34,010 research outputs found
An Empirical Study on Decision making for Quality Requirements
[Context] Quality requirements are important for product success yet often
handled poorly. The problems with scope decision lead to delayed handling and
an unbalanced scope. [Objective] This study characterizes the scope decision
process to understand influencing factors and properties affecting the scope
decision of quality requirements. [Method] We studied one company's scope
decision process over a period of five years. We analyzed the decisions
artifacts and interviewed experienced engineers involved in the scope decision
process. [Results] Features addressing quality aspects explicitly are a minor
part (4.41%) of all features handled. The phase of the product line seems to
influence the prevalence and acceptance rate of quality features. Lastly,
relying on external stakeholders and upfront analysis seems to lead to long
lead-times and an insufficient quality requirements scope. [Conclusions] There
is a need to make quality mode explicit in the scope decision process. We
propose a scope decision process at a strategic level and a tactical level. The
former to address long-term planning and the latter to cater for a speedy
process. Furthermore, we believe it is key to balance the stakeholder input
with feedback from usage and market in a more direct way than through a long
plan-driven process
Product to process lifecycle management in assembly automation systems
Presently, the automotive industry is facing enormous pressure due to global competition and ever
changing legislative, economic and customer demands. Product and process development in the
automotive manufacturing industry is a challenging task for many reasons. Current product life
cycle management (PLM) systems tend to be product-focussed. Though, information about
processes and resources are there but mostly linked to the product. Process is an important aspect,
especially in assembly automation systems that link products to their manufacturing resources. This
paper presents a process-centric approach to improve PLM systems in large-scale manufacturing
companies, especially in the powertrain sector of the automotive industry. The idea is to integrate
the information related to key engineering chains i.e. products, processes and resources based upon
PLM philosophy and shift the trend of product-focussed lifecycle management to process-focussed
lifecycle management, the outcome of which is the Product, Process and Resource Lifecycle
Management not PLM only
Analysis of the impact of the Asset Health Index in a Maintenance Strategy
Hosted by the Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria. May 23-24, 2019
- European Safety, Reliability & Data Association (ESReDA)During many years, asset management methodologies used in industry were focused
on knowing and analysing the operational control of the daily work and the impact of
the maintenance on the availability. Later, the costs turn into the priority, and
strategies were focused on assesses a longer lifecycle and optimizing processes and
contracts. Finally, recent normative have included concepts as “knowing and
managing the risks” and the target is to prioritize the maintenance tasks to the
critical assets. However, taking a balanced asset management model for the
operational environment, quite a lot of facilities of Oil & Gas sector are reaching the
end of their initially estimated lifecycle. New challenges are related to extend the life
of the main items of the facilities or at least, to find the optimal replacement moment
that guarantees that the maintenance strategy is being optimized.
Asset Health Index methodology considers a theoretical lifecycle of an item, in which
depending on the proximity to the end of the useful life, the probability of failure
increases. But take this theoretical lifecycle as a base, different operation location
factors or O&M aspects can modify this period. All these factor are quantified and
permit us to calculate a new theoretical profile.
