An environment to support negotiation and contracting in collaborative networks

During the last years, manufacturing and service industries faced a global change in the production paradigm. They have to continuously adapt their operating principles in reaction to new business or collaboration opportunities, where a natural reaction is a shift to a new business paradigm with the creation of strategic alliances for product or services development, but also for innovative and emergent business services design. On one hand, the process of creating such alliances can be rather simple if organizations share the same geographical and cultural context. But on the other hand, considering different conditions, there might be a low success rate in the creation of successful consortia. One known reason for such low rate are the delays resulting from negotiations in the establishment of collaboration commitments, represented by contracts or agreements, which are crucial in the creation of such alliances. The collaborative networks discipline covers the study of networks of organizations specially when supported by computer networks. This thesis contributes with research in this field describing the creation process of virtual organizations, and proposing a negotiation support environment to help participants in the negotiation of the consortia creation process and in the co-design of new business services. A negotiation support environment is therefore proposed and described with its main requirements, adopted negotiation protocol, conceptual architecture, models, and software environment. To demonstrate the feasibility of the implementation of the proposed systems, a proof-ofconcept software prototype was implemented and tested using some specific scenarios. This thesis work has been validated adopting a methodology that includes: (i) validation in the research community; (ii) validation in a solar industry network; and (iii) validation by comparison analysis

C-EMO: A Modeling Framework for Collaborative Network Emotions

Recent research in the area of collaborative networks is focusing on the social and organizational complexity of collaboration environments as a way to prevent technological failures and consequently contribute for the collaborative network’s sustainability. One direction is moving towards the need to provide “human-tech” friendly systems with cognitive models of human factors such as stress, emotion, trust, leadership, expertise or decision-making ability. In this context, an emotion-based system is being proposed with this thesis in order to bring another approach to avoid collaboration network’s failures and help in the management of conflicts. This approach, which is expected to improve the performance of existing CNs, adopts some of the models developed in the human psychology, sociology and affective computing areas. The underlying idea is to “borrow” the concept of human-emotion and apply it into the context of CNs, giving the CN players the ability to “feel emotions”. Therefore, this thesis contributes with a modeling framework that conceptualizes the notion of “emotion” in CNs and a methodology approach based on system dynamics and agent-based techniques that estimates the CN player’s “emotional states” giving support to decision-making processes. Aiming at demonstrating the appropriateness of the proposed framework a simulation prototype was implemented and a validation approach was proposed consisting of simulation of scenarios, qualitative assessment and validation by research community peers.Recentemente a área de investigação das redes colaborativas tem vindo a debruçar-se na complexidade social e organizacional em ambientes colaborativos e como pode ser usada para prevenir falhas tecnológicas e consequentemente contribuir para redes colaborativas sustentáveis. Uma das direcções de estudo assenta na necessidade de fornecer sistemas amigáveis “humano-tecnológicos” com modelos cognitivos de factores humanos como o stress, emoção, confiança, liderança ou capacidade de tomada de decisão. É neste contexto que esta tese propõe um sistema baseado em emoções com o objectivo de oferecer outra aproximação para a gestão de conflitos e falhas da rede de colaboração. Esta abordagem, que pressupõe melhorar o desempenho das redes existentes, adopta alguns dos modelos desenvolvidos nas áreas da psicologia humana, sociologia e affective computing. A ideia que está subjacente é a de “pedir emprestado” o conceito de emoção humana e aplicá-lo no contexto das redes colaborativas, dando aos seus intervenientes a capacidade de “sentir emoções”. Assim, esta tese contribui com uma framework de modelação que conceptualiza a noção de “emoção” em redes colaborativas e com uma aproximação de metodologia sustentada em sistemas dinâmicos e baseada em agentes que estimam os “estados emocionais” dos participantes e da própria rede colaborativa. De forma a demonstrar o nível de adequabilidade da framework de modelação proposta, foi implementado um protótipo de simulação e foi proposta uma abordagem de validação consistindo em simulação de cenários, avaliação qualitativa e validação pelos pares da comunidade científica

