Högskolan i Skövde

In recent years Mixed Reality technology has been widely used to enhance operators in manual assembly operations. This paper introduces a Mixed Reality environment for assembly operations and describes how the process can be supported by virtual sensors. The structure of the environment allows seamless adaption from a fully virtual training scenario, only using virtual assets, to a full production scenario supporting operators in assembling physical products in actual production. The training system which has been developed together with the company Skandia Elevator in Sweden enables the operators to train with much less disturbance to the real production line compared to training using the actual production equipment. In fact, the training can be done only using virtual assets.

In this paper we discuss the results of two extensive case studies targeted towards Swedish SMMEs, partly aimed at investigating the current state of practice regarding the strategic work in the companies and its alignment to digitalization initiatives. The case studies were conducted during 2022 and 2023 and includes a vast empirical material, including several site visits, more than 30 interviews, several meetings with the managerial boards of the two companies and workshops, as well as studies of strategic document, product portfolios and Gemba walks. The paper presents a suggestion for how to formulate a one-page digital strategy, which aligns the digitalization initiative with the overall strategy of the company, as well as a vision for the digital transformation initiative. In addition, the one-pager also includes prioritized stakeholder groups, expected effects and prioritized activities. Moreover, we also motivate the reasons behind a one-pager, as well as the topics included therein. Finally, we give some ideas for future work, including the importance of implementing the one-pager in more companies, as a way to further validate its applicability and long-term influence on and relevance for the strategic work in SMMEs. 

Dagens situation, med mycket snabb teknisk utveckling samt globaliserings- och hållbarhetsfrågor som påtagligt påverkar vårt samhälle omkullkastar många av de tidigare sanningar som format bilden av högre utbildning i allmänhet och utbildning som är arbetsmarknadsanknuten i synnerhet. Ett gällande synsätt där yrkesliv följer kronologiskt efter en inledande utbildningsfas i unga människors liv blir allt merdaterad. Begreppet ”det livslånga lärandet” omfattar ett synsätt där utbildning ochyrkesliv verkar växelvis under ett helt arbetsliv, där individen återkommande behöverfylla på, reflektera över och därigenom få stöd att implementera ny kunskap. Det ärav stor vikt att akademin tar till sig och möjliggör för människor mitt i livet att ta del av och reflektera över ny kunskap och de möjligheter som den ger. Inte minst ärdetta viktigt inom teknikintensiva yrkesroller där påverkan från disruptiv teknisk utvecklingen är påtaglig. Med utgångspunkt i vårt arbete under 15 år riktar vi oss med denna artikel till kollegor inom det livslånga lärandet och presenterar upplägg och genomförande av onlinekurser där studenterna är mitt i yrkeslivet.

More and more applications of Augmented Reality (AR) in manufacturing industries are introduced every day and while recent research has shown that one of the more popular applications, high volume assembly instructions, might not offer the best setting for this technology, many other applications exist that do. For assembly, remote guidance or training, rare assemblies, low takt time and high mix production, do still show promise. This article introduces the role of the Augmented Welder, a role utilizing AR technology for the programming of a welding robot. An operator support system in the form of a custom application programmed in Unity and visualized with a pair of Hololens2, connected to an ABB robot through RobotStudio. The robot is equipped with a welding gun dummy. The operator can, through the Hololens2, set safety boundaries, introduce work pieces, place targets in a 3D space, simulate the robot path, send the program to the robot, and activate the physical robot, among other things. We performed a modified pluralistic walkthrough to evaluate the operator support system both with respect to our application but also to search valuable insight to the general use of AR in the use of such applications. Results showed that while the subjects were generally positive towards the support system, several issues were identified and raised by various degrees of severity. The primary issues arose around the navigation and interaction with 2D menus and 3D objects in a 3D Mixed Reality (MR) space. The absence of physics confused the subjects as they could not interact with the virtual objects as they would have with physical objects. The lack of physics simply meant that they didn't act the same. Furthermore the interaction with 2D menus in a 3D space was both reported and observed as being very difficult as the 2D representations probably led to problems with depth perception. The general results of the debriefing indicated that using AR for robot programming was challenging although some of this can be attributed to the fact that this was the participants first use of such a system. The users indicated that the menus were appropriate and that the interaction was intuitive while the navigation within the system was not experienced as natural which confirms the above-mentioned issues with menus disappearing from the line of sight and feedback around generated target points being absent.

