Agent based prototype for interoperation of production planning and control and manufacturing automation

This work describes a model for distributed dynamic Production Planning and Control (PPC) agent based system, which includes interoperation with manufacturing automation. It is presented a demonstration prototype involving distributed software agents and industrial equipment integration, which implements part of the developed model functionalities. Clients can send orders, and resources may apply for those orders fulfilment. Resources with orders allocated to, start automatically the required manufacturing operations. The prototype was implemented integrating several tools, including Lab VIEW and LEGO Mindstorms components. This is useful to validate the integration, proposed by the dynamic PPC model, between production planning processes and manufacturing execution operations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Remote supervision of production processes in the food industry

This paper presents a remote monitoring system based on the SCADA model (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition), specifically developed for automated production processes in a food company. The goals defined for this project were the monitoring of three production lines and six silos of raw materials, along with the indication / evaluation of three performance measures demanded by the company: production rate, packed quantity and OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). The developed system should also include other typical SCADA functionalities, namely alarms management, process trending and data logging. The applied methodology involved the detailed analysis of the existing automation systems, the functional specification of the remote monitoring system and the corresponding implementation (using the LabVIEW platform), test and validation. The project took about six months and the system was successfully implemented in one of the company's factories. All the objectives were achieved.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Models for project management in 2016 Olympic Games

The Olympic Games are the major sports event on the planet gathering people for all over the world and integrating several kind of resources that need to be managed in order to achieve efficiency and the sustainability of the event. The research question of this paper is “Which project management business model best fit a mega event like the 2016 Olympic Games?” The organizations which participate in the Olympic Games project management in Rio are under the pressure of external scenarios of uncertainty and also intense competition and internally the organizations that manage all the Olympic resources need to deal with limitations of costs and time – the business model adopted can help to achieve a major success of the event. According to studies made on the past Olympics Project Managers face various challenges and the models adopted can made an integration of various and disperse project management tools. The main finding of this research is that project management maturity models benefits management approaches and reinforce the definition and the use of strategic plans enhancing the control techniques of project management and also the sustainability model is necessary to orchestrate the successful completion of a project with the amplitude of Olympic Games.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Clarifying the importance of trust in organizations as a component of effective work relationships

WOS:000315028100016 (Nº de Acesso Web of Science)Organizational trust is an important element of an organization's long-term success, as it is a central component of effective work relationships. This study examines the extent to which one's trust in the organization mediates the relationship between three drivers of social exchange relationships and three attitudinal outcomes. The results from a sample of 1,300 manufacturing employees revealed that trust in the organization partially mediated the relationship between perceived supervisor support and turnover intentions, affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and fully mediated the relationship between distributive justice and information receiving and these outcomes. This paper extends the empirical literature about the antecedents and consequences of trust in organization, giving special attention to the mediating role of trust in organizations

Mining noise affects loud call structures and emission patterns of wild black-fronted titi monkeys

Anthropogenic noise pollution is increasing and can constrain acoustic communication in animals. Our aim was to investigate if the acoustic parameters of loud calls and their diurnal pattern in the black-fronted titi monkey (Callicebus nigrifrons) are affected by noise produced by mining activity in a fragment of Atlantic Forest in Brazil. We installed two passive acoustic monitoring devices to record sound 24 h/day, 7 days every 2 months, for a year; one unit was close to an opencast mine and the other 2.5 km away from it. Both sites presented similar habitat structures and were inhabited by groups of black-fronted titi monkeys. We quantified the noise at both sites by measuring the equivalent continuous sound level every 2 months for 1 year and quantified the emission of loud calls by titi monkeys through visual inspection of the recordings. The close site presented higher ambient noise levels than the far site. The quantitative comparison of loud calls of black-fronted titi monkeys between the two sites showed less calling activity in the site close to the mine than in the site further away. Approximately 20 % of the calls detected at the site close to the mine were masked by noise from truck traffic. Loud calls were longer at the site far from the mine and the diurnal patterns of vocal activity differed in the amount of calling as well as in the timing of peak calling activity between the two sites. Our results indicate that mining noise may constrain titi monkeys’ long-distance vocal communication. Loud calls occupy a similar frequency band to mining noise, and an increase in ambient noise may be triggering black-fronted titi monkeys to adjust their long-distance communication patterns to avoid masking of their calls. Given that vocalizations are an important means of social interaction in this species, there are concerns about the impact of mining noise on populations exposed to this human activity

Teachers' workload in a project-led engineering education approach

This paper presents a detailed list of activities, carried out by a team of teachers, while organizing and running an Interdisciplinary Project-Led Education (PLE) methodology for a full semester. The study was undertaken at the Engineering School of University of Minho, Portugal. It was based on a first year, first semester of the Integrated Master Degree in Industrial Management and Engineering (IME). The full PLE activities-related workload was accounted on a man-hour basis. Nineteen coordination activities were identified and the respective durations and frequencies were accounted. One semester of IME PLE requires a total of 569 man-hours. The project involved a much greater number of teachers and other staff when compared to a traditional semester. The most time-consuming activities were spotted and strategies and measures to deal with the resulting workload were discussed and some of them are proposed for implementation in future editions of the PLE methodology. Those proposals were considered more efficient ways to rationalize the use of teachers’ time

Management of interdisciplinary project approaches in Engineering Education: a case study

This paper describes project management processes of coordination teams, in the implementation of interdisciplinary project approaches in Engineering Education. These interdisciplinary projects are based on the Project-Led Education (PLE) concept and are being implemented since 2004/2005 in the Industrial Management and Engineering (IME) master degree course (1st and 2nd cycle of Engineering Education) at University of Minho. Usually, these approaches involve a coordination team of 10 to 15 members with different roles: teachers, tutors and education researchers. This team is responsible for preparing the project for the semester and forming the students’ teams. The coordination of these two types of teams is centred on a project manager that is responsible for, and supports, all the work developed during the semester, e.g., prepare the initial presentation of the project to the students, prepare the web site that supports the work, establish the communication between students and the rest of the team, prepare the students’ guide, and so on. Managing these projects is an intense task that demands a lot of time and different competencies. In this work it is presented a project management framework based on project management knowledge areas, to aid coordination teams to achieve better results