Configurable nD-visualization for complex Building Information Models

With the ongoing development of building information modelling (BIM) towards a comprehensive coverage of all construction project information in a semantically explicit way, visual representations became decoupled from the building information models. While traditional construction drawings implicitly contained the visual representation besides the information, nowadays they are generated on the fly, hard-coded in software applications dedicated to other tasks such as analysis, simulation, structural design or communication. Due to the abstract nature of information models and the increasing amount of digital information captured during construction projects, visual representations are essential for humans in order to access the information, to understand it, and to engage with it. At the same time digital media open up the new field of interactive visualizations. The full potential of BIM can only be unlocked with customized task-specific visualizations, with engineers and architects actively involved in the design and development process of these visualizations. The visualizations must be reusable and reliably reproducible during communication processes. Further, to support creative problem solving, it must be possible to modify and refine them. This thesis aims at reconnecting building information models and their visual representations: on a theoretic level, on the level of methods and in terms of tool support. First, the research seeks to improve the knowledge about visualization generation in conjunction with current BIM developments such as the multimodel. The approach is based on the reference model of the visualization pipeline and addresses structural as well as quantitative aspects of the visualization generation. Second, based on the theoretic foundation, a method is derived to construct visual representations from given visualization specifications. To this end, the idea of a domain-specific language (DSL) is employed. Finally, a software prototype proofs the concept. Using the visualization framework, visual representations can be generated from a specific building information model and a specific visualization description.Mit der fortschreitenden Entwicklung des Building Information Modelling (BIM) hin zu einer umfassenden Erfassung aller Bauprojektinformationen in einer semantisch expliziten Weise werden Visualisierungen von den Gebäudeinformationen entkoppelt. Während traditionelle Architektur- und Bauzeichnungen die visuellen Reprä̈sentationen implizit als Träger der Informationen enthalten, werden sie heute on-the-fly generiert. Die Details ihrer Generierung sind festgeschrieben in Softwareanwendungen, welche eigentlich für andere Aufgaben wie Analyse, Simulation, Entwurf oder Kommunikation ausgelegt sind. Angesichts der abstrakten Natur von Informationsmodellen und der steigenden Menge digitaler Informationen, die im Verlauf von Bauprojekten erfasst werden, sind visuelle Repräsentationen essentiell, um sich die Information erschließen, sie verstehen, durchdringen und mit ihnen arbeiten zu können. Gleichzeitig entwickelt sich durch die digitalen Medien eine neues Feld der interaktiven Visualisierungen. Das volle Potential von BIM kann nur mit angepassten aufgabenspezifischen Visualisierungen erschlossen werden, bei denen Ingenieur*innen und Architekt*innen aktiv in den Entwurf und die Entwicklung dieser Visualisierungen einbezogen werden. Die Visualisierungen müssen wiederverwendbar sein und in Kommunikationsprozessen zuverlässig reproduziert werden können. Außerdem muss es möglich sein, Visualisierungen zu modifizieren und neu zu definieren, um das kreative Problemlösen zu unterstützen. Die vorliegende Arbeit zielt darauf ab, Gebäudemodelle und ihre visuellen Repräsentationen wieder zu verbinden: auf der theoretischen Ebene, auf der Ebene der Methoden und hinsichtlich der unterstützenden Werkzeuge. Auf der theoretischen Ebene trägt die Arbeit zunächst dazu bei, das Wissen um die Erstellung von Visualisierungen im Kontext von Bauprojekten zu erweitern. Der verfolgte Ansatz basiert auf dem Referenzmodell der Visualisierungspipeline und geht dabei sowohl auf strukturelle als auch auf quantitative Aspekte des Visualisierungsprozesses ein. Zweitens wird eine Methode entwickelt, die visuelle Repräsentationen auf Basis gegebener Visualisierungsspezifikationen generieren kann. Schließlich belegt ein Softwareprototyp die Realisierbarkeit des Konzepts. Mit dem entwickelten Framework können visuelle Repräsentationen aus jeweils einem spezifischen Gebäudemodell und einer spezifischen Visualisierungsbeschreibung generiert werden

Application of Multi-Agent Systems and Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Flexible Process Planning

Sistemi zasnovani na agentima primenju se za razvoj društvenih, bioloških i tehničkih sistema. U domenu tehničkih sistema, svoju primenu nalaze i u rešavanju problema optimizacije savremenih tehnoloških sistema. U radu je predstavljena razvijena multiagentna metodologija za optimalno projektovanje tehnoloških procesa obrade dela. Predložena multiagentna arhitehtura se sastoji od četiri agenta: agent za delove, agent za mašine, agent za transport i agent za optimizaciju. Nakon generisanja optimalnih tehnoloških procesa primenom biološki inspirisanog algoritma na bazi inteligencije roja čestica, u AnyLogic softverskom paketu je izvršena simulacija primenom razvijenih agenata. Eksperimentalni rezultati pokazuju opravdanost primene predložene metodologije u simuliranom modelu tehnološkog okruženja.Agent based systems have been used for the development of social, biological, and technical systems. In the domain of technical systems, they are widely applied in optimization problems of modern manufacturing systems. This paper presents multi-agent methodology for optimal process planning. The proposed multi-agent architecture consists of four intelligent agents: job/part agent, machine agent, transport agent, and optimization agent. After generation of optimal process plans, agent based simulation was performed using AnyLogic software. Use of applied method has been justified by experimental results in simulated model of manufacturing environment

