Advanced Techniques for Assets Maintenance Management

16th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing INCOM 2018 Bergamo, Italy, 11–13 June 2018. Edited by Marco Macchi, László Monostori, Roberto PintoThe aim of this paper is to remark the importance of new and advanced techniques supporting decision making in different business processes for maintenance and assets management, as well as the basic need of adopting a certain management framework with a clear processes map and the corresponding IT supporting systems. Framework processes and systems will be the key fundamental enablers for success and for continuous improvement. The suggested framework will help to define and improve business policies and work procedures for the assets operation and maintenance along their life cycle. The following sections present some achievements on this focus, proposing finally possible future lines for a research agenda within this field of assets management

The evaluation and the effectiveness of project management in transformational e-government projects

This paper forms part of an ongoing research of a PhD degree to describe, critically evaluate and examine the underlying barriers and challenges in large e-Government initiatives. The paper invites technology to be incorporated and inculcated into the art and science of project management, and be part of a passable solution as opposed to being distinct and separate from it. The tools used have to increase the novelty (art and science) of project management through human interaction, and empower the project manager and aiding his capacity in delivering the expected outcomes. Due to inadequate implementations of project management procedures and processes, many large information technology systems (ITS) projects failed. This becomes a characteristic and encompasses e-Government project initiatives, due to ambitious program changes, major innovations, large transformations, enterprise wide solutions, collaboration across organizations’ governments and private sectors, and the implementation of unprecedented (or ambitious) solutions. This research paper critically analyses and summarises a list of e-Government challenges and barriers arising from an e-Government survey administered on behalf of the World Information Technology and Services Association (WITSA) which represents the national technology associations in 70 countries. It compares these challenges to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), which is the North American standard in project management methodology. In addition, it highlights the weaknesses in PMBOK to address these challenges and offers a technology-enabled enhancement to the Project Initiation Phase, the area identified as being particularly weak and inadequate in addressing e-Government initiatives and requirements

Facilitating organisational decision making: a change risk assessment model case study

Purpose: This paper aims to take the challenge to propose a novel modelling approach named Change Risk Assessment Model (CRAM), which will contribute significantly to the missing formality of business models especially in the change risk assessment area and decision-making. Organisational change risks are assessed with the aid of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in an attempt to define the internal dynamics of organisational change management within project management eliciting also risk cause-and-effect relationships. Design/methodology/approach: The study discusses interviews/survey/AHP. Findings: The study presents the following findings. Change risk factors assessment (identification and prioritisation) recommendations (see Case Study) integration of change management; project management; risk management top four risk factors, namely, leadership, communication, project management team and culture. Research limitations/implications: As projects can be different in a variety of factors (quality, scope), an exhaustive list of risk factors cannot be identified. There is a continuous risk identification process throughout the projects’ life cycle. For example, many risks can be classified initially as unknown and can be refined after the initiation phase of the project. AHP factors limitation (eight per level) possible bias (survey analysis). Practical implications: With the aid of modelling and especially CRAM, business change risks can be assessed numerically and prioritised. Several risk factors and related attributes were identified and categorised. This empowers project managers or other stakeholders to make proper decisions about whether to take on or abandon respective organisational or project changes. Social implications: One of the values of CRAM is that it can be regarded as a global change risk assessment method that can be applied regardless of project type, size or organisation. Moreover, it has the advantage that it can be used by any kind of project, as the method is designed to be tailored to specific needs, taking significant environmental change risk factors into account. AHP has numerous uses in operational research, in project management and in general in areas where decisions (evaluation and selection) have to be made. The analysis of the case study presented, indicated that it is vital to assess the degree (impact) that each risk attribute poses to address complex organisational decisions. Originality/value: CRAM aims to bridge the gap between theoretical and applied work in the integrated research field of change management, project management and risk management. Furthermore, the approach attempts to develop a novel systematic methodology (model) for assigning probabilities in attributes (criteria) pair-wise comparison and more specifically, modelling and assessing change management risks, adding a different perspective and technique to the research area

Integrating IVHM and Asset Design

Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) describes a set of capabilities that enable effective and efficient maintenance and operation of the target vehicle. It accounts for the collection of data, conducting analysis, and supporting the decision-making process for sustainment and operation. The design of IVHM systems endeavours to account for all causes of failure in a disciplined, systems engineering, manner. With industry striving to reduce through-life cost, IVHM is a powerful tool to give forewarning of impending failure and hence control over the outcome. Benefits have been realised from this approach across a number of different sectors but, hindering our ability to realise further benefit from this maturing technology, is the fact that IVHM is still treated as added on to the design of the asset, rather than being a sub-system in its own right, fully integrated with the asset design. The elevation and integration of IVHM in this way will enable architectures to be chosen that accommodate health ready sub-systems from the supply chain and design trade-offs to be made, to name but two major benefits. Barriers to IVHM being integrated with the asset design are examined in this paper. The paper presents progress in overcoming them, and suggests potential solutions for those that remain. It addresses the IVHM system design from a systems engineering perspective and the integration with the asset design will be described within an industrial design process

Integrating IVHM and asset design

Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) describes a set of capabilities that enable effective and efficient maintenance and operation of the target vehicle. It accounts for the collecting of data, conducting analysis, and supporting the decision-making process for sustainment and operation. The design of IVHM systems endeavours to account for all causes of failure in a disciplined, systems engineering, manner. With industry striving to reduce through-life cost, IVHM is a powerful tool to give forewarning of impending failure and hence control over the outcome. Benefits have been realised from this approach across a number of different sectors but, hindering our ability to realise further benefit from this maturing technology, is the fact that IVHM is still treated as added on to the design of the asset, rather than being a sub-system in its own right, fully integrated with the asset design. The elevation and integration of IVHM in this way will enable architectures to be chosen that accommodate health ready sub-systems from the supply chain and design trade-offs to be made, to name but two major benefits. Barriers to IVHM being integrated with the asset design are examined in this paper. The paper presents progress in overcoming them, and suggests potential solutions for those that remain. It addresses the IVHM system design from a systems engineering perspective and the integration with the asset design will be described within an industrial design process

A Risk Management Model for Merger and Acquisitio

In this paper, a merger and acquisition risk management model is proposed for considering risk factors in the merger and acquisition activities. The proposed model aims to maximize the probability of success in merger and acquisition activities by managing and reducing the associated risks. The modeling of the proposed merger and acquisition risk management model is described and illustrated in this paper. The illustration result shows that the proposed model can help to screen the best target company with minimum associated risks in the merger and acquisition activity

Methodology for Process Improvement Through Basic Components and Focusing on the Resistance to Change.

This paper describes a multi-model methodology that implements a smooth and continuous process improvement, depending on the organization's business goals and allowing users to establish their improvement implementation pace. The methodology focuses on basic process components known as ‘best practices’. Besides, it covers following the topics: knowledge management and change management. The methodology description and the results of a case study on project management process are included

Outsourcing and acquisition models comparison related to IT supplier selection decision analysis

This paper presents a comparison of acquisition models related to decision analysis of IT supplier selection. The main standards are: Capability Maturity Model Integration for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ), ISO / IEC 12207 Information Technology / Software Life Cycle Processes, IEEE 1062 Recommended Practice for Software Acquisition, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide. The objective of this paper is to compare the previous models to find the advantages and disadvantages of them for the future development of a decision model for IT supplier selection