Editorial

Wireless technologies (WT) have evolved rapidly in recent years. Rapid developments in wireless sensors, communication and information network technologies (e.g. radio frequency identification – RFID or Auto-ID, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GSM and infrared) have nurtured the emergence of wireless manufacturing (WM) as advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) in next-generation manufacturing systems (NGMS). Wirelessly networked sensors facilitate the automatic collection and processing of real-time field data in the manufacturing processes, and reduce and avoid the error-prone, tedious manual activities. Real-time information visibility and traceability closes the loop of production planning and control for adaptive decision making. WM provides unprecedented opportunities for the manufacturing industry to improve the quality and productivity and speed of the decision processes throughout the entire product lifecycle.

This special issue provides a forum for researchers and practitioners to review past developments, and to identify possible directions for further developments in WM. Nine papers have been selected for inclusion in this special issue. Most papers are based on major projects that have been funded as early attempts in the relevant areas. It is hoped that this special issue will inspire more interest and draw more attention to WM research applications. These nine contributions are briefly summarised as follows.

The first paper reviews the recent developments in RFID-based WM solutions. The study is conducted by examining related whitepapers, case reports and research articles available in the literature, and by reflecting on the insights recently experienced in developing prototype solutions. Representative WM manufacturing applications and potentials are presented in the areas of product assembly, part fabrication, just-in-time (JIT), mass customisation, manufacturing asset management and maintenance, and product lifecycle management. Different schemes are discussed for deploying smart objects in manufacturing environments in order to achieve real-time traceability and visibility while minimising the total cost.

An overall framework for RFID applications in product lifecycle management (PLM) is proposed by Jun et al. in the second paper. The framework contains the definition of a product embedded information device (PEID) that uses RFID technology, as well as specification and operation scenarios for each application. Application issues and their overall procedures are introduced for each lifecycle phase.

Cao et al. propose a framework in the third paper for product lifecycle information management with the support of RFID technology to support the decision making involved in the different lifecycle phases of the automotive industry. The case study demonstrates how enterprises work together to transform products into extended products, and to manage these throughout their lifecycle. The use of RFID enhances the traceability of the product throughout its value chain by way of automatic identification, enables the collection of product usage information during its middle-of-life (MOL) phase, and facilitates the integration of product lifecycle information and knowledge across the value chain.

RFID promises to assist with the automation of mass customised production processes by simplifying the retrieval, tracking and usage of highly specialised components. The fourth paper by Brusey and McFarlane focuses on the issue of correctly identifying, tracking and dealing with aggregated objects in customised production with the use of RFID. The method of using RFID data is evaluated in the context of a laboratory manufacturing system that produces customized gift boxes.

Closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) consider all of the activities in the lifecycle of a product from design to end-of-life operation. These chains encompass, in addition to the traditional forward flow of products to customers, the acquisition and return flows of products for functional rehabilitation or value recovery. One critical challenge during the operation of CLSC is that information flow almost breaks down after products are delivered to customers. Xu et al. describe a research of closed-loop product information (CLPI) tracking and feedback in wireless technology-enabled CLSC from the modelling point of view and models of three levels of abstraction are proposed to elucidate and decompose the whole scenario.

The sixth paper by Jeong et al. proposes a new approach, called CAUSE (computer-aided ubiquitous system engineering), for implementing ubiquitous manufacturing systems. This method supports requirement analysis, functional details, and implementation issues. A case study is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed framework in that a ubiquitous system is designed, analysed and verified through a computer simulation.

RFID, as part of ubiquitous systems, has been increasingly applied for advanced manufacturing systems. In order for ubiquitous system engineers to overcome the limitations of the trial-and-error method, the seventh paper by Hur et al. applies the proposed CAUSE framework to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of RFID devices in the manufacturing system. A heuristic approach is proposed for dealing with realistic problems. A procedure is developed for conducting experiment and neural network analyses.

Once deployed in a manufacturing environment, RFID devices form wireless sensor networks (WSNs). WSNs are widely used for indoor navigation, environmental monitoring, people and object tracking, logistics, industrial diagnostics, quality control and other manufacturing activities. Locating elements of WSNs is not a trivial task. Self-locating methods – where nodes cooperate with each other without human involvement – have recently been studied and implemented. The purpose of the contribution of Franceschini et al. is to analyse the most significant methods for automatic location of distributed WSNs.

Last but not least, localisation of objects is an innovative application of RFID. The combination of localisation and identification capabilities provides tremendous opportunities for industry. Zhou and Shi present a study on localisation using passive RFID technology. By calibrating the propagation of radio frequency (RF) signals, empirical models are developed on read–count as a function of the distance and orientation between the antenna and the tag. Experiments are conducted to study and compare the applicability of three widely used localisation algorithms, namely, triangulation, near-neighbour and Bayesian inference, for passive RFID localisation.

The editorial team would like to thank all of the authors for the time and effort in contributing their papers and in incorporating the referees' comments in revising their manuscripts. Thanks are especially extended to the referees in giving their valuable comments to the papers, which are most essential for this special issue to come into being.

Finally, the guest editors would like to express their heartfelt thanks to the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Steve Newman, for his advice, patience and support, to make this compilation of the special issue a success.