Identification of the domain of opportunities for a market of resources for virtual enterprise integration

In the aggressive and competitive business environment of today, enterprises are expected to achieve competitive advantages in synergy, under the format of reconfigurable global networked structures, such as the virtual enterprise (VE) organizational model, integrating the optimal resources (products, operations, services) for each of the functions that the enterprise undertakes, in order to produce a product that meets the market requirements. The literature shows that several Internet-based tools can be used to enable some activities of VE integration. However, as we demonstrate, these do not support the reconfiguration dynamics required by this organizational model. Alternatively, the authors propose the market of resources (MR) as an environment to fully support VE integration, coping with its intrinsic requirement of high reconfigurability. Based on a demonstrator developed for the MR and on cost models traducing VE integration, one for the (traditional) Internet-based tools and the other for the MR, to support an analytical simulation, the paper validates the thesis that the traditional tools cannot support agility and dynamics, presenting the MR as a VE enabler, and identifying the domain of situations where the utilization of the MR reveals increased efficiency in terms of search and selection time and cost—designated as opportunities domain.     

Industry 4.0: state of the art and future trends

Rapid advances in industrialisation and informatisation methods have spurred tremendous progress in developing the next generation of manufacturing technology. Today, we are on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In 2013, amongst one of 10 ‘Future Projects’ identified by the German government as part of its High-Tech Strategy 2020 Action Plan, the Industry 4.0 project is considered to be a major endeavour for Germany to establish itself as a leader of integrated industry. In 2014, China’s State Council unveiled their ten-year national plan, Made-in-China 2025, which was designed to transform China from the world’s workshop into a world manufacturing power. Made-in-China 2025 is an initiative to comprehensively upgrade China’s industry including the manufacturing sector. In Industry 4.0 and Made-in-China 2025, many applications require a combination of recently emerging new technologies, which is giving rise to the emergence of Industry 4.0. Such technologies originate from different disciplines including cyber-physical Systems, IoT, cloud computing, Industrial Integration, Enterprise Architecture, SOA, Business Process Management, Industrial Information Integration and others. At this present moment, the lack of powerful tools still poses a major obstacle for exploiting the full potential of Industry 4.0. In particular, formal methods and systems methods are crucial for realising Industry 4.0, which poses unique challenges. In this paper, we briefly survey the state of the art in the area of Industry 4.0 as it relates to industries.     

Assessing the effects of manufacturing infrastructure preparation prior to enterprise information-systems implementation

Reports on the success or failure of enterprise information system (EIS) implementation have been decidedly mixed. In this study, we focus on manufacturing infrastructure preparation prior to EIS implementation and report the results of a survey of 152 US manufacturing companies that have implemented EIS. We have provided four major findings in this study: (1) the requirements from customers and trading partners are more powerful drivers motivating US manufacturing firms to implementing enterprise systems than internal business planning needs; (2) one manufacturing infrastructural issue often has implications for other infrastructural items in implementing technology, so various manufacturing infrastructural issues should be prepared simultaneously; (3) manufacturing infrastructure preparation prior to EIS implementation has significant positive effects on customer-focused performance, production/operations performance, and financial performance; and (4) better customer-focused performance contributes to better financial performance.     

A unified product structure management for enterprise business process integration throughout the product lifecycle

Information availability is a key factor for business success and competitive advantage. While created by design engineers, product structure is accessed and referenced by other users involved in product lifecycle from various departments. However, there is a lack of efficient ways of managing product structure information for enterprise business process integration. This study proposes a unified product structure management model to fill in this gap. With this proposed model, the product structure is managed in a unified way and can be accessed by different people with various disciplines in the right formats throughout the entire product lifecycle, including business processes of quotation, sales order processing, design, planning, scheduling, production, and delivery. This research is part of the enterprise business information management system project whose purpose is to streamline the information management for key business processes to integrate multi-disciplines in an enterprise for product development. A prototype system has been implemented to verify the model developed by taking real cases in a mould-manufacturing company. The results show the potential for substantial improvements in industrial competitive advantage.     

快速模具网络化制造服务平台的研究与开发

本文提出并建立了快速模具网络化制造服务平台。该平台以快速发展的计算机网络和信息技术为支撑工具，通过在远程用户、服务中心和协同制造企业建立一个协同生产制造的环境，实现制造资源的共享和技术资源的优势互补，缩短了模具的生产制造周期。众多的案例研究表明该系统对提高中小企业新产品的快速开发具有很大的潜能。     

Designing for creativity: A state of the art review

This review concerns itself with the so-called structured aids to creative behaviour. The published literature is outlined and shown to be extensive but fragmentary, diffuse and inconclusive. Four major families of techniques are discussed: brainstorming, synectics, morphological analysis and lateral thinking. Some less well known techniques are also considered briefly, and the problem of classification considered. There is little evidence of an accepted body of knowledge or paradigm, and the field contains contradictory results. It is argued that more attention needs to be directed towards understanding relationships between what the techniques are supposed to be doing on a theoretical level, and what they seem to be achieving in practice. Some fruitful areas for research and for practical actions are suggested, and an attempt has been made to summarize current views of practitioners that have not yet found widespread diffusion.     

离子交换膜的重大国家需求和创新研究

离子交换膜的发展可以追溯到60年前,也是我国最早开发的膜过程,目前已经从当初实验室的研究走向不同工业的应用,特别是近年来,随着国家对环境保护的不断重视,以离子交换膜为基础的过程由于能够实现离子的定向或者选择性迁移,在环境保护、清洁生产和分离等具有举足轻重的地位.本文针对国家目前的产业发展政策阐述了离子交换膜的重大国家需求及其创新研究,对今后该领域的发展进行了展望.     

