ISE doctoral student’s manufacturing research earns award

Monir Hossain, a doctoral student in the Auburn University Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was recently recognized at the IISE Lean Six Sigma Data Science Conference in the Best Paper Award competition. Hossain’s paper, “Integration of Industry 4.0 in Lean System for Performance Improvement,” placed third in the competition. The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Perimeter in Atlanta, Ga., from Sept. 19-21.

The paper focused on how, in the last few decades, the Lean Manufacturing system has been widely used in manufacturing to produce more while using less and improving quality. Meanwhile, Industry 4.0 (I-4.0) technologies have also been diffused in the manufacturing world in the last decade, enabling cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (A.R.), Sensor technology and others. In this essence, this study stems from integrating I-4.0 technology into the Lean Manufacturing system.

“However, to integrate the I-4.0 into the Lean system, there is a lack of a comprehensive framework,” Hossain explained. “Therefore, this study was conducted to formulate a comprehensive framework for integrating I-4.0 into the Lean Manufacturing system. Later, this study will be extended to make the interaction between I-4.0 technologies and Lean tools to assess their impact on process efficiency improvement in terms of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).”

Hossain has been conducting his doctoral research under the supervision of Industrial and Systems Engineering Assistant Professor Greg Purdy. Part of his research has been finding ways to disseminate I-4.0 technology to the root-level manufacturing industry

“Our root-level users are mainly small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs), and they mostly lack advanced knowledge about the technology,” he said. “Through this study, we understood that we could use the Lean Manufacturing system as a template for integrating the I-4.0 technology for SMMs.”

Hossain said he was overjoyed to learn his paper placed third in the competition.

“It is an excellent source of encouragement, which will drive me to go ahead in implementing this innovative idea in the manufacturing world,” he said.