This paper is about assess the impact of the AHI into the maintenance strategy
optimisation. AHI enables us to compare future alternative cost profiles and assess
the impact in the failure probability of the item. As a result, we are able to know the
risk that is taken when we enlarge the operation of an item, and the impact in the
operational costs
Improving lifecycle query in integrated toolchains using linked data and MQTT-based data warehousing
The development of increasingly complex IoT systems requires large
engineering environments. These environments generally consist of tools from
different vendors and are not necessarily integrated well with each other. In
order to automate various analyses, queries across resources from multiple
tools have to be executed in parallel to the engineering activities. In this
paper, we identify the necessary requirements on such a query capability and
evaluate different architectures according to these requirements. We propose an
improved lifecycle query architecture, which builds upon the existing Tracked
Resource Set (TRS) protocol, and complements it with the MQTT messaging
protocol in order to allow the data in the warehouse to be kept updated in
real-time. As part of the case study focusing on the development of an IoT
automated warehouse, this architecture was implemented for a toolchain
integrated using RESTful microservices and linked data.Comment: 12 pages, worksho
A research review of quality assessment for software
Measures were recommended to assess the quality of software submitted to the AdaNet program. The quality factors that are important to software reuse are explored and methods of evaluating those factors are discussed. Quality factors important to software reuse are: correctness, reliability, verifiability, understandability, modifiability, and certifiability. Certifiability is included because the documentation of many factors about a software component such as its efficiency, portability, and development history, constitute a class for factors important to some users, not important at all to other, and impossible for AdaNet to distinguish between a priori. The quality factors may be assessed in different ways. There are a few quantitative measures which have been shown to indicate software quality. However, it is believed that there exists many factors that indicate quality and have not been empirically validated due to their subjective nature. These subjective factors are characterized by the way in which they support the software engineering principles of abstraction, information hiding, modularity, localization, confirmability, uniformity, and completeness
Mathematical and computer modeling of electro-optic systems using a generic modeling approach
The conventional approach to modelling electro-optic sensor systems is to develop separate models for individual systems or classes of system, depending on the detector technology employed in the sensor and the application. However, this ignores commonality in design and in components of these systems. A generic approach is presented for modelling a variety of sensor systems operating in the infrared waveband that also allows systems to be modelled with different levels of detail and at different stages of the product lifecycle. The provision of different model types (parametric and image-flow descriptions) within the generic framework can allow valuable insights to be gained
Remanufacturing and product design: designing for the 7th generation
The following is taken directly from the research report.
This report investigates Design for Remanufacture in terms of both detailed product design and the business context in which Design for Remanufacture may operate.
Key Study Objectives
• To understand the link between design and remanufacture
• To understand how Design for Remanufacture can lead to increased innovation and Sustainable Development (SD)
• To identify proactive strategies to further Design for Remanufactur
Scrum Game: An Agile Software Management Game
For the past few years, in their attempt to avoid the heavyweight bureaucracy of traditional project management methods such as the Waterfall model, companies have started incorporating agile methods (e.g. Extreme Programming, Scrum, Crystal) for their project development. These methods are characterised by their incremental and iterative delivery, their ability to incorporate change at any stage of the project lifecycle, as well as their small and co-located teams. Even though these methods are included in the syllabus of many software engineering modules at university level, many students currently feel more confident with traditional, rather than agile methods. Many employers find that recent graduates are not equipped with the desired skills of a software engineer because, even though they are knowledgeable in the different software engineering practices, they lack practical experience of these methods. The combination of these two factors show that the university’s approach to teaching software management methods is only theoretical and it does not give students the opportunity to apply them to their projects so they can get a better understanding of their use. The project developed the prototype of a computer game that simulates the use of the Scrum method within different projects, named Scrum Game. The game is supplementary material for a lecture course, and its purpose is to guide students through the Scrum lifecycle. Students can thereby get a small glimpse of the different phases of Scrum, the way that the different Scrum roles interact with each other, and the way that Scrum is used to implement real projects. In addition, the Scrum Game has an administrator mode enabling lecturers to view a log of the progress of all their students in the game. They can use this mode to create new projects or to alter existing ones by adding new tasks or problems, thereby adjusting the level of difficulty to the level of their students, or so that it fits their teaching. The web-based system was developed using PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX (jQuery) and Google Charts API. The system was thoroughly tested against the initial requirements and other system tests. The Scrum Game was evaluated by 22 peer colleagues reading for an MSc in Software Engineering at the University of Southampton, to identify whether the system achieved its goal of introducing students to the Scrum methodology and reaching a deeper understanding of its practical use during project implementation. The results of a questionnaire showed that little prior knowledge was assumed during the game, and that 86% of the participants felt that the game helped them learn more about Scrum. When asked, “Do you think that if this game was part of your Project Management module, would you get a better understanding about Scrum?” an impressive 95% (21 out of 22 participants) agreed that the game would be helpful, and rated the system 8 out of 10 on average
- …