Shake-table testing of a stone masonry building aggregate: overview of blind prediction study

City centres of Europe are often composed of unreinforced masonry structural aggregates, whose seismic response is challenging to predict. To advance the state of the art on the seismic response of these aggregates, the Adjacent Interacting Masonry Structures (AIMS) subproject from Horizon 2020 project Seismology and Earthquake Engineering Research Infrastructure Alliance for Europe (SERA) provides shake-table test data of a two-unit, double-leaf stone masonry aggregate subjected to two horizontal components of dynamic excitation. A blind prediction was organized with participants from academia and industry to test modelling approaches and assumptions and to learn about the extent of uncertainty in modelling for such masonry aggregates. The participants were provided with the full set of material and geometrical data, construction details and original seismic input and asked to predict prior to the test the expected seismic response in terms of damage mechanisms, base-shear forces, and roof displacements. The modelling approaches used differ significantly in the level of detail and the modelling assumptions. This paper provides an overview of the adopted modelling approaches and their subsequent predictions. It further discusses the range of assumptions made when modelling masonry walls, floors and connections, and aims at discovering how the common solutions regarding modelling masonry in general, and masonry aggregates in particular, affect the results. The results are evaluated both in terms of damage mechanisms, base shear forces, displacements and interface openings in both directions, and then compared with the experimental results. The modelling approaches featuring Discrete Element Method (DEM) led to the best predictions in terms of displacements, while a submission using rigid block limit analysis led to the best prediction in terms of damage mechanisms. Large coefficients of variation of predicted displacements and general underestimation of displacements in comparison with experimental results, except for DEM models, highlight the need for further consensus building on suitable modelling assumptions for such masonry aggregates

Integration of order review and release and output control with worker's allocation in a pure flow shop

With the increase of competitiveness and customer customization requirements, companies' capability to predict and shorten lead-time is becoming an order winner factor. This is particularly crucial for high variability mix and low volume make-to-order companies. Production Planning and Control aims at the alignment between capacity and demand in order to improve production system performance along with lead-time reduction. Workload control is a planning production and control concept developed for high-variety low-volume companies. It aims at controlling the workload in the system by mean of two mechanisms: the input control and the output control. The former regulates the release of new orders in the system, while the latter controls the production capacity. Most of the existing studies focused only on input control, while the output control has been quite overlooked. Moreover, the few studies that combine the two controls were interested in showing the effect on performances and did not consider a specific output control strategy: they operationalized capacity adjustments as decreases of the processing time. This paper is a preliminary step in filling this gap: input control in the form of order review and release and worker's allocation, as capacity adjustments strategy, are integrated in a pure flow shop. Worker's allocation is meant not to increase the overall capacity of the system but to shift idleness periods of workers. Order review and release and Output Control integration (ORROCI) model is presented, showing how the two control mechanisms can be integrated and tested, through simulation. It takes into account both load distribution and capacity available in the system and it transfers workers only when there are imbalances amongst stations load. Preliminary results show that order review and release and worker's allocation can be successfully integrated, achieving superior performances. Further researches can be pursed testing different labor flexibility and efficiency levels, along with different where, when and who rule concerning worker's allocation

A Concurrent Engineering approach to selective implementation of alternative processes

During the last decade, integration between design and manufacturing has shown to be a major competitive weapon and much research work has been carried out about considering at the product design stage production process issues. Most of the literature on such techniques focuses on integrating the design of a product and the design of its manufacturing processes, disregarding issues related to the design and management of the manufacturing system. Nonetheless, decisions taken at the product and process design stage could have an influence on typical production planning and control issues such as, for example, minimising lead times and maximising machine utilisation. Many research works show the advantage of a higher process flexibility, in terms of machine utilisation, manufacturing lead time, inventory level, and the like (see, for example, Tsubone and Horikawa, The International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems 11 (1999) 83 or Ferreira and Wysk, Journal of Manufacturing System 19 (2001)), but developing alternative machine possibility has a cost that is not negligible (International Journal of Production Economics 48 (1997) 237). Therefore, guidelines are needed for identifying for what items and for which operations to develop alternative processes. In this paper, the relationship between alternative processes availability and manufacturing system performances are investigated, showing that the advantage of additional alternative process decreases as the number of alternatives increases, and that given a certain number of alternative processes developed, there is a strong difference in performances depending on what alternative processes have been implemented. Then a new procedure is presented for guiding in selecting for which operations to implement alternative processes in order to maximise the flexibility advantages limiting the implementation cost. The proposed procedure is then tested, under different operating conditions, against a practical rule by means of a simulation model

