Evaluating strategies for implementing industry 4.0: a hybrid expert oriented approach of B.W.M. and interval valued intuitionistic fuzzy T.O.D.I.M.

open access articleDeveloping and accepting industry 4.0 influences the industry structure and customer willingness. To a successful transition to industry 4.0, implementation strategies should be selected with a systematic and comprehensive view to responding to the changes flexibly. This research aims to identify and prioritise the strategies for implementing industry 4.0. For this purpose, at first, evaluation attributes of strategies and also strategies to put industry 4.0 in practice are recognised. Then, the attributes are weighted to the experts’ opinion by using the Best Worst Method (BWM). Subsequently, the strategies for implementing industry 4.0 in Fara-Sanat Company, as a case study, have been ranked based on the Interval Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy (IVIF) of the TODIM method. The results indicated that the attributes of ‘Technology’, ‘Quality’, and ‘Operation’ have respectively the highest importance. Furthermore, the strategies for “new business models development’, ‘Improving information systems’ and ‘Human resource management’ received a higher rank. Eventually, some research and executive recommendations are provided. Having strategies for implementing industry 4.0 is a very important solution. Accordingly, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods are a useful tool for adopting and selecting appropriate strategies. In this research, a novel and hybrid combination of BWM-TODIM is presented under IVIF information

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

Multi crteria decision making and its applications : a literature review

This paper presents current techniques used in Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and their applications. Two basic approaches for MCDM, namely Artificial Intelligence MCDM (AIMCDM) and Classical MCDM (CMCDM) are discussed and investigated. Recent articles from international journals related to MCDM are collected and analyzed to find which approach is more common than the other in MCDM. Also, which area these techniques are applied to. Those articles are appearing in journals for the year 2008 only. This paper provides evidence that currently, both AIMCDM and CMCDM are equally common in MCDM

Discrete Event Simulation Modelling for Dynamic Decision Making in Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing

With the increase in demand for biopharmaceutical products, industries have realised the need to scale up their manufacturing from laboratory-based processes to financially viable production processes. In this context, biopharmaceutical manufacturers are increasingly using simulation-based approaches to gain transparency of their current production system and to assist with designing improved systems. This paper discusses the application of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and its ability to model the various scenarios for dynamic decision making in biopharmaceutical manufacturing sector. This paper further illustrates a methodology used to develop a simulation model for a biopharmaceutical company, which is considering several capital investments to improve its manufacturing processes. A simulation model for a subset of manufacturing activities was developed that facilitated ‘what-if’ scenario planning for a proposed process alternative. The simulation model of the proposed manufacturing process has shown significant improvement over the current process in terms of throughout time reduction, better resource utilisation, operating cost reduction, reduced bottlenecks etc. This visibility of the existing and proposed production system assisted the company in identifying the potential capital and efficiency gains from the investments therefore demonstrating that DES can be an effective tool for making more informed decisions. Furthermore, the paper also discusses the utilisation of DES models to develop a number of bespoke productivity improvement tools for the company

Sustainable product development strategies: Business planning and performance implications

Copyright © 2012 by Institution of Mechanical Engineers. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Manufacturing firms are under many financial and competitive pressures which focus attention on the performance of their manufacturing processes. In this paper the opportunities for improving the environmental impact of products within the constraints of existing manufacturing infrastructure are examined. Approaches which support sustainability in two aspects are proposed, firstly, the provision of products to the users in ways which extend the product life and secondly, manufacturing approaches which reduce resource usage. This paper outlines three different sustainable development strategies for different product types and describes the cost implications for manufacturers across the life-cycle. The performance measures affected by these strategies are examined drawing on product development case studies from a number of high technology sectors to highlight the different approaches taken. The results are intended to aid manufacturers during the earliest stages of business planning to consider alternative product development approaches which are more sustainable

An integrated core competence evaluation framework for portfolio management in the oil industry

Drawing upon resource-based theory, this paper presents a core competence evaluation framework for managing the competence portfolio of an oil company. It introduces a network typology to illustrate how to form different types of strategic alliance relations with partnering firms to manage and grow the competence portfolio. A framework is tested using a case study approach involving face-to-face structured interviews. We identified purchasing, refining and sales and marketing as strong candidates to be the core competencies. However, despite the company's core business of refining oil, the core competencies were identified to be their research and development and performance management (PM) capabilities. We further provide a procedure to determine different kinds of physical, intellectual and cultural resources making a dominant impact on company's competence portfolio. In addition, we provide a comprehensive set of guidelines on how to develop core competence further by forging a partnership alliance choosing an appropriate network topology

An Ontology for Product-Service Systems

Industries are transforming their business strategy from a product-centric to a more service-centric nature by bundling products and services into integrated solutions to enhance the relationship between their customers. Since Product- Service Systems design research is currently at a rudimentary stage, the development of a robust ontology for this area would be helpful. The advantages of a standardized ontology are that it could help researchers and practitioners to communicate their views without ambiguity and thus encourage the conception and implementation of useful methods and tools. In this paper, an initial structure of a PSS ontology from the design perspective is proposed and evaluated