Integration of production, maintenance and quality : Modelling and solution approaches

Dans cette thèse, nous analysons le problème de l'intégration de la planification de production et de la maintenance préventive, ainsi que l'élaboration du système de contrôle de la qualité. Premièrement, on considère un système de production composé d'une machine et de plusieurs produits dans un contexte incertain, dont les prix et le coût changent d'une période à l'autre. La machine se détériore avec le temps et sa probabilité de défaillance, ainsi que le risque de passage à un état hors contrôle augmentent. Le taux de défaillance dans un état dégradé est plus élevé et donc, des coûts liés à la qualité s’imposent. Lorsque la machine tombe en panne, une maintenance corrective ou une réparation minimale seront initiées pour la remettre en marche sans influer ses conditions ou le processus de détérioration. L'augmentation du nombre de défaillances de la machine se traduit par un temps d'arrêt supérieur et un taux de disponibilité inférieur. D'autre part, la réalisation des plans de production est fortement influencée par la disponibilité et la fiabilité de la machine. Les interactions entre la planification de la maintenance et celle de la production sont incorporées dans notre modèle mathématique. Dans la première étape, l'effet de maintenance sur la qualité est pris en compte. La maintenance préventive est considérée comme imparfaite. La condition de la machine est définie par l’âge actuel, et la machine dispose de plusieurs niveaux de maintenance avec des caractéristiques différentes (coûts, délais d'exécution et impacts sur les conditions du système). La détermination des niveaux de maintenance préventive optimaux conduit à un problème d’optimisation difficile. Un modèle de maximisation du profit est développé, dans lequel la vente des produits conformes et non conformes, les coûts de la production, les stocks tenus, la rupture de stock, la configuration de la machine, la maintenance préventive et corrective, le remplacement de la machine et le coût de la qualité sont considérés dans la fonction de l’objectif. De plus, un système composé de plusieurs machines est étudié. Dans cette extension, les nombres optimaux d’inspections est également considéré. La fonction de l’objectif consiste à minimiser le coût total qui est la somme des coûts liés à la maintenance, la production et la qualité. Ensuite, en tenant compte de la complexité des modèles préposés, nous développons des méthodes de résolution efficaces qui sont fondées sur la combinaison d'algorithmes génétiques avec des méthodes de recherches locales. On présente un algorithme mimétique qui emploi l’algorithme Nelder-Mead, avec un logiciel d'optimisation pour déterminer les valeurs exactes de plusieurs variables de décisions à chaque évaluation. La méthode de résolution proposée est comparée, en termes de temps d’exécution et de qualités des solutions, avec plusieurs méthodes Métaheuristiques. Mots-clés : Planification de la production, Maintenance préventive imparfaite, Inspection, Qualité, Modèles intégrés, MétaheuristiquesIn this thesis, we study the integrated planning of production, maintenance, and quality in multi-product, multi-period imperfect systems. First, we consider a production system composed of one machine and several products in a time-varying context. The machine deteriorates with time and so, the probability of machine failure, or the risk of a shift to an out-of-control state, increases. The defective rate in the shifted state is higher and so, quality related costs will be imposed. When the machine fails, a corrective maintenance or a minimal repair will be initiated to bring the machine in operation without influencing on its conditions or on the deterioration process. Increasing the expected number of machine failures results in a higher downtime and a lower availability rate. On the other hand, realization of the production plans is significantly influenced by the machine availability and reliability. The interactions between maintenance scheduling and production planning are incorporated in the mathematical model. In the first step, the impact of maintenance on the expected quality level is addressed. The maintenance is also imperfect and the machine conditions after maintenance can be anywhere between as-good-as-new and as-bad-as-old situations. Machine conditions are stated by its effective age, and the machine has several maintenance levels with different costs, execution times, and impacts on the system conditions. High level maintenances on the one hand have greater influences on the improvement of the system state and on the other hand, they occupy more the available production time. The optimal determination of such preventive maintenance levels to be performed at each maintenance intrusion is a challenging problem. A profit maximization model is developed, where the sale of conforming and non-conforming products, costs of production, inventory holding, backorder, setup, preventive and corrective maintenance, machine replacement, and the quality cost are addressed in the objective function. Then, a system with multiple machines is taken into account. In this extension, the number of quality inspections is involved in the joint model. The objective function minimizes the total cost which is the sum of maintenance, production and quality costs. In order to reduce the gap between the theory and the application of joint models, and taking into account the complexity of the integrated problems, we have developed an efficient solution method that is based on the combination of genetic algorithms with local search and problem specific methods. The proposed memetic algorithm employs Nelder-Mead algorithm along with an optimization package for exact determination of the values of several decision variables in each chromosome evolution. The method extracts not only the positive knowledge in good solutions, but also the negative knowledge in poor individuals to determine the algorithm transitions. The method is compared in terms of the solution time and quality to several heuristic methods. Keywords : Multi-period production planning, Imperfect preventive maintenance, Inspection, Quality, Integrated model, Metaheuristic

