An Integrated Engineering-Computation Framework for Collaborative Engineering: An Application in Project Management

Today\u27s engineering applications suffer from a severe integration problem. Engineering, the entire process, consists of a myriad of individual, often complex, tasks. Most computer tools support particular tasks in engineering, but the output of one tool is different from the others\u27. Thus, the users must re-enter the relevant information in the format required by another tool. Moreover, usually in the development process of a new product/process, several teams of engineers with different backgrounds/responsibilities are involved, for example mechanical engineers, cost estimators, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, and project manager. Engineers need a tool(s) to share technical and managerial information and to be able to instantly access the latest changes made by one member, or more, in the teams to determine right away the impacts of these changes in all disciplines (cost, time, resources, etc.). In other words, engineers need to participate in a truly collaborative environment for the achievement of a common objective, which is the completion of the product/process design project in a timely, cost effective, and optimal manner. In this thesis, a new framework that integrates the capabilities of four commercial software, Microsoft Excel™ (spreadsheet), Microsoft Project™ (project management), What\u27s Best! (an optimization add-in), and Visual Basic™ (programming language), with a state-of-the-art object-oriented database (knowledge medium), InnerCircle2000™ is being presented and applied to handle the Cost-Time Trade-Off problem in project networks. The result was a vastly superior solution over the conventional solution from the viewpoint of data handling, completeness of solution space, and in the context of a collaborative engineering-computation environment

Investigating the Stability and Efficiency of ADO Modules in a Web-based Manufacturing Control Interface

A report submitted by Yuqiu You to the Research and Creative Productions Committee in 2008 on the stability and efficiency of ADO Modules in a web-based manufacturing control interface

Towards Conceptual and Logical Modelling of NoSQL Databases

NoSQL databases support the ability to handle large volumes of data in the absence of an explicit data schema. On the other hand, schema information is sometimes essential for applications during data retrieval. Consequently, there are approaches to schema construction in, e.g., the JSON DB and graph DB communities. The difference between a conceptual and database schema is often vague in this case. We use functional constructs – typed attributes for a conceptual view of DB that provide a sufficiently structured approach for expressing semantics of document and graph data. Attribute names are natural language expressions. Such typed functional data objects can be manipulated by terms of a typed λ-calculus, providing powerful nonprocedural query features for considered data structures. The calculus is extendible. Logical, arithmetic, and aggregation functions can be included there. Conceptual and database modelling merge in this case

Derivation of the required elements for a definition of the term middleware

Thirteen contemporary definitions of Middleware were analyzed. The definitions agree that any software that can do the following should be classified as Middleware (1) provide service that provides transparent application-to-application interaction across the network, (2) act as a service provider for distributed applications, and (3) provide services that are primarily used by distributed applications (e.g., RPCs, ORBs, Directories, name-resolution services, etc.) Most definitions agree that Middleware is that level of software required to achieve platform, location, and network transparency. There is some discrepancy about the OSI levels at which middleware operates. The majority of definitions limit it to levels 5, 6, and 7. Additionally, almost half of the definitions do not include database transparency as something achieved by Middleware, perhaps due to the ambiguous classification of ODBC and JDBC as software. Assuming that the number of times a service is mentioned, the majority of the definitions rank services associated with legal access to an application as core to Middleware, along with valid, standardized APIs for application development as core to the definition of middleware

Benchmarking VisualStudio.NET for the development and implementation of a manufacturing execution system

The focus of this thesis is to show the utility of Microsoft\u27s\u27 .NET framework in developing and implementing a MES system. The manufacturing environment today, more than ever, is working towards achieving better yields, productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. Companies such as DELL are rapidly outgrowing their competition due to better management of their product lifecycles. The time between receiving a new order to the time the final product is shipped is getting shorter. Historically, business management applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have been implemented without too much importance given to the operational and shop floor needs. The fact is that these business systems can be successful only when they are properly integrated with real-time data from the shop floor, which is the core of any manufacturing set-up. A Manufacturing Execution System or a MES is this link between the shop floor and the top floor. MESA international defines MES as Systems that deliver information enabling the optimization of production activities from order launch to finished goods Thus, a MES provides the right information to the right people at the right time in a right format, to help them make well-informed decisions. Thus, a necessity for an efficient MES is high capability of integration with the existing systems on the operational level. This is where Microsoft\u27s\u27 VS.NET fits in. Microsoft defines .NET as A set of software technologies for connecting information, people, systems and devices . The vision of .NET is to enable the end user to connect to information from any place at anytime, using any device and in a manner that is independent of the platform on which the service is based. The building block of the .NET framework is the Common Language Runtime or CLR, which is capable of converting data from its original format into a format understandable to .NET and then use that format to interface with its client. This feature that .NET provides holds the key in the context of a MES development and implementation. The aim of this applied research is to design a MES using VS.NET to control the working of a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) namely CAMCELL. The architecture used for the MES will then be gauged against an MES implementation done previously using a Siemens\u27 PC-based automation technology and Visual FoxPro. This study will integrate the Siemens\u27 technology with the .NET framework to enhance the resulting MES efficiency. The shop floor details or the real-time data collection will be done using the databases from WinCC and data aggregation and manipulation will be done within the .NET framework. The software architecture used for this study will achieve vertical integration between the CAMCELL ERP layer, the MES layer and the Control layer. The study will demonstrate how the data stored in a high level ERP database can be converted into useful information for the control layer for process control and also how real-time information gathered from the control layer can be filtered into useful information up to the ERP layer to facilitate the decision making process. VS.NET user interface screens will be proposed to support these activities. The performance of the proposed architecture will be compared to that from previous studies, thus benchmarking VS.NET for the implementation of the MES

