New advanced manufacturing techniques combined with the Internet of Things are enabling the creation of a digital manufacturing enterprise that is not only interconnected, but communicates, analyzes, and uses information to drive further intelligent action in the physical world. The digital age in manufacturing is revolutionizing how we design, develop, fabricate, distribute, and consume products. Wood is the world’s largest construction material (by volume), renewable and sustainable. For instance, Oregon is the first state to produce a new type of wood building material that was certified as environmentally sustainable. The world today is profoundly dependent upon wood, paper, and other wood-based products in a wide variety of ways. With an increase in demand for building materials that are sustainable and renewable, wood-based materials will be an even more important part of our daily lives in the future. Yet there is a gap between the potential of computational design and digital fabrication and current construction methods that utilize wood. Our main goal at Oregon State University is to close this gap and bring greater sustainability to future construction materials and methods.

1. How Industry 4.0 is driving
innovation in the wood sector?
“A strategic question”
Raffaele de Amicis, EECS, Oregon State University
Eric Hansen, CoF, Oregon State University

2. In the current and future scientific and technological
worldwide panorama, cutting-edge computational and
visualization and fabrication techniques play a critical
role for the development of new wood products that
bring innovation into companies and ultimately
improve the quality of life for society.

3. The purpose of this slide set is to stimulate a
provocative and proactive discussion on how
evolution of IT technologies may exploit the
potentiality yet unexpressed of wood as a
construction material in the digital age.

4. In the past, timber fabrication processes were focused on either manual
work or mass production of single elements. Although these techniques
are elaborated and efficient, they are also inflexible. This is the reason
for an increasing amount of interest in computational design and
fabrication processes, as well as the use of industrial robots. Digital
fabrication substantially expands the range of manufacturing
possibilities and offers more freedom for developing innovative,
material-oriented and adaptive construction systems.

5. Is this a disruptive idea?

6. I believe is a natural evolution.
The industrial age The digital ageThe wooden age

7. Information
technologies
play an
integral part in
architectural
design and
wood science
and
engineering.

8. Manufacturing has undergone many evolutionary stages and
paradigm shifts. The paradigm shifts in going from a craft industry
to mass production , then lean manufacturing, and finally to agile
manufacturing and mass customizations. The digital age in
manufacturing is giving rise to output devices that allow rapid
customization and manufacturing, revolutionizing how we design,
develop, fabricate, distribute, and consume products.

9. Wood @ Digital Fabrication
Big data.
Advanced
analytics
Human-
machine
interfaces
IoT
Digital-to-
physical
transfer
3D
Printing
New advanced manufacturing
techniques combined with the Internet
of Things is enabling the concept to
create a digital manufacturing
enterprise that is not only
interconnected, but communicates,
analyzes, and uses information to drive
further intelligent action back in the
physical world

10. The
Wooden
Age

11. The
Industrial
Age

12. The
Digital
Age

13. What
Next?

14. Our research is focused on these
four areas:
Design: parametric design, simulation, generative methods, highly complex architecture.
Manufacturing, fabrication and assembly: 3D printing, CNC and robotics.
“Information” materials: Smart materials that respond to stimuli and can incorporate sensors and transmitters, also novel
wood-based 3D printing materials.
Smart systems and structures: monitoring systems, digital controls and interactive building elements.
Virtual engineering: networked, virtual reality tools that open up new ways to work together and bring new forms of
collective creativity to design and architecture.

15. With a specific focus on:
Computational Mechanical Modelling of Wood
Computational Design Modeling of Wood-Based Products: Advanced Timber Structures
3D Printing & Robotic Fabrication in Timber Construction
Digital Fabrication and Design in Mixed Realities Environments
Wood in the Arts, a Computational Approach to Artistic Wood Design
Business Innovation in the wood industry in the Digital era

16. Thanks for your Attention.
Raffaele de Amicis
Associate Professor
School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
raffaele.deamicis@oregonstate.edu
Mobile: +1 (541) 908 6776