Disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major upheavals for manufacturing, and has severe implications for production networks, and the demand and supply chains underpinning manufacturing operations. This paper is the first of its kind to pull together research on both—the pandemic-related challenges and the management interventions in a manufacturing context. This systematic literature review reveals the frailty of supply chains and production networks in withstanding the pressures of lockdowns and other safety protocols, including product and workforce shortages. These, altogether, have led to closed facilities, reduced capacities, increased costs, and severe economic uncertainty for manufacturing businesses. In managing these challenges and stabilising their operations, manufacturers are urgently intervening by—investing in digital technologies, undertaking resource redistribution and repurposing, regionalizing and localizing, servitizing, and targeting policies that can help them survive in this altered economy. Based on holistic analysis of these challenges and interventions, this review proposes an extensive research agenda for future studies to pursue.

/pdf/how-is-covid-19-altering-the-manufacturing-landscape-a-3se03sznoo.pdf

How is COVID-19 altering the manufacturing landscape? A literature review of imminent challenges and management interventions

Smart Cleaner: A New Autonomous Indoor Disinfection Robot for Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objectives Smart hospitals involve the application of recent information and communications technology (ICT) innovations to medical services; however, the concept of a smart hospital has not been rigorously defined. In this study, we aimed to derive the definition and service types of smart hospitals and investigate cases of each type. Methods A literature review was conducted regarding the background and technical characteristics of smart hospitals. On this basis, we conducted a focus group interview with experts in hospital information systems, and ultimately derived eight smart hospital service types. Results Smart hospital services can be classified into the following types: services based on location recognition and tracking technology that measures and monitors the location information of an object based on short-range communication technology; high-speed communication network-based services based on new wireless communication technology; Internet of Things-based services that connect objects embedded with sensors and communication functions to the internet; mobile health services such as mobile phones, tablets, and wearables; artificial intelligence-based services for the diagnosis and prediction of diseases; robot services provided on behalf of humans in various medical fields; extended reality services that apply hyper-realistic immersive technology to medical practice; and telehealth using ICT. Conclusions Smart hospitals can influence health and medical policies and create new medical value by defining and quantitatively measuring detailed indicators based on data collected from existing hospitals. Simultaneously, appropriate government incentives, consolidated interdisciplinary research, and active participation by industry are required to foster and facilitate smart hospitals.

/pdf/review-of-smart-hospital-services-in-real-healthcare-1w7zpco1.pdf

Review of Smart Hospital Services in Real Healthcare Environments

This work has been supported by FCT—Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the
R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. The author T.R. received funding through a doctoral
scholarship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundacao para a Ciencia
e a Tecnologia) [grant number SFRH/BD/06944/2020], with funds from the Portuguese Ministry
of Science, Technology and Higher Education and the European Social Fund through the Programa
Operacional do Capital Humano (POCH). The author F.G. received funding through a doctoral
scholarship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundacao para a Ciencia
e a Tecnologia) [grant number SFRH/BD/145993/2019], with funds from the Portuguese Ministry
of Science, Technology and Higher Education and the European Social Fund through the Programa
Operacional do Capital Humano (POCH).

CHARMIE: A collaborative healthcare and home service and assistant robot for elderly care

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9731820

Peter O'Dwyer

Papers

Service robots in the healthcare sector