As part of the research project “Prognostic Model Selection for Predictive Maintenance and an Integrated Reinforcement Learning-based Production Scheduling in Dynamic Manufacturing Systems (PROPHECY)”, we recently conducted a work mission to our project partners in Brazil.

The mission included visits to two key academic partners: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), Florianópolis and Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM), Manaus.

In Florianópolis, we met with the team at the ProLogIS Lab (UFSC) to review the status of the work packages, discuss methodological aspects of the simulation and learning framework, and define the next steps for the upcoming project phases as well as academic exchanges.

In Manaus, the work mission focused on two main activities. The first was an industrial partner visit to Harman, a leading manufacturer of printed circuit boards. This visit was crucial for understanding the production process of the SMT (surface-mount technology) production line, which will serve as the industrial use case for the project. The second activity took place at UFAM, where we presented BIBA, the University of Bremen, and the PROPHECY project, visited the research facilities, and held meetings with academics to align future collaborations.

The work mission significantly deepened our understanding of the industrial context, strengthened collaboration with our Brazilian partners, and marked an important step towards the implementation and validation of the PROPHECY framework. We sincerely thank our colleagues Prof. Enzo Frazzon (UFSC), Prof. Iracyanne Uhlmann (UFAM), and our industrial partner contact Carlos Americo (Harman) for their excellent support, hospitality, and commitment to this joint research effort.

The PROPHECY project is part of the initiative CRI SCMfg (Collaborative Research Initiative on Smart Connected Manufacturing) and is jointly funded by DFG and CAPES.