Precision Partner: Enhancing GFRC craftsmanship with industry 4.0 factory-floor feedback

This paper presents a novel human-machine collaborative approach to automatic quality-control of Glass-Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) molds directly on the factory floor. The framework introduces Industry 4.0 technologies to enhance the ability of skilled craftsmen to make molds through the provision of horizontal feedback regarding dimensional tolerances. Where digital tools are seldom used in the fabrication of GFRC molds, and expert craftsmen are not digital experts, our implementation of automated registration and feedback processes enables craftsmen to be integrated into and gain value from the digital production chain. In this paper, we describe the in-progress framework, Precision Partner, which connects 3d scanning and point cloud registration of geometrically complex and varied one off elements to factory floor dimensional feedback. We firstly introduce the production context of GFRC molds, as well as industry standards for production feedback. We then detail our methods, and report the results of a case study that tests the framework on the case of a balcony element