Article deals with analysis on influence of post-process settings profiles in the Polyworks software and its influence on measuring bias (difference between average surface profile deviation and artifacts reference value) and standard deviation of measured data. The comparison was evaluated on glossy artifact with freeform surfaces. Setting with least bias and standard deviation was than used to evaluate repeatability and systematic measurement error and minimum tolerance bandwidth Tmin according to VDA 5 and MSA 4, respectively for three conceptions of laser scanning technologies available on today's market. Cartesian CMM LK Altera S with laser scanner Nikon LC15Dx (automated technology), Measuring arm Nikon MCAx S30 with laser scanner Nikon H120 (manual technology) and optically tracked handheld device Metronor M-Scan with laser scanner Nikon H120 (manual technology). The conclusions of the study can serve as a guide in technology selection for reverse engineering input data acquisition. Subsequently, the optimal parameters of the post-process settings (for glossy surfaces) in the Polyworks software are listed.

High-velocity oxyfuel (HVOF) coatings are used to protect components from corrosion and wear at higher temperatures and from wearing out after a certain period of time. Hence, to enhance the life of components, further recoating is required, but removing the older coating is a challenging task due to its high hardness. Thus, this research work studied the electrolytic dissolution process of removing WC-CoCr 86/10/4 HVOF coatings and found that at a voltage of 3 V, the coating was not removed, but at a slightly higher voltage of 6 V, the coating was removed completely. When the voltage was 12 V, the surface was damaged, and corrosion also occurred. A combination of tartaric acid (C4H6O6), sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), and water was used as an electrolyte. By using a combination of a voltage of 4.5 V, a current of 1.6 A, and an electrode distance of 55 mm, the coating was completely removed after 10 h, with negligible attacks on the base material. Where the corrosion of the base material is unacceptable, voltages in the range of 4 to 6 V are recommended. If parts have coatings on all surfaces, a voltage within the range of 6 to 12 V can be recommended. The coating from tab SB-002JI-5 TOOLOX-11 and hexagonal mandrel SB-00EA-1 160 TIS was also removed successfully.

This article presents the development and validation of SBRI (Small Business Digital Maturity Assessment and Road to Industry 4.0), an innovative methodology for assessing digital maturity and supporting digital transformation specifically designed for small manufacturing enterprises in the context of Industry 4.0. Unlike existing models, which are often too complex or unsuitable for smaller organizations, SBRI considers the unique characteristics and constraints of small businesses. The methodology includes five key dimensions: Strategy, Technology, Process, People, and Organization, elaborated into 25 subdimensions with specific maturity criteria and indicators. The SBRI includes a structured roadmap for digital transformation through a proposed digital maturity continuous improvement cycle. An empirical study involving 23 small manufacturing enterprises in the Czech Republic has demonstrated the validity and practical applicability of the methodology. The results showed an average level of enterprise digital maturity of 0.9 on a scale of 0 - 4. These findings suggest that small businesses are just at the beginning of their digital transformation journey. Therefore, the SBRI methodology represents a valuable tool for navigating small businesses through their digital transformation journey, contributing to academic discourse and practical application of Industry 4.0 principles in the small business segment.

The current development trend of the operational activities indicates an increase in occupations which last for a few generations and whose primary position is the activity in the sitting position. This trend is directly connected with the technological progress and development of the society within Industry 4.0. However, the workplaces intended for sitting occupations that are designed according to the current standards are unsuitable from several perspectives. The long-term sitting activities at most actual workplaces cause an accumulation of the static load. For this reason, the article deals with dynamizing the activities in the sitting position. The presented research is based on utilizing the knowledge of the sitting posture dynamics and on the information acquired through diagnostics based on the Raster Stereography as an innovative method based on modelling a natural human spin. The article brings the first research results, which points out the fact that probably not all types of dynamic sitting that are nowadays preferred are suitable for long-term working.

This paper focuses on the implementation of principles of Industry 4.0 concept to ceramic industry. The topic of this paper is to address the problematics of the implementation of processes and elements of digitization within the Industry 4.0 concept into ceramic industry. Firstly, thorough literature and bestpractice research will be discussed. Based on the state of current knowledge, concept of the Industry 4.0 Readiness Model for Refractory will be presented. The model’s main focus is on the readiness of current business structures, processes and technical and economical situation. It will provide necessary analysis and insight into potential company’s processes and background. Based on this analysis, it will be possible to define the main obstacles for future digitalization and automation within Industry 4.0 concept in Refractory industry. On the foundation of data obtained by Industry 4.0 Readiness Model for Refractory, it will be possible to implement the Industry 4.0 solutions with highest added value to specific company, based on its current state. The main purpose of this paper is to summarize and discuss key parameters and framework for Industry 4.0 Readiness Model for Refractory and its connection to future implementation of Industry 4.0 features within ceramic industry.

