions between designers, engineers and managers at different levels, and the company starts to avoid complex and innovative orders. Therefore, in order to preserve the sustainability of the company, support instruments are needed to react in ever shorter time frames to the content of the user’s customised order, and to properly assess and plan the production processes, costs and deadlines. As different employees in the company have different experiences of product evaluation, an instrument based on the involvement of different levels of employees is needed, where the production process evaluation system is responsive (learns from past mistakes and the growing experience of employees). The project will develop a prototype of operational process evaluation to be tested in furniture manufacturing companies.

The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund under measure No. 01.2.2-LMT-K-718 activity ‘Research by high-level research teams to produce results in line with the themes of the R&D activities relevant to the economic sectors, which could be commercialised’. Grant agreement with the Lithuanian Research Council (LMT).