A bibliometric review and analysis of traffic lights optimization

The significant increase in the number of vehicles in urban areas emerges the challenge of urban mobility. Researchers in this area suggest that most daily delays in urban travel times are caused by intersections, which could be reduced if the traffic lights at these intersections were more efficient. The use of simulation for real intersections can be effective in optimizing the cycle times and improving the traffic light timing to coordinate vehicles passing through intersections. From these themes emerge the research questions: How are the existing approaches (optimization techniques and simulation) to managing traffic lights smartly? What kind of data (offline and online) are used for traffic lights optimization? How beneficial is it to propose an optimization approach to the traffic system? This paper aims to answer these questions, carried out through a bibliometric literature review. In total, 93 articles were analyzed. The main findings revealed that the United States and China are the countries with the most studies published in the last ten years. Moreover, Particle Swarm Optimization is a frequently used approach, and there is a tendency for studies to perform optimization of real cases by real-time data, showing that the praxis of smart cities has resorted to smart traffic lights.This work has been supported by FCT— Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020 and the project “Integrated and Innovative Solutions for the well-being of people in complex urban centers” within the Project Scope NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000086

Traffic light optimization of an intersection: a portuguese case study

Smart cities aim to rise strategies that reduce issues caused by the urban population growth and fast urbanization. Thus, traffic light optimization emerges as an important option for urban traffic management. The main goal of this study is to improve traffic light management at a specific intersection, in the City of Guimarães (Portugal), where high-intensity traffic and an active pedestrian area were observed, generating traffic queues. To achieve the goals, a simulation-based optimization strategy using the Particle Swarm Optimization combined with the Simulation of Urban Mobility software was used to minimize the average waiting time of the vehicles by determining the optimal value of the traffic light cycle. The computational results showed it is possible to decrease by 78.2% the average value of the waiting time. In conclusion, by better managing the traffic light cycle time, traffic flow without congestion or queues can be achieved.This work has been supported by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020 and the project “Integrated and Innovative Solutions for the well-being of people in complex urban centers” within the Project Scope NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000086

Communication tools used by distributed teams in a BIM learning project

The constant changes in the world market demand flexible and fluid organizational structures, such as rotating and engaging human effort, to provide high performance. Therefore, organizations make use of distributed multicultural teams, meetings, and online lead projects. However, these social categorization processes can become a disadvantage if trigger potential conflicts during task performance. Distributed teams can also be difficult to manage, and their members can face extra adversities in communication. Architecture, Engineering and Construction Industry (AEC), is a context where the use of distributed teams is growing significantly, particularly through the enabling features of Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodologies. This paper was aimed at the diagnosis of communication behaviour in distributed teams in the context of a PBL methodology that requested students to work in distributed teams on two distinct locations. For that, the authors managed a workshop on Lean Project Management and Collaborative Tools in the European Master in Building Information Modelling (BIM A+) using a Lego for Scrum activity, adapted to a team of students distributed in Portugal and Slovenia. After that, nine distributed teams of students had to design exposition pavilions in BIM platform and using collaborative tools. At the end, each team had to present the project for the entire body of students and faculty, located in Guimaraes (Portugal) and Ljubljana (Slovenia).- (undefined

On tuning the particle swarm optimization for solving the traffic light problem

In everyday routines, there are multiple situations of high traffic congestion, especially in large cities. Traffic light timed regulated intersections are one of the solutions used to improve traffic flow without the need for large-scale and costly infrastructure changes. A specific situation where traffic lights are used is on single-lane roads, often found on roads under maintenance, narrow roads or bridges where it is impossible to have two lanes. In this paper, a simulation-optimization strategy is tested for this scenario. A Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm is used to find the optimal solution to the traffic light timing problem in order to reduce the waiting times for crossing the lane in a simulated vehicle system. To assess vehicle waiting times, a network is implemented using the Simulation of Urban MObility software. The performance of the PSO is analyzed by testing different parameters of the algorithm in solving the optimization problem. The results of the traffic light time optimization show that the proposed methodology is able to obtain a decrease of almost 26% in the average waiting times.This work has been supported by FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R &D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020 and the project “Integrated and Innovative Solutions for the well-being of people in complex urban centers” within the Project Scope NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000086

Lean Learning Factories: Concepts from the Past Updated to the Future

Part 1: Learning LeanInternational audienceLean Production has its roots in the Toyota Production System, introduced before World War II, and is constantly evolving. Its importance as an organizational management model triggers the need to teach it in the academy. Promptly, Lean Education is being taught all over the world. However, teaching Lean using traditional expositive lectures is not effective, and many academics and practitioners are using active learning methodologies. Lean and Learning Factories, which are two concepts that come from the past, are more than alive nowadays. This paper presents a literature review regarding Lean Learning Factories, based on a scientific articles research at Scopus database. The review was conducted for the period from 1990 to 2021 and resulted in a total of 76 papers. Main findings revealed that the first articles within the context of Lean Learning Factories were published in 2006. The learning factories initiatives were developed by universities and the most used learning strategies are simulations and gamification. Also, the latest configurations of these are in Germany, Austria, and Croatia. The results revealed an increase in the number of publications since 2015, reaching 14 publications in 2020

Bloom Taxonomy, Serious Games and Lean Learning: What Do These Topics Have in Common?