This article deals with automation of dimensional control on Coordinate Measuring Machine using a collaborative robot. Thanks to the dimensional control automation, it is possible to save staff capacity as well as to increase the repeatability and productivity of component measurement in series production. Within the design and implementation of the workplace, the subject of inspection was chosen. Necessary equipment of workplace and variants of workplace layout were designed for the inspected part. The part of workplace realization was also to create a robot program to fully automate the process, including product placement and placement after component inspection, depending on the measurement result. The result of the project was an automated inspection of components, which could be implemented with minimal modifications to the real manufacturing system.

Main goal of this study is to describe and design manufacturing system which is using Additive manufacturing technology for production of semi-finished products and conventional machining technology for finishing operations, then demonstrate requirements of such production on simulation model on production planning and then analyze and summarize the outputs of the production model. The model is made with aid of modern Digital Factory tools. The main purpose of the model is to provide a complex tool for this study in order to analyze and optimize the fictive production system in needed range and complexity. The topic of Rapid Prototyping and Additive manufacturing technologies is very recent topic in industry. But still, there are only few examples of production systems, which are really using Rapid Prototyping technologies as a part of the production or production line. The advantage of these technologies is their versatility, but on the other hand, as a part of production system, they can have different demands on for example production planning, area consumption or maintenance, that can affect whole production system.

This study deals with surface integrity expressed in terms of stress state as well as microstructure alterations after turning a duplex stainless steel. Residual stresses and the presence of strain-induced martensite are studied as functions of the rake angle. Residual stresses of surface and sub-surface layers were determined by the use of the X-ray diffraction and hole-drilling techniques. X-ray diffraction enables us to distinguish between residual stresses in each phase separately, which is not possible when the hole-drilling method is applied. Furthermore, alterations in the near surface region are also analysed by the use of the magnetic Barkhausen noise and metallographic observation.

The aim of the paper is to describe the design of the manipulation system for the raw ceramic chimney pipe raw blank to avoid deformation of the pipe during handling and to increase the productivity of the manufacturing process. The process of manufacturing of a ceramic chimney pipe begins with extrusion of the raw refractory material. The extruded semi-finished product is then processed and then transferred by hand to a kiln car on which it is dried and fired. It is this manipulation that heavily contributes in the deformation of the fired chimney pipes. Due to the low stiffness of the raw ceramic chimney pipe, deformation occurs by manual handling. In order to avoid these deformations, it is necessary to design a suitable concept and construction solution of the manipulation system. Due to the nature of the chimney pipe, the automation of manipulation is rather difficult. The pipe is very soft in the raw state, its surface is rough, wet and greasy. This paper deals with the design of an optimal solution for the manipulation of ceramic chimney pipes, which will prevent the chimney pipe from deforming, negatively affecting its quality and making it possible to increase the productivity of ceramic chimney pipes production.

This paper deals with the optimization of the production process of vibrocasted refractory products. The main goal is to make efficient and automate the production of moulds for refractory blocks. A theoretical research was followed by an expert analysis of the current state of the manufacturing process at an industrial partner. The next step was to analyze complete portfolio of refractory vibrocasted products, which results in choosing a representative sample whose dimensions most correspond to majority of the moulds produced. Subsequently, a design was done, to make the production process more effective with respect to time, technology and construction aspects, focusing on increasing productivity, reducing human labour and increasing production modernization. In the end, the design options were evaluated in terms of time and cost, and the ideal process of the manufacturing production was recommended with respect to the latest technology. It includes a solution for material composition and optimized design of moulds for vibrocasted refractory materials to increase production efficiency moulds and cost reduction while maintaining mould accuracy and quality. These products are subject to high demands in terms of material quality and precision, and at the same time costly to produce due to manual manufacturing.

This paper describes problems of testing and development of new mould types for refractory vibrational casting parts for melting aggregates (glass furnaces, limekilns, etc.).The main problem of the existing moulds design is in their cost and relatively complex production.We need to significantly reduce costs of production and shorten the time of delivery to the customer (now the reaction time is about 1 -2 months, the demand from customers is about 1 -2 weeks)

As a result of globalization the aspects of raising productivity and speed of production with extreme requests on the flexibility of the production systems are gaining importance. These aspects of production are affected by type of product and production and mainly by the capability of companies to correctly manage the manufacturing process. Manufacturing process is globally quicker than it was and the areas of logistics and production planning are still gaining more importance. Gradual changes are also in complexity of production. Without modern tools for production planning it would be very hard to manage production effectively. These tools are part of digital factory concept. Because of those tools the effective planning of production and utilizing the production facilities capacity to its fullest is possible. This paper describes development and implementation of the digital factory concept and its tools in our partner company and is built on previous paper dedicated to common implementation principles of digital factory tools. The main goal of digital factory implementation was optimization of the Tricanter production planning process, elimination of bottle-necks of production system and optimization of manufacturing facilities capacities utilization.