Algorithms for multi-robot systems on the cooperative exploration & last-mile delivery problems

La aparición de los vehículos aéreos no tripulados (UAVs) y de los vehículos terrestres no tripulados (UGVs) ha llevado a la comunidad científica a enfrentarse a problemas ideando paradigmas de cooperación con UGVs y UAVs. Sin embargo, no suele ser trivial determinar si la cooperación entre UGVs y UAVs es adecuada para un determinado problema. Por esta razón, en esta tesis, investigamos un paradigma particular de cooperación UGV-UAV en dos problemas de la literatura, y proponemos un controlador autónomo para probarlo en escenarios simulados. Primero, formulamos un problema particular de exploración cooperativa que consiste en alcanzar un conjunto de puntos de destino en un área de exploración a gran escala. Este problema define al UGV como una estación de carga móvil para transportar el UAV a través de diferentes lugares desde donde el UAV puede alcanzar los puntos de destino. Por consiguiente, proponemos el algoritmo TERRA para resolverlo. Este algoritmo se destaca por dividir el problema de exploración en cinco subproblemas, en los que cada subproblema se resuelve en una etapa particular del algoritmo. Debido a la explosión de la entrega de paquetes en las empresas de comercio electrónico, formulamos también una generalización del conocido problema de la entrega en la última milla. En este caso, el UGV actúa como una estación de carga móvil que transporta a los paquetes y a los UAVs, y estos se encargan de entregarlos. De esta manera, seguimos la estrategia de división descrita por TERRA, y proponemos el algoritmo COURIER. Este algoritmo replica las cuatro primeras etapas de TERRA, pero construye una nueva quinta etapa para producir un plan de tareas que resuelva el problema. Para evaluar el paradigma de cooperación UGV-UAV en escenarios simulados, proponemos el controlador autónomo ARIES. Este controlador sigue un enfoque jerárquico descentralizado de líder-seguidor para integrar cualquier paradigma de cooperación de manera distribuida. Ambos algoritmos han sido caracterizados para identificar los aspectos relevantes del paradigma de cooperación en los problemas relacionados. Además, ambos demuestran un gran rendimiento del paradigma de cooperación en tales problemas, y al igual que el controlador autónomo, revelan un gran potencial para futuras aplicaciones reales.The emergence of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) has conducted the research community to face historical complex problems by devising UGV-UAV cooperation paradigms. However, it is usually not a trivial task to determine whether or not a UGV-UAV cooperation is suitable for a particular problem. For this reason, in this thesis, we investigate a particular UGV-UAV cooperation paradigm over two problems in the literature, and we propose an autonomous controller to test it on simulated scenarios. Driven by the planetary exploration, we formulate a particular cooperative exploration problem consisting of reaching a set of target points in a large-scale exploration area. This problem defines the UGV as a moving charging station to carry the UAV through different locations from where the UAV can reach the target points. Consequently, we propose the cooperaTive ExploRation Routing Algorithm (TERRA) to solve it. This algorithm stands out for splitting up the exploration problem into five sub-problems, in which each sub-problem is solved in a particular stage of the algorithm. In the same way, driven by the explosion of parcels delivery in e-commerce companies, we formulate a generalization of the well-known last-mile delivery problem. This generalization defines the same UGV’s and UAV’s rol as the exploration problem. That is, the UGV acts as a moving charging station which carries the parcels along several UAVs to deliver them. In this way, we follow the split strategy depicted by TERRA to propose the COoperative Unmanned deliveRIEs planning algoRithm (COURIER). This algorithm replicates the first four TERRA’s stages, but it builds a new fifth stage to produce a task plan solving the problem. In order to evaluate the UGV-UAV cooperation paradigm on simulated scenarios, we propose the Autonomous coopeRatIve Execution System (ARIES). This controller follows a hierarchical decentralized leader-follower approach to integrate any cooperation paradigm in a distributed manner. Both algorithms have been characterized to identify the relevant aspects of the cooperation paradigm in the related problems. Also, both of them demonstrate a great performance of the cooperation paradigm in such problems, and as well as the autonomous controller, reveal a great potential for future real applications

Layout optimisation algorithms and reliability assessment of wind farm for microgrid integration:A comprehensive review

