A framework for smart production-logistics systems based on CPS and industrial IoT

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has received increasing attention from both academia and industry. However, several challenges including excessively long waiting time and a serious waste of energy still exist in the IIoT-based integration between production and logistics in job shops. To address these challenges, a framework depicting the mechanism and methodology of smart production-logistics systems is proposed to implement intelligent modeling of key manufacturing resources and investigate self-organizing configuration mechanisms. A data-driven model based on analytical target cascading is developed to implement the self-organizing configuration. A case study based on a Chinese engine manufacturer is presented to validate the feasibility and evaluate the performance of the proposed framework and the developed method. The results show that the manufacturing time and the energy consumption are reduced and the computing time is reasonable. This paper potentially enables manufacturers to deploy IIoT-based applications and improve the efficiency of production-logistics systems

Labor and Urban Crisis in Buffalo, New York: Building a High Road Infrastructure

With inequality growing and competitive market forces on the march, can unions play a constructive role in solving the problems of capitalist economic development? Should they try? In this study of coalition building in Buffalo, New York we find that regular procedures of problem solving involving multiple coalition partners – what we call a high-road social infrastructure – have developed in the city. We discuss the progression of union approaches to economic development, including in-plant and regional labor-management partnership, community coalitions and the creation of labor-led nonprofit organizations. In response to long-term economic and social crisis, a group of union leaders has begun carrying out projects to help attract investment from outside the region and improve the quality of jobs in the region. Coalition-building, however, is hampered by uncertainty about the best union strategy, enmity from some business and political elites, and the scale of the region’s long-term structural problems

The Management of Manufacturing-Oriented Informatics Systems Using Efficient and Flexible Architectures

Industry and in particular the manufacturing-oriented sector has always been researched and innovated as a result of technological progress, diversification and differentiation among consumers' demands. A company that provides to its customers products matching perfectly their demands at competitive prices has a great advantage over its competitors. Manufacturing-oriented information systems are becoming more flexible and configurable and they require integration with the entire organization. This can be done using efficient software architectures that will allow the coexistence between commercial solutions and open source components while sharing computing resources organized in grid infrastructures and under the governance of powerful management tools.Manufacturing-Oriented Informatics Systems, Open Source, Software Architectures, Grid Computing, Web-Based Management Systems

From M-form to N-form: The Structure of Multinational Corporations

The purpose of this study is to map, illuminate and explain the recent development of the strategies, structure and control of multinational corporations. The aim is to identify crucial problems in managing and organizing multinational corporations and describe what sort of approaches are used and proposed to solve these problems. This is a literature study where an inventory and critical examination of the recent research on the strategies, structure and control of multinational corporations. The emphasis in the study is on research carried out in the last ten years. It starts out with a summary of the early research on multinational corporations, proceeds to an analysis of the process school, and ends up with a discussion about organizing international operations from a network perspective.MNC; multinational structure; international; strategy; transnational; subsidiary; global

Annual Report of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class

[Excerpt] The White House Task Force on the Middle Class, chaired by Vice President Joe Biden, was created by President Obama a little more than one year ago, shortly after the Administration took office. The mission of the Task Force, as stated in the Executive Order that created it, is to work with our member agencies and councils to ensure that the economic challenges facing the American middle class, challenges that predate the recession that was deepening as the Task Force was formed, always remain front and center in the work of the Administration. Over the past year, this has been our singular focus. Of course, in the context of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, the Administration’s first priority for the middle class has been restoring job growth by stabilizing an economy that was in freefall. This economic contraction has dealt a serious blow to middle-class families, with staggering losses to their jobs, their savings, and the value of their homes. The Vice President, in his role as the Administration’s chief overseer of the Recovery Act, has played a critical role in this central part of our economic agenda. And of course, the President’s health care reform agenda targets one of the most important—and too often most precarious—aspects of middle-class life. But at the same time, the Task Force has worked to address some of the longer term challenges facing the middle class: balancing work and family responsibilities, college access and affordability, and retirement security. And while restarting the engine of job creation is the Administration’s highest priority, the Task Force is working to ensure that the jobs that are created as the economy begins to recover are good jobs. This report details our activities in pursuing policy solutions to these challenges over the past year. The report also highlights some of the key Administration initiatives supported by the Task Force, many of which are part of the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 Budget

techno economic design of wind farms a methodology and multi scenario application

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