ENGINEERING INSURANCE

Engineering insurance is one of the most general and effective methods of project risk management in Western countries with a perfect insurance system. It covers damage to plant, machinery, and other engineering equipment such as boilers, computers, cranes, and lifts. Professional liability insurance, a type of engineering insurance, covers errors and omissions in the services provided by businesses. General liability insurance helps cover bodily injury claims, property damage, and reputational harm, among other risks. Engineering project insurance strategy simulation models can be used to analyze and optimize insurance strategies for projects. Cash flow modeling is an important aspect of insurance business, and efficient methodologies have been proposed to address this

Multi-Agent Modeling in Managing Six Sigma Projects

In this paper, a multi-agent model is proposed for considering the human resources factor in decision making in relation to the six sigma project. The proposed multi-agent system is expected to increase the acccuracy of project prioritization and to stabilize the human resources service level. A simulation of the proposed multi- agent model is conducted. The results show that a multi-agent model which takes into consideration human resources when making decisions about project selection and project team formation is important in enabling efficient and effective project management. The multi-agent modeling approach provides an alternative approach for improving communication and the autonomy of six sigma projects in business organizations

Logistics of Mathematical Modeling-Focused Projects

This article addresses the logistics of implementing projects in an undergraduate mathematics class and is intended both for new instructors and for instructors who have had negative experiences implementing projects in the past. Project implementation is given for both lower and upper division mathematics courses with an emphasis on mathematical modeling and data collection. Projects provide tangible connections to course content which can motivate students to learn at a deeper level. Logistical pitfalls and insights are highlighted as well as descriptions of several key implementation resources. Effective assessment tools, which allowed me to smoothly adjust to student feedback, are demonstrated for a sample class. As I smoothed the transition into each project and guided students through the use of the technology, their negative feedback on projects decreased and more students noted how the projects had enhanced their understanding of the course topics. Best practices learned over the years are given along with project summaries and sample topics. These projects were implemented at a small liberal arts university, but advice is given to extend them to larger classes for broader use.Comment: 27 pages, no figures, 1 tabl

Evaluating the Impact of Critical Factors in Agile Continuous Delivery Process: A System Dynamics Approach

Continuous Delivery is aimed at the frequent delivery of good quality software in a speedy, reliable and efficient fashion – with strong emphasis on automation and team collaboration. However, even with this new paradigm, repeatability of project outcome is still not guaranteed: project performance varies due to the various interacting and inter-related factors in the Continuous Delivery 'system'. This paper presents results from the investigation of various factors, in particular agile practices, on the quality of the developed software in the Continuous Delivery process. Results show that customer involvement and the cognitive ability of the QA have the most significant individual effects on the quality of software in continuous delivery

Ship product modelling

This paper is a fundamental review of ship product modeling techniques with a focus on determining the state of the art, to identify any shortcomings and propose future directions. The review addresses ship product data representations, product modeling techniques and integration issues, and life phase issues. The most significant development has been the construction of the ship Standard for the Exchange of Product Data (STEP) application protocols. However, difficulty has been observed with respect to the general uptake of the standards, in particular with the application to legacy systems, often resulting in embellishments to the standards and limiting the ability to further exchange the product data. The EXPRESS modeling language is increasingly being superseded by the extensible mark-up language (XML) as a method to map the STEP data, due to its wider support throughout the information technology industry and its more obvious structure and hierarchy. The associated XML files are, however, larger than those produced using the EXPRESS language and make further demands on the already considerable storage required for the ship product model. Seamless integration between legacy applications appears to be difficult to achieve using the current technologies, which often rely on manual interaction for the translation of files. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions that aim to either solve or alleviate these issues

Optimization of highway work zone decisions considering Short-term and Long-term Impacts

With the increase of the number, duration, and scope of maintenance projects on the national highway system, transportation agencies face great challenges in developing effective comprehensive work zone management plans which minimize the negative impacts on road users and workers. The types of maintenance operation, timing, duration, configuration, and user impact mitigation strategies are major considerations in developing work zone management plans. Some of those decisions may not only affect road users during the maintenance phase but also have significant impacts on pavement serviceability in future years. This dissertation proposes a systematic methodology for jointly optimizing critical work zone decisions, based on analytical and simulation models developed to estimate short-term impacts during the maintenance periods and long-term impacts over the pavement life cycle. The dissertation starts by modeling the effects of different work zone decisions on agency and user costs during the maintenance phase. An analytic one-time work zone cost model is then formulated based on simulation analysis results. Next, a short-term work zone decision optimization model is developed to find the best combination of lane closure and traffic control strategies which can minimize the one-time work zone cost. Considering the complex and combinatorial nature of this optimization problem, a heuristic optimization algorithm, named two-stage modified population-based simulated annealing (2PBSA), is designed to search for a near-optimal solution. For those maintenance projects that may need more detailed estimation of user delay or other impacts, a simulation-based optimization method is proposed in this study. Through a hybrid approach combining simulation and analytic methods along with parallel computing techniques, the proposed method can yield satisfactory solutions while reducing computational efforts to a more acceptable level. The last part of this study establishes a framework for jointly optimizing short-term and long-term work zone decisions with the objective of maximizing cost-effectiveness. Case studies are conducted to test the performance of the proposed methods and develop guidelines for development of work zone management plans

Modeling of system knowledge for efficient agile manufacturing : tool evaluation, selection and implementation scenario in SMEs

In the manufacturing world, knowledge is fundamental in order to achieve effective and efficient real time decision making. In order to make manufacturing system knowledge available to the decision maker it has to be first captured and then modelled. Therefore tools that provide a suitable means for capturing and representation of manufacturing system knowledge are required in several types of industrial sectors and types of company’s (large, SME). A literature review about best practice for capturing requirements for simulation development and system knowledge modeling has been conducted. The aim of this study was to select the best tool for manufacturing system knowledge modelling in an open-source environment. In order to select this tool, different criteria were selected, based on which several tools were analyzed and rated. An exemplary use case was then developed using the selected tool, Systems Modeling Language (SysML). Therefore, the best practice has been studied, evaluated, selected and then applied to two industrial use cases by the use of a selected opens source tool.peer-reviewe