Agent and cyber-physical system based self-organizing and self-adaptive intelligent shopfloor

The increasing demand of customized production results in huge challenges to the traditional manufacturing systems. In order to allocate resources timely according to the production requirements and to reduce disturbances, a framework for the future intelligent shopfloor is proposed in this paper. The framework consists of three primary models, namely the model of smart machine agent, the self-organizing model, and the self-adaptive model. A cyber-physical system for manufacturing shopfloor based on the multiagent technology is developed to realize the above-mentioned function models. Gray relational analysis and the hierarchy conflict resolution methods were applied to achieve the self-organizing and self-adaptive capabilities, thereby improving the reconfigurability and responsiveness of the shopfloor. A prototype system is developed, which has the adequate flexibility and robustness to configure resources and to deal with disturbances effectively. This research provides a feasible method for designing an autonomous factory with exception-handling capabilities

Designing Scalable Business Models

Digital business models are often designed for rapid growth, and some relatively young companies have indeed achieved global scale. However despite the visibility and importance of this phenomenon, analysis of scale and scalability remains underdeveloped in management literature. When it is addressed, analysis of this phenomenon is often over-influenced by arguments about economies of scale in production and distribution. To redress this omission, this paper draws on economic, organization and technology management literature to provide a detailed examination of the sources of scaling in digital businesses. We propose three mechanisms by which digital business models attempt to gain scale: engaging both non- paying users and paying customers; organizing customer engagement to allow self- customization; and orchestrating networked value chains, such as platforms or multi-sided business models. Scaling conditions are discussed, and propositions developed and illustrated with examples of big data entrepreneurial firms

Designing the venue logistics management operations for a World Exposition

World Expositions, due to their size and peculiar features, pose a number of logistics challenges. This paper aims at developing a design framework for the venue logistics management (VLM) operations to replenish food products to the event site, through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research approaches. First, an in-depth interview methodology, combined with the outcomes of a literature review, is adopted for defining the key variables for the tactical and operational set-up of the VLM system. Second, a quantitative approach is developed to define the necessary logistics resources. The framework is then applied to the case of Milan 2015 World Exposition. It is the first time that such a design framework for a World Exposition is presented: the originality of this research lies in the proposal of a systematic approach that adds to the experiential practices constituting the current body of knowledge on event logistics

An extensible manufacturing resource model for process integration

Driven by industrial needs and enabled by process technology and information technology, enterprise integration is rapidly shifting from information integration to process integration to improve overall performance of enterprises. Traditional resource models are established based on the needs of individual applications. They cannot effectively serve process integration which needs resources to be represented in a unified, comprehensive and flexible way to meet the needs of various applications for different business processes. This paper looks into this issue and presents a configurable and extensible resource model which can be rapidly reconfigured and extended to serve for different applications. To achieve generality, the presented resource model is established from macro level and micro level. A semantic representation method is developed to improve the flexibility and extensibility of the model

Corporate strategy revisited: A view from complexity theory

Despite its long tradition and well known contributions, corporate strategy research is yet far from being mature. This paper proposes an innovative framework that approaches the field from the theoretical perspective provided by complexity theory. We propose to see the corporate level of the organization as the driver, pacer and framer of the overall firm's evolution process. Drive is provided by the cognitive representation of the corporate fitness landscape that is implicit in the firm's corporate plan. Pacing is a consequence of the kind of strategic initiatives ("search strategy") developed by the company. Framing is achieved through the architectural design that the corporate level implements for the firm.corporate strategy; complexity theory; self-organizing;

An Autonomous Engine for Services Configuration and Deployment.

The runtime management of the infrastructure providing service-based systems is a complex task, up to the point where manual operation struggles to be cost effective. As the functionality is provided by a set of dynamically composed distributed services, in order to achieve a management objective multiple operations have to be applied over the distributed elements of the managed infrastructure. Moreover, the manager must cope with the highly heterogeneous characteristics and management interfaces of the runtime resources. With this in mind, this paper proposes to support the configuration and deployment of services with an automated closed control loop. The automation is enabled by the definition of a generic information model, which captures all the information relevant to the management of the services with the same abstractions, describing the runtime elements, service dependencies, and business objectives. On top of that, a technique based on satisfiability is described which automatically diagnoses the state of the managed environment and obtains the required changes for correcting it (e.g., installation, service binding, update, or configuration). The results from a set of case studies extracted from the banking domain are provided to validate the feasibility of this propos