Strategic design of service orientated web-based supply chain infrastructure

The traditional \u27make and sell\u27 attitude of industrial manufacturing organisations has now almost entirely given way to customer orientated \u27sense and respond\u27 service philosophies to the extent where this has become a major competitive key success factor in a global manufacturing industry. In order to become service orientated, manufacturing industry is increasingly dependent on efficient and effective supply relationships. This trend is compounded by needs for waste avoidance, minimal inventory, cost efficiency and appropriate service to the customer. This paper considers the strategic opportunities for large engineering project firms that have identified a need to establish advantages over their competitors by designing and implementing novel service orientated supply chain strategies, using internet technology. Rather than relying on functional hierarchy and command and control governance where a chain of commitments are poorly connected and difficult to reconfigure, this paper proposes more flexible strategic process designs around a \u27state of the art\u27 service based architecture. Complexity reduction is traditionally a philosophy widely used by industrial engineers that thus far has been also applied in attempts to enable efficient supply chain relationships between different manufacturing supply partners. However, in this work, those traditional industrial engineering ideas are challenged. When a supply chain is simplified, it is inevitable that it will not offer optimum performance, especially in terms of customer service because the complex nature of customer requirements is not reflected in its entirety. The architecture developed by the authors and demonstrated here explores ideas of complexity absorption. The architecture is built on the premise that necessary complexity absorption creates an organisation that is strategically superior because it becomes a complex adaptive system that is unique to a group of organisations that constitute a supply chain or supply network. A case study will be presented based on a major industrial gas pipeline procuring organisation that illustrates an application consisting of Manufacturing Portal and Service Orientated Architecture. This model is internet-based, has three main constituents of Web Services, Portal and Client Services and is described in detail in this paper. The authors conclude by discussing the unique competitive advantages that are achievable by designing unique, responsive and adaptive supply chain architecture in this way

A Building Information Modeling (BIM)-centric Digital Ecosystem for Smart Airport Life Cycle Management

An increasing number of new airport infrastructure construction and improvement projects are being delivered in today\u27s modern world. However, value creation is a recurring issue due to inefficiencies in managing capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating expenses (OpEx), while trying to optimize project constraints of scope, time, cost, quality, and resources. In this new era of smart infrastructure, digitalization transforms the way projects are planned and delivered. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a key digital process technique that has become an imperative for today\u27s Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) sector. This research suggests a BIM-centric digital ecosystem by detailing technical and strategic aspects of Airport BIM implementation and digital technology integration from a life cycle perspective. This research provides a novel approach for consistent and continuous use of digital information between business and functional levels of an airport by developing a digital platform solution that will enable seamless flow of information across functions. Accordingly, this study targets to achieve three objectives: 1- To provide a scalable know-how of BIM-enabled digital transformation; 2- To guide airport owners and major stakeholders towards converging information siloes for airport life cycle data management by an Airport BIM Framework; 3- To develop a BIM-based digital platform architecture towards realization of an airport digital twin for airport infrastructure life cycle management. Airport infrastructures can be considered as a System of Systems (SoS). As such, Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) with Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is selected as the key methodology towards designing a digital ecosystem. Applying MBSE principles leads to forming an integrating framework for managing the digital ecosystem. Furthermore, this research adopts convergent parallel mixed methods to collect and analyze multiple forms of data. Data collection tools include extensive literature and industry review; an online questionnaire; semi-structured interviews with airport owner parties; focus group discussions; first-hand observations; and document reviews. Data analysis stage includes multiple explanatory case study analyses, thematic analysis, project mapping, percent coverage analysis for coded themes to achieve Objective 1; thematic analysis, cluster analysis, framework analysis, and non-parametric statistical analysis for Objective 2; and qualitative content analysis, non-parametric statistical analysis to accomplish Objective 3. This research presents a novel roadmap toward facilitation of smart airports with alignment and integration of disruptive technologies with business and operational aspects of airports. Multiple comprehensive case study analyses on international large-hub airports and triangulation of organization-level and project-level results systematically generate scalable technical and strategic guidelines for BIM implementation. The proposed platform architecture will incentivize major stakeholders for value-creation, data sharing, and control throughout a project life cycle. Introducing scalability and minimizing complexity for end-users through a digital platform approach will lead to a more connected environment. Consequently, a digital ecosystem enables sophisticated interaction between people, places, and assets. Model-driven approach provides an effective strategy for enhanced decision-making that helps optimization of project resources and allows fast adaptation to emerging business and operational demands. Accordingly, airport sustainability measures -economic vitality, operational efficiency, natural resources, and social responsibility- will improve due to higher levels of efficiency in CapEx and OpEx. Changes in business models for large capital investments and introducing sustainability to supply chains are among the anticipated broader impacts of this study

