A digital smart product service system and a case study of the mining industry: MSPSS

Mining equipment products and services no longer meet the needs of future development in the mining industry due to high safety and operational risk. The deep integration of the product-service system (PSS) and digitization is required in the mining industry to promote industry transformation and safe and efficient production without changing the traditional operation mode. This paper proposes a smart product-service system for the mining industry (MSPSS) consisting of a smart product subsystem, stakeholders, smart service subsystem, and smart decision-making subsystem. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and virtual reality (VR) are used for decision-making, product selection, operation, and maintenance. The smart product subsystem outputs reliable digital products using three stages: digital design, virtual simulation and planning, and virtual debugging. The smart service subsystem is driven by data and digital technology and provides fault diagnosis and online maintenance services for complex mining products. A case study indicates that all stakeholders can participate seamlessly in the design process. The smart product subsystem uses iterative optimization (more than 100 iterations) to obtain the design results interactively. The smart service subsystem provides digitalized services throughout the entire process. Thus, a stable, reliable, and comprehensive product and service solution is provided for complex mining conditions. The output is used to guide the design, debugging, and operation of physical equipment. The MSPSS has higher design quality and efficiency, a shorter design time, and lower design cost (key performance indicator (KPI)) than the traditional design method.     

A Web-enabled product definition and customization system for product conceptualization

Abstract: Owing to rapidly changing customer needs and much shorter product life cycles, for developing a successful product it is imperative to employ more efficient and flexible approaches for product conceptualization. To meet this demand, a Web-enabled product definition and customization system (PDCS) is proposed, from a design-knowledge-handling viewpoint, in this paper. It comprises two phases, namely product definition based on the laddering technique and a novel design knowledge hierarchy, and product customization based on an integrated methodology of conjoint analysis and Kohonen association techniques. Basically, this system is a method of conducting design decision-making via customer involvement, i.e. a strategy for transforming customer preference into a specific product concept. A case study on wood golf club design is used to illustrate and validate the proposed Web-enabled PDCS.     

Simulation-supported change process for product customization - A case study in a garment company

Due to the increasing competition in global markets, many European garment manufacturers have had to undergo significant restructuring and were forced to create leaner value-adding processes. As a result, the majority of the manufacturing operations have been outsourced to low labor cost countries. At the same time, production logistics as well as information and communication technologies have gained importance, in order to keep job functions requiring higher qualifications within Europe. Another challenge concerns the introduction of customized products into the production processes which previously had been designed for manufacturing of large volumes. Prior to implementing such changes, the consequences with respect to production logistics as well as the financial impacts should be examined. The case study presented in this paper uses a simulation tool for these purposes. Different scenarios developed for a garment company were analyzed. Based on the results, recommendations for the further development of the regarded company were deduced.     

软件产品大规模定制及演化的一种新模型

模型立足于为资源有限的软件企业提供灵活的软件产品大规模定制及演化方案。采用以软件产品线原型为中心的振荡上升模型来实现软件大规模定制,在大规模定制的过程中不断提升整个软件产品线的质量,并同步完成产品线的升级维护工作。整个模型考虑了软件企业在各种资源上的不足,尽量设计得轻型、敏捷,以便能容易地应用于实践。     

Towards product customization: An integrated order fulfillment system

To stay competitive, manufacturing companies nowadays pursue product customization; and configure-to-order (CTO) has been recognized as an ideal business model to implement product customization. Due to the complexities resulting from the large number of customized products, an increased attention has been paid to the order fulfillment process in CTO. However, most of the solutions delivered either focus on own interested areas without considering the impacts from/on the others or approach order fulfillment processes from a strategic level. In view of the limitations of existing solutions and the significance of order fulfillment activity automation and integration, this study considers the entire spectrum of order fulfillment process at an operational level and, proposes an integrated order fulfillment system (IOFS). The IOFS is designed to (1) automatically execute order processing, which is conventionally undertaken in a face-to-face manner; (2) configure products and process plans based on product and process family models; and (3) allow real-time data extraction and sharing of the latest information. Therefore, it assists companies to quickly respond to diverse customer requirements and deliver the expected products at low costs. An industrial example of turn unit assemblies is presented to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of the IOFS for product customization.     

Applying review and product metrics to the software engineering process: a case study

This paper describes the creation and initial implementation of a measurement programme to Eastman Kodak's Printer Products Division software engineering process. This measurement strategy is being applied to all appropriate programmes within the division. This case study describes one project where a simple set of metrics have improved the quality of our software products and the process used to develop the software. It describes the steps taken to create and implement, and the successes and problems encountered during software development.     