Abstract The paper represents a comprehensive review of the wind farm layout and reliability assessment of the wind farm integrated electrical power system. The authors have done a review on the proliferation of renewable energy which raises the uncertainties in the electrical power system. The uncertainties including wind speed and wake effect are important to deal with when an isolated microgrid is considered. The scenario becomes vigilant when the wind farms are integrated with the main grid. Due to uncertainties, the study of reliability evaluation of a wind integrated power system would become significant to analyse the electrical power system behaviour effectively. So, the paper discusses the layout optimisation methods of wind turbines considering the uncertainty parameters, mainly the wake effect. In this regard, the different wake models and optimisation methods based on a single‐objective and multi‐objective functions are reviewed in detail with the proper comparisons. The paper serves as a better illustration of the competency of these optimisation methods on the optimal wind turbine location on a wind farm. Furthermore, the paper extends the view on the reliability and cost assessment, and reliability improvement techniques of the wind integrated power system. This article provides comprehensive information, yields an attractive and subsequent tool for research requirements for the researchers to design the wind farm layout, and assessed the reliability of a wind integrated power system

Resource allocation technique for powerline network using a modified shuffled frog-leaping algorithm

Resource allocation (RA) techniques should be made efficient and optimized in order to enhance the QoS (power & bit, capacity, scalability) of high-speed networking data applications. This research attempts to further increase the efficiency towards near-optimal performance. RA’s problem involves assignment of subcarriers, power and bit amounts for each user efficiently. Several studies conducted by the Federal Communication Commission have proven that conventional RA approaches are becoming insufficient for rapid demand in networking resulted in spectrum underutilization, low capacity and convergence, also low performance of bit error rate, delay of channel feedback, weak scalability as well as computational complexity make real-time solutions intractable. Mainly due to sophisticated, restrictive constraints, multi-objectives, unfairness, channel noise, also unrealistic when assume perfect channel state is available. The main goal of this work is to develop a conceptual framework and mathematical model for resource allocation using Shuffled Frog-Leap Algorithm (SFLA). Thus, a modified SFLA is introduced and integrated in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. Then SFLA generated random population of solutions (power, bit), the fitness of each solution is calculated and improved for each subcarrier and user. The solution is numerically validated and verified by simulation-based powerline channel. The system performance was compared to similar research works in terms of the system’s capacity, scalability, allocated rate/power, and convergence. The resources allocated are constantly optimized and the capacity obtained is constantly higher as compared to Root-finding, Linear, and Hybrid evolutionary algorithms. The proposed algorithm managed to offer fastest convergence given that the number of iterations required to get to the 0.001% error of the global optimum is 75 compared to 92 in the conventional techniques. Finally, joint allocation models for selection of optima resource values are introduced; adaptive power and bit allocators in OFDM system-based Powerline and using modified SFLA-based TLBO and PSO are propose

A Comprehensive Survey on Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm and Its Applications

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a heuristic global optimization method, proposed originally by Kennedy and Eberhart in 1995. It is now one of the most commonly used optimization techniques. This survey presented a comprehensive investigation of PSO. On one hand, we provided advances with PSO, including its modifications (including quantum-behaved PSO, bare-bones PSO, chaotic PSO, and fuzzy PSO), population topology (as fully connected, von Neumann, ring, star, random, etc.), hybridization (with genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, Tabu search, artificial immune system, ant colony algorithm, artificial bee colony, differential evolution, harmonic search, and biogeography-based optimization), extensions (to multiobjective, constrained, discrete, and binary optimization), theoretical analysis (parameter selection and tuning, and convergence analysis), and parallel implementation (in multicore, multiprocessor, GPU, and cloud computing forms). On the other hand, we offered a survey on applications of PSO to the following eight fields: electrical and electronic engineering, automation control systems, communication theory, operations research, mechanical engineering, fuel and energy, medicine, chemistry, and biology. It is hoped that this survey would be beneficial for the researchers studying PSO algorithms

Preventing premature convergence and proving the optimality in evolutionary algorithms

http://ea2013.inria.fr//proceedings.pdfInternational audienceEvolutionary Algorithms (EA) usually carry out an efficient exploration of the search-space, but get often trapped in local minima and do not prove the optimality of the solution. Interval-based techniques, on the other hand, yield a numerical proof of optimality of the solution. However, they may fail to converge within a reasonable time due to their inability to quickly compute a good approximation of the global minimum and their exponential complexity. The contribution of this paper is a hybrid algorithm called Charibde in which a particular EA, Differential Evolution, cooperates with a Branch and Bound algorithm endowed with interval propagation techniques. It prevents premature convergence toward local optima and outperforms both deterministic and stochastic existing approaches. We demonstrate its efficiency on a benchmark of highly multimodal problems, for which we provide previously unknown global minima and certification of optimality