A Sociotechnical Systems Analysis of Building Information Modelling (STSaBIM) Implementation in Construction Organisations

The concept of BIM is nascent but evolving rapidly, thus, its deployment has become the latest shibboleth amongst both academics and practitioners in the construction sector in the recent couple of years. Due to construction clients buy-in of the BIM concept, the entire industry is encouraged to pursue a vision of changing work practices in line with the BIM ideas. Also, existing research recognises that the implementation of BIM affects all areas of the construction process from design of the building, through the organisation of projects, to the way in which the construction process is executed and how the finished product is maintained. The problem however is that, existing research in technology utilisation in general, and BIM literature in particular, has offered limited help to practitioners trying to implement BIM, for focusing predominantly, on technology-centric views. Not surprisingly therefore, the current BIM literature emphasises on topics such as capability maturity models and anticipated outcomes of BIM rollouts. Rarely does the extant literature offer practitioners a cohesive approach to BIM implementation. Such technology-centric views inevitably represent a serious barrier to utilising the inscribed capabilities of BIM. This research therefore is predicated on the need to strengthen BIM implementation theory through monitoring and analysing its implementation in practice. Thus, the focus of this thesis is to carry out a sociotechnical systems (STS) analysis of BIM implementation in construction organisations. The concept of STS accommodates the dualism of the inscribed functions of BIM technologies and the contextual issues in the organisations and allows for the analysis of their interactive combination in producing the anticipated effect from BIM appropriation. An interpretive research methodology is adopted to study practitioners through a change process, involving the implementation of BIM in their work contexts. The study is based on constructivist ontological interpretations of participants. The study adopts an abductive research approach which ensures a back-and-forth movement between research sites and the theoretical phenomenon, effectively comparing the empirical findings with the existing theories and to eventually generate a new theoretical understanding and knowledge regarding the phenomenon under investigation. A two-stage process is also formulated for the empirical data collection - comprising: 1) initial exploratory study to help establish the framework for analysing BIM implementation in the construction context; and 2) case studies approach to provide a context for formulating novel understanding and validation of theory regarding BIM implementation in construction organisations. The analysis and interpretation of the empirical work follows the qualitative content analysis technique to observe and reflect on the results. The findings have shown that BIM implementation demands a complete breakaway from the status quo. Contrary to the prevailing understanding of a top-down approach to BIM utilisation, the study revealed that different organisations with plethora of visions, expectations and skills combine with artefacts to form or transform BIM practices. The rollout and appropriation of BIM occurs when organisations shape sociotechnical systems of institutions, processes and technologies to support certain practices over others. The study also showed that BIM implementation endures in a causal chain of influences as different project organisations with their localised BIM ambitions and expectations combine to develop holistic BIM-enabled project visions. Thus, distributed responsibilities on holistic BIM protocols among the different levels of influences are instituted and enforced under binding contractual obligations. The study has illuminated the centrality of both the technical challenges and sociological factors in shaping BIM deployment in construction. It is also one of the few studies that have produced accounts of BIM deployment that is strongly mediated by the institutional contexts of construction organisations. However, it is acknowledged that the focus of the research on qualitative interpretive enquiry does not have the hard and fast view of generalising from specific cases to broader population/contexts. Thus, it is suggested that further quantitative studies, using much larger data sample of BIM-enabled construction organisations could provide an interesting point of comparison to the conclusions derived from the research findings

