A Construction Management Framework for Mass Customisation in Traditional Construction

A Mass Customisation model is discussed as a competitive positioning strategy in the marketplace adding value to the customer’s end-use. It includes the user as part of the construction process responding to the customer’s demands and wishes. To the present day, almost all proposals for Mass Customisation have been focused on the design phase and single family houses. The reality is that the processes carried out in the work execution are so inefficient that the costs of the Mass Customisation models are assumed by the customer and they do not offer solutions that support the change management. Furthermore, this inefficiency often makes Mass Customisation unfeasible in terms of deadlines and site management. Therefore, the present proposal focuses on achieving the paradigm of Mass Customisation in the traditional residential construction complementary to the existing proposals in the design phase. All this through the proposal of a framework for the integral management in the work execution, which will address change management introduced by the users offering an efficient and productive model that reduces costs in the process. This model will focus on the synergy between different strategies, techniques and technologies currently used in the construction management (such as Lean Construction or Six Sigma), together with, other strategies and technologies that have proven to be valid solutions in other fields (such as Business Process Management, Service Oriented Architecture, etc.).This work was supported in part by the Vicerrectorado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, University of Alicante and by the Conselleria d'Educació, Cultura i Esport, Generalitat Valenciana

Worst-case scenario analysis of physical demands in elite men handball players by playing position through big data analytics

The physical demands of intermittent sports require a preparation based, by definition, on high-intensity actions and variable recovery periods. Innovative local positioning systems make it possible to track players during matches and collect their distance, speed, and acceleration data. The purpose of this study was to describe the worst-case scenarios of high-performance handball players within 5-minute periods and per playing position. The sample was composed of 180 players (27 goalkeepers, 44 wings, 56 backs, 23 centre backs and 30 line players) belonging to the first eight highest ranked teams participating in the European Men’s Handball Championship held in January 2022. They were followed during the 28 matches they played through a local positioning system worn on their upper bodies. Total and high-speed distance covered (m), pace (m/min), player load (a.u.) and high-intensity accelerations and decelerations (n) were recorded for the twelve 5-min periods of each match. Data on full-time player average and peak demands were included in the analysis according to each playing position. A systematic three-phase analysis process was designed: 1) information capture of match activities and context through sensor networks, the LPS system, and WebScraping techniques; 2) information processing based on big data analytics; 3) extraction of results based on a descriptive analytics approach. The descriptive cross-sectional study of worst-case scenarios revealed an ~17% increment in total distance covered and pace, with a distinct ~51% spike in high-intensity actions. Significant differences between playing positions were found, with effect sizes ranging from moderate to very large (0.7–5.1). Line players, in particular, showed a lower running pace peak (~10 m/min) and wings ran longer distances at high speed (> 4.4 m/s) than the rest of the field players (~76 m). The worst-case scenario assessment of handball player locomotion demands will help handball coaches and physical trainers to design tasks that replicate these crucial match moments, thus improving performance based on a position-specific approach

Support System for Early Diagnosis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Based on the Service-Oriented Architecture Paradigm and Business Process Management Strategy: Development and Usability Survey Among Patients and Health Care Providers

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic respiratory disease with a high global prevalence. The main scientific societies dedicated to the management of this disease have published clinical practice guidelines for quality practice. However, at present, there are important weaknesses in COPD diagnosis criteria that often lead to underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis. Objective: We sought to develop a new support system for COPD diagnosis. The system was designed to overcome the weaknesses detected in current guidelines with the goals of enabling early diagnosis, and improving the diagnostic accuracy and quality of care provided. Methods: We first analyzed the main clinical guidelines for COPD to detect weaknesses that exist in the current diagnostic process, and then proposed a redesign based on a business process management (BPM) strategy for its optimization. The BPM system acts as a backbone throughout the process of COPD diagnosis in this proposed approach. The newly developed support system was integrated into a health information system for validation of its use in a hospital environment. The system was qualitatively evaluated by experts (n=12) and patients (n=36). Results: Among the 12 experts, 10 (83%) positively evaluated our system with respect to increasing the speed for making the diagnosis, helping in interpreting results, and encouraging opportunistic diagnosis. With an overall rating of 4.29 on a 5-point scale, 27/36 (75%) of patients considered that the system was very useful in providing a warning about possible cases of COPD. The overall assessment of the system was 4.53 on a 5-point Likert scale with agreement to extend its use to all primary care centers. Conclusions: The proposed system provides a functional method to overcome the weaknesses detected in the current diagnostic process for COPD, which can help foster early diagnosis, while improving the diagnostic accuracy and quality of care provided.AR received financial support from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BES-2015-073611)

A Context-Driven Model for the Flat Roofs Construction Process through Sensing Systems, Internet-of-Things and Last Planner System

The main causes of building defects are errors in the design and the construction phases. These causes related to construction are mainly due to the general lack of control of construction work and represent approximately 75% of the anomalies. In particular, one of the main causes of such anomalies, which end in building defects, is the lack of control over the physical variables of the work environment during the execution of tasks. Therefore, the high percentage of defects detected in buildings that have the root cause in the construction phase could be avoidable with a more accurate and efficient control of the process. The present work proposes a novel integration model based on information and communications technologies for the automation of both construction work and its management at the execution phase, specifically focused on the flat roof construction process. Roofs represent the second area where more defects are claimed. The proposed model is based on a Web system, supported by a service oriented architecture, for the integral management of tasks through the Last Planner System methodology, but incorporating the management of task restrictions from the physical environment variables by designing specific sensing systems. Likewise, all workers are integrated into the management process by Internet-of-Things solutions that guide them throughout the execution process in a non-intrusive and transparent way

