Augmented Reality-Based Framework Supporting Visual Inspection for Automotive Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper called  Augmented Reality-based Framework supporting Industrial internet of Things and Visual Inspection inside the Automotive  Industry, by Amal Chouchene, Adriana Ventura Carvalho , Fernando Charrua-Santos, and Walid Barhoumi.

Very good publication, the research problems were very well presented. The main idea is clearly explained and I’m really impressed by the variety of research methods. Due to the fact that Applied system innovation is a very serious publisher, I would ask you to consider some comments that will enrich the level of this publication.

There are some major aspects I would like to highlight:

• The title of the publication needed to be redrafted, is too long.
• It would be advisable to write an introduction corresponding to the content of the publication.
• Please present the purpose and scope of the work and include it in the introduction.
• The abstract should be written in accordance with MDPI standards.
• What is the future direction of this research?
• Publication describes a technical solution, too little scientific description.
• The authors could add a paragraph with a brief description of the extent to which the presented research and results contribute to science.

The presented conclusions may be of fundamental importance, therefore they should be presented in a better light and the author(s) should emphasize the original research contribution. I believe, that suggested amendments will significantly increase the relevance of the publication and will improve it. After applying all required changes, the paper is suitable for publication.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for reviewing your case study. I have a few recommendations for improvement in this publication: 

1. I propose to extend the Introduction of your study e.g. on other possibilities of using AR in other types of industrial plants
2. I propose to extend the Conclusion to include a link to the IATF 16949 standard, where there is a direct link between the 8.4.2 Production and Service provision.
3. In the Figures descriptions, insert the source
4. Figure 5 is a low-sharp image
5. Consider generating graphs from the data in Table 1. 

Sincerely

Your reviewer

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The Authors present a very innovative system and the comparison results may become very important for companies that might be interested in the application of smart glasses in their process. Therefore, the concept is worth considering for further publication; nevertheless, the manuscript needs some fundamental changes.

 

Please, describe a method/methods which are applied within the research.

 

As the Authors mentioned, the inspecting „operation is carried out by a human operator, who, by reading an identification document that follows the vehicle along the production process, identifies the vehicle present at the station, and shows it on a screen.” This might be commented for such processes in other production processes, especially these in case of which AR can become applied, e.g.:

Szajna, A.; Stryjski, R.; Woźniak, W.; Chamier-Gliszczyński, N.; Kostrzewski, M. Assessment of Augmented Reality in Manual Wiring Production Process with Use of Mobile AR Glasses. Sensors 2020, 20 (17), 4755, pp. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20174755

Szajna, A.; Kostrzewski, M.; Ciebiera, K.; Stryjski, R.; Woźniak, W. Application of the Deep CNN-Based Method in Industrial System for Wire Marking Identification. Energies 2021, 14, 3659. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14123659

Boboc, R.G.; Gîrbacia, F.; Butilă, E.V. The Application of Augmented Reality in the Automotive Industry: A Systematic Literature Review. Appl. Sci. 2020, 10, 4259. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10124259

Boboc, R.G.; Chiriac, R.-L.; Antonya, C. How Augmented Reality Could Improve the Student’s Attraction to Learn Mechanisms. Electronics 2021, 10, 175. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10020175

Fuentes, D.; Correia, L.; Costa, N.; Reis, A.; Barroso, J.; Pereira, A. SAR.IoT: Secured Augmented Reality for IoT Devices Management. Sensors 2021, 21, 6001. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21186001

Reljić, V.; Milenković, I.; Dudić, S.; Šulc, J.; Bajči, B. Augmented Reality Applications in Industry 4.0 Environment. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11, 5592. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11125592

This and other research may enrich the literature review of the paper, which is quite weak with solely 32 references.

 

The figures' quality should increase, especially fonts’ sizes. Prints screens are of low quality, please increase this quality with better resolution.

 

Why did the Authors choose Vuzix M300 smart glass for their research? This should be commented on in the manuscript.

 

Some questions given in the questionnaire should be checked during the field-test - check e.g. Szajna et al. (2020).

 

It is also worth enriching the conclusion with more results of summary type and worth considering other future realization together with mentioning research limitations.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The article covers and interesting topic - AR is indeed being increasingly deployed within industrial applications. The paper is generally well-written, but the Introduction and Results section need considerable improvement.

The opening sentence needs rephrasing '..a growing researcher’s
attention...' - this means the researcher is growing rather than the research domain.