The mediating effect of employees’ involvement on the relationship between Industry 4.0 and operational performance improvement

This study aims at investigating whether EI (Employees’ Involvement) constitutes the mediating link relating Industry 4.0 technologies to operational performance improvement in emerging countries. When manufacturing companies within this socio-economic context adopt Industry 4.0 technologies, they may either reinforce or undermine the importance of practices related to EI, hence affecting the level of operational performance improvement. In this sense, we carried out a survey with 147 Brazilian manufacturers that have already started to implement Industry 4.0 technologies concurrently with their existing continuous improvement programmes, which are highly based on EI practices. Findings indicate the EI indeed has a positive mediating effect on the relationship between Industry 4.0 adoption and operational performance improvement. This outcome suggests that the high-tech movement promoted by Industry 4.0 advent does not disregard the need for empowering and committing employees. This fact is also true even in contexts where employees’ condition may rise additional barriers for Industry 4.0 implementation such as emerging economies. Therefore, the implementation of Industry 4.0 seems to be a promising approach for assisting employees on continuous improvement and reinforcing the need for their participation and engagement, especially in manufacturers from sectors with higher levels of technological intensity

EXPLOITING SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE WOODWORKING MACHINERY INDUSTRY: EMPIRICAL FINDINGS FROM A SAMPLE OF ITALIAN USERS

Over the last decade the importance of the offer of integrated solutions where products and services are bundled together is increased in many manufacturing sectors. The servitization of business has become more and more widespread and new managerial tools are needed to exploit opportunities related to the service offer. The objective of this paper is to present the results of an empirical research carried out in the woodworking machinery industry aimed at identifying possible interventions to improve the efficacy of the service offer in this context. The research involved a sample of 11 companies that use one or more woodworking machinery types in the production process. The originality of this study is due to the fact that, unlike similar researches in literature, the user’s perspective is taken as the starting point to identify possible ways of improvement. Main empirical evidences are presented and a gap matrix is developed to show possible directions of improvements

Strategia di business e strategia nelle operations: un modello per valutarne la coerenza a livello di processo,

Rapall

Do repetitive and non-repetitive companies equally benefit from Lean 4.0?

Purpose: The integration between the traditional lean management and Industry 4.0, namely called Lean 4.0, is under the spotlight of both academia and practitioners. While we agree on the benefits Lean 4.0 may bring to companies performance, we still lack a deep understanding of the characteristics of this paradigm, such as its effective application space. Recalling traditional lean better suits repetitive companies, we are keen to understand whether the anew Lean 4.0 will enlarge its application space. Design/methodology/approach: We performed an exploratory study, using a quantitative analysis based on Bayesian network approach to investigate whether Lean 4.0 results to be as effective in repetitive companies as in non-repetitive ones, in terms of operational performance. Findings: While our findings confirm that Lean 4.0 will enhance companies' performance regardless their production strategies, companies adopting a repetitive strategy do benefit from a much higher improvement. Our findings provide an insight on the true applicability space of Lean 4.0, which seems to be the same as the traditional lean. Originality/value: We contribute to the ongoing debate of Lean 4.0 providing initial empirical evidence on how to improve the operational performance in non-repetitive companies, seeing that Lean 4.0 might not be the best choice in its current format