Integration of e-business strategy for multi-lifecycle production systems

Internet use has grown exponentially on the last few years becoming a global communication and business resource. Internet-based business, or e-Business will truly affect every sector of the economy in ways that today we can only imagine. The manufacturing sector will be at the forefront of this change. This doctoral dissertation provides a scientific framework and a set of novel decision support tools for evaluating, modeling, and optimizing the overall performance of e-Business integrated multi-lifecycle production systems. The characteristics of this framework include environmental lifecycle study, environmental performance metrics, hyper-network model of integrated e-supply chain networks, fuzzy multi-objective optimization method, discrete-event simulation approach, and scalable enterprise environmental management system design. The dissertation research reveals that integration of e-Business strategy into production systems can alter current industry practices along a pathway towards sustainability, enhancing resource productivity, improving cost efficiencies and reducing lifecycle environmental impacts. The following research challenges and scholarly accomplishments have been addressed in this dissertation: Identification and analysis of environmental impacts of e-Business. A pioneering environmental lifecycle study on the impact of e-Business is conducted, and fuzzy decision theory is further applied to evaluate e-Business scenarios in order to overcome data uncertainty and information gaps; Understanding, evaluation, and development of environmental performance metrics. Major environmental performance metrics are compared and evaluated. A universal target-based performance metric, developed jointly with a team of industry and university researchers, is evaluated, implemented, and utilized in the methodology framework; Generic framework of integrated e-supply chain network. The framework is based on the most recent research on large complex supply chain network model, but extended to integrate demanufacturers, recyclers, and resellers as supply chain partners. Moreover, The e-Business information network is modeled as a overlaid hypernetwork layer for the supply chain; Fuzzy multi-objective optimization theory and discrete-event simulation methods. The solution methods deal with overall system parameter trade-offs, partner selections, and sustainable decision-making; Architecture design for scalable enterprise environmental management system. This novel system is designed and deployed using knowledge-based ontology theory, and XML techniques within an agent-based structure. The implementation model and system prototype are also provided. The new methodology and framework have the potential of being widely used in system analysis, design and implementation of e-Business enabled engineering systems

Operator interfaces for the lifecycle support of component based automation systems

Current manufacturing automation systems (specifically the powertrain sector) have been facing challenges with constant pressures of globalisation, environmental concerns and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) innovations. These challenges instigate new demands for shorter product lifecycles and require customised products to be manufactured as efficiently as possible. Manufacturing systems must therefore be agile to remain competitive by supporting frequent reconfigurations involving distributed engineering activities. [Continues.

Life Cycle Assessment in Supply Chain Management: Applications and limitations for practitioners

Treballs Finals del Màster de Recerca en Empresa, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2013-2014, Tutor: Laura Guitart TarrésThis paper aims to examine the application of life cycle assessment (LCA) as it has appeared in studies of supply chain management (SCM) in order to explore the potential utility for practitioners. Despite its widespread application in environmental studies, research incorporating LCA into SCM has been very limited, though potential benefits for this match have been identified. This paper employs a systematic literature review to explore these two topics as they relate to one another. Results show that LCA and LCA-based concepts do appear in the literature, with important implications for managers in their pursuit to improve supply chain performance

