Recent developments and future trends of industrial agents

The agent technology provides a new way to design and engineer control solutions based on the decentralization of control over distributed structures, addressing the current requirements for modern control systems in industrial domains. This paper presents the current situation of the development and deployment of agent technology, discussing the initiatives and the current trends faced for a wider dissemination and industrial adoption, based on the work that is being carried out by the IEEE IES Technical Committee on Industrial Agents

Energy efficiency in discrete-manufacturing systems: insights, trends, and control strategies

Since the depletion of fossil energy sources, rising energy prices, and governmental regulation restrictions, the current manufacturing industry is shifting towards more efficient and sustainable systems. This transformation has promoted the identification of energy saving opportunities and the development of new technologies and strategies oriented to improve the energy efficiency of such systems. This paper outlines and discusses most of the research reported during the last decade regarding energy efficiency in manufacturing systems, the current technologies and strategies to improve that efficiency, identifying and remarking those related to the design of management/control strategies. Based on this fact, this paper aims to provide a review of strategies for reducing energy consumption and optimizing the use of resources within a plant into the context of discrete manufacturing. The review performed concerning the current context of manufacturing systems, control systems implemented, and their transformation towards Industry 4.0 might be useful in both the academic and industrial dimension to identify trends and critical points and suggest further research lines.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Double Exponentially Weighted Moving Average Control Chart for the Individual Based on a Linear Prediction

Industrial process quality control frequently uses the Exponentially Weighted Moving Average control chart (EWMA CC) and the double EWMA CC (DEWMA CC) to detect small shifts in a process when the sample size =1. The EWMA CC was initially developed and evaluated in 1959. In 2005, the EWMA technique was extended to the DEWMA. Continued research into DEWMA has developed and assessed several alternatives, including multivariate control charts. These studies focus on detecting small shifts in process. In practice, however, we occasionally wish to detect small trends instead of shifts in the process. The effectiveness of these methods to determine small trends in a process has not been thoroughly researched in the current literature. This research proposes a new control chart, based on the fundamental theorem of exponential smoothing prediction, first presented by Brown and Meyer in 1961. The new chart is called “The Double Exponentially Weighted Moving Average Based on a Linear Prediction” (DEWMABLP) control chart. This study presents a simulation to contrast the efficiency of DEWMABLP, EWMA, DEWMA, and classical Shewhart control charts when small trends are introduced. A conclusion is the DEWMABLP control chart can be used to monitoring small shifts. Also, results suggest that the new control chart is more efficient than the other control charts not only for small drifts, but also for small shifts

Surviving success : policy reform and the future of industrial pollution in China

China's recent industrial growth, a remarkable success story, has been clouded by hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and incidents of serious respiratory illness caused by exposure to industrial air pollution. Seriously contaminated by industrial discharges, many of China's waterways are largely unfit for direct human use. This damage could be substantially reduced at modest cost. Industrial reform combined with stricter environmental regulation has reduced organic water pollution in many areas and has curbed the growth of air pollution. But much higher levels of emissions controls (of particulates and sulfur dioxide) are warranted in China's polluted cities. For the cost-benefit analysis that led to this conclusion, the authors developed threescenarios projecting pollution damage under varying assumptions about future policies. Their findings are: Even if regulation is not tightened further, continued economic reform should have a powerful effect on pollution intensity. Organic water pollution will stabilize in many areas and actually decline in some. Air pollution will continue growing in most areas but at a much slower pace than industrial output. The cost of inaction would be high--most of China's waterways will remain heavily polluted, and many thousands of people will die or suffer serious respiratory damage. Continuing current trends in tightened regulation for water pollution will lead to sharp improvements; adopting an economically feasible policy of much stricter regulation will restore the health of many waterways. The stakes are even higher for air pollution because regulatory enforcement has weakened in many areas in the past five years. Reversing that trend will save many lives at extremely modest cost. China's National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) has recommended a tenfold increase in the air pollution levy; adopting NEPA's very conservative recommendation would produce a major turnaround in most cities. For representative Chinese cities, a fiftyfold increase in the levy is probably warranted economically. To be cost-effective, heavy sources of particulate and sulfur dioxide emissions should be targeted for abatement. Reducing emissions from large private plants is so cheap that only significant abatement makes sense -- at least 70 percent abatement of sulfur dioxide particulates and even greater abatement of particulates in large urban industrial facilities.Public Health Promotion,Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Pollution Management&Control,Sanitation and Sewerage,Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Pollution Management&Control,TF030632-DANISH CTF - FY05 (DAC PART COUNTRIES GNP PER CAPITA BELOW USD 2,500/AL

