scholarly journals Not so different altogether: Putting Lean and sociotechnical design into practice in a process industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Torbjørn Hekneby ◽  
Jos Benders ◽  
Jonas A. Ingvaldsen
Keyword(s):  
Process Industry ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Chemical Plants ◽  
Specific Production ◽  
Sociotechnical Design ◽  
Top Managers ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Contingency View ◽  
Management Audit

Purpose: The shop-floor organization under lean production (LP) has been hotly debated for about three decades. As this organization concept leaves considerable room for interpretation, the content of lean-inspired changes can vary widely. This paper pleads for a contingency view of how LP is implemented and how the outcomes of lean-inspired changes rely on users’ interpretations of the concept in particular production contexts.Design/methodology/approach: A case study was conducted in two large Norwegian chemical plants. Data from the observations and interviews were supplemented by interviews with top managers in 2017 and 2018. The first author also followed a management audit in one plant, assessing the plant’s overall implementation of the company-specific production system.Findings: The lean-inspired changes in the company had brought about a shop-floor organization typically associated with sociotechnical design (STD), including extensive employee choice autonomy and a broad span of control.Originality/value: Our findings demonstrate the importance of understanding how lean is interpreted in different contexts. Our contingency view may aid organizational designers in making more-informed choices by clarifying relevant issues and trade-offs in lean implementations.

scholarly journals A performance model for mobile robot-based part feeding systems to supermarkets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilio Moretti ◽  
Elena Tappia ◽  
Martina Mauri ◽  
Marco Melacini
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Performance Model ◽  
Innovative Technology ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Storage And Retrieval ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Part Feeding ◽  
Feeding Systems

AbstractIn a context where companies are striving to produce highly customised goods in small batches and within short lead times, increasing attention is being put on the design and management of part feeding systems. This research is the first to model automated part feeding to supermarkets in a factory environment, considering an innovative technology called vertical robotic storage and retrieval systems. This technology allows automating the storage, picking, and internal transportation activities in an integrated process, thanks to rack-climbing robots roaming in both the shop floor and the storage racks. We develop an analytical model based on the queuing network approach to analyse the system performance, and we use it to perform numerical experiments and to evaluate the design trade-offs with reference to a real case in the automotive industry. Results show that an increase in the number of robots leads to better performance since the positive impact on the response time is stronger than the negative impact on the waiting times of robots at the supermarkets due to congestion. Furthermore, a configuration with multiple small supermarkets improves the efficiency of the replenishment process, compared to a setting with few big supermarkets.

scholarly journals Hindcast and Near Real-Time Monitoring of Green Macroalgae Blooms in Shallow Coral Reef Lagoons Using Sentinel-2: A New-Caledonia Case Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 211
Author(s):  
Maële Brisset ◽  
Simon Van Wynsberge ◽  
Serge Andréfouët ◽  
Claude Payri ◽  
Benoît Soulard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Green Algae ◽  
Algal Blooms ◽  
New Caledonia ◽  
Spectral Indices ◽  
Green Macroalgae ◽  
Spectral Bands ◽  
Algae Blooms ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Sentinel 2

Despite the necessary trade-offs between spatial and temporal resolution, remote sensing is an effective approach to monitor macroalgae blooms, understand their origins and anticipate their developments. Monitoring of small tropical lagoons is challenging because they require high resolutions. Since 2017, the Sentinel-2 satellites has provided new perspectives, and the feasibility of monitoring green algae blooms was investigated in this study. In the Poé-Gouaro-Déva lagoon, New Caledonia, recent Ulva blooms are the cause of significant nuisances when beaching. Spectral indices using the blue and green spectral bands were confronted with field observations of algal abundances using images concurrent with fieldwork. Depending on seabed compositions and types of correction applied to reflectance data, the spectral indices explained between 1 and 64.9% of variance. The models providing the best statistical fit were used to revisit the algal dynamics using Sentinel-2 data from January 2017 to December 2019, through two image segmentation approaches: unsupervised and supervised. The latter accurately reproduced the two algal blooms that occurred in the area in 2018. This paper demonstrates that Sentinel-2 data can be an effective source to hindcast and monitor the dynamics of green algae in shallow lagoons.

scholarly journals Entropy trade-offs in artistic design: A case study of Tamil kolam

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.-Han Tran ◽  
Timothy Waring ◽  
Silke Atmaca ◽  
Bret A. Beheim
Keyword(s):  
Trade Offs