SOA-Based Model for Value-Added ITS Services Delivery

Integration is currently a key factor in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), especially because of the ever increasing service demands originating from the ITS industry and ITS users. The current ITS landscape is made up of multiple technologies that are tightly coupled, and its interoperability is extremely low, which limits ITS services generation. Given this fact, novel information technologies (IT) based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm have begun to introduce new ways to address this problem. The SOA paradigm allows the construction of loosely coupled distributed systems that can help to integrate the heterogeneous systems that are part of ITS. In this paper, we focus on developing an SOA-based model for integrating information technologies (IT) into ITS to achieve ITS service delivery. To develop our model, the ITS technologies and services involved were identified, catalogued, and decoupled. In doing so, we applied our SOA-based model to integrate all of the ITS technologies and services, ranging from the lowest-level technical components, such as roadside unit as a service (RS S), to the most abstract ITS services that will be offered to ITS users (value-added services). To validate our model, a functionality case study that included all of the components of our model was designed

Network service providing by means of embedded systems

In this paper we present an embedded device able to manage the remote boot of network nodes by means of Wake on LAN (WoL) through Internet and wide area network, presenting it as a Web service. The service is known as WoLI and comprises a network device, a group of embedded software applications in that device and an application protocol known as WoLIP. This device is small and requires only minimal maintenance, and is able to communicate via Wide Area Networks through embedded applications, using the WoLIP application protocol defined on SOAP massages and defined by means of WSDL documents. The mechanism used for booting up the devices is compatible with WoL technology. The service can be perfectly integrated with remote management systems based on SO A. The management and control of the device and the service may be carried out via Internet, using a standard Web browser. This approach is an example of the application of a more general proposal for managing network services, based on the use of small embedded network devices which provide specific functionalities for common use, and which are as autonomous and self sufficient as possible

Training Future ICT Engineers in the Field of Accessibility and Usability: A Methodological Experience

Nowadays, digital culture affects all levels of society. However, differences exist between individuals, commonly named as the “digital divide,” which impedes the equal access to the benefits of new technologies. The Usability and Accessibility (UA) module is a core, first-semester module during the first year of the Multimedia Engineering degree at the University of Alicante. The UA module’s main objective is to provide students with the necessary concepts and tools to design and develop products with usability and accessibility features, thus achieving end products that are more usable and accessible, regardless of the end users’ status, ability or situation. This paper presents a new learning methodology aimed at making students become everyday users of their own digital products. Daily use of these products improves the UA learning process, since students can appreciate their accessibility and usability in everyday life conditions for a better understanding of how their own design decisions affect potential users. A non-equivalent control group design with pre- and post-test control groups was used to test the research hypothesis. The results of this study showed a significant improvement in their academic performance compared to the control group.This work was supported in part by the I3CE Network Program of research in university teaching at the Institute of Educational Sciences of the University of Alicante (ICE call 2018-19)., Ref. 4331

Anomaly detection and virtual reality visualisation in supercomputers

Anomaly detection is the identification of events or observations that deviate from the expected behaviour of a given set of data. Its main application is the prediction of possible technical failures. In particular, anomaly detection on supercomputers is a difficult problem to solve due to the large scale of the systems and the large number of components. Most research works in this field employ machine learning methods and regression models in a supervised fashion, which implies the need for a large amount of labelled data to train such systems. This work proposes the use of autoencoder models, allowing the problem to be approached with semi-supervised learning techniques. Two different model training approaches are compared. The former is a model trained with data from all the nodes of a supercomputer. In the latter approach, observing significant differences between nodes, one model is trained for each node. The results are analysed by evaluating the positive and negative aspects of each approach. On the other hand, a replica of the Marconi 100 supercomputer is developed in a virtual reality environment that allows the data from each node to be visualised at the same time.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. We would like to thank “A way of making Europe” European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 for supporting this work under the MoDeaAS project (grant PID2019-104818RB-I00). Furthermore, we would like to thank the University of Skövde and to ASSAR Innovation Arena for their support to develop this work

A new paradigm: cloud agile manufacturing

Cloud Agile Manufacturing is a new paradigm proposed in this article. The main objective of Cloud Agile Manufacturing is to offer industrial production systems as a service. Thus users can access any functionality available in the cloud of manufacturing (process design, production, management, business integration, factories virtualization, etc.) without knowledge — or at least without having to be experts — in managing the required resources. The proposal takes advantage of many of the benefits that can offer technologies and models like: Business Process Management (BPM), Cloud Computing, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Ontologies. To develop the proposal has been taken as a starting point the Semantic Industrial Machinery as a Service (SIMaaS) proposed in previous work. This proposal facilitates the effective integration of industrial machinery in a computing environment, offering it as a network service. The work also includes an analysis of the benefits and disadvantages of the proposal

Integration of business and manufacturing processes through industrial machinery as a service approach

In manufacturing organizations is difficult to reach the requirements of the new business models (agile and dynamic adaptation to changes) due to technological and conceptual constraints between elements located at different levels of the organization, which prevents the integration of business and manufacturing processes. In this paper, a new industrial machinery model that achieves this integration has been proposed. This model, named IMaaS, shows the industrial machinery as a set of business processes, removing the conceptual constraints, and exposed as services, removing technology constraints.This work was supported in part by the Vicerrectorado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación, University of Alicante (Proyectos de investigación emergentes 2010: Sistema de gestión de procesos integral en entornos manufactureros. Aplicación a la fabricación ágil)