Gift boxing of wine for seasonal promotions is an important value adding strategy for the wine industry and these specialised packaging processes are often unable to be fully automated. Currently, human workers at the Penfolds Barossa... more
Gift boxing of wine for seasonal promotions is an important value adding strategy for the wine industry and these specialised packaging processes are often unable to be fully automated. Currently, human workers at the Penfolds Barossa Valley Packaging Site provide the solution through means of manual labour, which is repetitive and ergonomically challenging. This honours project investigates the use of a collaborative robot within the wine packaging environment. This project was the result of a collaboration between Flinders University and Treasury Wine Estates and it was the first of its kind for the two parties involved. The project is divided into 5 major milestones and investigates three key areas; the design and development of a gripping system tailored to wine bottles and their packaging, robotic programming and process flow, and lastly image processing techniques for detection purposes. This thesis provides an in-depth documentation of the project’s planning, research, development process and findings. Following the end of the development phase of this project, there are other areas of further work that can be considered including materials investigation, future programming methods, and the integration of the image processing programs written, directly into the robot to give it more functionality. The 5th milestone of the project is not able to be completed, but the efforts came close to attaining it.
For Australia to achieve its goals for long-term productivity growth and global competitiveness in manufacturing, it needs to accelerate pursuit of the Industry 4.0 (i4.0) agenda driving the transformation of manufacturing globally. I4.0... more
For Australia to achieve its goals for long-term productivity growth and global competitiveness in manufacturing, it needs to accelerate pursuit of the Industry 4.0 (i4.0) agenda driving the transformation of manufacturing globally. I4.0 is a strategy that seeks to modernise and transform manufacturing through accelerating uptake and diffusion of advanced manufacturing technologies and processes in tandem with comprehensive enterprise digitalisation. It seeks to drive a new wave of productivity, efficiency, flexibility, environmental, safety and working life improvements that underpin the growth of high value, high skill manufacturing.
This report reviews the ‘current state’ of robotics applications in Australian manufacturing to inform considerations about potential applications of the technologies in shipbuilding as part of the digital shipyard ambition. It details a range of use cases and illustrates how the adoption of modern robotics and assistive manufacturing technologies are helping companies to pursue the Industry 4.0 challenge in Australia.
For Australia to achieve its goals for long-term productivity growth and global competitiveness in manufacturing, it needs to accelerate pursuit of the Industry 4.0 (i4.0) agenda driving the transformation of manufacturing globally. I4.0... more
For Australia to achieve its goals for long-term productivity growth and global competitiveness in manufacturing, it needs to accelerate pursuit of the Industry 4.0 (i4.0) agenda driving the transformation of manufacturing globally. I4.0 is a strategy that seeks to modernise and transform manufacturing through accelerating uptake and diffusion of advanced manufacturing technologies and processes in tandem with comprehensive enterprise digitalisation. It seeks to drive a new wave of productivity, efficiency, flexibility, environmental, safety and working life improvements that underpin the growth of high value, high skill manufacturing. This report reviews the ‘current state’ of robotics applications in Australian manufacturing to inform considerations about potential applications of the technologies in shipbuilding as part of the digital shipyard ambition. It details a range of use cases and illustrates how the adoption of modern robotics and assistive manufacturing technologies are helping companies to pursue the Industry 4.0 challenge in Australia.
For Australia to achieve its goals for long-term productivity growth and global competitiveness in manufacturing, it needs to accelerate pursuit of the Industry 4.0 (i4.0) agenda driving the transformation of manufacturing globally. I4.0... more
For Australia to achieve its goals for long-term productivity growth and global competitiveness in manufacturing, it needs to accelerate pursuit of the Industry 4.0 (i4.0) agenda driving the transformation of manufacturing globally. I4.0 is a strategy that seeks to modernise and transform manufacturing through accelerating uptake and diffusion of advanced manufacturing technologies and processes in tandem with comprehensive enterprise digitalisation. It seeks to drive a new wave of productivity, efficiency, flexibility, environmental, safety and working life improvements that underpin the growth of high value, high skill manufacturing. This report reviews the ‘current state’ of robotics applications in Australian manufacturing to inform considerations about potential applications of the technologies in shipbuilding as part of the digital shipyard ambition. It details a range of use cases and illustrates how the adoption of modern robotics and assistive manufacturing technologies are helping companies to pursue the Industry 4.0 challenge in Australia.
Numerous programmes designed to encourage welfare recipients to move into work and off benefit have been evaluated in the United States. Many have randomly assigned potential participants into ‘experimental’ and ‘control’ groups to... more
Numerous programmes designed to encourage welfare recipients to move into work and off benefit have been evaluated in the United States. Many have randomly assigned potential participants into ‘experimental’ and ‘control’ groups to generate unbiased estimates of the effectiveness of the programmes. The results of the evaluations have been selectively influential in shaping policy developments on both sides of the
Summary Proposed welfare reform in Great Britain advocates joint public and private provision of insurance. Using omnibus survey data, this paper projects the availability and geographical coverage of private unemployment insurance in... more
Summary Proposed welfare reform in Great Britain advocates joint public and private provision of insurance. Using omnibus survey data, this paper projects the availability and geographical coverage of private unemployment insurance in Britain among currently employed persons, on the basis of actuarial risk assessment criteria. It compares actuarial risk assessments with the respondents' subjective job risk assessments and their declared intention to take out private unemployment insurance. The paper identifies the extent and geography of structural/self-exclusion from insurance.
Youth and adolescence are associated with significant changes in a person's life. According to risk theory, the changes experienced by young people today are fundamentally different from those experienced by previous generations and... more
Youth and adolescence are associated with significant changes in a person's life. According to risk theory, the changes experienced by young people today are fundamentally different from those experienced by previous generations and entail a greater degree of uncertainty. In this paper, survey and interview data are used to describe how contemporary risk experiences of young people in Britain differ from those of older generations, highlighting, in particular, their greater frequency and difference in type. Young people are also more likely to be worried about risk, and this remains the case well beyond the years of adolescence. In dealing with these real or anticipated risks, young and adolescent people turn to the traditional sources of family and friends to obtain advice. Using career decisions as a case study, we show that, whereas young people and their parents often share their risk assessments as they take into account each other's decision-making context, understanding is reduced if career paths diverge.
This article uses the tools of meta-analysis to assess cost–benefit studies of 50 mandatory welfare-to-work programs that were targeted at Aid for Families with Dependent Children recipients and evaluated by random assignment. The... more
This article uses the tools of meta-analysis to assess cost–benefit studies of 50 mandatory welfare-to-work programs that were targeted at Aid for Families with Dependent Children recipients and evaluated by random assignment. The findings suggest that the costs of a typical evaluated welfare-to-work program probably exceeded its benefits from the perspective of the government, but those assigned to the program, and possibly society as a whole, may reap small positive net benefits. However, there are individual programs that are very cost-beneficial. Further analyses of the determinants of the cost-benefits of welfare-to-work programs to government and society as a whole show that some services are cost-neutral, but others entail net costs, which are sometimes substantial. The findings suggest that less successful programs might be made more cost-beneficial by dropping vocational training and basic education as program components, leaving mainly lower cost components, such as mandated job search and sanctions, but also possibly the more costly financial incentives.
