Total Cost of Ownership of Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) Technologies in Factories

Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLS) have become an important supporting technology in manufacturing due to safety, logistical and managerial concerns. RTLS is a very wide term covering many different specific technologies. To increase the potential for implementation and better anticipate the costs associated, four different RTLS technologies have been evaluated according use case characteristics, maintenance costs, communication requirements. Data server capabilities, scalability, and integrability. The ability to analyze and determine such criteria are vital to support the selection of a specific technology (or mix of technologies) within manufacturing. The paper offers researchers and managers a reference comparison of the total costs surrounding the ownership of Ultra-wide band (UWB), Bluetooth Low Energy, Ultrasonic, and Optical RTLS technologies.</p

CH Selection via Adaptive Threshold Design Aligned on Network Energy

Energy consumption in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) involving multiple sensor nodes is a crucial parameter in many applications like smart healthcare systems, home automation, environmental monitoring, and industrial use. Hence, an energy-efficient cluster-head (CH) selection strategy is imperative in a WSN to improve network performance. So to balance the harsh conditions in the network with fast changes in the energy dynamics, a novel energy-efficient adaptive fuzzy-based CH selection approach is projected. Extensive simulations exploited various real-time scenarios, such as varying the optimal position of the location of the base station and network energy. Additionally, the results showed an improved performance in the throughput (46%) and energy consumption (66%), which demonstrated the robustness and efficacy of the proposed model for the future designs of WSN applications

Electronic word of mouth in online social networks: strategies for coping with opportunities and challenges

In today's world, the widespread success of the Internet, social media, and online social networks (OSN) provide the basis for electronic word of mouth (EWOM). EWOM can be seen as a digital enhancement of traditional word of mouth that makes communication more efficient and involves less effort by its users. The resulting speed of diffusion and information transparency have caused transformative changes in consumer behaviour in all types of markets, which requires the development of new business strategies for adequately dealing with the new circumstances. This doctoral dissertation is divided into three overall subject areas that concern the investigation of capable strategies for coping with the emerged opportunities and challenges of EWOM in OSN. The first subject area concerns negative electronic word of mouth in OSN and investigates capable countermeasure strategies for firms to adequately address claims of unsatisfied customers. For this, three simulation studies are conducted in which the propagation of a negative message and its countering by a positive message published by the firm are numerically analysed. The results reveal that, in general, the persuasiveness of a firm's response is more important than a quick response with a less persuasive counter-message. To some extent, this also holds if the number of OSN members who initially disseminate the counter-message on behalf of the firm is increased. In the second subject area, an optimisation model for individualised pricing is developed for an online store whose customers are interconnected in an OSN and can share price information via EWOM. The model is solved numerically by artificial intelligence solution methods. The results indicate that personalised prices can be financially worthwhile even under price transparency. The third subject area investigates market entry strategies for social media apps and services that are advertised in an OSN for acquiring new users and examines the role of EWOM in this context. A diffusion model is developed and analysed numerically by simulation. Three different targeting approaches are compared to each other regarding their ability to reach a high share of active users in the OSN: (1) a random marketing strategy, where randomly chosen members in the OSN are presented the advertisement, (2) cluster marketing, where whole clusters of members who are densely connected to each other are simultaneously shown the advertisement, and (3) influencer marketing, where the most influential users in the OSN are selected to share sponsored posts about the app in the OSN. The results suggest that EWOM can have detrimental effects if OSN members are too early informed about the app or service. If the information about the app reaches clusters in the OSN prematurely where a sufficient level of activity is not present yet, it can deplete the excitement of the users. The lack of excitement, in turn, can significantly reduce the effect of subsequent marketing campaigns. However, if applied appropriately, a higher level of EWOM about the app or service can increase the performance of the random marketing strategy to the extent that it outperforms cluster and influencer marketing

Service Replication in Wireless Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Management von Diensten im mobilen ad-hoc Netzwerken (MANETs). MANETs sind drahtlose Netzverbände mobiler Einheiten die sich dezentral ohne eine übergeordnete Organisation selbst verwalten. Die Netztopologie eines MANET verändert sich dabei dynamisch mit der Bewegung der autonomen Teilnehmer. Sensor Netzwerke, Personal Area Networks und Satelliten Netzwerke sind typische Beispiele für derartige MANETs. Mit der wachsenden Bedeutung der drahtlosen Vernetzung mobiler Geräte haben sich MANETs in den vergangenen Jahren zu einem wichtigen Forschungsgebiet entwickelt. Im Katastrophenmanagement, bei zivilen Rettungsfällen oder in militärischen Szenarien kann ihre infrastrukturlose Selbstorganisation MANETs zum einzig möglichen Kommunikationsmittel machen. Die mobilen Knoten eines MANETs kooperieren um essenzielle Netzwerkdienste wie das Routing und den Datentransport gemeinschaftlich zu gewährleisten. Ressourcen wie die Bandbreite zwischen Knoten, die Rechenleistung der mobilen Geräte und ihre Batterieleistung sind dabei typischerweise stark begrenzt und zudem wechselnd. Das Teilen der verfügbaren Ressourcen ist daher eine Notwendigkeit für das effiziente Funktionieren eines MANETs. Dienstorientierte Architekturen (SOAs) stellen ein geeignetes Paradigma dar, um geteilte Ressourcen zu verwalten. Wenn verfügbare Ressourcen als Dienst aufgefasst werden, lässt sich ihre Nutzung als Dienstabfrage bearbeiten. In diesem Zusammenhang ermöglichen SOAs Abstraktion, Kapselung, lose Koppelung, Auffindbarkeit von Ressourcen und dir für MANETs essenzielle Autonomie. Die Anwendung von SOAs auf MANETs findet daher zunehmend Beachtung in der Forschung

Expanding the Horizons of Manufacturing: Towards Wide Integration, Smart Systems and Tools

This research topic aims at enterprise-wide modeling and optimization (EWMO) through the development and application of integrated modeling, simulation and optimization methodologies, and computer-aided tools for reliable and sustainable improvement opportunities within the entire manufacturing network (raw materials, production plants, distribution, retailers, and customers) and its components. This integrated approach incorporates information from the local primary control and supervisory modules into the scheduling/planning formulation. That makes it possible to dynamically react to incidents that occur in the network components at the appropriate decision-making level, requiring fewer resources, emitting less waste, and allowing for better responsiveness in changing market requirements and operational variations, reducing cost, waste, energy consumption and environmental impact, and increasing the benefits. More recently, the exploitation of new technology integration, such as through semantic models in formal knowledge models, allows for the capture and utilization of domain knowledge, human knowledge, and expert knowledge toward comprehensive intelligent management. Otherwise, the development of advanced technologies and tools, such as cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, etc., have captured the attention of manufacturing enterprises toward intelligent manufacturing systems