Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

For agility implementation in Manufacturing Systems (MS) the implementation of the mechanisms for dynamic reconfigurability of MS structure, the proactivity, the emergence (as inherent features of agility), and the need for integration of the resources outside the original MS are required. This paper presents two architectures for MS reconfigurability in support of MS agility as well as two applications of the proposed architectures. This paper is the second part of the two-part paper that addresses the issue of agility implementation in MS (the first part presents the requirements and principles of agility and MS reconfigurability).

Shop floor control in batch type manufacturing environment is regarded by the current research community as a very complex task. This paper claims that the complexity is a result of the system approach were inflexible decisions are being made at a too early stage in the manufacturing process. It proposes a method that introduces flexibility and dynamics and thus simplifies the decision making in production planning. The SFC method, which is a module of production management system, proposes that in order to introduce flexibility routings should be regarded as a variable. Each expert will generate routine that meets his needs at the time of need and thereby increase dramatically manufacturing efficiency.

Shorter product life cycles and quicker innovation cycles entail frequent product replacements or substitutions. Due to additional aspects like a simultaneous engineering beyond company borders, the production ramp-up process becomes significantly important and more and more complex. Existing planning approaches to support the ramp-up process predominantly assume individual cases and are limited to one company or component. Regarding the supply chain as one unit, this approach may lead to logistical as well as economical inefficiencies. Hence, a method is required that enables companies to arrange and to accomplish a logistic- and cost-oriented cross-company ramp-up process in a stable and reproducible manner. A suitable approach for an efficient scheduling is the use of a ramp-up reference model which is described in the following paper.

Customized Token-Based production control Systems constitutes one of the most recent approaches to production control, having shown their effectiveness for different manufacturing environments. Performance optimization of a Customized Token-Based System can be formulated as a multicriteria combinatorial optimization problem, which can be addressed by means of metaheuristics. Among these, the cross-entropy method (CE) has confirmed to be useful for a great diversity of problems, including the NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. However, its applicability for multicriteria problems has not still been explored. In this paper we tackle the multicriteria optimization of a customized token-based production control systems using the CE method, and test its suitability for real-life environments in a simulation model extracted from a component automobile factory in Spain.

The globalization and its consequences have driven the competition to a new (probably again temporary) peak: the Internet has made not only the (main) information about every product, but also its comparison with its competitors just a few clicks away. Since the customers’ demands for new functionality, high quality, fast delivery, low prices and good service are permanently increasing, for remaining competitive the enterprises have to invest in novel technologies, allowing high quality despite low production costs and good management of their own know-how. Nowadays the know-how and the knowledge around the product development process represent the most important aspects of companies to stay in market. It is essential to speed up product development process with a high quality to get competitive advantages. At present, several methods exist to support the Simultaneous Engineering (SE). The speed and the flexibility of the development process depend on the information, its representation and its transfer. The goal of our new approach is to minimize the waste of time by improving the support for the data transfer of all necessary information between the departments, involved in the development.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of Business Intelligence (BI) for optimal strategic decision making and, on the long term, for business innovation and competitive advantage. The Business Intelligence System aims at identifying and gathering strategic information from outside and inside the company and communicating it to key stakeholders. It is aimed at the Machine- Tool industry, but it could be applied to other industries where competition is high. The implementation of a BI system will be explained through the development of two competences: component competence and architectural competence.

ProVis.Agent is the first agent-based production monitoring & control system for distributed real-time production monitoring. Its functionality is based on ProVis.NT, the proven object-oriented control system which monitors and controls e.g. the body, paint and assembly shops in DaimlerChrysler’s automotive plant in Bremen, Germany. Forming an integral part of the manufacturing execution system (MES), ProVis.Agent for the first time allows to be integrated with other shop-floor related applications. In this paper the author shows a case study of implementing agent-based technology to a classical field of automation and how to use it for interconnection of real time systems.

Twenty years ago, Zachman proposed a framework – the Information Systems Architecture – that was certainly one of the main contributions to the Enterprise Architecture research area.

More recently, the concept of service was proposed and largely adopted, thus introducing another but fundamental perspective on how organizations not only operate internally but also relate with stakeholders.

In this paper we propose an extension to the Zachman framework that incorporates the concept of service.

The concept of service has been used for long in the economic and business context and more recently in the information system field. Simply stated, a service generally involves a need by one of the parts, the consumer, which is accomplished by the other part, the provider. A part could be a person, a system or an organization.

This paper presents two main groups of results in the field of process modeling; first, highlighting complexity-related properties shared by several, if not all, levels of production; second, a family of methods set up to handle problems resulting from the aforementioned properties. The presented algorithms lead up to a submodel decomposition method combining generalized feature selection and artificial neural networks. Aside from theoretical presentation, practical results in various levels of actual industrial production demonstrate the feasibility of the methods, suggesting that they can cope with complexity-related problems of different production levels in a uniform way.

Digital Enterprise Technology (DET) is defined as a synthesis of digital and physical systems across the product lifecycle which can be exploited for two main benefits: risk mitigation through consistent and seamless data standards; and reduction in product development times through improved access to the most accurate project data at any time, from anywhere, by anyone. Agility is defined as responsiveness to unpredictability, particularly unpredictable events in the environment external to a process. The general need for agile response in turbulent environments is well documented and has been analyzed at the manufacture phase.

This paper introduces a framework for an agile response to these turbulent environments during the design stages of product development. The Agile Design Framework is based on the founding principles described as DET, with the added benefit of reduced reaction time and therefore greater agility in the face of unpredicted external events. A 4 level classification scheme for event impact is discussed and a common toolbox of Digital Enterprise Technologies (Core Tools) for agile design is introduced. The paper proposes the implementation of the DET-based Core Tools during a meta-design stage, for maximum benefit from the synergies of the many systems.