Part 7: Skills and Knowledge ManagementInternational audienceLean Thinking principles and methods, in the context of highly valued production systems, are seen as the best practices and essential for competitiveness. Therefore, it requires educators, students, and employees well trained and prepared in Lean concepts to meet these demands. In this context, gamification is becoming a popular resource among educators who aim to train the principles of Lean Thinking. Among educators, Bloom’s taxonomy is an objective-based assessment as it approaches a high level of detail when defining learning objectives. In the context of this paper, Bloom’s Taxonomy encompasses the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, to identify learning outcomes in serious games. This paper presents a literature review based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, Serious Games and Lean learning. With this review, the authors intend to find evidence that Serious Games are suitable for Lean learning to reach the highest order level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Fourteen papers were identified in this review discussing the three topics. In just three of these papers, it was identified such evidence

Developing lean competencies through serious games

Lean Production is a methodology largely implemented across industries and services. This methodology adds value to companies, as it derives from the main idea "doing more with less", where less means with fewer resources, less product development time, less human effort, among others to provide high performance in daily activities. As a company requires adequacy of Lean Thinking, the philosophy behind Lean Production, it leads to a concern in the manner of training and educating of its employees. Lean Thinking requires competencies to be successfully understood and pursued all the time. Partly due to human and social capital being key factors for the functioning of society and economy, in recent years there has been an increased interest in competencies, as knowledge and skills are not enough anymore. In this context, higher education engineering and innovative organizations seeks to complement the training of theirstudentsandprofessionals, through specific courses with serious games simulating typical day-to-day issues in business matters. The serious games methodology involve “learning by doing”, in which students can develop and improve skill sets in real-world context, recognizing themselves as protagonists of their learning. Experiential learning or “learning by doing”, does notonly implyexposition of the theory, but the resolution of an unstructured problem, it also proposes decision-making to solve such a problem. Thus, the Lean Thinking mind-set needs serious games and other active learning methodologies to become truly meaningful and to provide new competencies to the professional. This mind-set is a valuable differential in the current market, with increasingly flexible job rotations, more on-demand jobs than long-term contracts, and its demand of skills incompetitions, like quick learning and logical reasoning. This articlediscussesthe importance of serious games for Lean students and professionals to acquire competencies. The research was, predominantlThis work has been supported by FCT Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020

Running workshops to identify wastes in a product development sample shop

Lean Thinkingaligned with Information technology can promote competitiveness for modern enterprises, while improve the performance of technological activities and eliminate no value-added tasks to the design process of product. The paper is a contextualization of the current wastes evidenced during the research work carried out in a company that supplies electronic components to automotive industry. Workshops were developed to map the wastes in the sample production processes, as all interested parties are seeing, discussing and learning together in a freely-open environment. The workshops promoted the identification of 60 types of waste, and 26 roots cause. In order to solve scientifically the root causes problems, the production procedures will be readjusted by adopting production guidelines according to the principles of Lean, and some digitization measures will also be considered. The evidence from the workshops demonstrates that the main types of waste reported in the present literature can also be observed in complex projects.This work is supported by: European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project nº 039479; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247- FEDER- 039479]

Leaning processes by mobile technologies in a Product Development Sample Shop

Lean Thinking is a well-known management philosophy pulling continuous improvement in all organizations processes. By doing this, solutions are designed to add value to the product by reducing wastes in the processes. The wastes could be identified by Value Stream Design for indirect Areas (VSDiA) tool. This tool increase company awareness of each complete process and allows improvement opportunities. Such improvements, many times related to better material and information flow, lead to a reduction of product lead-time. Technology is fundamental to support such improvements. In this article, a multidisciplinary team carried out a project in a company aiming to reduce the lead time in the product prototype development process using the VSDiA and technological solutions via a mobile application. This article presents the ongoing work towards an interface for digitizing information flow using a mobile application that is being submitted to the user's test.This work is supported by: European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project no 039479; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039479]