Solution and quality robust project scheduling: a methodological framework.

The vast majority of the research efforts in project scheduling over the past several years has concentrated on the development of exact and suboptimal procedures for the generation of a baseline schedule assuming complete information and a deterministic environment. During execution, however, projects may be the subject of considerable uncertainty, which may lead to numerous schedule disruptions. Predictive-reactive scheduling refers to the process where a baseline schedule is developed prior to the start of the project and updated if necessary during project execution. It is the objective of this paper to review possible procedures for the generation of proactive (robust) schedules, which are as well as possible protected against schedule disruptions, and for the deployment of reactive scheduling procedures that may be used to revise or re-optimize the baseline schedule when unexpected events occur. We also offer a methodological framework that should allow project management to identify the proper scheduling methodology for different project scheduling environments. Finally, we survey the basics of Critical Chain scheduling and indicate in which environments it is useful.Framework; Information; Management; Processes; Project management; Project scheduling; Project scheduling under uncertainty; Stability; Robust scheduling; Quality; Scheduling; Stability; Uncertainty;

Use of Excel worksheets with user-friendly interface in batch process (PSBP) to minimize the makespan

In the chemical industry, the necessity for scheduling is becoming more pronounced, especially in batch production mode. Nowadays, planning industrial activities is a necessity for survival. Intense competition requires diversified products and delivery in accordance with the requirements of consumers. These activities require quick decision making and the lowest possible cost, through an efficient Production Scheduling. So, this work addresses the Permutation Flow Shop scheduling problem, characterized as Production Scheduling in Batch Process (PSBP), with the objective of minimizing the total time to complete the schedule (Makespan). A method to approach the problem of production scheduling is to turn it into Mixed Integer Linear Programming- MILP, and to solve it using commercial mathematical programming packages. In this study an electronic spreadsheet with user-friendly interface (ESUFI) was developed in Microsoft Excel. The ease of manipulation of the ESUFI is quite evident, as with the use of VBA language a user-friendly interface could be created between the user and the spreadsheet itself. The results showed that it is possible to use the ESUFI for small problems

A high temperature fatigue and structures testing facility

As man strives for higher levels of sophistication in air and space transportation, awareness of the need for accurate life and material behavior predictions for advanced propulsion system components is heightened. Such sophistication will require complex operating conditions and advanced materials to meet goals in performance, thrust-to-weight ratio, and fuel efficiency. To accomplish these goals will require that components be designed using a high percentage of the material's ultimate capabilities. This serves only to complicate matters dealing with life and material behavior predictions. An essential component of material behavior model development is the underlying experimentation which must occur to identify phenomena. To support experimentation, the NASA Lewis Research Center's High Temperature Fatigue and Structures Laboratory has been expanded significantly. Several new materials testing systems have been added, as well as an extensive computer system. The intent of this paper is to present an overview of the laboratory, and to discuss specific aspects of the test systems. A limited discussion of computer capabilities will also be presented

Extempore: The design, implementation and application of a cyber-physical programming language

There is a long history of experimental and exploratory programming supported by systems that expose interaction through a programming language interface. These live programming systems enable software developers to create, extend, and modify the behaviour of executing software by changing source code without perceptual breaks for recompilation. These live programming systems have taken many forms, but have generally been limited in their ability to express low-level programming concepts and the generation of efficient native machine code. These shortcomings have limited the effectiveness of live programming in domains that require highly efficient numerical processing and explicit memory management. The most general questions addressed by this thesis are what a systems language designed for live programming might look like and how such a language might influence the development of live programming in performance sensitive domains requiring real-time support, direct hardware control, or high performance computing. This thesis answers these questions by exploring the design, implementation and application of Extempore, a new systems programming language, designed specifically for live interactive programming

Assigning Projects to Project Managers in a Multiple-Project Management Environment: A Pilot Study of a Decision Support Model

Project assignment is considered one of the most critical project decisions since it influences the performance of projects, and eventually the performance of the organization. Despite its importance, the literature reveals two major gaps on project assignment criteria and methodology. To close these gaps, this study proposes an additional set of project assignment criteria and a systematic methodology for project assignments (DSM). By using the concepts of these case study research combined with a literature review, the important potential criteria for project assignments are identified. These criteria are used in conjunction with the concepts of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the integer programming (IP) to develop a DSM for one company. The DSM is executed and validated with the company\u27s information. As a past of this research project, this paper illustrates the results of the pilot study to be developed for the feasibility study of the DSM development

Development of Real Time Operating Systen for PIC18F Microcontrollers for Educational Purposes

Real Time Operating System (RTOS) is a small operating system designed to manage the peripherals of Microcontrollers and exhibit a low level layer to enhance the parallel execution of multiple programs. In addition to that, RTOSes are most of concern about guarantee the processing at real time. This project aims to implement and develop RTOS on PIC18Fxxx family. This RTOS is to be developed under MPLAB IDE integrated development environment. The kernel of this RTOS is written in Assembly language while the users may use both assembly and C to develop their applications. A previous RTOS project called PICos18 developed by Pragamtec inc. is being considered. The selection of this system is due to its free license and the availability of its documentations. PICos18 is based on OSEK/VDX (German/French industrial standards for operating systems). The main contribution in this project is first, by developing RTOS to review and demonstrate the concept of RTOS and secondly, by developing drivers and application compatible with the developed RTOS and finally presenting the developed RTOS in educational form for future use as a teaching tool in microcontroller-based courses

Exploiting Hardware Abstraction for Parallel Programming Framework: Platform and Multitasking

With the help of the parallelism provided by the fine-grained architecture, hardware accelerators on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) can significantly improve the performance of many applications. However, designers are required to have excellent hardware programming skills and unique optimization techniques to explore the potential of FPGA resources fully. Intermediate frameworks above hardware circuits are proposed to improve either performance or productivity by leveraging parallel programming models beyond the multi-core era. In this work, we propose the PolyPC (Polymorphic Parallel Computing) framework, which targets enhancing productivity without losing performance. It helps designers develop parallelized applications and implement them on FPGAs. The PolyPC framework implements a custom hardware platform, on which programs written in an OpenCL-like programming model can launch. Additionally, the PolyPC framework extends vendor-provided tools to provide a complete development environment including intermediate software framework, and automatic system builders. Designers\u27 programs can be either synthesized as hardware processing elements (PEs) or compiled to executable files running on software PEs. Benefiting from nontrivial features of re-loadable PEs, and independent group-level schedulers, the multitasking is enabled for both software and hardware PEs to improve the efficiency of utilizing hardware resources. The PolyPC framework is evaluated regarding performance, area efficiency, and multitasking. The results show a maximum 66 times speedup over a dual-core ARM processor and 1043 times speedup over a high-performance MicroBlaze with 125 times of area efficiency. It delivers a significant improvement in response time to high-priority tasks with the priority-aware scheduling. Overheads of multitasking are evaluated to analyze trade-offs. With the help of the design flow, the OpenCL application programs are converted into executables through the front-end source-to-source transformation and back-end synthesis/compilation to run on PEs, and the framework is generated from users\u27 specifications