Advanced Techniques for Assets Maintenance Management

16th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing INCOM 2018 Bergamo, Italy, 11–13 June 2018. Edited by Marco Macchi, László Monostori, Roberto PintoThe aim of this paper is to remark the importance of new and advanced techniques supporting decision making in different business processes for maintenance and assets management, as well as the basic need of adopting a certain management framework with a clear processes map and the corresponding IT supporting systems. Framework processes and systems will be the key fundamental enablers for success and for continuous improvement. The suggested framework will help to define and improve business policies and work procedures for the assets operation and maintenance along their life cycle. The following sections present some achievements on this focus, proposing finally possible future lines for a research agenda within this field of assets management

An ontology framework for developing platform-independent knowledge-based engineering systems in the aerospace industry

This paper presents the development of a novel knowledge-based engineering (KBE) framework for implementing platform-independent knowledge-enabled product design systems within the aerospace industry. The aim of the KBE framework is to strengthen the structure, reuse and portability of knowledge consumed within KBE systems in view of supporting the cost-effective and long-term preservation of knowledge within such systems. The proposed KBE framework uses an ontology-based approach for semantic knowledge management and adopts a model-driven architecture style from the software engineering discipline. Its phases are mainly (1) Capture knowledge required for KBE system; (2) Ontology model construct of KBE system; (3) Platform-independent model (PIM) technology selection and implementation and (4) Integration of PIM KBE knowledge with computer-aided design system. A rigorous methodology is employed which is comprised of five qualitative phases namely, requirement analysis for the KBE framework, identifying software and ontological engineering elements, integration of both elements, proof of concept prototype demonstrator and finally experts validation. A case study investigating four primitive three-dimensional geometry shapes is used to quantify the applicability of the KBE framework in the aerospace industry. Additionally, experts within the aerospace and software engineering sector validated the strengths/benefits and limitations of the KBE framework. The major benefits of the developed approach are in the reduction of man-hours required for developing KBE systems within the aerospace industry and the maintainability and abstraction of the knowledge required for developing KBE systems. This approach strengthens knowledge reuse and eliminates platform-specific approaches to developing KBE systems ensuring the preservation of KBE knowledge for the long term

A framework for effective management of condition based maintenance programs in the context of industrial development of E-Maintenance strategies

CBM (Condition Based Maintenance) solutions are increasingly present in industrial systems due to two main circumstances: rapid evolution, without precedents, in the capture and analysis of data and significant cost reduction of supporting technologies. CBM programs in industrial systems can become extremely complex, especially when considering the effective introduction of new capabilities provided by PHM (Prognostics and Health Management) and E-maintenance disciplines. In this scenario, any CBM solution involves the management of numerous technical aspects, that the maintenance manager needs to understand, in order to be implemented properly and effectively, according to the company’s strategy. This paper provides a comprehensive representation of the key components of a generic CBM solution, this is presented using a framework or supporting structure for an effective management of the CBM programs. The concept “symptom of failure”, its corresponding analysis techniques (introduced by ISO 13379-1 and linked with RCM/FMEA analysis), and other international standard for CBM open-software application development (for instance, ISO 13374 and OSA-CBM), are used in the paper for the development of the framework. An original template has been developed, adopting the formal structure of RCM analysis templates, to integrate the information of the PHM techniques used to capture the failure mode behaviour and to manage maintenance. Finally, a case study describes the framework using the referred template.Gobierno de Andalucía P11-TEP-7303 M

Towards an ontology-based platform-independent framework for developing KBE systems in the aerospace industry

Aerospace engineering is considered to be one of the most complex and advanced branches of engineering. The use of knowledge based engineering (KBE) technologies has played a major role in automating routine design activities in view of supporting the cost-effective and timely development of a product. However, technologies employed within KBE systems are usually platform-specific. The nature of these platform-specific models has significantly limited knowledge abstraction and reusability in KBE systems. This research paper presents a novel approach that illustrates the use of platform-independent knowledge models for the development of KBE systems in the aerospace industry. The use of semantic technologies through the definition of generic-purposed ontologies has been employed to support the notion of independent knowledge models that strengthens knowledge reusability in KBE systems. This approach has been validated qualitatively through experts’ opinion and its benefit realised in the abstraction, reusability and maintainability of KBE systems

Semantic model-driven development of service-centric software architectures

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a recent architectural paradigm that has received much attention. The prevalent focus on platforms such as Web services, however, needs to be complemented by appropriate software engineering methods. We propose the model-driven development of service-centric software systems. We present in particular an investigation into the role of enriched semantic modelling for a modeldriven development framework for service-centric software systems. Ontologies as the foundations of semantic modelling and its enhancement through architectural pattern modelling are at the core of the proposed approach. We introduce foundations and discuss the benefits and also the challenges in this context

Ontology-based patterns for the integration of business processes and enterprise application architectures

Increasingly, enterprises are using Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) as an approach to Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). SOA has the potential to bridge the gap between business and technology and to improve the reuse of existing applications and the interoperability with new ones. In addition to service architecture descriptions, architecture abstractions like patterns and styles capture design knowledge and allow the reuse of successfully applied designs, thus improving the quality of software. Knowledge gained from integration projects can be captured to build a repository of semantically enriched, experience-based solutions. Business patterns identify the interaction and structure between users, business processes, and data. Specific integration and composition patterns at a more technical level address enterprise application integration and capture reliable architecture solutions. We use an ontology-based approach to capture architecture and process patterns. Ontology techniques for pattern definition, extension and composition are developed and their applicability in business process-driven application integration is demonstrated

Designing Traceability into Big Data Systems

Providing an appropriate level of accessibility and traceability to data or process elements (so-called Items) in large volumes of data, often Cloud-resident, is an essential requirement in the Big Data era. Enterprise-wide data systems need to be designed from the outset to support usage of such Items across the spectrum of business use rather than from any specific application view. The design philosophy advocated in this paper is to drive the design process using a so-called description-driven approach which enriches models with meta-data and description and focuses the design process on Item re-use, thereby promoting traceability. Details are given of the description-driven design of big data systems at CERN, in health informatics and in business process management. Evidence is presented that the approach leads to design simplicity and consequent ease of management thanks to loose typing and the adoption of a unified approach to Item management and usage.Comment: 10 pages; 6 figures in Proceedings of the 5th Annual International Conference on ICT: Big Data, Cloud and Security (ICT-BDCS 2015), Singapore July 2015. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1402.5764, arXiv:1402.575

Introduction to Microservice API Patterns (MAP)

The Microservice API Patterns (MAP) language and supporting website premiered under this name at Microservices 2019. MAP distills proven, platform- and technology-independent solutions to recurring (micro-)service design and interface specification problems such as finding well-fitting service granularities, rightsizing message representations, and managing the evolution of APIs and their implementations. In this paper, we motivate the need for such a pattern language, outline the language organization and present two exemplary patterns describing alternative options for representing nested data. We also identify future research and development directions