The potential of additive manufacturing in the smart factory industrial 4.0: A review

Additive manufacturing (AM) or three-dimensional (3D) printing has introduced a novel production method in design, manufacturing, and distribution to end-users. This technology has provided great freedom in design for creating complex components, highly customizable products, and efficient waste minimization. The last industrial revolution, namely industry 4.0, employs the integration of smart manufacturing systems and developed information technologies. Accordingly, AM plays a principal role in industry 4.0 thanks to numerous benefits, such as time and material saving, rapid prototyping, high efficiency, and decentralized production methods. This review paper is to organize a comprehensive study on AM technology and present the latest achievements and industrial applications. Besides that, this paper investigates the sustainability dimensions of the AM process and the added values in economic, social, and environment sections. Finally, the paper concludes by pointing out the future trend of AM in technology, applications, and materials aspects that have the potential to come up with new ideas for the future of AM explorations

Life cycle assessment (LCA) applied to the process industry: a review

Purpose : Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is a well-established analytical method to quantify environmental impacts, which has been mainly applied to products. However, recent literature would suggest that it has also the potential as an analysis and design tool for processes, and stresses that one of the biggest challenges of this decade in the field of process systems engineering (PSE) is the development of tools for environmental considerations. Method : This article attempts to give an overview of the integration of LCA methodology in the context of industrial ecology, and focuses on the use of this methodology for environmental considerations concerning process design and optimization. Results : The review identifies that LCA is often used as a multi-objective optimization of processes: practitioners use LCA to obtain the inventory and inject the results into the optimization model. It also shows that most of the LCA studies undertaken on process analysis consider the unit processes as black boxes and build the inventory analysis on fixed operating conditions. Conclusions : The article highlights the interest to better assimilate PSE tools with LCA methodology, in order to produce a more detailed analysis. This will allow optimizing the influence of process operating conditions on environmental impacts and including detailed environmental results into process industry

Developing LCA-based benchmarks for sustainable consumption - for and with users

This article presents the development process of a consumer-oriented, illustrative benchmarking tool enabling consumers to use the results of environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) to make informed decisions. Active and environmentally conscious consumers and environmental communicators were identified as key target groups for this type of information. A brochure presenting the benchmarking tool was developed as an participatory, iterative process involving consumer focus groups, stakeholder workshops and questionnaire-based feedback. In addition to learning what works and what does not, detailed suggestions on improved wording and figures were obtained, as well as a wealth of ideas for future applications

Documentation of Knox County school system end-of-course test development for automated accounting/spreadsheets

The purpose of this study was to document the development of a system-wide end-of-course test for Automated Accounting/Spreadsheets in Knox County, Tennessee. The high school end-of-course test is a 90-minute, written assessment that evaluates the desired course objectives. The Automated Accounting/Spreadsheets end-of-course test was developed by a team of local business education teachers who have the responsibility of teaching this course within their respective high schools. The major findings of the study were as follows: (a) system-wide end-of-course testing in the Automated Accounting/Spreadsheets course targets providing teachers, students, and the public with timely, valid, and reliable information regarding student mastery of the curriculum; (b) the federal, state, and local guidelines, procedures, and timelines direct the collaborative efforts of the Test Development Team responsible for the design and creation of an evaluation tool congruent with national and state standards; ( c) the Tennessee standards and competencies addressed in the teaching of the Automated Accounting/Spreadsheets course included seven standards with a range of 2 to 7 sub-standards each for Automated Accounting and six standards with a range of 1 to 7 sub-standards each for Spreadsheet Applications. One standard appears redundantly in both the Automated Accounting and in the Spreadsheet Applications portions of the composite course; standard seven of Automated Accounting and standard six of Spreadsheet Applications pertains to student demonstration of organizational and professional leadership skills; ( d) six major procedural steps comprise competency test development, namely, (Step 1) Determine Competency Test Objectives; (Step 2) Choose Format of the Test Questions; (Step 3) Devise Test and Item Specifications; (Step 4) Write the Test Questions; (Step 5) Review, Evaluate, and Amend the Test Questions; and (Step 6) Conduct Pilot Testing Sessions; (e) the 10 local school system teacher practitioners/subject matter experts responsible for Knox County\u27s Automated Accounting/Spreadsheets course competency test development were chosen because of their knowledge in teaching this course within their respective high schools. A by-product of this study is the aforementioned six procedural steps that make-up competency test development. The six steps represent a systems approach reflective of the input, process, output, feedback, and control processes that are conducive to replication

Review of medicine registration system in Tanzania

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDRegistration of medicines is an essential function of the national medicine regulatory system of any country. Since the start of the medicine registration system in Tanzania in early 2000s, no systematic review has been carried out to document the status of the system and its impact on availability and access to quality assured medicines to the people of Tanzania

Review of medicine registration system in Tanzania

>Magister Scientiae - MScRegistration of medicines is an essential function of the national medicine regulatory system of any country. Since the start of the medicine registration system in Tanzania in early 2000s, no systematic review has been carried out to document the status of the system and its impact on availability and access to quality assured medicines to the people of Tanzania. Objectives The study was aimed at reviewing the medicine registration system in Tanzania as implemented by the Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority in order to come up with status of the medicine registration system implemented in Tanzania, and evaluate how the system contributes to the availability and access of essential medicines, particularly those needed to support the essential medicines lists and standard treatment guidelines

ADAPTS: An Intelligent Sustainable Conceptual Framework for Engineering Projects

This paper presents a conceptual framework for the optimization of environmental sustainability in engineering projects, both for products and industrial facilities or processes. The main objective of this work is to propose a conceptual framework to help researchers to approach optimization under the criteria of sustainability of engineering projects, making use of current Machine Learning techniques. For the development of this conceptual framework, a bibliographic search has been carried out on the Web of Science. From the selected documents and through a hermeneutic procedure the texts have been analyzed and the conceptual framework has been carried out. A graphic representation pyramid shape is shown to clearly define the variables of the proposed conceptual framework and their relationships. The conceptual framework consists of 5 dimensions; its acronym is ADAPTS. In the base are: (1) the Application to which it is intended, (2) the available DAta, (3) the APproach under which it is operated, and (4) the machine learning Tool used. At the top of the pyramid, (5) the necessary Sensing. A study case is proposed to show its applicability. This work is part of a broader line of research, in terms of optimization under sustainability criteria.Telefónica Chair “Intelligence in Networks” of the University of Seville (Spain