Production/maintenance cooperative scheduling using multi-agents and fuzzy logic

Within companies, production is directly concerned with the manufacturing schedule, but other services like sales, maintenance, purchasing or workforce management should also have an influence on this schedule. These services often have together a hierarchical relationship, i.e. the leading function (most of the time sales or production) generates constraints defining the framework within which the other functions have to satisfy their own objectives. We show how the multi-agent paradigm, often used in scheduling for its ability to distribute decision-making, can also provide a framework for making several functions cooperate in the schedule performance. Production and maintenance have been chosen as an example: having common resources (the machines), their activities are actually often conflicting. We show how to use a fuzzy logic in order to model the temporal degrees of freedom of the two functions, and show that this approach may allow one to obtain a schedule that provides a better compromise between the satisfaction of the respective objectives of the two functions

Integrated Production and Maintenance Planning for Flow Line Systems

This study extends the investigation of the capacitated lot-sizing problem to the production and maintenance planning in unreliable flow line systems. An integrated modelling framework is proposed with the aim of seeking a cost-optimal plan for both production and maintenance. In the model, preventive maintenance is scheduled to avoid unplanned failures, and corrective maintenance is carried out in any machine in which an unplanned failure occurs. A regression-based approximation approach was introduced to calculate the production time under random failures. Then, the integrated planning model can be solved by any commercial optimization software. The numerical example demonstrates that the integrated model guarantees the effectiveness of the production and maintenance plan. It also showed that the buffer capacity has significant effects on the capacity utilization

Event Monitoring System to Classify Unexpected Events for Production Planning

[EN] Production planning prepares companies to a future production scenario. The decision process followed to obtain the production plan considers real data and estimated data of this future scenario. However, these plans can be affected by unexpected events that alter the planned scenario and in consequence, the production planning. This is especially critical when the production planning is ongoing. Thus providing information about these events can be critical to reconsider the production planning. We herein propose an event monitoring system to identify events and to classify them into different impact levels. The information obtained from this system helps to build a risk matrix, which determines the significance of the risk from the impact level and the likelihood. A prototype has been built following this proposal.This research has been carried out in the framework of the project GV/2014/010 funded by the Generalitat Valenciana (Identificacion de la informacion proporcionada por los nuevos sistemas de deteccion accesibles mediante internet en el ambito de las "sensing enterprises" para la mejora de la toma de decisiones en la planificacion de la produccion).Boza, A.; Alarcón Valero, F.; Alemany Díaz, MDM.; Cuenca, L. (2017). Event Monitoring System to Classify Unexpected Events for Production Planning. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. 291:140-154. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62386-3_7S140154291Barták, R.: On the boundary of planning and scheduling: a study (1999)Buzacott, J.A., Corsten, H., Gössinger, R., Schneider, H.M.: Production Planning and Control: Basics and Concepts. 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Optimisation de la planification intégrée de la maintenance préventive et de la production des systèmes multi-états

Cette thèse traite la problématique de la planification intégrée de la maintenance préventive et de la production des systèmes multi-états. Il s'agit d'un système de production modélisé comme étant un système multi-états avec un nombre fini de niveaux de capacité allant du fonctionnement parfait jusqu'à la défaillance totale. Il doit produire un ensemble de produits pour satisfaire une demande donnée durant l'horizon de planification. Les composantes du système multi-états sont assujetties à des remplacements préventifs et à une réparation minimale en cas de panne. Ce travail présente des modèles de planification permettant de générer simultanément le plan optimal de production au niveau tactique (problème de taille de lot capaci-taire) et les instants ou les intervalles d'intervention pour des actions de maintenance préventive. Les fonctions des objectifs de ces modèles minimisent la somme des coûts de la maintenance (préventive et corrective) et des coûts de production sujets à des contraintes de satisfaction de demande et de capacité. La méthodologie proposée développe des modèles mathématiques, des méthodes d'évaluation des temps de maintenance, des coûts de maintenance, les capacités relatives aux systèmes et des algorithmes de résolution pour obtenir des solutions optimales (recherche exhaustive) ou approximatives (algorithmes génétiques et recuit simulé). Cette méthodologie a été utilisée dans les trois contributions suivantes : 1. La première contribution propose un modèle de planification de la maintenance préventive périodique et de la production pour un système multi-états. Il s'agit de déterminer le plan de production optimal et les longueurs des intervalles de remplacement pour chaque composante du système. 2. La deuxième contribution traite du problème de la planification intégrée de la maintenance préventive acyclique et de la production dans le cas d'une seule machine. Le plan optimal détermine le plan de production et les instants d'intervention pour des activités de maintenance préventive. 3. La troisième contribution propose un modèle une planification simultanée de la maintenance préventive acyclique et de la production pour un système multi-états composé de plusieurs composantes. Les résultats obtenus dans cette thèse montrent l'impact économique réalisé par l'intégration de la planification de la maintenance préventive et de la production, ainsi que pour l'élimination de la contrainte de périodicité, surtout dans le cas d'une demande fluctuante. Les méthodes de résolution développées dans ces travaux permettent la résolution de problèmes de petite ou de grande taille

Abordagem processual em projetos de Parada Total de Produção: estudo dos benefícios na gestão da manutenção / Procedural approach in projects of Total Stop Production: study of benefits in maintenance management