Mass personalization strategy under Industrial Internet of Things: A case study on furniture production

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is characterized by digitalization, networking, and smartness, which opens a world of the interconnection of all things and makes mass personalization possible. As a result, traditional industrial firms are forced to change their operation mode from the manufacture-oriented one to the manufacture-and-service-oriented type. In particular, furniture production is a typical domain featured by mass personalization from networking, where order selection (service aspect) and board cutting (manufacture aspect) are mainly concerned. We formulate customized furniture production as a multi-objective optimization problem and propose two algorithms to solve it, i.e., an integrated algorithm and a two-stage decoupling algorithm. As a secondary, the robust mixed-integer linear optimization algorithm is proposed to deal with the uncertainty such as fluctuations in production capacity and raw materials cost. The numerical experiments using real industrial data demonstrate that the proposed algorithms effectively improve firms’ operational efficiency by achieving a balance between service and manufacture. Moreover, they present remarkable performance under various circumstances. The developed methods could apply to a wide range of mass personalization for related manufacturing scenarios of IIoT with digital servitization, including computer, communication, and consumer electronics products (3C products) machining, automobile accessory production, and chip manufacturing.     

Performance variability in software product lines: proposing theories from a case study

In the software product line research, product variants typically differ by their functionality and quality attributes are not purposefully varied. The goal is to study purposeful performance variability in software product lines, in particular, the motivation to vary performance, and the strategy for realizing performance variability in the product line architecture. The research method was a theory-building case study that was augmented with a systematic literature review. The case was a mobile network base station product line with capacity variability. The data collection, analysis and theorizing were conducted in several stages: the initial case study results were augmented with accounts from the literature. We constructed three theoretical models to explain and characterize performance variability in software product lines: the models aim to be generalizable beyond the single case. The results describe capacity variability in a base station product line. Thereafter, theoretical models of performance variability in software product lines in general are proposed. Performance variability is motivated by customer needs and characteristics, by trade-offs and by varying operating environment constraints. Performance variability can be realized by hardware or software means; moreover, the software can either realize performance differences in an emergent way through impacts from other variability or by utilizing purposeful varying design tactics. The results point out two differences compared with the prevailing literature. Firstly, when the customer needs and characteristics enable price differentiation, performance may be varied even with no trade-offs or production cost differences involved. Secondly, due to the dominance of feature modeling, the literature focuses on the impact management realization. However, performance variability can be realized through purposeful design tactics to downgrade the available software resources and by having more efficient hardware.     

Assessing architectural drift in commercial software development: a case study

Objectives: Software architecture is perceived as one of the most important artefacts created during a system's design. However, implementations often diverge from their intended architectures: a phenomenon called architectural drift. The objective of this research is to assess the occurrence of architectural drift in the context of de novo software development, to characterize it, and to evaluate whether its detection leads to inconsistency removal. Method: An in vivo, longitudinal case study was performed during the development of a commercial software system, where an approach based on Reflexion Modelling was employed to detect architectural drift. Observation and think‐aloud data, captured during the system's development, were assessed for the presence and types of architectural drift. When divergences were identified, the data were further analysed to see if identification led to the removal of these divergences. Results: The analysed system diverged from the intended architecture, during the initial implementation of the system. Surprisingly however, this work showed that Reflexion Modelling served to conceal some of the inconsistencies, a finding that directly contradicts the high regard that this technique enjoys as an architectural evaluation tool. Finally, the analysis illustrated that detection of inconsistencies was insufficient to prompt their removal, in the small, informal team context studied. Conclusions: Although the utility of the approach for detecting inconsistencies was demonstrated in most cases, it also served to hide several inconsistencies and did not act as a trigger for their removal. Hence additional efforts must be taken to lessen architectural drift and several improvements in this regard are suggested. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

User-controllable personalization: A case study with SetFusion

In this research we investigated the role of user controllability on personalized systems by implementing and studying a novel interactive recommender interface, SetFusion. We examined whether allowing the user to control the process of fusing or integrating different algorithms (i.e., different sources of relevance) resulted in increased engagement and a better user experience. The essential contribution of this research stems from the results of a user study (N=40) of controllability in a scenario where users could fuse different recommendation approaches, with the possibility of inspecting and filtering the items recommended. First, we introduce an interactive Venn diagram visualization, which combined with sliders, can provide an efficient visual paradigm for information filtering. Second, we provide a three-fold evaluation of the user experience: objective metrics, subjective user perception, and behavioral measures. Through the analysis of these metrics, we confirmed results from recent studies, such as the effect of trusting propensity on accepting the recommendations and also unveiled the importance of features such as being a native speaker. Our results present several implications for the design and implementation of user-controllable personalized systems.     

Assessing software product line potential: an exploratory industrial case study

Corporate organizations sometimes offer similar software products in certain domains due to former company mergers or due to the complexity of the organization. The functional overlap of such products is an opportunity for future systematic reuse to reduce software development and maintenance costs. Therefore, we have tailored existing domain analysis methods to our organization to identify commonalities and variabilities among such products and to assess the potential for software product line (SPL) approaches. As an exploratory case study, we report on our experiences and lessons learned from conducting the domain analysis in four application cases with large-scale software products. We learned that the outcome of a domain analysis was often a smaller integration scenario instead of an SPL and that business case calculations were less relevant for the stakeholders and managers from the business units during this phase. We also learned that architecture reconstruction using a simple block diagram notation aids domain analysis and that large parts of our approach were reusable across application cases.     

