[A research team led by POSTECH Professor Suk-Hwan Suh has received the ISO approval on the innovative manufacturing equipment standards for Industry 4.0]

Cyber-Physically Controlled Smart Machine Tool Systems for Adaptive Manufacturing (CPSAM) international standards (ISO 23704-3) developed by POSTECH Professor Suk-Hwan Suh (Director of POSTECH Research Center for Smart Factory) of the Department of Industrial & Management Engineering has been approved on October 15 by the ISO Physical Device Control (ISO/TC184/SC1) after three months of voting.

Developed countries, including Japan, are currently leading the smart metal-printing machines industry. Korea is a latecomer and its standards have lacked adequate support from member countries to be adopted as an ISO international standard.

Commonly referred to as 3D printers, stacking machines have been mainly used for making prototypes using plastic materials, but have recently been used as equipment to produce metal-based products across industries such as automobiles and aviation, along with the development of various materials, design, process and post-treatment technologies.

Smart stacking machine is labeled as a ‘machine that makes machines’ that can monitor, analyze, and optimize additive processes using smart technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and digital twins.

Smart stacking machines have the advantage of not only improving quality, using less materials, improving the environment and safety, which are all key to stacking, but also improves the productivity of the entire manufacturing process through communication and cooperation with other manufacturing equipment within the factory including humans and robots.

Therefore, it is expected that this will have both direct and indirect effects on the hardware industry and the various solution software industries supporting it, cloud and service industries, automobiles and aviation industries, etc.

In particular, the metal printing machine that stacks metal materials is a convergence technology that requires not only materials technology but also design, processing, and post-treatment technologies. This machine reduces the production time compared to the conventional cutting methods and allows manufacturing of materials in any form.

The international standards made by POSTECH was selected with the support from the POSTECH Research Center for Smart Factory and the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards. The ISO’s approval was obtained with countries including Germany, the U.K., Italy and China assisting the efforts, and Sweden and France expressing their desire for partnership.

In addition, Professor Suh’s Reference Model for Cyber-Physically Controlled Smart Machine Tool Systems (CPSMT) (ISO 23704-2) was also adopted in 2018, and a standard is being enacted.

With this year’s approval of the ISO international standards for CPSMT Cyber-Physically Controlled Smart Machine Tool Systems for Adaptive Manufacturing once again, Korea has achieved great success in leading the international standards in two major fields of smart machines.

Professor Suh remarked, “This adoption of the ISO international standard has boosted the international profile of Korea, a latecomer to the smart machine tools industry.” He added, “We anticipate this to be an opportunity to increase the market share as domestic suppliers preemptively apply the international standards to their products.”

Professor Suh concluded, “It will also be meaningful topic for interdisciplinary education and research regarding machinery, new materials, computers, control systems, industrial and system engineering, which deal with the software, hardware, new materials and smart factory sectors for Industry 4.0.”
Professor Suh is currently the convener of the ISO Technical Committee (ISO/TC184/SC1/WG11).