 Apesar de sua importância para manter a segurança e a confiabilidade no funcionamento das fábricas, as atividades de manutenção são muitas vezes vistas apenas como despesas e empecilhos para a produção. Em casos em que é necessário efetuar serviços que exigem a parada total da produção, os custos são especialmente elevados e é necessária uma gestão da manutenção eficiente que faça os reparos corretamente e no menor tempo possível, evitando perdas não planejadas. Normalmente essas paradas são gerenciadas por projetos que se destacam por deslizes de custos e cronograma. Todo o planejamento, execução e controle dessas atividades executadas nos projetos, porém, apresenta características similares aos processos de manutenção de rotina. Este artigo propõe identificar ações da gestão por meio de uma abordagem processual capazes de proporcionar melhor desempenho na gestão da manutenção em projetos de parada total de produção. Para tanto, realizou-se levantamento na literatura especializada e pesquisa de campo em uma multinacional do setor de mineração, onde foram coletados dados através de análise dos processos existentes e em entrevistas com gestores. Os dados foram confrontados com a abordagem conceitual existente na gestão da manutenção, gerando os resultados descritos neste artigo, que apresentam importantes benefícios que poderiam ser obtidos pela abordagem processual.

A gestão da manutenção em Portugal

Mestrado em Gestão e Estratégia IndustrialA manutenção é uma actividade essencial ao ciclo de vida dos equipamentos, que combina acções de gestão, técnicas e económicas, no sentido de obter elevada disponibilidade a baixos custos. Embora todos os autores continuem a defender para a Gestão de Manutenção três tipos de soluções: recursos internos e externos, somente recursos internos e somente recursos externos, as soluções recorrendo a recursos externos, o outsourcing, têm vindo a ganhar espaço e adeptos. Saber qual é a realidade actual da Gestão de Manutenção em Portugal é o objectivo e a razão desta tese de mestrado. Para conhecer essa realidade, foi elaborado um trabalho de investigação que assentou num inquérito enviado a 184 responsáveis de manutenção de empresas portuguesas, fundamentalmente através de fax e correio electrónico. Como resultado recebemos 95 respostas, que corresponde a uma percentagem de 52% dos inquéritos enviados. A esmagadora maioria das empresas que responderam ao inquérito, cerca de 92%, opta por realizar a sua manutenção através de meios internos e externos e pensam continuar com esta solução. Na última década diminuiu a percentagem de empresas que recorrem somente a meios internos e assistiu-se a uma transferência para a solução de meios internos e externos. Ao avaliarmos o peso do outsourcing, verificamos que cerca de 40% da manutenção, efectuada pelas empresas que responderam, é efectuada por meios externos, e as soluções mais comuns na contratação exterior são contratos de manutenção e empreitadas

Exploring the maintenance practices and strategies in the Libyan cement industry

The importance of the cement industry in Libya has been growing over the past few decades. Cement has become one of the fundamental materials for the construction industry, which in Libya matters a great deal to both government and people. This is because more than 97% of the construction industry depends on cement or cement based material such as blocks. Despite this great demand, the Libyan cement industry has suffered and is still suffering from declining productivity and cannot meet even the local minimum requirements for its products. The main underlying reason is the poor reliability of its production systems as a result of poor or insufficient maintenance. Previous studies indicate that cement manufacturing firms are operating at a rate not exceeding 50% of the total designed capacity. This is due to the lack of strategies to implement maintenance properly, since maintenance is considered one of the main pillars for ensuring the reliability of production system components at the highest level and consequently increasing operational efficiency, which ensures continuity and increases production. Thus, this study explores and addresses the barriers facing the implementation of efficient maintenance in the Libyan cement industry, thereby strengthening the reliability of its production systems by introducing a strategy of Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) as an option to improve maintenance within the Libyan cement industry. RCM as an approach identifies components whose failure can cause undesirable consequences and directly affect the continuity of production in a factory or institution. Primarily, a new conceptual model is proposed, which will enable a reliability centred maintenance strategy to be implemented in the four targeted Libyan cement factories. Through this model, the level of current maintenance practices can be understood and examined, facilitating the improvement of production systems and thus increasing their reliability. In order to improve understanding of this field, a comprehensive review of the literature on the topic of maintenance practices, importance and strategies was made. This study explores the history, types and concepts of maintenance and its relationship to the reliability of production systems in the cement companies studied. A review of the Libyan cement industry was also carried out to understand its situation in more depth regarding their practices of maintenance; it was based on identifying the problems affecting this sector as a precursor to the data collection. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the data were collected from detailed questionnaires, face-to-face semi-structured interviews and direct observations. A total of four case studies were conducted at four Libyan cement plants, so as to compare results and assess the situation in these factories. Conceptual models were developed in line with the obtained results, aiming to increase the reliability of the production systems through implementing the strategy of reliability centred maintenance in these cement factories. The results of this study show that the level of maintenance practices in the four chosen cement firms was below the minimum required level. The reason was the poor reliability of the production systems as a result of not adopting effective strategies for maintenance, which was evidenced by their inability to reach the targeted level of production. This research contributes to helping Libyan industry in general and the cement sector in particular, to adopt proper strategies for maintenance through which the maximum reliability of their production systems can be attained, thus ensuring continuity of production