Energy Efficient Policies, Scheduling, and Design for Sustainable Manufacturing Systems

Climate mitigation, more stringent regulations, rising energy costs, and sustainable manufacturing are pushing researchers to focus on energy efficiency, energy flexibility, and implementation of renewable energy sources in manufacturing systems. This thesis aims to analyze the main works proposed regarding these hot topics, and to fill the gaps in the literature. First, a detailed literature review is proposed. Works regarding energy efficiency in different manufacturing levels, in the assembly line, energy saving policies, and the implementation of renewable energy sources are analyzed. Then, trying to fill the gaps in the literature, different topics are analyzed more in depth. In the single machine context, a mathematical model aiming to align the manufacturing power required to a renewable energy supply in order to obtain the maximum profit is developed. The model is applied to a single work center powered by the electric grid and by a photovoltaic system; afterwards, energy storage is also added to the power system. Analyzing the job shop context, switch off policies implementing workload approach and scheduling considering variable speed of the machines and power constraints are proposed. The direct and indirect workloads of the machines are considered to support the switch on/off decisions. A simulation model is developed to test the proposed policies compared to others presented in the literature. Regarding the job shop scheduling, a fixed and variable power constraints are considered, assuming the minimization of the makespan as the objective function. Studying the factory level, a mathematical model to design a flow line considering the possibility of using switch-off policies is developed. The design model for production lines includes a targeted imbalance among the workstations to allow for defined idle time. Finally, the main findings, results, and the future directions and challenges are presented

High-Quality Hypergraph Partitioning

This dissertation focuses on computing high-quality solutions for the NP-hard balanced hypergraph partitioning problem: Given a hypergraph and an integer $k$, partition its vertex set into $k$ disjoint blocks of bounded size, while minimizing an objective function over the hyperedges. Here, we consider the two most commonly used objectives: the cut-net metric and the connectivity metric. Since the problem is computationally intractable, heuristics are used in practice - the most prominent being the three-phase multi-level paradigm: During coarsening, the hypergraph is successively contracted to obtain a hierarchy of smaller instances. After applying an initial partitioning algorithm to the smallest hypergraph, contraction is undone and, at each level, refinement algorithms try to improve the current solution. With this work, we give a brief overview of the field and present several algorithmic improvements to the multi-level paradigm. Instead of using a logarithmic number of levels like traditional algorithms, we present two coarsening algorithms that create a hierarchy of (nearly) $n$ levels, where $n$ is the number of vertices. This makes consecutive levels as similar as possible and provides many opportunities for refinement algorithms to improve the partition. This approach is made feasible in practice by tailoring all algorithms and data structures to the $n$-level paradigm, and developing lazy-evaluation techniques, caching mechanisms and early stopping criteria to speed up the partitioning process. Furthermore, we propose a sparsification algorithm based on locality-sensitive hashing that improves the running time for hypergraphs with large hyperedges, and show that incorporating global information about the community structure into the coarsening process improves quality. Moreover, we present a portfolio-based initial partitioning approach, and propose three refinement algorithms. Two are based on the Fiduccia-Mattheyses (FM) heuristic, but perform a highly localized search at each level. While one is designed for two-way partitioning, the other is the first FM-style algorithm that can be efficiently employed in the multi-level setting to directly improve $k$-way partitions. The third algorithm uses max-flow computations on pairs of blocks to refine $k$-way partitions. Finally, we present the first memetic multi-level hypergraph partitioning algorithm for an extensive exploration of the global solution space. All contributions are made available through our open-source framework KaHyPar. In a comprehensive experimental study, we compare KaHyPar with hMETIS, PaToH, Mondriaan, Zoltan-AlgD, and HYPE on a wide range of hypergraphs from several application areas. Our results indicate that KaHyPar, already without the memetic component, computes better solutions than all competing algorithms for both the cut-net and the connectivity metric, while being faster than Zoltan-AlgD and equally fast as hMETIS. Moreover, KaHyPar compares favorably with the current best graph partitioning system KaFFPa - both in terms of solution quality and running time

VLSI Design

This book provides some recent advances in design nanometer VLSI chips. The selected topics try to present some open problems and challenges with important topics ranging from design tools, new post-silicon devices, GPU-based parallel computing, emerging 3D integration, and antenna design. The book consists of two parts, with chapters such as: VLSI design for multi-sensor smart systems on a chip, Three-dimensional integrated circuits design for thousand-core processors, Parallel symbolic analysis of large analog circuits on GPU platforms, Algorithms for CAD tools VLSI design, A multilevel memetic algorithm for large SAT-encoded problems, etc