Towards practical guidelines for conversion from fixed to reconfigurable manufacturing automation systems

It is generally considered that economic feasibility of a reconfigurable manufacturing system is only attainable if the system is defined to be reconfigurable at the outset of its design. In this work we consider the potential exception to this perception, in the context of a common industrial scenario where a specialized and expensive manufacturing machine or system will otherwise be rendered useless due to loss of business of the particular product being manufactured. Specific guidelines to convert from a fixed to a reconfigurable system are proposed, and evaluated through a case study. It is shown that under certain conditions, reconfigurable manufacturing systems may be economically feasible even if they are developed through the modification of pre-existing dedicated systems.peer-reviewe

Marine climatological datasets for the Maltese Islands

During the last 25 years of activity, the Physical Oceanography Research Group, previously known as the PO-Unit, and currently established within the Department of Geosciences of the University of Malta, has been promoting the downscaling of broad scope marine core services to higher resolution local scale domains for the Maltese Islands. Several services are delivered either by an intrinsic data elaboration or by making use of and integrating the COPERNICUS Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) data to local marine data streams. Local observations are also integrated with higher resolution forecasts for the preparation and provision of dedicated services that address real specific needs of sub-regional and coastal users. This effort has yielded valuable climatological datasets covering the Maltese coastal waters and spanning over several years. This work focusses on the climatologies derived from numerical models and satellites, and compiled within the Interreg MED programme AMAre (Actions for Marine Protected Areas) project.peer-reviewe

Towards practical guidelines for conversion from a fixed to a reconfigurable manufacturing automation system

It is generally considered to be a key requirement in the development of reconfigurable manufacturing systems, that economic feasibility is only attainable if the system is defined to be reconfigurable at the outset of its design. In this work we consider the potential exception to this requirement, in the context of a common industrial scenario where a specialized and expensive manufacturing machine or system will otherwise be rendered useless due to loss of business of the particular product being manufactured. Specific guidelines to convert from a fixed to a reconfigurable system are proposed, and evaluated through a case study.peer-reviewe

Challenges for Sustained Observing and Forecasting Systems in the Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean community represented in this paper is the result of more than 30 years of EU and nationally funded coordination, which has led to key contributions in science concepts and operational initiatives. Together with the establishment of operational services, the community has coordinated with universities, research centers, research infrastructures and private companies to implement advanced multi-platform and integrated observing and forecasting systems that facilitate the advancement of operational services, scientific achievements and mission-oriented innovation. Thus, the community can respond to societal challenges and stakeholders needs, developing a variety of fit-for-purpose services such as the Copernicus Marine Service. The combination of state-of-the-art observations and forecasting provides new opportunities for downstream services in response to the needs of the heavily populated Mediterranean coastal areas and to climate change. The challenge over the next decade is to sustain ocean observations within the research community, to monitor the variability at small scales, e.g., the mesoscale/submesoscale, to resolve the sub-basin/seasonal and inter-annual variability in the circulation, and thus establish the decadal variability, understand and correct the model-associated biases and to enhance model-data integration and ensemble forecasting for uncertainty estimation. Better knowledge and understanding of the level of Mediterranean variability will enable a subsequent evaluation of the impacts and mitigation of the effect of human activities and climate change on the biodiversity and the ecosystem, which will support environmental assessments and decisions. Further challenges include extending the science-based added-value products into societal relevant downstream services and engaging with communities to build initiatives that will contribute to the 2030 Agenda and more specifically to SDG14 and the UN's Decade of Ocean Science for sustainable development, by this contributing to bridge the science-policy gap. The Mediterranean observing and forecasting capacity was built on the basis of community best practices in monitoring and modeling, and can serve as a basis for the development of an integrated global ocean observing system