Application of Multi-Agent Systems and Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Flexible Process Planning

Sistemi zasnovani na agentima primenju se za razvoj društvenih, bioloških i tehničkih sistema. U domenu tehničkih sistema, svoju primenu nalaze i u rešavanju problema optimizacije savremenih tehnoloških sistema. U radu je predstavljena razvijena multiagentna metodologija za optimalno projektovanje tehnoloških procesa obrade dela. Predložena multiagentna arhitehtura se sastoji od četiri agenta: agent za delove, agent za mašine, agent za transport i agent za optimizaciju. Nakon generisanja optimalnih tehnoloških procesa primenom biološki inspirisanog algoritma na bazi inteligencije roja čestica, u AnyLogic softverskom paketu je izvršena simulacija primenom razvijenih agenata. Eksperimentalni rezultati pokazuju opravdanost primene predložene metodologije u simuliranom modelu tehnološkog okruženja.Agent based systems have been used for the development of social, biological, and technical systems. In the domain of technical systems, they are widely applied in optimization problems of modern manufacturing systems. This paper presents multi-agent methodology for optimal process planning. The proposed multi-agent architecture consists of four intelligent agents: job/part agent, machine agent, transport agent, and optimization agent. After generation of optimal process plans, agent based simulation was performed using AnyLogic software. Use of applied method has been justified by experimental results in simulated model of manufacturing environment

Optimization of Flexible Process Planning Based on PSO Algorithm and Chaos Theory

U radu je prikazan pristup za optimizaciju fleksibilnih teholoških procesa obrade dela primenom algoritma baziranog na inteligenciji roja (PSO algoritam) i teoriji haosa. Pored metoda predstavljanja tehnoloških procesa pomoću AND/OR mreža, u radu je predložen matematički model za minimizaciju ukupnog proizvodnog vremena i minimizaciju ukupnih troškova, kao i princip kodiranja/dekodiranja parametara teholoških procesa u jedinke modifikovanog PSO algoritma. Takođe, u cilju prevazilaženja nedostataka vezanih za brzu konvergenciju u ranim fazama optimizacije, predložena je implementacija haotičnih mapa u modifikovani PSO algoritam. Predloženi pristup je eksperimentalno verifikovan na primeru dobijanja optimalnih tehnoloških procesa realnog dela.This paper presents an approach for optimizing flexible process plans based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and chaos theory. Besides representing process plans in the form of AND/OR network, mathematical model for the minimization of the total production time and cost was presented, as well as particle encoding/decoding scheme for flexible process planning. Also, we proposed implementation of chaotic maps in modified PSO algorithm in order to prevent algorithm from converging prematurely. Experimental verification of the proposed algorithm was done through the optimal process planning for real part

Optimization of Flexible Process Planning Based on PSO Algorithm and Chaos Theory

U radu je prikazan pristup za optimizaciju fleksibilnih teholoških procesa obrade dela primenom algoritma baziranog na inteligenciji roja (PSO algoritam) i teoriji haosa. Pored metoda predstavljanja tehnoloških procesa pomoću AND/OR mreža, u radu je predložen matematički model za minimizaciju ukupnog proizvodnog vremena i minimizaciju ukupnih troškova, kao i princip kodiranja/dekodiranja parametara teholoških procesa u jedinke modifikovanog PSO algoritma. Takođe, u cilju prevazilaženja nedostataka vezanih za brzu konvergenciju u ranim fazama optimizacije, predložena je implementacija haotičnih mapa u modifikovani PSO algoritam. Predloženi pristup je eksperimentalno verifikovan na primeru dobijanja optimalnih tehnoloških procesa realnog dela.This paper presents an approach for optimizing flexible process plans based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and chaos theory. Besides representing process plans in the form of AND/OR network, mathematical model for the minimization of the total production time and cost was presented, as well as particle encoding/decoding scheme for flexible process planning. Also, we proposed implementation of chaotic maps in modified PSO algorithm in order to prevent algorithm from converging prematurely. Experimental verification of the proposed algorithm was done through the optimal process planning for real part

Improvement and Characterization of Direct-Ink-Write Manufactured Continuous Fiber Reinforced Photopolymer Matrix Composites

