Real-time co-ordinated resource management in a computational enviroment

Design co-ordination is an emerging engineering design management philosophy with its emphasis on timeliness and appropriateness. Furthermore, a key element of design coordination has been identified as resource management, the aim of which is to facilitate the optimised use of resources throughout a dynamic and changeable process. An approach to operational design co-ordination has been developed, which incorporates the appropriate techniques to ensure that the aim of co-ordinated resource management can be fulfilled. This approach has been realised within an agent-based software system, called the Design Coordination System (DCS), such that a computational design analysis can be managed in a coherent and co-ordinated manner. The DCS is applied to a computational analysis for turbine blade design provided by industry. The application of the DCS involves resources, i.e. workstations within a computer network, being utilised to perform the computational analysis involving the use of a suite of software tools to calculate stress and vibration characteristics of turbine blades. Furthermore, the application of the system shows that the utilisation of resources can be optimised throughout the computational design analysis despite the variable nature of the computer network

A generic coordination approach applied to a manufacturing environment

This paper describes a generic coordination approach applied to the field of manufacturing engineering. The objective of the coordination mechanism with respect to this application is twofold. Firstly, it is shown that utilising the developed system can result in the efficient organisation of processes leading to a near optimum time taken to manufacture a number of artefacts. Secondly, successful operation of the system in this environment will demonstrate that the approach is generic in nature. The results already achieved using this system within a computational analysis environment supports this hypothesis

A methodology for design coordination in a distributed computing environment

At the conceptual stage of the design process it is increasingly common that analysis tools are involved in the evaluation of a large number of alternative designs. Designers use such analysis tools to assist with large scale concept evaluations and the prediction of good initial designs. Consequently there exists a need to coordinate these analysis tools to enable the early stage of design to be performed in a timely and efficient manner. This paper describes a generic methodology that allows the management and coordination of design analysis tools. A Computer Aided Design tool, namely the Design Coordination System (DCS), has been developed to assist the designer in performing computational analysis in a distributed computing environment. Within the DCS, a collection of design agents act as members of a multi-functional team operating in a cooperative and coordinated manner in order to satisfy the objective of efficiently performing the design analysis

A methodology for prospective operational design co-ordination

Engineering companies are continually faced with the challenge of how best to utilise their design team given some design project. Decisions regarding how to distribute the project workload amongst the members of the design team are the responsibility of a project manager who, in order to do this, often relies upon previous experience and/or the support of some planning tool. Furthermore, a project manager rarely has the opportunity to assess the capability of the design team against the current work load in order to determine what, if any, alterations couldbe made to the team to facilitate appropriate reductions in project time and cost.This paper proposes a mathematical-based methodology aimed at identifying shortfalls in design teams, which if remedied would result in a more efficient project in terms of time and cost. The methodology provides a means of identifying those skills within the design team,with respect to the outstanding work load, in which improvements would have the greatest influence on reducing time and cost. In addition, the methodology employs a genetic algorithm for the purpose of scheduling tasks to be undertaken by potential design teams. The methodology is applied to two practical case studies provided by engineering industry.The first case study involves the assessment of a multi-disciplined design team consisting of single-skilled engineers. In contrast, the second case study entails the assessment of multiskilled engineers within a multi-disciplined design team. As a result of applying the methodology to the case studies, potential improvement to the design teams are identified and, subsequently, evaluated by observing their effects

Real-time co-ordinated scheduling using a genetic algorithm

Real-time co-ordination is an emerging approach to operational engineering management aimed at being more comprehensive and widely applicable than existing approaches. Schedule management is a key characteristic of operational co-ordination related to managing the planning and dynamic assignment of tasks to resources, and the enactment of the resulting schedules, throughout a changeable process. This paper presents the application of an agent-oriented system, called the Design Co-ordination System, to an industrial case study in order to demonstrate the appropriate use of a genetic algorithm for the purpose of real-time scheduling. The application demonstrates that real-time co-ordinated scheduling can provide significant reductions in time to complete the computational design process

A preliminary approach for modelling and planning the composition of engineering project teams

Managing engineering projects is a complex activity involving multiskilled engineers, who have varying levels of capability in these skills. This paper outlines a preliminary approach to modelling and planning the composition of engineering project teams, taking into consideration the skills and capabilities of engineers and the nature of the project work to be undertaken. The approach includes a simple means of identifying engineers' skills and then quantifying their level of capability in these skills. Subsequently, the approach uses a genetic algorithm along with a task-to-engineer allocation strategy to establish how best to utilize the mix of skills and capabilities of the team of engineers assigned to the project under consideration. The approach also provides a means of identifying imbalances or shortfalls in skill and capability within a team, and the formulation of an appropriate development strategy to redress/overcome them. An application of the approach to an industrial case study is presented, which led to significant potential reductions in expected project duration and labour cost. These potential reductions could be achieved by appropriately modelling engineers' skills and capabilities, and redressing the imbalance within the team through proposed changes to its composition

Jupiter's X-ray aurorae

Affelia Wibisono and colleagues report on XMM-Newton and Juno observations of Jupiter's magnetosphere and polar aurorae. This won the Rishbeth Prize for best student talk at the MIST session, NAM 2019

Rootstock influences postharvest anthracnose development in 'Hass' avocado

Rootstock studies conducted on ‘Hass’ avocado found that rootstock had a significant impact on postharvest anthracnose susceptibility. This is the first record of such an effect for avocado. The severity and incidence of anthracnose was significantly lower on ‘Hass’ grafted to ‘Velvick’ Guatemalan seedling rootstock compared with the ‘Duke 6’ Mexican seedling rootstock. Differences in anthracnose susceptibility were related to significant differences in concentrations of antifungal dienes in the leaves and mineral nutrients in the leaves and fruits from trees grafted to different rootstocks. Leaf diene concentrations were up to 1.5 times higher in ‘Hass’ trees on the ‘Velvick’ than the ‘Duke 6’ rootstock. In ungrafted nursery stock trees, diene concentrations were around 3 times higher in ‘Velvick’ than ‘Duke 6’ leaves. The ‘Velvick’/‘Hass’ combination also had a significantly lower leaf N concentration, a significantly higher fruit flesh Mn concentration, and significantly lower and higher leaf N/Ca and Ca+Mg/K ratios, respectively. A significant correlation (r = 0.82) between anthracnose severity and skin N/Ca ratio was also evident

Cassini observations of ion and electron beams at Saturn and their relationship to infrared auroral arcs

We present Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer observations of infrared auroral emissions from the noon sector of Saturn's ionosphere revealing multiple intense auroral arcs separated by dark regions poleward of the main oval. The arcs are interpreted as the ionospheric signatures of bursts of reconnection occurring at the dayside magnetopause. The auroral arcs were associated with upward field-aligned currents, the magnetic signatures of which were detected by Cassini at high planetary latitudes. Magnetic field and particle observations in the adjacent downward current regions showed upward bursts of 100–360 keV light ions in addition to energetic (hundreds of keV) electrons, which may have been scattered from upward accelerated beams carrying the downward currents. Broadband, upward propagating whistler waves were detected simultaneously with the ion beams. The acceleration of the light ions from low altitudes is attributed to wave-particle interactions in the downward current regions. Energetic (600 keV) oxygen ions were also detected, suggesting the presence of ambient oxygen at altitudes within the acceleration region. These simultaneous in situ and remote observations reveal the highly energetic magnetospheric dynamics driving some of Saturn's unusual auroral features. This is the first in situ identification of transient reconnection events at regions magnetically conjugate to Saturn's magnetopause