BIM as a strategic tool for supply chain in main projects in the United Kingdom

The need to achieve more efficiency and quality, reduce costs, cut carbon dioxide emissions and faster delivery were demanding for a vast change in the construction industry in the United Kingdom. To helping achieve these aims, as well be and remains in the vanguard of smart construction and digital design, UK made the decision to embrace Building Information Modelling (BIM), underpinned with the Government’s mandate launched in 2011, for Level 2 BIM compliance as minimum for all their centrally-procured projects by 2016. That decision resulted in a Government push to upskill the construction industry with the intention of reducing the capital and revenue costs associated with the procurement and use of buildings and infrastructure. For the public sector, BIM is offering the Government the opportunity to industrialise and reform its built environment through a digitally enabled procurement. Indeed, this Level 2 BIM programme already helping significant savings of circa £2.2bn between 2013 and 2015, making it a significant tool to meet the Government’s target of 15-20% savings on public construction costs (Cabinet Office, 2015). To support the industry to comply with Level 2 maturity, BIM Task Group and British Standard Institute, have developed several standards, documents and guides to explain clearly how BIM should be applied. The Level 2 programme is a key enabling strategy for the UK developing processes for data deliveries, classification and open data definitions. Certainly, the UK BIM standards and processes are working as a world-wide acknowledged benchmark for industry digitisation. By 2020, economists estimated that the UK market for BIM-related services will be an annual £30bn; in a global context, UK-based firms already export £7bn of architectural and engineering services; develop BIM capabilities and have a leadership position regarded to BIM, will provide UK further export growing and enable the industry to deliver higher quality and a more sustainability built environment for the future generations. This dissertation aim to encourage everyone to learn more about building information modelling and to explore the success example of the UK strategy Government related to BIM level 2 mandate. For that purpose, this document first explains the fundamental concepts of BIM and then explores the context in the UK: BIM maturity levels, the existing codes and standards, addresses the named “8 pillars of Level 2 BIM” and explains the information delivery cycle process. It also becomes relevant discuss in this paper, the current situation of the BIM adoption by the AEC industry and address some of the benefits and limitations of BIM adoption in the country. Furthermore, we look beyond and investigate the BIM level 3. The research has been conducted by an extensive review on the literature related to the topic of interest, collecting and analysis of surveys that have been conducted related to BIM in the UK and experienced working in a UK based contractor. A case of study is showed to recognise the importance of use BIM for a large project such as the High Speed 2, and additionally it is suggested a process map for BIM execution planning.A necessidade em obter mais eficiência e qualidade, reduzir custos, diminuir as emissões de carbono e de prazos de execução, exigiam uma enorme mudança na indústria da construção no Reino Unido. De forma a alcançar estes objetivos, bem como a pertencer e permanecer na vanguarda da construção inteligente e projeto digital, o Reino Unido tomou a decisão de adotar o BIM (Building Information Modelling), impulsionado pelo mandato do Governo para cumprimento do Nível 2 de maturidade como mínimo, lançado em 2011 para todos os projetos lançados centralmente, a partir de 2016. Essa decisão resultou num impulso do Governo para melhorar a indústria da construção, com a intenção de reduzir os custos de capital e receita associados à aquisição e uso de edifícios e infra-estruturas. No setor público o BIM está a proporcionar ao Governo, a oportunidade de industrializar e reformar o seu sector da construção através do procurement digital. De fato, este programa de BIM Nível 2 já ajudou a atingir poupanças significativas de cerca de £2.2 bilhões entre 2013 e 2015, tornando-o numa ferramenta significativa para atingir a meta de redução de custos com a construção pública entre os 15-20% (Cabinet Office, 2015). De forma a apoiar a indústria a cumprir com o Nível 2 de maturidade de BIM, o BIM Task Group e o British Standard Institute, desenvolveram várias standards, documentos e guias para explicar claramente como o BIM deveria ser aplicado. O programa Nível 2 é uma estratégia chave potenciadora para o Reino Unido desenvolver processos para a entrega de dados, classificação e definições de dados abertos. De fato, as BIM standards e os processos do Reino Unido estão a ser reconhecidos mundialmente como uma referência para a digitalização da indústria. Por volta de 2020, os economistas estimam que o mercado para serviços relacionados com BIM sejam £30 bilhões; num contexto global, as firmas baseadas no Reino Unido já exportam £7 bilhões de serviços de arquitetura e engenharia; desenvolver as capacidades e ter uma posição de liderança em relação ao BIM, fará com que esta exportação cresça e permitirá que a indústria entregue com mais qualidade e sustentabilidade as construções às gerações futuras. Esta dissertação pretende encorajar todos os interessados a aprender mais sobre o BIM e explorar o caso de sucesso da estratégia tomada pelo Governo do Reino Unido no que diz respeito ao mandato do BIM Nível 2. Para isso, este documento explica primeiro os conceitos essenciais do BIM e depois explora o contexto no Reino Unido: os níveis de maturidade de BIM, os códigos e standards existentes, aborda os chamados “8 pilares do BIM Nível 2” e explica o ciclo de entrega de informação. Torna-se também relevante discutir neste trabalho, a situação atual da adoção do BIM por parte da indústria AEC e abordar os benefícios e limitações na adoção do BIM no país. Adicionalmente, olha-se para o futuro e explora-se o BIM Nível 3. A pesquisa foi levada a cabo através de extensa revisão da literatura relacionada com o tópico, de recolha e análise de inquéritos realizados no Reino Unido relacionados com BIM e a experiência trabalhando numa construtora baseada no Reino Unido. É apresentado um caso de estudo para demonstrar a importância do uso do BIM num grande projeto como High Speed 2, e adicionalmente é sugerido um mapa de processo para o planejamento de execução BIM