Future Directions of Internet-based Control Systems

Recent advances in object-oriented, client/server technologies, and the Internet are supplying the technology enablers needed to provide a uniform information architecture that can be used to build software architecture allowing the inter-operation and integration of a wide set of diverse applications. Moreover the emerging standards start playing a significant role in the shaping of automation architectures in enterprises. The inclusion within a classical control system of Internet-related technologies and open distributed application concepts would give the present system compliance with current and future technological trends. At the present time, in the field of the industrial automation, real-time embedded control systems more and more need Internet connectivity for operations of remote plant administration, training, and supervisory activities. In this paper the state of the art in embedded control systems is presented within the field of industrial automation applications, and the technological scenario is discussed, followed by the trend for the evolution in process control systems. Guidelines for the design of innovative, thus competitive control systems are suggested. A case study is presented, outcome of an EC project in which one of the authors is involved, where a remote maintenance system is realized

Concept and Implementation of a Factory Simulation

Current technological trends, such as cyber-physical systems and the industrial internet of things (IIoT), blur boundaries between software and hardware development. Industrial software systems control whole production factories by using advanced information technology approaches. Hence, the development of such systems requires a tight integration of data and processes between the different software systems, e.g., programmable logic controllers, production planning systems, or enterprise resource planning software. This thesis provides the concept and implementation of a factory simulation including the development of a programmable logic controller (PLC) application based on PLC programming languages. The PLC application controls the execution of customizable production processes and generates process data, e.g., sensor data, production logs, or alarm events, which can be further analyzed, for example, in condition monitoring applications

Model Predictive Control for Power Converters and Drives: Advances and Trends

Model predictive control (MPC) is a very attractive solution for controlling power electronic converters. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the latest developments in MPC for power converters and drives, describing the current state of this control strategy and analyzing the new trends and challenges it presents when applied to power electronic systems. The paper revisits the operating principle of MPC and identifies three key elements in the MPC strategies, namely the prediction model, the cost function, and the optimization algorithm. This paper summarizes the most recent research concerning these elements, providing details about the different solutions proposed by the academic and industrial communitiesMinisterio de Economia y Competitividad TEC2016-78430-RConsejeria de Innovacion, Ciencia y Empresa (Junta de Andalucia) P11-TIC-707

Time / schedule control of engineering projects in the South Western Cape

Bibliography: pages 109-113.In the evolution of project management as a distinct field of management, there seems to have developed greatly disjointed theory on project control. As a result, the modern practitioner is often faced with contradictory and confusing advice on project time/schedule control requirements. This research integrates and extends present time/schedule control theory. It includes a review of the literature, in which the fragmented theory is pieced together in a model describing the operation of a control system. It uses an industrial survey of engineering projects in the South Western Cape to highlight current time/schedule control trends and to establish the existence and form of relationships between project success, project characteristics and time/schedule control methods. The broad scope of the research has made it possible to set rough guidelines for the practising project manager, in the selection of time/schedule control requirements, and to highlight areas for further research in this area of project management

Industry 4.0 challenges to IE paradigms: A pilot study in materials handling

Industrial engineering practices are expected to be affected by, and most likely adapt to, the new paradigms of Industry 4.0. Early indications in practice, as well as extrapolations from the current technology trends, point toward a few fundamental features. Among these are further integration, leaner and hence more agile practices, and the use of real-time data. The final objective is to reduce complexity while striving for real-time supply- and production-chain optimization. We argue that the optimization of highly integrated production systems cannot be sought by simply aggregating the known operations management tools of industrial engineering. Specifically, we present evidence, gleaned from a recent industrial project, that indicates how as the systems become more integrated, the concept of operations optimization needs to be revisited. Our work has two distinct contributions to the literature. We develop and present a state-of-the-art optimization model for a joint materials handling, inventory, and scheduling model. The model incorporates aspects of the knapsack, bin packing, vehicle routing, and inventory control formulations. Further, we show that simply collecting existing industrial engineering models into larger aggregations, albeit in line with the current best practices of our profession, will not necessarily suffice to completely fulfill the ambitions of Industry 4.0