Leading Digital Innovation Units: A Repertory Grid Study about Key Skills for the Digital Age

To combat the trend of failing Digital Transformation endeavors, dedicated leadership skills are needed. However, so far there is little knowledge about the skills for successfully leading Digital Innovation Units (DIUs). We, therefore, interviewed 13 DIU leaders from various industries and elicited their skills with the Repertory Grid method. We identified 54 key skills clustered in seven categories: team development, integration of the DIU into the wider context of the organization, innovation management, personal traits, effective communication, hard skills, and visionary thinking and driving change. Furthermore, we found five influencing factors for the application of key skills: Financial support, uncertainty, certainty in tasks, stability of the product, freedom to operate, and degree of collaboration with the core organization. Finally, we report on three skill enhancers (actions, attitudes, conditions) for practitioners. We complement prior research by improving the understanding of the ideal DIU leader skill profile

Subspace-Based Damage Detection under Changes in the Ambient Excitation Statistics

International audienceIn the last ten years, monitoring the integrity of the civil infrastructure has been an active research topic, including in connected areas as automatic control. It is common practice to perform damage detection by detecting changes in the modal parameters between a reference state and the current (possibly damaged) state from measured vibration data. Subspace methods enjoy some popularity in structural engineering, where large model orders have to be considered. In the context of detecting changes in the structural properties and the modal parameters linked to them, a subspace-based fault detection residual has been recently proposed and applied successfully, where the estimation of the modal parameters in the possibly damaged state is avoided. However, most works assume that the unmeasured ambient excitation properties during measurements of the structure in the reference and possibly damaged condition stay constant, which is hardly satisfied by any application. This paper addresses the problem of robustness of such fault detection methods. It is explained why current algorithms from literature fail when the excitation covariance changes and how they can be modified. Then, an efficient and fast subspace-based damage detection test is derived that is robust to changes in the excitation covariance but also to numerical instabilities that can arise easily in the computations. Three numerical applications show the efficiency of the new approach to better detect and separate different levels of damage even using a relatively low sample length

Detecting Changes in Boundary Conditions based on Sensitivity-based Statistical Tests

International audienceStructural health monitoring is a promising technology to automatically detect structural changes based on permanently installed sensors. Vibration-based methods that evaluate the global system response to ambient excitation are suited to diagnose changes in boundary conditions, i.e., changes in member prestress or imposed displacements. In this paper, these changes are evaluated based on sensitivity-based statistical tests, which are capable of detecting and localizing parametric structural changes. The main contribution is the analytical calculation of sensitivity vectors for changes in boundary conditions (i.e., changes in prestress or support conditions) based on stress stiffening, and the combination with a numerically efficient algorithm, i.e., Nelson's method. One of the main advantages of the employed damage diagnosis algorithm is that, although it uses physical models for damage detection, it considers the uncertainty in the data-driven features, which enables a reliabilitybased approach to determine the probability of detection. Moreover, the algorithm can be trained and the probability of detecting future damages can be predicted based on data and a model from the undamaged structure, in an unsupervised learning mode, making it particularly relevant for unique structures, where no data from the damaged state is available. For proof of concept, a numerical case study is presented. The study assesses the loss of prestress in a two-span reinforced concrete beam and showcases suitable validation approaches for the sensitivity calculation

Efficient computation of minmax tests for fault isolation and their application to structural damage localization

International audienceFault detection and isolation can be handled by many different approaches. This paper builds upon a hypothesis test that checks whether the mean of a Gaussian random vector has become non-zero in the faulty state, based on a chi2 test. For fault isolation, it has to be decided which components in the parameter set of the Gaussian vector have changed, which is done by variants of the chi2 hypothesis test using the so-called sensitivity and minmax approaches. While only the sensitivity of the tested parameter component is taken into account in the sensitivity approach, the sensitivities of all parameters are used in the minmax approach, leading to better statistical properties at the expense of an increased computational burden. The computation of the respective test variable in the minmax test is cumbersome and may be ill-conditioned especially for large parameter sets, asking hence for a careful numerical evaluation. Furthermore, the fault isolation procedure requires the repetitive calculation of the test variable for each of the parameter components that are tested for a change, which may be a significant computational burden. In this paper, dealing with the minmax problem, we propose a new efficient computation for the test variables, which is based on a simultaneous QR decomposition for all parameters. Based on this scheme, we propose an efficient test computation for a large parameter set, leading to a decrease in the numerical complexity by one order of magnitude in the total number of parameters. Finally, we show how the minmax test is useful for structural damage localization, where an asymptotically Gaussian residual vector is computed from output-only vibration data of a mechanical or a civil structure

Statistical subspace-based damage detection with estimated reference

International audienceThe statistical subspace-based damage detection technique has shown promising theoretical and practical results for vibration-based structural health monitoring. It evaluates a subspace-based residual function with efficient hypothesis testing tools, and has the ability of detecting small changes in chosen system parameters. In the residual function, a Hankel matrix of output covariances estimated from test data is confronted to its left null space associated to a reference model. The hypothesis test takes into account the covariance of the residual for decision making. Ideally, the reference model is assumed to be perfectly known without any uncertainty, which is not a realistic assumption. In practice, the left null space is usually estimated from a reference data set to avoid model errors in the residual computation. Then, the associated uncertainties may be non-negligible, in particular when the available reference data is of limited length. In this paper, it is investigated how the statistical distribution of the residual is affected when the reference null space is estimated. The asymptotic residual distribution is derived, where its refined covariance term considers also the uncertainty related to the reference null space estimate. The associated damage detection test closes a theoretical gap for real-world applications and leads to increased robustness of the method in practice. The importance of including the estimation uncertainty of the reference null space is shown in a numerical study and on experimental data of a progressively damaged steel frame

