The Role of Maintenance and Facility Management in Logistics: A Literature Review

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review on the different ways of carrying out Facility Management and related topics in order to uncover that there is limited research regarding the impact of Facility Management on the logistics and operational performance of warehouses. Design/methodology/approach - Four different focus areas have been identified and for each one different methodologies and streams of research have been studied. Findings - The study underlines the importance of Facility Management for the logistics operations; therefore it supports the notion that investments aiming at preserving the status of the building and service components of warehouses are crucial. Originality/value - This paper aims to suggest to Facility Management managers that they can contribute to enhance business performance by designing effective Facility Management strategie

A robot swarm assisting a human fire-fighter

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for fire-fighters. The large dimensions, together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The GUARDIANS robot swarm is designed to assist fire-fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this paper we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots assisting fire-fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms that provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus, the robot swarm is able to provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the fire-fighters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire-fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm-based information to human beings

E-logistics of agribusiness organisations

Logistics is one of the most important agribusiness functions due to the idiosyncrasy of food products and the structure of food supply chain. Companies in the food sector typically operate with poor production forecasting, inefficient inventory management, lack of coordination with supply partners. Further, markets are characterised by stern competition, increasing consumer demands and stringent regulation for food quality and safety. Large agribusiness corporations have already turned to e-logistics solutions as a means to sustain competitive advantage and meet consumer demands. There are four types of e-logistics applications: (a) Vertical alliances where supply partners forge long-term strategic alliances based on electronic sharing of critical logistics information such as sales forecasts and inventory volume. Vertical alliances often apply supply chain management (SCM) which is concerned with the relationship between a company and its suppliers and customers. The prime characteristic of SCM is interorganizational coordination: agribusiness companies working jointly with their customers and suppliers to integrate activities along the supply chain to effectively supply food products to customers. E-logistics solutions engender the systematic integration among supply partners by allowing more efficient and automatic information flow. (b) e-tailing, in which retailers give consumers the ability to order food such as groceries from home electronically i.e. using the Internet and the subsequent delivery of those ordered goods at home. (c) Efficient Foodservice Response (EFR), which is a strategy designed to enable foodservice industry to achieve profitable growth by looking at ways to save money for each level of the supply chain by eliminating inefficient practices. EFR provides solutions to common logistics problems, such as transactional inefficiency, inefficient plant scheduling, out-of-stocks, and expedited transportation. (d) Contracting, a means of coordinating procurement of food, beverages and their associated supplies. Many markets and supply chains in agriculture are buyer-driven where the buyers in the market tend to set prices and terms of trade. Those terms can include the use of electronic means of communication to support automatic replenishment of goods, management of supply and inventory. The results of the current applications of e-logistics in food sector are encouraging for Greek agribusiness. Companies need to become aware of and evaluate the value-added by those applications which are a sustainable competitive advantage, optimisation of supply chain flows, and meeting consumer demands and food safety regulations. E-business diffusion has shown that typically first-movers gain a significant competitive advantage and the rest companies either eventually adopt the new systems or see a significant decline in their trading partners and perish. E-logistics solutions typically require huge investments in hardware and software and skilled personnel, which is an overt barrier for most Greek companies. Large companies typically are first-movers but small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need institutional support in order to become aware that e-logistics systems can be fruitful for them as well

Managing a portal of digital web resources by content syndication

As users become more accustomed to continuous Internet access, they will have less patience with the offering of disparate resources. A new generation of portals is being designed that aids users in navigating resource space and in processing the data they retrieved. Such portals offer added value by means of content syndication: the effort to have multiple, federated? resources co-operate in order to profit optimally from their synergy. A portal that offers these advantages, however, can only be of lasting value if it is sustainable. We sketch a way to set up and run an organisation that can manage a content syndication portal in a sustainable way.\ud \u

Electric field emissions of FPGA chip based on gigahertz transverse electromagnetic cell modeling and measurements

