End users subscribe to use information handling systems having a selected of available performance characteristics defined by a keyboard and touchpad configuration selected to build the information handling systems. A manufacturer meets subscriptions with information handling systems built from an inventory of new keyboards, deployed keyboards of information handling system in use by subscribers, and separated keyboards taken from returned information handling systems and re-used. End user subscriptions are met in part by building replacement information handling systems with separated keyboards having a useful life remaining that aligns with end user keyboard usage patterns tracked over time, benchmarked performance metrics and end user subscription performance characteristics.

According to an embodiment, a material recommendation apparatus includes an extractor, a creator, a matcher and a recommender. The extractor extracts information about a substance as a candidate for a material for an industrial product, a property of the substance, and a report time of the property from an electronic document. The creator creates, for each substance, time series data in which the property is associated with the report time. The matcher matches the time series data with a pattern. The recommender recommends, as the material, a substance corresponding to time series data that matches the pattern.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for optimizing a process of manufacturing a product. In one aspect, the method comprises repeatedly performing the following: i) selecting a configuration of input settings for manufacturing a product, based on a causal model that measures causal relationships between input settings and a measure of a quality of the product; ii) determining the measure of the quality of the product manufactured using the configuration of input settings; and iii) adjusting, based on the measure of the quality of the product manufactured using the configuration of input settings, the causal model.

A method to be performed in a production support system configured to process a raw material and to produce a product. And the method includes: acquiring a plurality of element values relating to production elements of the product; determining whether the element values are within allowable ranges in which a quality of the product meets a predetermined allowed quality; resetting the allowable ranges of one or a plurality of other element values to the allowable ranges in which the quality of the product meets the predetermined allowed quality, upon determining that at least one element value exceeds the allowable range; and outputting information about the reset allowable ranges.

Provided is an integrated management system including: a registration unit configured to register a plurality of production management systems for each managing a target production process as a target among a plurality of production processes of producing a product from a material in association with a sequence of the plurality of production processes; a feedback data acquisition unit configured to acquire, from at least one of the plurality of production management systems, feedback data for evaluating a production element in an upstream production process, which is an upstream process of the target production process, on a basis of quality of a target product, which is a product of the target production process, in the upstream production process; and a feedback data providing unit configured to provide the feedback data to an upstream production management system configured to manage the upstream production process on a basis of the sequence.

Provided is a production management system including: an operational data acquisition unit for acquiring operational data regarding a production element in a target production process as a target among a plurality of production processes for producing a product from a material; a quality data acquisition unit for acquiring, as quality data indicating quality of a target product, feedback data for evaluating the production element in the target production process based on quality of a downstream product in the target production process, the feedback data being output from a production management system for managing a downstream production process of producing the downstream product by using, as a material, the target product; an analysis unit for analyzing the operational feedback data; and a control information decision unit for deciding control information for controlling the production element in the target production process based on an analysis result.

Provided is a production management system including: an operational data acquisition unit for acquiring operational data regarding a production element in a target production process as a target among a plurality of production processes for producing a product from a material; a quality data acquisition unit for acquiring quality data indicating quality of a target product; an analysis unit for analyzing the operational and quality data to estimate an influence, caused by an upstream product, on the quality of the target product, the upstream product being a product of an upstream production process and serving as a material in the target production process; and a feedback unit for outputting, based on an analysis result, feedback data for evaluating a production element in the upstream production process based on the quality of the target product in the upstream production process.

An automatic machine for the production or the packaging of consumer products, in particular of the tobacco industry has at least one processing line provided with a plurality of operating members and feeds at least one material used to manufacture the consumer products. A control and/or identification method includes carrying out, inside a volume containing at least part of the automatic machine, a three-dimensional detection using at least one hyperspectral detection unit for detecting alterations of the electromagnetic field produced by all the objects inside the volume, the hyperspectral detection unit outputs raw data concerning the dimensions, position, shape, physical structure, and/or the chemical composition of all the objects present inside the volume. The raw data is filtered using an artificial intelligence algorithm to isolate and extract information concerning at least one single object inside the volume; and the information is used to carry out a control and/or identification operation.

A quality stabilization system stabilizes quality of a third product to be produced in an industrial process having a first production process, a second production process, and a third production process which are independent of each other. A first product is produced in the first production process. A second product is produced in the second production process. The third product is produced using the first product and the second product in the third production process. The quality stabilization system includes a collector configured to collect evaluation indices for evaluating qualities of the first product produced in the first production process and the second product produced in the second production process, a selector configured to select at least one of the first production process, the second production process, and the third production process in accordance with the evaluation indices collected by the collector, and an adjuster configured to adjust the quality of a product which is produced in a production process selected by the selector.

This invention concerns apparatus for generating instructions for machines of a manufacturing chain used to manufacture a workpiece. The apparatus comprising a processor arranged to receive a model based definition (MBD) of a workpiece including geometric dimensions and tolerances; receive inputs setting an additive build design for building the workpiece based upon the geometric dimensions; generate additive instructions for an additive manufacturing machine of the manufacturing chain based upon the additive build design; determine a prospective intermediate workpiece product expected from an additive build in accordance with the additive build design; determine differences between the prospective intermediate workpiece product and the model based definition of the workpiece; and generate further instructions for at least one further machine of the manufacturing chain based upon the differences.