From the viewpoint of residual stresses and microstructure of ground surface, Inconel 713 superalloy is an attractive material since it is frequently used in high temperature gas turbine applications where residual stresses are relevant for service life. The goal of this contribution is to find whether there exists a relation between grinding parameters and final surface integrity parameters such as residual stresses, roughness, crystalitte size, and generally, microstructure. Highly productive creep feed grinding has been applied to produce both simple flat areas and complex fir three blade root. It has been found that the used grinding method lead to very thin deformed layer on the surface with compressive residual stresses and fine crystallites. Moreover, the detailed analyses have been carried out in order to pinpoint plausible reasons behind crack origination.

The article deals with the use of Siemens digital factory concept for production capacity planning. In the increasing competitive environment of globalized world economy, pressure to grow effciency of production pro-cesses and systems greatly increases. In addition the increasing cmplexity of product requires appropriate as well as-sembly and logistic processes as production process planning and control. These requirements in the production process planning and cotrol may be due to its complexity filled only with appropriate instruments provided by comprehesive concept of the digital factory, which allow effective use of information on production, promote collaboration between departments and provide relevant data to anyone who needs it. This paper describes implementation of digital factory simulation tools for the production process planning and control at our industrial partner. This approach to production capacity planning using the digital factory concept is unique in the Czech Republic.

Boriding is a thermochemical diffusion-based process of achieving ultra-hard surface on metals. Two distinct crystalline phases, i.e. tetragonal Fe2B and orthorhombic FeB can exist in the surface layer penetrated by boron ions. In our contribution, we have studied the microstructure, the hardness, and the spatial distributions of both phase composition and residual stresses (RS) in samples exhibiting either single-phase Fe2B or duplex Fe2B-cum-FeB character. The indispensable knowledge of the elastic constants used in the stresses calculations from the measured strains by X-ray diffraction were gained from the refined lattice parameters of both iron borides employing density functional theory implemented in CASTEP software by Materials Studio. In the studied case, there is only minor occurrence of preferred orientation in the Fe2B phase and the evaluated RS have compressive character gradually decreasing from its maximum value on the very surface.

Production of so-called superalloys is increasing in the present. This paper is about milling of Inconel 738 LC and Inconel 718. There are main mechanical properties as well as chemical composition of Inconel 738 LC and Inconel 718 in this paper. Special properties of superalloys cause, that they are very hard machining materials, mainly thanks to their high thermal stability during machining. For this reason it was necessary to measure the surface roughness after machining turbine blades made of Inconel 738LC and Inconel 718 depending on profiling. For roughing and finishing of Inconel 738 LC and Inconel 718 were used the best cutting parameters from previous research. After machining of turbine blades were measured parameters of the surface roughness and wear of the cutting tools.

Molds used for pressing refractory fireclay shapes are exposed to very strong abrasive wear, which is given by the combination of applied pressure of more than 60MPa and processed materials like alumina (Al2O3) and silica (SiO2). Typical lifespan of molds is in several thousand cycles, our aim was to improve the lifespan 10 fold at minimum. To increase the lifespan of the critical parts of the molds, it was decided to use HVOF coating technology based on WC. This article evaluates the quality of the coating on the pins for pressing tools based on the technology used for deposition. An analysis was made on two sets of HVOF coated pins from different suppliers marked as a sample "A and B". Pins were analysed on tactile CMM with scanning system and samples from these pins were analysed on a multisensor CMM.

Boriding of highly alloyed steels done with the aim of increasing their wear resistance faces several issues connected with the microstructure of the base material and restraints during the diffusion of boron. The aim of the performed analyses was to ascertain whether significant increase of boriding time can enhance the surface hardness, contribute to creation of more compact microstructure and even lead to beneficial state of residual stresses in the borided layer. Using combination of X-ray diffraction and electro-chemical polishing, residual stress depth distributions in few tens of micrometres thick borided layers were obtained.

Machining of nickel super-alloys is difficult since mechanical hardening and, consequently, extreme tool wear occur. In the case of turbine blades, castings can no longer meet stringent requirements for precision; hence, they are being ground or milled in order to comply with the demanded dimensions. In this contribution, castings made of Inconel 738LC were machined by four axis milling. The resulting surface of gas turbine blades are characterized by several surface integrity parameters with respect to the structural inhomogeneities caused by mutual effect of plastic deformations and thermal fields during the cutting process. Moreover, the impact of effective contact area of the cutter was considered as well. It will be shown that ideal machining parameters viewed from the standpoint of surface roughness and economy of the whole machining process can lead to appreciable tensile normal stresses.

Production of so-called superalloys is increasing in the present. This paper is about Inconel 738 LC. There are main mechanical properties as well as chemical composition of Inconel 738 LC in this paper. Special properties of superalloys cause, that they are very hard machining materials, mainly thanks to their high thermal stability during machining. For this reason it was necessary to measure the surface roughness after machining turbine blades made of Inconel 738LC depending on profiling. Roughing and finishing of Inconel 738 LC was used to get nearly the best parameters of the surface roughness.