Implementing inter-organisational information systems for the integration of construction supply chains

Two trends are currently driving the need for supply chain firms to form closely integrated relationships: collaboration and digitisation. One of the ways to achieve digitisation of supply chain operations is to implement Inter-Organisational Information Systems (IOIS) with selected supply chain partners for a much more efficient, streamlined and orchestrated supply chain operations. Whilst IOIS can be implemented to support various cross-functional business processes (ranging from operational information exchange to pursuing strategic initiatives such as sharing ideas, identifying new market opportunities, and pursing a continuous improvement approach), in the context of this thesis, the purpose of IOIS implementation is to facilitate the inter-firm procurement-related operations with downstream supply chain firms. The study undertaken in this research project was initiated in response to an industry requirement to investigate the implementation of IOIS against a backdrop of improved Supply Chain Management and integration practices by large contractor organisations. A case study research strategy was adopted to investigate the IOIS project related, IOIS (system) related issues encountered in ex-ante and ex-post implementation stages of the IOIS. The study concludes that it is the non-technical factors that are critical to the successful delivery of IOIS projects and provides a guideline on IOIS implementation by large contractor organisations. The findings of this research project have been published in a number of peer-reviewed papers

Modelling for data management & exchange in Concurrent Engineering - A case study of civil aircraft assembly line

This research aims to improve the dataflow performance of the Concurrent Engineering (CE) practice in the detail design stage of the aircraft Assembly Line (AL) in the C919 aircraft project. As the final integrator of the aircraft, Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Company Ltd. (SAMC) is responsible for developing the AL with global suppliers. Although CE has been implemented in AL projects to shorten lead time, reduce development cost and improve design quality, the lack of experience and insufficient infrastructure may lead to many challenges in cooperation with distributed suppliers, especially regarding data management/exchange and workflow control. In this research, the particular CE environment and activities in SAMC AL projects were investigated. By assessing the CE performance and benchmarking, the improvement opportunities are identified, and then an activity-oriented workflow and dataflow model is established by decomposing the work process to detail levels. Based on this model, a Product Data Management (PDM) based support platform is proposed to facilitate data management/exchange in dynamic workflow to improve work efficiency and interoperability. This solution is mocked-up on the Siemens Teamcenter 8.1 PLM(Product Lifecycle Management) software and its feasibility is checked. The mock-up is evaluated by SAMC experts and suppliers. The feedback shows the acceptance of the model by experts and the urgency of improving data/work flow design before PLM implementing. The result of this research is useful for enterprises in similar environments transiting from pre-PLM to implementing PLM and who wanting to strengthen CE in the new product development

TRENDS AND PROSPECTS OF DIGITAL TWIN TECHNOLOGIES: A REVIEW

© Quantum Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology (QJOEST). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND licence, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/The plethora of technologically developed software and digital types of machinery are widely applied for industrial production and the digitalization of building technologies. The fourth industrial revolution and the underlying digital transformation, known as Industry 4.0 is reshaping the way individuals live and work fundamentally. However, the advent of Industry 5.0 remodels the representation of industrial data for digitalization. As a result, massive data of different types are being produced. However, these data are hysteretic and isolated from each other, leading to low efficiency and low utilization of these valuable data. Simulation based on the theoretical and static model has been a conventional and powerful tool for the verification, validation, and optimization of a system in its early planning stage, but no attention is paid to the simulation application during system run-time. Dynamic simulation of various systems and the digitalization of the same is made possible using the framework available with Digital Twin. After a complete search of several databases and careful selection according to the proposed criteria, 63 academic publications about digital twin are identified and classified. This paper conducts a comprehensive and in-depth review of this literature to analyze the digital twin from the perspective of concepts, technologies, and industrial applicationsPeer reviewe