Incorporating customization and personalization into game-based learning: A cognitive style perspective

In recent years, customization and personalization were widely applied to accommodate the needs of different cognitive style groups. Such two approaches have different advantages and disadvantages but there is a lack of studies to compare these two approaches from the perspective of game-based learning, which is currently popular in educational settings. To this end, we developed a customized game-based learning system and a personalized game-based learning system and conducted two empirical studies to examine how cognitive styles affected learner's reactions to these two game-based learning systems. The results from the customized game-based learning system showed that Holists might not always favor to listen to music because they frequently switched on/off music. On the other hand, Serialists did not prefer to use hints. In addition, learners with the customized game-based learning system had more positive perceptions while learners with the personalized game-based learning system had more negative perceptions though both systems were useful to enhance learners' learning performance, regardless of their cognitive styles.     

Using open source software in product development: a primer

There are important legal aspects involved in using open source software in commercial products. Here are answers to common questions on how to handle these issues to mitigate risk. The use of open source software in industrial products is growing rapidly because its many advantages are well known. However although we in industry understand liability and intellectual-property-right risks fairly well, the implication of OSS-related legal and managerial issues are new to many of us. Legal aspects can vary greatly from one piece of OSS to another depending on the license scheme used. We discuss the major legal aspects and risks in using OSS and how to mitigate them in product development. We've ordered the information in a top-down approach, starting with a definition of OSS, its benefits, and then some risks and experiences with managing it in software engineering practice.     

支持多类终端与服务定制的SaaS软件服务架构

由软件即服务(SaaS)模式中软件服务的概念与特点分析,可知现有的面向服务架构(SOA)不能完全支持软件服务的实现。此外,为了拓展软件服务的应用范围,实现多样化的服务,SaaS模式的软件服务必然要满足用户定制服务的需求,以及对多类用户终端的支持。通过对SOA的扩展,在其中引入了软件服务终端、软件服务端口、软件服务注册等模块,提出了一种支持多类终端与服务定制的SaaS软件服务架构,给出了该架构的结构与工作流程,并通过实验证明了该架构可以实现SaaS模式的软件服务,而且能够实现对上述功能需求的支持。     

Measuring software quality: a case study

The National Security Agency's (NSA) mission is to provide support for the security of the United States. Over the years, the Agency has become extremely dependent on the software that makes up its information technology infrastructure. NSA has come to view software as a critical resource upon which much of the world's security, prosperity, and economic competitiveness increasingly rests. To ensure cost effective delivery of high quality software, NSA has analyzed effective quality measures applied to a sample code base of 25 million lines. This case study dramatically illustrates the benefits of code level measurement activities     

Value-based software engineering: a case study

The information technology field's accelerating rate of change makes feedback control essential for organizations to sense, evaluate, and adapt to changing value propositions in their competitive marketplace. Although traditional project feedback control mechanisms can manage the development efficiency of stable projects in well-established value situations, they do little to address the project's actual value, and can lead to wasteful misuse of an organization's scarce resources. The value-based approach to software development integrates value considerations into current and emerging software engineering principles and practices, while developing an overall framework in which these techniques compatibly reinforce each other.     

Wiki as a corporate learning tool: case study for software development company

In our study, we attempted to further investigate how Web 2.0 technologies influence workplace learning. Our particular interest was on using Wiki as a tool for corporate exchange of knowledge with the focus on informal learning. In this study, we collaborated with a multinational software development company that uses Wiki as a corporate tool since 2001. For our research, we used three different sources for acquisition of data. Primarily, we did an interview with top management. Next we acquired the data on usage statistics from the company Wiki. And finally we distributed a questionnaire in order to acquire users' feedback. Analysis provided many interesting results. One of the main conclusions is that Wiki is successfully used in this company, and large majority of employees finds it useful. Additionally, Wiki did aid informal learning, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.     

Integrating lean and other strategies for mass customization manufacturing: a case study

Mass customization (MC) manufacturing requires high flexibility to respond to customer needs in a timely manner. Lean manufacturing principles can be easily applied to situations with low levels of MC. However, as the degree of customization increases and customer involvement occurs earlier in the design and fabrication stages, the direct application of lean principles to maintain flow and low levels of inventory becomes difficult. This paper presents a framework to show how other strategies such as Quick Response manufacturing/POLCA, Theory of Constraints, Flexible/Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems, etc. can be integrated with lean in MC environments. A case study of boat mass customizer is then used to demonstrate how their operations are transformed by for more efficient MC. Simulation models are used to compare pre- and post-improvement performance.