PurposeThe study examines the remote integration process of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) into the production system and identifies key challenges and mitigating actions for a smoother introduction and integration process.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a case study approach to a cyber-physical production system at an industrial technology center using a mobile robot as an AMT.FindingsBy applying the plug-and-produce concept, the study exemplifies an AMT's remote integration process into a cyber-physical production system in nine steps. Eleven key challenges and twelve mitigation actions for remote integration are described based on technology–organization–environment theory. Finally, a remote integration framework is proposed to facilitate AMT integration into production systems.Practical implicationsThe study presents results purely from a practical perspective, which could reduce dilemmas in early decision-making related to smart production. The proposed framework can improve flexibility and decrease the time needed to configure new AMTs in existing production systems.Originality/valueThe area of remote integration for AMT has not been addressed in depth before. The consequences of lacking in-depth studies for remote integration imply that current implementation processes do not match the needs and the existing situation in the industry and often underestimate the complexity of considering both technological and organizational issues. The new integrated framework can already be deployed by industry professionals in their efforts to integrate new technologies with shorter time to volume and increased quality but also as a means for training employees in critical competencies required for remote integration.

Knowing about dependencies and similarities between test cases is beneficial for prioritizing them for cost-effective test execution. This holds especially true for the time consuming, manual execution of integration test cases written in natural language. Test case dependencies are typically derived from requirements and design artifacts. However, such artifacts are not always available, and the derivation process can be very time-consuming. In this paper, we propose, apply and evaluate a novel approach that derives test cases' similarities and functional dependencies directly from the test specification documents written in natural language, without requiring any other data source. Our approach uses an implementation of Doc2Vec algorithm to detect text-semantic similarities between test cases and then groups them using two clustering algorithms HDBSCAN and FCM. The correlation between test case text-semantic similarities and their functional dependencies is evaluated in the context of an on-board train control system from Bombardier Transportation AB in Sweden. For this system, the dependencies between the test cases were previously derived and are compared to the results our approach. The results show that of the two evaluated clustering algorithms, HDBSCAN has better performance than FCM or a dummy classifier. The classification methods' results are of reasonable quality and especially useful from an industrial point of view. Finally, performing a random undersampling approach to correct the imbalanced data distribution results in an F1 Score of up to 75% when applying the HDBSCAN clustering algorithm.

The presented research aims to explore future context of e-learning, needs of professionals, and how higher education can respond to those needs. This is an empirical study with a qualitative appro ...