Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

A high level e-maintenance architecture to support on-site teams

Emergent architectures and paradigms targeting reconfigurable manufacturing systems increasingly rely on intelligent modules to maximize the robustness and responsiveness of modern installations. Although intelligent behaviour significantly minimizes the occurrence of faults and breakdowns it does not exclude them nor can prevent equipment’s normal wear. Adequate maintenance is fundamental to extend equipments’ life cycle. It is of major importance the ability of each intelligent device to take an active role in maintenance support. Further this paradigm shift towards “embedded intelligence”, supported by cross platform technologies, induces relevant organizational and functional changes on local maintenance teams. On the one hand, the possibility of outsourcing maintenance activities, with the warranty of a timely response, through the use of pervasive networking technologies and, on the other hand, the optimization of local maintenance staff are some examples of how IT is changing the scenario in maintenance. The concept of e-maintenance is, in this context, emerging as a new discipline with defined socio-economic challenges. This paper proposes a high level maintenance architecture supporting maintenance teams’ management and offering contextualized operational support. All the functionalities hosted by the architecture are offered to the remaining system as network services. Any intelligent module, implementing the services’ interface, can report diagnostic, prognostic and maintenance recommendations that enable the core of the platform to decide on the best course of action.manufacturing systems, platform technologies, maintenance

A reference model for information specification for metalworking SMEs

The work reported in this thesis offers a novel basis for the realisation of specifications for information requirements to meet the distinct operational requirements of metalworking SMEs. This has been achieved through the development of a reference SME enterprise model based on fundamental ideas of the holon and fractal factory concepts. The novel concept of a node holon is introduced, which allows the representation of the human dominated interactions in a company based on the fundamental concepts of the holon. This offers a competitive alternative to the methods for enterprise modelling and information specification which are based solely around business processes and procedural rules. A new representation for the organisation of the SME has been based on identifying the major zones of activity within the enterprise, which is seen to provide a more appropriate representation for companies whose basis for operation is informally structured. Two classes of zones have been identified, these are the business support zone and manufacturing zone. The relationship between a top down description of the enterprise as zones and the complementary bottoms up modelling of the enterprise based on concepts of the node holon are described in detail. A critical study of two candidate modelling architectures, namely CIN40SA and ARIS will show the applicability of the individual architectures for the task information specification. The constituents of the SMEE enterprise reference model is placed within the context of contemporary enterprise modelling practice by mapping against one of the architectures. This will demonstrate how the architectures can readily accommodate new modelling approaches whilst retaining their major advantages, thereby increasing their applicability and potential uptake. The reference SME enterprise model has been readily applied in the study of an SME, where a representation of the company has been achieved solely on the current organisation of its business support and manufacturing activities. The holonic aspects of the enterprise have also been successfully modelled. This process is supported by a CASE tool which has it constructs underpinned by the reference SME enterprise model

The holonic approach for flexible production: a theoretical framework

This paper discusses the body of knowledge about Holonic Approach to theoretically demonstrate how Holonic Production System (HPS) can be a convincing choice to overcome the problems of traditional production systems? architectures. Today, enterprises are trying to find ways to manage the growing environmental complexity that is well described by Complex Systems Theory (CST). After the focus on the main problem regarding environmental complexity, the Holonic system and the Holonic Production System will be analyzed. The paper will focus the potential of HPS to adapt and react to changes in the business environment whilst being able to maintain systemic synergies and coordination through the holonic structure where functional production units are simultaneously autonomous and cooperative

Changing professional service archetypes in a law firm using Process Orientated Holonic (PrOH) Modelling

This paper gives an in depth action research case study on how organisational change has been implemented in a medium-sized law firm in the UK (Higgs & Sons). The Canonical Action Research process was followed and a specific novel type of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) known as Process Oriented Holonic (PrOH) Modelling was used to define systemic problems, support knowledge-based decision-making and implement change. This study found that as a result of increased competition, Higgs & Sons successfully transformed some of its services from a “professional partnership (P2)” delivery style towards having greater “managed professional business” (MPB) characteristics, but found that not all of its services were suited to this change, and that different types of service styles were necessary on a service by service basis. Practical changes and implications are discussed in the context of Pinnington and Morris’ (2003) “professional partnership” (P2) and “managed professional business” (MPB) archetype template

