Technology and Management Applied in Construction Engineering Projects

This book focuses on fundamental and applied research on construction project management. It presents research papers and practice-oriented papers. The execution of construction projects is specific and particularly difficult because each implementation is a unique, complex, and dynamic process that consists of several or more subprocesses that are related to each other, in which various aspects of the investment process participate. Therefore, there is still a vital need to study, research, and conclude the engineering technology and management applied in construction projects. This book present unanimous research approach is a result of many years of studies, conducted by 35 well experienced authors. The common subject of research concerns the development of methods and tools for modeling multi-criteria processes in construction engineering

Application of lean scheduling and production control in non-repetitive manufacturing systems using intelligent agent decision support

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Lean Manufacturing (LM) is widely accepted as a world-class manufacturing paradigm, its currency and superiority are manifested in numerous recent success stories. Most lean tools including Just-in-Time (JIT) were designed for repetitive serial production systems. This resulted in a substantial stream of research which dismissed a priori the suitability of LM for non-repetitive non-serial job-shops. The extension of LM into non-repetitive production systems is opposed on the basis of the sheer complexity of applying JIT pull production control in non-repetitive systems fabricating a high variety of products. However, the application of LM in job-shops is not unexplored. Studies proposing the extension of leanness into non-repetitive production systems have promoted the modification of pull control mechanisms or reconfiguration of job-shops into cellular manufacturing systems. This thesis sought to address the shortcomings of the aforementioned approaches. The contribution of this thesis to knowledge in the field of production and operations management is threefold: Firstly, a Multi-Agent System (MAS) is designed to directly apply pull production control to a good approximation of a real-life job-shop. The scale and complexity of the developed MAS prove that the application of pull production control in non-repetitive manufacturing systems is challenging, perplex and laborious. Secondly, the thesis examines three pull production control mechanisms namely, Kanban, Base Stock and Constant Work-in-Process (CONWIP) which it enhances so as to prevent system deadlocks, an issue largely unaddressed in the relevant literature. Having successfully tested the transferability of pull production control to non-repetitive manufacturing, the third contribution of this thesis is that it uses experimental and empirical data to examine the impact of pull production control on job-shop performance. The thesis identifies issues resulting from the application of pull control in job-shops which have implications for industry practice and concludes by outlining further research that can be undertaken in this direction

Bi-level optimisation and machine learning in the management of large service-oriented field workforces.

The tactical planning problem for members of the service industry with large multi-skilled workforces is an important process that is often underlooked. It sits between the operational plan - which involves the actual allocation of members of the workforce to tasks - and the strategic plan where long term visions are set. An accurate tactical plan can have great benefits to service organisations and this is something we demonstrate in this work. Sitting where it does, it is made up of a mix of forecast and actual data, which can make effectively solving the problem difficult. In members of the service industry with large multi-skilled workforces it can often become a very large problem very quickly, as the number of decisions scale quickly with the number of elements within the plan. In this study, we first update and define the tactical planning problem to fit the process currently undertaken manually in practice. We then identify properties within the problem that identify it as a new candidate for the application of bi-level optimisation techniques. The tactical plan is defined in the context of a pair of leader-follower linked sub-models, which we show to be solvable to produce automated solutions to the tactical plan. We further identify the need for the use of machine learning techniques to effectively find solutions in practical applications, where limited detail is available in the data due to its forecast nature. We develop neural network models to solve this issue and show that they provide more accurate results than the current planners. Finally, we utilise them as a surrogate for the follower in the bi-level framework to provide real world applicable solutions to the tactical planning problem. The models developed in this work have already begun to be deployed in practice and are providing significant impact. This is along with identifying a new application area for bi-level modelling techniques

Integration of process design and control: A review

There is a large variety of methods in literature for process design and control, which can be classified into two main categories. The methods in the first category have a sequential approach in which, the control system is designed, only after the details of process design are decided. However, when process design is fixed, there is little room left for improving the control performance. Recognizing the interactions between process design and control, the methods in the second category integrate some control aspects into process design. With the aim of providing an exploration map and identifying the potential areas of further contributions, this paper presents a thematic review of the methods for integration of process design and control. The evolution paths of these methods are described and the advantages and disadvantages of each method are explained. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research activities

High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications

This open access book was prepared as a Final Publication of the COST Action IC1406 “High-Performance Modelling and Simulation for Big Data Applications (cHiPSet)“ project. Long considered important pillars of the scientific method, Modelling and Simulation have evolved from traditional discrete numerical methods to complex data-intensive continuous analytical optimisations. Resolution, scale, and accuracy have become essential to predict and analyse natural and complex systems in science and engineering. When their level of abstraction raises to have a better discernment of the domain at hand, their representation gets increasingly demanding for computational and data resources. On the other hand, High Performance Computing typically entails the effective use of parallel and distributed processing units coupled with efficient storage, communication and visualisation systems to underpin complex data-intensive applications in distinct scientific and technical domains. It is then arguably required to have a seamless interaction of High Performance Computing with Modelling and Simulation in order to store, compute, analyse, and visualise large data sets in science and engineering. Funded by the European Commission, cHiPSet has provided a dynamic trans-European forum for their members and distinguished guests to openly discuss novel perspectives and topics of interests for these two communities. This cHiPSet compendium presents a set of selected case studies related to healthcare, biological data, computational advertising, multimedia, finance, bioinformatics, and telecommunications

A reduced order approach for probabilistic inversions of 3-D magnetotelluric data I: general formulation

Simulation-based probabilistic inversions of 3-D magnetotelluric (MT) data are arguably the best option to deal with the nonlinearity and non-uniqueness of the MT problem. However, the computational cost associated with the modelling of 3-D MT data has so far precluded the community from adopting and/or pursuing full probabilistic inversions of large MT data sets. In this contribution, we present a novel and general inversion framework, driven by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, which combines (i) an efficient parallel-in-parallel structure to solve the 3-D forward problem, (ii) a reduced order technique to create fast and accurate surrogate models of the forward problem and (iii) adaptive strategies for both the MCMC algorithm and the surrogate model. In particular, and contrary to traditional implementations, the adaptation of the surrogate is integrated into the MCMC inversion. This circumvents the need of costly offline stages to build the surrogate and further increases the overall efficiency of the method. We demonstrate the feasibility and performance of our approach to invert for large-scale conductivity structures with two numerical examples using different parametrizations and dimensionalities. In both cases, we report staggering gains in computational efficiency compared to traditional MCMC implementations. Our method finally removes the main bottleneck of probabilistic inversions of 3-D MT data and opens up new opportunities for both stand-alone MT inversions and multi-observable joint inversions for the physical state of the Earth's interior.Fil: Manassero, María Constanza. Macquarie University; AustraliaFil: Afonso, Juan Carlos. Macquarie University; AustraliaFil: Zyserman, Fabio Ivan. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas. Departamento de Geofísica Aplicada; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Zlotnik, Sergio. Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya; EspañaFil: Fomin, I.. Macquarie University; Australi

Numerical and Evolutionary Optimization 2020

This book was established after the 8th International Workshop on Numerical and Evolutionary Optimization (NEO), representing a collection of papers on the intersection of the two research areas covered at this workshop: numerical optimization and evolutionary search techniques. While focusing on the design of fast and reliable methods lying across these two paradigms, the resulting techniques are strongly applicable to a broad class of real-world problems, such as pattern recognition, routing, energy, lines of production, prediction, and modeling, among others. This volume is intended to serve as a useful reference for mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists to explore current issues and solutions emerging from these mathematical and computational methods and their applications