The impact of intelligent automation in internal supply chains

Nowadays, industry is being forced to produce smaller and more diverse batches, increasing the complexity of internal supply chains. Data has become a valuable asset, supporting the development of intelligent automation solutions. Decision support systems, which leverage data, require the automation pyramid to be more flexible, as information needs to be exchanged simultaneously and in real-time with all automation layers. This paper proposes a framework for intelligent automation to deal with current challenges in acquisition and management of data in industrial settings, towards feeding decision support systems. It frames the topic within the scope of internal supply chains, addressing the framework impact on work practices within the organisation. Two real industrial implementation cases are examined, in the wood and chemical industries. Results help practitioners address the most impactful challenges affecting the performance of internal supply chains, by developing systems which are faster, more flexible, efficient and with improved quality.This work was supported by FCT, through IDMEC, under LAETA, project UIDB/50022/2020

Criticality analysis for improving maintenance, felling and pruning cycles in power lines

16th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing INCOM 2018 Bergamo, Italy, 11–13 June 2018. Edited by Marco Macchi, László Monostori, Roberto PintoThis paper deals with the process of criticality analysis in overhead power lines, as a tool to improve maintenance, felling & pruning programs. Felling & pruning activities are tasks that utility companies must accomplish to respect the servitudes of the overhead lines, concerned with distances to vegetation, buildings, infrastructures and other networks crossings. Conceptually, these power lines servitudes can be considered as failure modes of the maintainable items under our analysis (power line spans), and the criticality analysis methodology developed, will therefore help to optimize actions to avoid these as other failure modes of the line maintainable items. The approach is interesting, but another relevant contribution of the paper is the process followed for the automation of the analysis. Automation is possible by utilizing existing companies IT systems and databases. The paper explains how to use data located in Enterprise Assets Management Systems, GIS and Dispatching systems for a fast, reliable, objective and dynamic criticality analysis. Promising results are included and also discussions about how this technique may result in important implications for this type of businesse

JEERP: Energy Aware Enterprise Resource Planning

Ever increasing energy costs, and saving requirements, especially in enterprise contexts, are pushing the limits of Enterprise Resource Planning to better account energy, with component-level asset granularity. Using an application-oriented approach we discuss the different aspects involved in designing Energy Aware ERPs and we show a prototypical open source implementation based on the Dog Domotic Gateway and the Oratio ER

Implementing intelligent asset management systems (IAMS) within an industry 4.0 manufacturing environment

9th IFAC Conference on Manufacturing Modelling, Management and Control, MIM 2019; Berlin; Germany; 28 August 2019 through 30 August 2019. Publicado en IFAC-PapersOnLine 52(13), p. 2488-2493This paper aims to define the different considerations and results obtained in the implementation in an Intelligent Maintenance System of a laboratory designed based on basic concepts of Industry 4.0. The Intelligent Maintenance System uses asset monitoring techniques that allow, on-line digital modelling and automatic decision making. The three fundamental premises used for the development of the management system are the structuring of information, value identification and risk management

Towards a Layered Architectural View for Security Analysis in SCADA Systems

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems support and control the operation of many critical infrastructures that our society depend on, such as power grids. Since SCADA systems become a target for cyber attacks and the potential impact of a successful attack could lead to disastrous consequences in the physical world, ensuring the security of these systems is of vital importance. A fundamental prerequisite to securing a SCADA system is a clear understanding and a consistent view of its architecture. However, because of the complexity and scale of SCADA systems, this is challenging to acquire. In this paper, we propose a layered architectural view for SCADA systems, which aims at building a common ground among stakeholders and supporting the implementation of security analysis. In order to manage the complexity and scale, we define four interrelated architectural layers, and uses the concept of viewpoints to focus on a subset of the system. We indicate the applicability of our approach in the context of SCADA system security analysis.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

CleanTX Analysis on the Smart Grid

The utility industry in the United States has an opportunity to revolutionize its electric grid system by utilizing emerging software, hardware and wireless technologies and renewable energy sources. As electricity generation in the U.S. increases by over 30% from today’s generation of 4,100 Terawatt hours per year to a production of 5,400 Terawatt hours per year by 2030, a new type of grid is necessary to ensure reliable and quality power. The projected U.S. population increase and economic growth will require a grid that can transmit and distribute significantly more power than it does today. Known as a Smart Grid, this system enables two- way transmission of electrons and information to create a demand-response system that will optimize electricity delivery to consumers. This paper outlines the issues with the current grid infrastructure, discusses the economic advantages of the Smart Grid for both consumers and utilities, and examines the emerging technologies that will enable cleaner, more efficient and cost- effective power transmission and consumption.IC2 Institut

On the role of Prognostics and Health Management in advanced maintenance systems

The advanced use of the Information and Communication Technologies is evolving the way that systems are managed and maintained. A great number of techniques and methods have emerged in the light of these advances allowing to have an accurate and knowledge about the systems’ condition evolution and remaining useful life. The advances are recognized as outcomes of an innovative discipline, nowadays discussed under the term of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM). In order to analyze how maintenance will change by using PHM, a conceptual model is proposed built upon three views. The model highlights: (i) how PHM may impact the definition of maintenance policies; (ii) how PHM fits within the Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) and (iii) how PHM can be integrated into Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) programs. The conceptual model is the research finding of this review note and helps to discuss the role of PHM in advanced maintenance systems.EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020, 645733 - Sustain-Owner - H2020-MSCA-RISE-201