The Role of the Holonic Manufacturing System in Achieving Product Quality: an Exploratory Study in the General Company for the Automotive Industry of Alexandria

Purpose: The aim of this study is deals with the methods that preserve the natural products and offer them at a cost while maintaining the quality of the products, which leads to the company’s production of profits.   Theoretical framework: This aspect has been prepared by referring to sources and references specialized in production management and total quality management, such as books, theses, theses, research and studies, including what is available in the library and others from the international information network, the Internet.   Methodology: The project was implemented in the implementation of a set of computer programs: (SPSS V25) / (Amos V25) / (Microsoft Excel 2010). The systematic literature review was built from the content analysis of papers from the Web of Science and Scopus database. The papers were analyzed from descriptive.   Findings: The results of the research bear the thinking of the departments about the most important element of production, represented by the labor force, as the success of the administrative teams Which represents the basic idea of ​​the component (Holon employees).   Research, Practical & Social implications: The study is the departments must adopt scientific and systematic mechanisms and methods in consolidating the culture of modern systems and adopting them according to what is scientific, even in preliminary and steps simplified.   Originality/value: A model was proposed to clarify the relationship between holographic manufacturing requirements and product quality through the use of statistical methods such as the Pearson correlation coefficient and the regression coefficient to clarify the correlation and effect relationship between these two variables

Holonic product design: a process for modular product realisation

This paper introduces a fresh perspective on product modularisation and proposes a process for modular product realisation called Holonic Product Design. The holon has recently been adopted from Arthur Koestler’s work to represent subsystem entities within manufacturing systems and the enterprise chain. In addition, it has been embraced as a philosophy for change that attempts to fashion modern manufacturing businesses and manufacturing activity. This paper demonstrates the holon as being equally valid as an approach to product development. Through research at a number of UK companies Holonic Product Design (HPD) is developed and presented as a structured approach to product realisation. Addressing a total view through systems engineering, HPD provides an accessible and customisable modular product development workbook. The efficacy of the new approach is demonstrated through the initial results from a HPD case study. Further work remains in refining the integration of HPD elements and thoroughly testing the approach through a full new product development process

A framework for distributed manufacturing applications

The new organisational structures used in world wide manufacturing systems require the development of distributed applications, which present solutions to their requirements. The work research in the distributed manufacturing control leads to emergent paradigms, such as Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS) and Bionic Manufacturing Systems (BMS), which translates the concepts from social organisations and biological systems to the manufacturing world. This paper present a Framework for the development of distributed manufacturing applications, based in an agent-based architecture, which implements some Holonic and Bionic Manufacturing Systems concepts

Metabolism in eco-holonic manufacturing systems based on the living systems theory

The industrial metabolism has been conceived on the basis of analogies about the set of biochemical reactions (anabolism and catabolism) that occur in a living being and their flows of matter, energy and substances in natural ecosystems. This conception determines forms of appropriation and consumption of substances, materials and energy, from the natural environment (natursphere) and the technical environment (technosphere) for their transformation and subsequent elimination, under the articulation of criteria of cyclicity, toxicity and efficiency. The last aim of Industrial Ecology (IE), is materialized when the variety of industrial ecosystems is eco-compatible with the variety of natural ecosystems. The naturalisation of manufacturing systems is an effort to conceive them with variety similar to natural systems in order to achieve their eco-compatibility. In addition to bionic models from natural ecosystems in the field of industrial metabolism, several attempts have been made to design technical systems using bionic models from the Living Systems Theory (LST). The formulation of manufacturing systems based on living systems can be considered as a set of dynamic systems from Bertalanffy's perspective. In this paper is postulated an Eco-Holonic Reference Architecture for its projection in the design of manufacturing systems metabolism with an adaptive, self-regulating and required variety structure and with a potential toolbox in the core knowledge of the holon throughout its life cycl