Business process implications of e-commerce in construction organisations

The need for construction to change its traditional working practices has been repeatedly expressed in government, industry, and academic publications. The Internet has been a major catalyst for change in most industry sectors, including the construction sector. The implementation of Internet-based technologies, such as ecommerce for achieving business targets, bring about changes in an organisation, its current practices, systems, processes and workflows. It is therefore important to evaluate the business process implications of adopting e-commerce in construction organisations. This was the focus of this study. The early stages of the research established the possible benefits, barriers, and drivers for the adoption of e-commerce technologies within construction. This was done by conducting an industry-wide survey that explored attitudes, current usage, barriers and enablers of IT and e-commerce within the UK construction sector. Survey results indicated that the exact benefits of using e-commerce within the construction industry were not known and more needed to be done to establish the effects of incorporating e-commerce applications into construction business processes and to demonstrate the opportunities of e-commerce for construction. To address this need a typical business process model that used the principles of business process re-engineering and demonstrated opportunities for e-commerce, was developed. Using this model it was possible to illustrate how, with the use of ecommerce applications, different members of the construction supply chain could derive business benefits and overcome traditional process inefficiencies. In order to effectively adopt e-commerce technologies in construction, companies may have to reengineer their current working methods, which could lead to a step change in current work practices. To facilitate such a step change it was essential to study and document the impact of specific e-commerce applications on their current end-user business processes. Case studies were conducted for this purpose. The case study findings showed that the end-user companies had accrued several business benefits from using e-commerce tools. Issues related to management buy-in and organisational culture were the main barriers to the wider use of e-commerce within the construction industry. The case studies and earlier findings indicated that e-commerce is ‘here to stay’ and it will not be long before it becomes an industry norm. Taking this into account, construction companies who are currently using, and those who have yet to use, e-commerce tools need to take measures to successfully adopt and benefit from these tools. It is important for companies that seek to adopt ecommerce to assess their ‘e-readiness’ for adopting e-commerce tools to ensure a productive and beneficial implementation of these tools. To address this need an ereadiness model for construction organisations and a prototype application, VERDICT, that assess e-readiness were developed and implemented. The model is based on the premise that for any company to be e-ready, its management, people, process and technology have to be e-ready in order to derive maximum business benefits. The research findings indicate that the use of e-commerce is still in its infancy within the construction industry. The current use of e-commerce has resulted in process automation, however, there is no evidence of process re-engineering. Such practices, although beneficial in the short-term, can have long-term implications in that the end-users are not necessarily making full use of the technology and hence not deriving full benefits from it. The model and e-readiness assessment prototype developed as part of this study will enable construction organisations to successfully adopt e-commerce and exploit its potential

Information visibility and its effect on supply chain dynamics

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-64).Supply chains are nonlinear dynamic systems, the control of which is complicated by long, variable delays in product and information flows. In this thesis, we present a novel framework for improving the visibility of information in supply chains by reducing the delays in information flow. We first analyze the growth and evolution of production and operations management software over the past three decades, and the current trends in their development, coupled with recent advances in radio frequency technology, wireless communications, data representation methods, and the internet. Information visibility is identified as one of the key elements for successful implementation of any such software. We analyze the dynamics of a supply chain under different scenarios of information visibility and forecasting decisions with the help of simulations. Possible improvements in supply chain costs are identified, provided information visibility. We propose a framework to achieve information visibility in the supply chain using radio frequency tags, tag readers, product identification codes, an object description language, and the internet.by Yogesh V. Joshi.S.M

Collaborative electronic purchasing within an SME consortium

The main function of purchasing is to assure the supply with required goods and services. Large organisations have both finances and knowledge to implement optimised purchasing resources, typically using information and communications technology (ICT) to improve efficiency. On the contrary, within individual small and medium sized enterprises electronic purchasing is conducted predominately through supplier's sales web sites.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

LOD object content specification for manufacturers within the UK using the IDM standard

UK manufacturers are gradually embracing the adoption of Level 2 Building Information Modelling (BIM) standards (3D models and embedded data) within their product model elements. However, these are not always well defined due to inaccuracies related to the scope and the content of the model attributes. Product Data Templates (PDTs) are currently being created as a solution to provide structured model element data to manufacturer’s clients. However, defining PDTs data has been particularly challenging for manufacturers, as there is a scarcity of content knowledge which includes BIM uses (i.e. electrical design) and processes (i.e. cable tray sizing) that support client’s lifecycle processes. Similarly, few studies have investigated the Level of Development (LOD) that manufacturers should use to create their model element product data. In this paper, we therefore propose a generic industry approach to create and maintain model element product data at different LODs using the Information Delivery Manual (IDM) and we evaluate it for future improvement. The IDM can capture processes at the informational (i.e. attributes), behavioural (i.e. project stage), organisational (i.e. actor), and functional (i.e. business rules) level. A case study on Made to Stock Products for the Design use has been created to drawn recommendations for the behavioural and informational IDM perspective. In order implement the LOD on an industry basis and for its ease of use, we recommend matching the IDM Exchange models to a LOD graphical standard and keeping the BPMN free of stage bindings. This issue should be further studied for standardisation purposes. The benefit of this approach is that manufacturers could use the IDM to create product model element data in relation to their client’s processes at different LODs for its inclusion within BIM Information Systems (IS)