Structural health monitoring with statistical methods during progressive damage test of S101 Bridge

International audienceFor the last decades vibration based damage detection of engineering structures has become an important issue for maintenance operations on transport infrastructure. Research in vibration based structural damage detection has been rapidly expanding from classic modal parameter estimation to modern operational monitoring. Since structures are subject to unknown ambient excitation in operation conditions, all estimates from the finite data measurements are of statistical nature. The intrinsic uncertainty due to finite data length, colored noise, non-stationary excitations, model order reduction or other operational influences needs to be considered for robust and automated structural health monitoring methods. In this paper, two subspace-based methods are considered that take these statistical uncertainties into account, first modal parameter and their confidence interval estimation for a direct comparison of the structural states, and second a statistical null space based damage detection test that completely avoids the identification step. The performance of both methods is evaluated on a large scale progressive damage test of a prestressed concrete road bridge, the S101 Bridge in Austria. In an on-site test, ambient vibration data of the S101 Bridge was recorded while different damage scenarios were introduced on the bridge as a benchmark for damage identification. It is shown that the proposed damage detection methodology is able to clearly indicate the presence of structural damage, if the damage leads to a change of the structural system

Asymptotic analysis of subspace-based data-driven residual for fault detection with uncertain reference

SAFEPROCESS 2018, 10th IFAC Symposium on Fault Detection, Diagnosis and Safety of Technical Processes, Varsovie, POLOGNE, 29-/08/2018 - 31/08/2018International audienceThe local asymptotic approach is promising for vibration-based fault diagnosis when associated to a subspace-based residual function and efficient hypothesis testing tools. It has the ability of detecting small changes in some chosen system parameters. In the residual function, the left null space of the observability matrix associated to a reference model is confronted to the Hankel matrix of output covariances estimated from test data. When this left null space is not perfectly known from a model, it should be replaced by an estimate from data to avoid model errors in the residual computation. In this paper, the asymptotic distribution of the resulting data-driven residual is analyzed and its covariance is estimated, which includes also the covariance related to the reference null space estimate. The importance of including the covariance of the reference null space estimate is shown in a numerical study

Fault detection for linear parameter varying systems under changes in the process noise covariance

International audienceDetecting changes in the eigenstructure of linear systems is a comprehensively investigated subject. In particular, change detection methods based on hypothesis testing using Gaussian residuals have been developed previously. In such residuals, a reference model is confronted to data from the current system. In this paper, linear output-only systems depending on a varying external physical parameter are considered. These systems are driven by process noise, whose covariance may also vary between measurements. To deal with the varyingparameter, an interpolation approach is pursued, where a limited number of reference models { each estimated from data measured in a reference state { are interpolated to approximate an adequate reference model for the current parameter. The problem becomes more complex whenthe different points of interpolation correspond to dierent noise conditions. Then conicts may arise between the detection of changes in the eigenstructure due to a fault and the detection of changes due to dierent noise conditions. For this case, a new change detection approach is developed based on the interpolation of the eigenstructure at the reference points. The resulting approach is capable of change detection when both the external physical parameter and the process noise conditions are varying. This approach is validated on a numerical simulation of a mechanical system

Stochastic Subspace-Based Damage Detection with Uncertainty in the Reference Null Space

International audienceThis paper deals with uncertainty considerations in damage diagnosis using the stochas-tic subspace-based damage detection technique. With this method, a model is estimated from data in a (healthy) reference state and confronted to measurement data from the possibly damaged state in a hypothesis test. Previously, only the uncertainty related to the measurement data was considered in this test, whereas the uncertainty in the estimation of the reference model has not been considered. We derive a new test framework, which takes into account both the uncertainties in the estimation of the reference model as well as the uncertainties related to the measurement data. Perturbation theory is applied to obtain the relevant covariances. In a numerical study the effect of the new computation is shown, when the reference model is estimated with different accuracies, and the performance of the hypothesis tests is evaluated for small damages. Using the derived covariance scheme increases the probability of detection when the reference model estimate is subject to high uncertainty, leading to a more reliable test

Subspace-based damage detection with rejection of the temperature effect and uncertainty in the reference

International audienceTemperature variation can be a nuisance that perturbs vibration based structural health monitoring (SHM) approaches for civil engineering structures. In this paper, temperature affected vibration data is evaluated within a stochastic damage detection framework, which relies on a null space based residual. Besides two existing temperature rejection approaches-building a reference state from an averaging method or a piecewise method-a new approach is proposed, using model interpolation. In this approach, a general reference model is obtained from data in the reference state at several known reference temperatures. Then, for a particular tested temperature, a local reference model is derived from the general reference model. Thus, a well fitting reference null space for the formulation of a residual is available when new data is tested for damage detection at an arbitrary temperature. Particular attention is paid to the computation of the residual covariance, taking into account the uncertainty related to the null space matrix estimate. This improves the test performance, contrary to prior methods, for local and global damages, resulting in a higher probability of detection (PoD) for the new interpolation approach compared to previous approaches