Mass production readiness of a hardware start-up : assessing and improving product designs for manufacturing and assembly
Name
1263579464-MIT.pdf
Size
7.22 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
205bd646ff7e74686e025c492f669a2a
Author(s)
Bhakuni, Abhimanyu Singh.
Advisor(s)
David E. Hardt and Maria Yang
Date Issued
2018
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The US food and restaurant industry is witnessing a step change due to recent advancements in smart automation. Increasing labor costs, rising living costs and shortage of skilled labor is forcing restaurateurs to look for alternatives to remain in operation and maintain profit margins. Industrial robots, equipped with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities are now penetrating into commercial kitchens. The idea is to establish a symbiotic and highly efficient process flow between humans and robots in order to increase throughput, enhance food quality and improve customer experience. Miso Robotics, a robotics start-up based in Pasadena, is one of the leading change makers in this direction with a vision to create a kitchen for the future, integrated fully with robotic kitchen assistants. The company, through its flagship product Flippy, has demonstrated the capability to emulate human cooking behavior by making hamburgers. They also recently added frying capability to Flippy, which addresses a huge market need across the globe. In the summer of 2018, three graduate students from MIT worked with the team of Miso Robotics and consulted them on challenges related to product design, manufacturing and scalability. This thesis explores some of the challenges faced by a start-up during its production scale-up phase. It does so by presenting three case studies and emphasizing upon the importance of design for manufacturing and assembly, 3D printing and knowledge of existing solutions before solving a problem.
Description
Thesis: M. Eng. in Advanced Manufacturing and Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, September, 2018
Cataloged from the PDF version of thesis. "September 2018." "Due to the condition of the original material, there are unavoidable flaws in this reproduction. We have made every effort possible to provide you with the best copy available."--Disclaimer page.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 66-67).
Subjects
Mechanical Engineering.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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