Implementing a Three-Tier Data Warehouse

This paper aims at developing a 3-tier inter-universities data warehouse prototype for the Egyptian universities. The implementation scope is restricted to the student enrollment process. The bottom-up approach and the multi-tier (3-tier) client/server architecture were used to implement the proposed prototype. The implementation required a number of steps to be undertaken. First, a star schema data warehouse was built based on an operational database of a public university. Second, another star schema data warehouse was built based on an operational database of a private university. Third, data from the two warehouses were abstracted to formulate the inter-universities data warehouse (tier 3). Hence, a data cube based on the resulting interuniversities data warehouse was developed using an OLAP server (tier 2). The data cube is then accessed by a client tool (tier 1) for the purpose of query and analysis. Although two universities were used to implement the interuniversities data warehouse, this scenario could be applied with any number of universities in a quite similar way. This inter-universities prototype is scalable and flexible to retain more than two universities regardless of the size of the operational databases. The interuniversities prototype fosters the coordination between participating universities and supports the decision making process. The proposed system could be used to generate a variety of strategic reports

A consistency service for replicated heterogeneous databases in a Grid environment

The present work, written during a period of scientific collaboration with INFN (National Institute of Nuclear Physics), proposes a mechanism for maintaining consistency among replicated heterogeneous databases. This mechanism is integrated in a Replica Consistency Service for Data Grid environments. Nowadays, an increasing number of applications, manage an enormous quantity of data distributed on a very large scale. In a Data Grid the data files are replicated to different sites. The replication of data among multiple databases is the only way to ensure that the data are available where and when they are needed. The catalogs, used for maintaining information about the state of file replicas in a Data Grid, use replication to improve availability, to reduce data access latency, and to improve the performances of distributed applications. Moreover it is useful for fault tolerance. A Data Grid may serve different user communities (Virtual Organizations), with different requirements. Therefore different types of data may be stored in different formats and in storage devices of different vendors. A mechanism is needed to maintain consistency among the replicas of a certain catalog that uses heterogeneous back-end databases. In a Data Grid, heterogeneous data storage involves the problem of a uniform interface to access heterogeneous information; this problem requires tools for data integration. Our goal for this work is to provide the ability to manage and to execute a replica synchronization; in particular we have a replica on an Oracle server and another replica on a MySQL server with the same logical schema. With the word "synchronization" we mean that an update of the target database will be done. Only the changes that happen on the source database will be propagated to the target database

Tourism Portal

In the flexibility of the uses the interface has been developed a graphics concept in mind, associated through a browses interface. The GUI’S at the top level have been categorized as 1. Administrative user interface 2. The operational or generic user interface. The administrative user interface concentrates on the consistent information that is practically, part of the organizational activities and which needs proper authentication for the data collection. The interfaces help the administrations with all the transactional states like Data insertion, Data deletion and Date updation along with the extensive data search capabilities. The operational or generic user interface helps the users upon the system in transactions through the existing data and required services. The operational user interface also helps the ordinary users in managing their own information in a customized manner as per the assisted flexibilities

To Host a Legacy System to the Web

The dramatic improvements in global interconectivity due to intranets, extranets and the Internet has led to many enterprises to consider migrating legacy systems to a web based systems. While data remapping is relatively straightforward in most cases, greater challenges lie in adapting legacy application software. This research effort describes an experiment in which a legacy system is migrated to a web-client/server environment. First, this thesis reports on the difficulties and issues arising when porting a legacy system International Invoice (IIMM) to a web-client/server environment. Next, this research analyzes the underlying issues, and offer cautionary guidance to future migrators and finally this research effort builds a prototype of the legacy system on a web client/server environment that demonstrates effective strategies to deal with these issues

A Web and Mobile System for Environmental Decision Support

Current field data collection methods for many of today’s scientific and other observer/monitor type applications are still entrenched in the “clipboard age”, requiring manual data transcription to a database management system at some (often much) later date, and only allows for visualisation and analysis of recently captured field data “back in the lab”. This chapter is targeted at progressing today’s pen & paper methodology into the spatially enabled mobile computing age of realtime multi-media data input, integration, visualisation, and analysis simultaneously both in the field and the lab. The system described is customized to the specific needs of the Canadian Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Fish Habitat Management Group requirements for fish species at risk assessment, but is ready for adaptation to other environmental agency applications (e.g. forestry, health-pesticide monitoring, agriculture, etc.). The chapter is ideally suited to all agencies responsible for collecting field data of any type that have not yet moved to a state-of-the-art mobile and wireless data collection, visualisation, and analysis work methodolog