In the abstract and introduction, the authors refer to Industry 4.0 as 'industry of the future', yet we are currently in Industry 4.0. Some works currently allude to Industry 5.0 already. For instance: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334229273_Industry_50_and_its_expected_applications_in_medical_field and https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337114167_INDUSTRY_50_AND_A_CRITIQUE_OF_INDUSTRY_40 

Overall discussion of Industry 4.0 can be improved - here are some articles for indication of discussions on Industry 4.0 which you can use for guidance on improving the discussion: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/je/2020/8090521/,  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40436-017-0204-7,  https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/13/10/264/htm, 

The Introduction section is lacking a clear explanation of the contributions and novelty of the work compared to related articles. Maybe one you might find interesting for comparison is this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353972240_Industrial_augmented_reality_as_an_approach_for_device_identification_within_a_manufacturing_plant_for_property_alteration_purpose 

It is also not clear how the technique proposed by the authors relates to what they refer to as a 'cognitive assistant'. There appears to be no 'cognitive' aspect at all in the approach.

The background section provides and interesting discussion on related AR works.

In Section 3 - the cognitive system needs defining. Only the data transmission and broker are defined. In figure 3, the cognitive element appears to be a bit of black box - the inner workings are not defined. 

Line 294 - the authors use 10 participants. This is quite a low number - justification for the volume of users is needed. It also makes the results quite misleading in terms of high percentages. The nature of the participants, both the operators and researchers, needs defining - for instance, why were they selected? what is their relation to the project? why were only researchers selected? where are they based and why were they selected?

Further, how have the questions been defined? - they seem like quite a random selection. Are they based on related works?

Further detailed discussion of the survey process and the findings are required. 

Line 313 '... mostly agreed...' - can the authors be more specific and discuss quantitative elements? 

The final statement cannot be proven - line 324 '... may serve the concept of Industry 4.0 ensuring lower and reliable response time, with reduced operational costs...' There is no quantitative/qualitative experimentation beyond the simplistic survey, in which the assessment questions cannot answer this point.

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for your input. The paper is suitable for publication 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Many thanks for your previous feedback and your decision.

Best Regards,

Amal Chouchene.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors:

As I read, you have taken into account almost all the recommendations. One has been replaced. You probably don't have IATF 16949: 2016 available. Nevertheless, I recommend mentioning this in the conclusions as other possible directions of research. I see your efforts and recommend them to publish. 

Sincerely.

Your Reviewer

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Many thanks for your feedback and your decision. 

Your assumption is correct, we don't have IATF 16949: 2016 available. However, following your suggestion, I've added a small paragraph at the end of the conclusion:
=> "Alternatively, another future direction for the proposed system is the use of the "IATF 16949" standard, given its ability of early defect prevention. Moreover, the IATF 16949 standard serves the reduction of variation and waste in the assembly chain, which may overcome the occasional issues mentioned above."

I hope it lives up to your expectation.

Best regards, 
Amal Chouchene.

Reviewer 3 Report

The Authors have developed their manuscript. Therefore, I advise the Editors to accept the manuscript for publication. However, it is a good idea to send figures in separate files, so that the graphics specialists from MDPI publishing house could support the Authors with appropriate quality of figures.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Many thanks for your previous feedback and your decision.

As for the figures, I have sent an email with the following object "[Figures] Paper asi-1631300" 

Best Regards,

Amal Chouchene.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors, thank you for clarifying some points. The article is improving

The opening sentence still needs fixing - either something like:

'Visual inspection, inside an industrial environment, has attracted considerable research attention...'

or

'Visual inspection, inside an industrial environment, has attracted many researchers' attention...'

The first one I think sounds better...

I don't think the Introduction has improved much. You only seem to have added lines 51-54 and made very minor changes. Discussion of the novel contributions is still lacking. At present, I do not agree with your response of 'changed to match MDPI standards'.

 

Regarding 3.2.2 - I agree it is not clear that the data visualisation part is the actual 'cognitive system' part. You should also add a definition (similar to the one you provided in the response) to define the nature of the cognitive system. 

Thank you for the clarification on the source of the questions.

The authors refer to the funding section as justification for the survey participants - however there is nothing there to support this. Further, confidentially reasons should not affect your volume of survey participants - please define in the article why 10 were chosen. I still find that 10 is far too low for results in a journal article. Also because a considerable portion of the participants are from your own lab there is a risk of bias in the results.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

I do think the paper is very interesting and covers a valid topic, but the evaluation process is still very limited with so few participants - it makes the pie charts and percentages displayed very misleading. It would be better to poise the evaluation as an 'Expert Analysis' rather than generic survey and not focus on the percentages. However, at this point, as this is the third review - I leave it with the Editors to decide.

Line 279 'thanks to' - is not appropriate scientific phrasing. I suggest 'In light of' or 'Due to'...

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Many thanks for your feedback. 

For line 279, changed to "Considering...."

I have also removed the pie charts and percentages, keeping only the table reinforced by the qualitative metrics: reliability, responsiveness, and agility 287-> 305 & user acceptance: 306 -> 346.

Hope it lives up to your expectations. 

Best regards,

Amal Chouchene.