Marketing is vital for game businesses. However, it is hard to reach the target audiences and choose the right marketing strategies for different user acquisition channels in mobile game publishing. This paper shows how business intelligence can guide independent (indie) mobile game developers to do marketing promotion based on a data-driven method. We apply and extend the ARM funnel model from social game publishing to mobile game publishing and provide a data-driven method to evaluate the marketing promotion performance. First, in order to address indie game marketing challenges, we propose a data-driven method by defining key metrics and applying two different analysis methods for assessing mobile game marketing promotion. Second, we apply our data-driven method to an indie mobile game project and guide the indie game studio to determine the potential marketing promotion issues. Third, we also provide suggestions on improving marketing performance based on analysis results, especially by differentiating between channels. Finally, we summarize how our method can be generalized and used to guide indie mobile game marketing promotion, find high-quality channels for user acquisition, improve the marketing promotion effect, and discuss future research work.

A method of integrating life cycle assessment into a simulation-based decision support system has been developed to help decision-makers take environmental impact into account during daily operations. The method was demonstrated in a real-world case study involving eight different trucks, which were selected and maintained by the case company. The trucks used different fuels, namely diesel, biodiesel, vehicle gas, and electricity. Compared to conventional diesel trucks, those using biodiesel emitted 37% less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Gas trucks reduced GHG emissions by a further 40%. Overall, electric trucks have the lowest emissions. This paper also addresses the development of the methodology for this study. In particular, comparisons are made regarding the selection of different functional units and system activity mapping. Ways of achieving more accurate conclusions in future studies are discussed. 

BI solutions are constantly being developed to support decision-making at various organisational levels. These solutions facilitate the compilation, aggregation and summarisation of large volumes of data. Consequently, the business value created by these systems is increasing as they sustain more and more advanced analytics, ranging from descriptive analytics, to predictive analytics, to prescriptive analytics. However, most organisations work primarily with internal data. Despite many references in the literature to the value hidden in external data, details on how such data can be used are scarce. In this paper, we present the results of an extensive action case study at a public waste management company. The results illustrate how external data from several external data sources, integrated into an up-and-running BI solution, are used jointly to allow for descriptive and predictive analytics, as well as prescriptive analytics. In addition, details of these analytical values are given and related to organisational benefits.

Organizations are showing an increasing interest in incorporating external data into their business intelligence solutions. Such data allows for advanced analytics and enables more comprehensive and inclusive decision-making. However, external data incorporation is relatively unexplored in the literature, and scientifically published details on up-and-running BI solutions are very sparse. In addition, published literature concerning the incorporation of external data into BI solutions is often rather synoptic or rather old (originating from data warehouse related literature). Therefore, the authors present the results of an action case study at a public waste management organization, illustrating detailed aspects of external data incorporation related to the back-end of the solution such as data selection, source characteristics, acquisition technologies and frequencies, and integration approaches. Given that the external origin of the data poses specific problems that must be overcome in order to allow for successful incorporation initiatives, special attention was paid to such problems. Copyright © 2019, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The manufacturing industry has a duty to minimize its environmental impact, and an increasing body of legislation mandates environmental impact evaluations from a life cycle perspective to prevent burden shift. The manufacturing industry is increasing its use of computer-based simulations to optimize production processes. In recent years, several published studies have combined simulations with life cycle assessments (LCAs) to evaluate and minimize the environmental impact of production activities. Still, current knowledge of simulations conducted for LCAs is rather disjointed. This paper accordingly reviews the literature covering simulation-based LCAs of production processes. The results of the review and cross-comparison of papers are structured in terms of seven elements in line with the ISO standard definition of LCA and report the strengths and limitations of the reviewed studies. © 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Business intelligence has been applied in the area of game development research for many years. However, few systematic research efforts are focusing on the game publishing side, especially for the mobile game publishing business. We aim to identify and remedy the shortcomings of the existing ARM funnel model for free-to-play mobile game analytics by introducing a new model, the Fish Tank Model, which combines the analysis of players’ behavior with in-game system data to drive the whole process of mobile game publishing. Based on the new model, we also bring and create relevant metrics for effectively measuring the business performance of mobile game publishing. Our main contributions are a survey of business intelligence used in game research and an analysis to reveal the insufficiency of an existing model for game publishing. Finally, we discuss business requirements for mobile game publishing and propose a brand-new model which better suits the free-to-play mobile game publishing business performance evaluation.