Business Process Visualization - Use Cases, Challenges, Solutions

The proper visualization and monitoring of their (ongoing) business processes is crucial for any enterprise. Thus a broad spectrum of processes has to be visualized ranging from simple, short–running processes to complex long–running ones (consisting of up to hundreds of activities). In any case, users shall be able to quickly understand the logic behind a process and to get a quick overview of related tasks. One practical problem arises when different fragments of a business process are scattered over several systems where they are often modeled using different process meta models (e.g., High–Level Petri Nets). The challenge is to find an integrated and user–friendly visualization for these business processes. In this paper we discover use cases relevant in this context. Since existing graph layout approaches have focused on general graph drawing so far we further develop a specific approach for layouting business process graphs. The work presented in this paper is embedded within a larger project (Proviado) on the visualization of automotive processes

Techno-economic energy models for low carbon business parks

To mitigate climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced substantially. Industry and energy sector together are responsible for a major share of those emissions. Hence the development of low carbon business parks by maximising energy efficiency and changing to collective, renewable energy systems at local level holds a high reduction potential. Yet, there is no uniform approach to determine the optimal combination and operation of energy technologies composing such energy systems. However, techno-economic energy models, custom tailored for business parks, can offer a solution, as they identify the configuration and operation that provide an optimal trade-off between economic and environmental performances. However, models specifically developed for industrial park energy systems are not detected in literature, so identifying an existing model that can be adapted is an essential step. In this paper, energy model classifications are scanned for adequate model characteristics and accordingly, a confined number of models are selected and described. Subsequently, main model features are compared, a practical typology is proposed and applicability towards modelling industrial park energy systems is evaluated. Energy system evolution models offer the most perspective to compose a holistic, but simplified model, whereas advanced energy system integration models can adequately be employed to assess energy integration for business clusters up to entire industrial sites. Energy system simulation models, however, provide deeper insight in the system’s operation

Intelligent systems in manufacturing: current developments and future prospects

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are demanding increasing changes in manufacturing environments. Enterprises are required to constantly redesign their products and continuously reconfigure their manufacturing systems. Traditional approaches to manufacturing systems do not fully satisfy this new situation. Many authors have proposed that artificial intelligence will bring the flexibility and efficiency needed by manufacturing systems. This paper is a review of artificial intelligence techniques used in manufacturing systems. The paper first defines the components of a simplified intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS), the different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to be considered and then shows how these AI techniques are used for the components of IMS