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites play a significant and continuously growing role in engineering applications that require high strength, weight optimized structural components. Additive manufacturing (AM) has proven to be an extremely powerful tool in expanding the limits of part complexity and optimization. The present work aims to combine the two by reliably and efficiently additively manufacturing continuous fiber reinforced thermoset polymer composites. Building off previous efforts, a novel 3D printer was refined that utilizes direct ink write (DIW) technology to simultaneously extrude both an in-situ cured UV resin and continuous reinforcing fiber. Improvements to the system ensured that the most common failures were significantly mitigated or eliminated. The capabilities of the printer, specifically the maximum print size, were also increased by a wide margin. The printer’s more predictable state allowed the creation of samples for material characterization. Tensile specimens showed strengths as high as 209 MPa and an average tensile modulus of 19.5 MPa. Volume fraction testing using carbonization in a nitrogen atmosphere gave an average fiber volume fraction of 8.3%. These are competitive with the results of other investigations of similar continuous fiber AM processes. The printed material was further characterized with scanning electron microscopy, showing that the bonding between matrix layers and resin impregnation within fibers were both ideal. Printed cones and honeycombs also showed that the process can produce complex geometry. Future efforts can serve to increase the fiber volume fraction and overall strength optimization of the printed material. The introduction of new materials into the process, like fiberglass or nanoparticles, could also change the properties of the products to have better curing behavior or higher strength

High Performance Real-Time Scheduling Framework for Multiprocessor Systems

Embedded systems, performing specific functions in modern devices, have become pervasive in today's technology landscape. As many of these systems are real-time systems, they necessitate operations with stringent time constraints. This is especially evident in sectors like automotive and aerospace. This thesis introduces a High Performance Real-time Scheduling (HPRTS) framework, which is designed to navigate the multifaceted challenges faced by multiprocessor real-time systems. To begin with, the research attempts to bridge the gap between system reliability and resource sharing in Mixed-Criticality Systems (MCS). In addressing this, a novel fault-tolerance solution is presented. Its main goal is to enhance fault management and reduce blocking time during fault tolerance. Following this, the thesis delves into task allocation in systems with shared resources. In this context, we introduce a distinct Resource Contention Model (RCM). Using this model as a foundation, our allocation strategy is formulated with the aim to reduce resource contention. Moreover, in light of the escalating system complexity where tasks are represented using Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) models, the research unveils a new Response Time Analysis (RTA) for multi-DAG systems. This particular analysis has been tailored to provide a safe and more refined bound. Reflecting on the contributions made, the achievements of the thesis highlight the potency of the HPRTS framework in steering real-time embedded systems toward high performance

Stuttgarter Symposium für Produktentwicklung SSP 2017 : Stuttgart, 29. Juni 2017, Wissenschaftliche Konferenz

Veränderte Anforderungen in internationalen Märkten erfordern hohe Anstrengungen, um Prozesse in Innovation und Produktentwicklung zu optimieren. Das Stuttgarter Symposium für Produktentwicklung (SSP) ermöglicht die Diskussion der an Produktgestaltung und -entwicklung beteiligten Disziplinen aus Industrie und Wissenschaft. Das SSP zeigt, wie erfolgreiche Produkte effizient gestaltet und entwickelt werden. Neueste Forschungsergebnisse zu Methoden, Strategien und Werkzeugen werden vorgestellt, um Prozesse zu verbessern und die Digitalisierung zu unterstützen. Mit dem Ziel, nationale und internationale Fachleute unterschiedlicher Disziplinen der Produktentwicklung aus Industrie und Wissenschaft in den Dialog zu bringen, veranstaltet das Fraunhofer IAO gemeinsam mit dem Institut für Konstruktionstechnik und Technisches Design IKTD, dem Institut für Maschinenelemente IMA und dem Institut für Arbeitswissenschaft und Technologiemanagement IAT der Universität Stuttgart das Stuttgarter Symposium für Produktentwicklung SSP. Am 28. und 29. Juni 2017 fand das SSP bereits zum vierten Mal im Zentrum für Virtuelles Engineering des Fraunhofer IAO statt, nachdem die Symposien 2011, 2013 und 2015 mit jeweils über 200 Besuchern aus Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft großen Zuspruch gefunden hatten. Am Forumstag stand wie immer die Industrie im Fokus, am zweiten Tag die wissenschaftliche Konferenz. Die Konferenz bietet Wissenschaftlern eine Plattform zur Präsentation und Diskussion ihrer neuesten Forschungsergebnisse im Bereich der Produktentwicklung und fördert so den interdisziplinären Wissenstransfer. Aufgerufen waren in der SSP 2017 Beiträge aus folgenden Kategorien: • Wissensmanagement in der Produktentwicklung • Nachhaltige Produktentwicklung • Altersgerechte Produktentwicklung • Zuverlässige Produktentwicklung • Industrie 4.0/Cyber-Physical Products • Konstruktionsmethodiken • Leichtbau in der Produktentwicklung • Nutzerzentriertes Design • Innovations- und Technologiemanagement • Digital Engineering • Lean Development. Eingereicht wurden Beiträge zu Methoden, Strategien und Verfahren, die es ermöglichen, Produktentwicklungsprozesse zu vernetzen, digitale Werkzeuge zu integrieren und die Potenziale neuer Technologien und Werkstoffe optimal auszuschöpfen