Abstract

scholarly journals Decision Support for the (Inter-)Basin Management of Water Resources Using Integrated Hydro-Economic Modeling

Hydrology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Gerald Norbert Souza da Silva ◽  
Márcia Maria Guedes Alcoforado de Moraes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Water Allocation ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Water Transfer ◽  
Economic Modeling ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Study Results

The development of adequate modeling at the basin level to establish public policies has an important role in managing water resources. Hydro-economic models can measure the economic effects of structural and non-structural measures, land and water management, ecosystem services and development needs. Motivated by the need of improving water allocation using economic criteria, in this study, a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) with a hydro-economic optimization model (HEAL system) was developed and used for the identification and analysis of an optimal economic allocation of water resources in a case study: the sub-middle basin of the São Francisco River in Brazil. The developed SDSS (HEAL system) made the economically optimum allocation available to analyze water allocation conflicts and trade-offs. With the aim of providing a tool for integrated economic-hydrological modeling, not only for researchers but also for decision-makers and stakeholders, the HEAL system can support decision-making on the design of regulatory and economic management instruments in practice. The case study results showed, for example, that the marginal benefit function obtained for inter-basin water transfer, can contribute for supporting the design of water pricing and water transfer decisions, during periods of water scarcity, for the well-being in both basins.

scholarly journals TO SUPPORT IOT COLLABORATIVE EXPRESSIVENESS ON THE SHOP FLOOR

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 3149-3158
Author(s):  
Álvaro Aranda Muñoz ◽  
Yvonne Eriksson ◽  
Yuji Yamamoto ◽  
Ulrika Florin ◽  
Kristian Sandström
Keyword(s):  
Industry 4.0 ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
Industrial Landscape ◽  
The Future ◽  
New Research ◽  
Empirical Material

AbstractThe availability of new research for IoT support and the human-centric perspective of industry 4.0 opens a gap to support operators in unleashing their creativity so they can provide improvements opportunities with IoT technology. This paper presents a case-study carried out in four Swedish manufacturing companies, where four different workshops were facilitated to support operators in the conceptualization of manufacturing improvements with IoT technologies. The empirical material gathered during these workshops has been analyzed in five different reflective sessions and discussed in light of previous research from industry 4.0, operators, and IoT support. Results indicate that operators can collaboratively create conceptual IoT solutions and that expressiveness in communicating their ideas and needs using IoT technology is more relevant than technical aspects and details of their proposed IoT solutions. This technological expressiveness is identified as a necessary skill to be cultivated on the shop floor and can potentially contribute to making a more effective and socially sustainable industrial landscape in the future.

scholarly journals How Do Trade-Offs and Synergies between Ecosystem Services Change in the Long Period? The Case Study of Uxin, Inner Mongolia, China

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 6041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang ◽  
Li ◽  
Buyantuev ◽  
Bao ◽  
Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Inner Mongolia ◽  
Stepwise Regression ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Development And Utilization ◽  
Long Term Trends

Ecosystem services management should often expect to deal with non-linearities due to trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services (ES). Therefore, it is important to analyze long-term trends in ES development and utilization to understand their responses to climate change and intensification of human activities. In this paper, the region of Uxin in Inner Mongolia, China, was chosen as a case study area to describe the spatial distribution and trends of 5 ES indicators. Changes in relationships between ES and driving forces of dynamics of ES relationships were analyzed for the period 1979–2016 using a stepwise regression. We found that: the magnitude and directions in ES relationships changed during this extended period; those changes are influenced by climate factors, land use change, technological progress, and population growth.

The Use of Photogrammetry in Piping Design

1983 ◽  
Vol 197 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
P A Bracewell ◽  
U R Klement
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Mathematical Formulation ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Process Industry ◽  
Process Plant ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Positional Data

Piping design for ‘revamp’ projects in the process industry requires the retrieval of large amounts of ‘as-built’ data from existing process plant installations. Positional data with a high degree of accuracy are required. Photogrammetry, the science of measurement from photographs, was identified in Imperial Chemical Industries plc (ICI) as a suitable tool for information retrieval. The mathematical formulation enabling the definition of three-dimensional positions from photographic information is described. The process of using ICI's photogrammetric system for the definition of complete objects such as structures and pipes is illustrated. The need for specialized photogrammetric software for design purposes is explained. A case study describing how the photogrammetric system has been applied is described and graphical outputs from this exercise are shown. It is concluded that this particular photogrammetric system has proved to be a cost effective and accurate tool for the retrieval of ‘as-built’ information.

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