Search results for "Operation"
showing 10 items of 2969 documents
Distributed intelligent control of exceptions in reconfigurable manufacturing systems
2003
In order to react to the continuous and unpredictable changes in product demand, in product variety, and in process technologies, reconfigurable manufacturing systems allow quick adjustment of production capacity and functionality by rearranging or changing their modular components. In this kind of system, operation management issues, such as exception handling policies, become more complex since correct reconfiguration strategies have to be selected. This paper explores the potential of the reconfigurability feature to be a basis for the development of new strategies to handle out-of-the-ordinary events in the production process; in particular, maintaining production flow when machine brea…
Decoding the Japanese Lean Production System according to a Viable Systems Perspective
2012
The increase in the complexity and variability of the business environment, due to constant and rapid changes in markets, calls for more flexible and effective production systems. Of the most valuable production systems, the Japanese lean production system (LPS) is the best known and studied, but is still not the most widely applied with success outside Japan. The reason for the low level of success of lean production outside its native country is the lack of understanding of the strong interactions which hold between enterprises and business systems. In order to fill this gap in our knowledge, we investigate the systemic interactions according to the Viable System View. To develop our anal…
Foot Print Towards Green Village - A Case on TARAGRAM
2012
This case is basically focused on particular villages of Bundelkhand region which are tending towards the self empowerment. It is about the down to earth solutions using concept of science and technology. It is about the synergistic approaches and about converting latent needs into demand. It is not compromising on quality and about increasing the productivity of all our resources within constrains of the environment to maintain ecological balance. The Development Alternatives Group, not for profit organization realized in the year of 1995 and in order to improve local economic conditions to meet basic needs, solutions were needed to respond to the needs based on local resource regeneration…
Strengthening Safety Compliance in Nuclear Power Operations: A Role-Based Approach
2014
Safety compliance is of paramount importance in guaranteeing the safe running of nuclear power plants. However, it depends mostly on procedures that do not always involve the safest outcomes. This article introduces an empirical model based on the organizational role theory to analyze the influence of legitimate sources of expectations (procedures formalization and leadership) on workers' compliance behaviors. The sample was composed of 495 employees from two Spanish nuclear power plants. Structural equation analysis showed that, in spite of some problematic effects of proceduralization (such as role conflict and role ambiguity), procedure formalization along with an empowering leadership s…
Robust energy-to-peak sideslip angle estimation with applications to ground vehicles
2015
Abstract In this paper, the observer design problem for the sideslip angle of ground vehicles is investigated. The sideslip angle is an important signal for the vehicle lateral stability, which is not measurable by using an affordable physical sensor. Therefore, we aim to estimate the sideslip angle with the yaw rate measurements by employing the vehicle dynamics. The nonlinear lateral dynamics is modeled firstly. As the tyre model is nonlinear and the road adhesive coefficient is subject to a large variation, the nonlinear lateral dynamics is transformed into an uncertain model. Considering the variation of longitudinal velocity, an uncertain linear-parameter-varying (LPV) system is obtain…
Improving Maintenance Activities of Machine Tools
2013
The paper follows the current trends in the field of maintenance, proposing approaches that fit in the concept of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). First it is presented a new proposal for tracking in-service machine tools. This is based on the identification of three operating states: good running condition, state of repair and stationary state. During the stationary state there are differentiated two distinct types of stops: natural stays and unproductive stays (those who often produce considerable losses). Based on the information contained in the records made for tracking the operation of machine tools there are proposed formulas for calculating some operational indicators and practic…
Decision making in energy planning: The electre multicriteria analysis approach compared to a fuzzy-sets methodology
1998
Every planning activity generally requires to make some choices. After a preliminary analysis of the sector under examination, a forecast of trends of input-output items, the planner must define an action plan voted to arrange all the strategies and specific interventions able to fit demand and supply during the planned time. The redaction of an action plan implies a strong effort in order to synthesize either suggestions coming from the analysis phases either all the constraints linked to technical choices. In the same time, a large number of "external" variables plays a role in orienting decision making. Some of these can be handled by numerical models (economic cost-benefit analyses, mar…
Forms and Functions of the Real Estate Market of Palermo (Italy). Science and Knowledge in the Cluster Analysis Approach
2016
The analysis of the housing market of a city requires suitable approaches and tools, such as data mining models, to represent its complexity which derives on many elements, e.g. the type of capital asset-house is a common good and an investment good as well, the heterogeneity of the urban areas—each of them has own historical and representative values and different urban functions—and the variability of building quality. The housing market of the most densely populated area of Palermo (Italy), corresponding to ten districts, is analyzed to verify the degree of its inner homogeneity and the relations between the quality of the characteristics and the price of the properties. Five hundred set…
Note: Critical Factors in Opening Pharmaceutical Packages: a Usability Study among Healthcare Workers, Women with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Elderly Wo…
2016
This cross-sectional study compared the usability of pharmaceutical packages to determine the critical factors involved in packages with different opening mechanisms. Four packaging types (a bottle with a screw cap, a box with a pill plate, disposable plastic droppers with a container and a jar with a hinge cap) were evaluated by 45 women (nurses, older women and women with rheumatoid arthritis). Usability was evaluated for subjective measures related to the ease of opening and for objective measures related to the time needed to open the packaging, electrical muscular activity (electromyography, EMG) and ranges of motion of the upper extremities. Of the arthritic women, 13% were unable to …
How to derive the analytical capacity model for not-conventional urban roundabouts
2008
The inapplicability of current methods for analyzing operations of urban not-conventional roundabouts (i.e. not referable to standard schemes) hampers seriously the assessment of their operational performances. Moreover, local constraints and the road network structure have produced lots of geometric layouts that make hard to propose an only framework to explain performances of not-conventional roundabouts. Also for these intersections it is hoped to have scientifically based methods to analyze operations with a proper reliability. Starting from these considerations, the paper shows the conceptual path followed to analyze operations at not-conventional roundabouts along an arterial of Paler…