Modern integrated circuits (ICs) are significant sources of undesired electromagnetic wave. Therefore, characterization of chip-level emission is essential to comply with EMC tests at the product level. A Gigahertz Transverse Electromagnetic (GTEM) cell is a common test instrument used to measure IC radiated emission and the test cost is relatively low. Regular IC radiated emission measurements using GTEM tend to neglect some significant emission sources. Thus, this research proposed an alternative methodology to perform field measurement of the IC inside the GTEM cell in order to optimize the field measurements. This research study also attempted analysis of the overall GTEM cell performance using transmission line theory. An FPGA chip was adopted as the IC under test because of its flexibility in configuration to any digital circuit. The investigations discovered that the impact of the FPGA board supporting components and interconnection cables can be significantly reduced with appropriate shielding and grounding. The electric field predict a far distance from the FPGA chip was carried out based on the dipole moment technique. In particular, the dipole moment model emphasizing the tiny horizontal and vertical radiation elements inside the FPGA chip as Hertzian antenna and small current loop. Equations to predict the horizontal and vertical electric field were developed based on Hertzian antenna and small current loop which relate the tiny radiation sources to electric and magnetic dipole moments. The prediction was validated with 3-meter field measurements in a semi-anechoic chamber. On top of that, a spiral-like pattern was developed to obtain a correction factor for further improvement of the correlation between prediction and SAC measurement. The results revealed that the correction factor effectively reduced the gap between the prediction and measurement fields and boosted the correlation coefficient by 44%. The difference of peak values also has limited to less than 0dB after correction. These results suggest a promising finding for a future EMI test of ICs with a cheaper GTEM cell

PROCUREMENT PROCESS IN POWER ENERGY ENTERPRISE

The supply and procurement processes are extremely important for properfunctioning of power plants, especially for continuous production process because anybreaks have negative effects on the costs linked to idle time.supply management, procurement process

Evaluating the reading performance of semi-passive RFID tags to enhance locating of warehouse resources: An experiment design

Copyright @ 2011 8th European, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS 2011)In the supply chain, a warehouse is a crucial component for linking all chain parties. It is necessary to track the real time resource location and status to support warehouse operations effectively. Therefore, RFID technology has been adopted to facilitate the collection and sharing of data in a warehouse environment. However, an essential decision should be made on the type of RFID tags the warehouse managers should adopt, because it is very important to implement RFID tags that work in warehouse environment. As a result, the warehouse resources will be easily tracked and accurately located which will improve the visibility of warehouse operations, enhance the productivity and reduce the operation costs of the warehouse. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the reading performance of all types of RFID tags in a warehouse environment in order to choose the most appropriate RFID tags which will enhance the operational efficiency of a warehouse. Reading performance of active and passive RFID tags have been evaluated before while, semi-passive RFID tag, which is battery-assisted with greater sensitivity than passive tags and cheaper than active tags, has not been examined yet in a warehouse environment. This research is in- progress research and it is aiming to perform tests for evaluating the reading performance of semi-passive RFID apparatus to provide an extensive RFID performance comparison for formulating an efficient RFID solution in warehousing environment

CERN openlab Whitepaper on Future IT Challenges in Scientific Research

This whitepaper describes the major IT challenges in scientific research at CERN and several other European and international research laboratories and projects. Each challenge is exemplified through a set of concrete use cases drawn from the requirements of large-scale scientific programs. The paper is based on contributions from many researchers and IT experts of the participating laboratories and also input from the existing CERN openlab industrial sponsors. The views expressed in this document are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the view of their organisations and/or affiliates

Green Jobs in a Sustainable Food System

The U.S. food sector is among the most productive in the world and is a significant driver of our economy. Yet, it's failing us in major ways -- putting public health, livelihoods and our environment at great risk. Obesity and diabetes rates are rising, communities are plagued by food deserts, and agriculture runoff is the biggest source of pollution in our rivers and lakes.The good news is that communities across the country are addressing this crisis in innovative ways. Through different community-based efforts, local activists and food advocates are finding ways to improve community health and environmental outcomes while creating a more economically equitable food system.It is within this context that this report identifies opportunities to transform jobs in the green economy and enhance environmental and economic equity outcomes in the future. The initial analysis promises opportunities for workers to build long-term skills, and emphasizes the importance of linking local efforts to broader regional and national policy platforms. This multi-level engagement and collaboration will help set in motion the systemic changes needed to create a more sustainable and equitable food system

Software support for manufacturing operations in Belgian SMEs: one size fits all?

Manufacturing companies face a big challenge to bridge the gap between their business and manufacturing processes. The urge to increase efficiency makes it necessary to align the business and manufacturing processes. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) experience several barriers to adopt software support for manufacturing operations. This paper gives an overview of a research study conducted in Belgian SMEs. The research studied the current adoption of software support for manufacturing operations and the barriers that SMEs experience to invest in this type of software. The study is concluded with a number of considerations to enable the adoption of software support for manufacturing operations by SMEs