Motorcycle helmets—A state of the art review

This paper tries to make an overview of the work carried out by scientific community in the area of road helmets safety. In an area that is constantly being pushed forward by market competition, self-awareness of danger and tighter standards, several research groups around the world have contributed to safety gear improvement.     

基于SOA的企业应用框架与实现研究

针对如何整合企业应用资源,提出了基于SOA的企业应用集成架构,针对建立的集成架构,对其核心业务层的基础服务进行了设计,包括业务流程引擎、消息可靠性传输和安全管理服务．     

Reinforced concrete beams with web openings: A state of the art review

The construction of modern buildings requires many pipes and ducts in order to accommodate essential services such as air conditioning, electricity, telephone, and computer network. Web openings in concrete beams enable the installation of these services. A number of studies have been conducted with regards to reinforced concrete beams which contain web openings. The present paper aims to compile this state of the art work on the behaviour, analysis and design of Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams with transverse web openings. A variety of aspects will be highlighted and discussed including the classification of openings, guidelines for opening location, and the structural behaviour of RC beams with web openings. Various design approaches will also be detailed, for example the American Concrete Institute (ACI) approach, the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) approach and the strut and tie method. Moreover, the strengthening of RC beams with openings using Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) material and steel plates is presented. Finally, directions for future research based on the gaps which exist in the present work are presented.     

Ontologies in the context of product lifecycle management: state of the art literature review

The use of ontologies in the context of product lifecycle management (PLM) is gaining importance and popularity, while at the same time it generates a lot of controversy in discussions within scientific and engineering communities. Yet, what is ontology? What challenges have been addressed so far? What role does ontology play? Do we really need ontology? These are the core questions this paper seeks to address. We propose to conduct a comprehensive study of the concept of Ontology firstly in its domain of origin, Philosophy, and secondly in information science. Based on the understanding of this concept and an in-depth analysis of the state of the art, seven key roles of ontology are defined. These roles serve as a framework describing the general state of research on the use of ontologies in the context of PLM.     

Biochemical attack on concrete in wastewater applications: A state of the art review

The costs associated with the provision and maintenance of drinking water and wastewater infrastructure represents a significant financial demand worldwide. Maintenance costs are disproportionately high, indicating a lack of adequate durability. There remains a lack of consensus on degradation mechanisms, the performance of various cement types, the role of bacteria in the corrosion process associated with wastewater applications and testing methodologies. This paper presents a review of the literature, outlining the various research approaches undertaken in an effort to address this problem. The findings of these varying approaches are compared, and the different strategies employed are compiled and discussed. It is proposed that a key step in advancing the understanding of the associated deterioration mechanism is a combined approach that considers the interaction between biological and chemical processes. If this can be achieved then steps can be taken to establishing a performance-based approach for specifying concrete in these harsh service conditions.     

Precision viticulture: The state of the art

The growth and collection of grapes or Viticulture is essential for producing various consumer products. Herein, we identified patents registered in the viticulture and wine areas, extracted specific information such as the applicant, country of origin and patent classification and analyzed the collected data. The filing frequencies and maps according to country and applicant were generated. Our analysis revealed two large patent groups and demonstrated that China is the top patent-producing country, rapidly acquiring substantial viticulture-related intellectual property. This study provides insights into the state of the art in viticulture and could be also be used to evaluate other business sectors.     

Simulation of safety: A review of the state of the art in road safety simulation modelling

Recent decades have seen considerable growth in computer capabilities, data collection technology and communication mediums. This growth has had considerable impact on our ability to replicate driver behaviour and understand the processes involved in failures in the traffic system. From time to time it is necessary to assess the level of development as a basis of determining how far we have come. This paper sets out to assess the state of the art in the use of computer models to simulate and assess the level of safety in existing and future traffic systems. It reviews developments in the area of road safety simulation models. In particular, it reviews computer models of driver and vehicle behaviour within a road context. It focuses on stochastic numerical models of traffic behaviour and how reliable these are in estimating levels of safety on the traffic network. Models of this type are commonly used in the assessment of traffic systems for capacity, delay and general performance. Adding safety to this assessment regime may allow more comprehensive assessment of future traffic systems. To date the models have focused primarily on vehicular traffic that is, cars and heavy vehicles. It has been shown that these models have potential in measuring the level of conflict on parts of the network and the measure of conflict correlated well with crash statistics. Interest in the prediction of crashes and crash severity is growing and new models are focusing on the continuum of general traffic conditions, conflict, severe conflict, crash and severe crashes. The paper also explores the general data types used to develop, calibrate and validate these models. Recent technological development in in-vehicle data collection, driver simulators and machine learning offers considerable potential for improving the behavioural base, rigour and application of road safety simulation models. The paper closes with some indication of areas of future development.     

Poly(3-hydroxyalkanoate)s: Diversification and biomedical applications: A state of the art review

Biomaterials have played an important role in the treatment of disease and the improvement of health care. Synthetic and naturally occurring biodegradable and biocompatible polymers have been used as biomaterials. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are promising materials for biomedical applications because they are biodegradable, non-toxic and biocompatible. We will shortly summarize the modification reactions, which include functionalization and grafting reactions, to improve the mechanical, thermal and hydrophilic properties of PHAs. The use of the modified PHAs in numerous biomedical applications, such as sutures, cardiovascular patches, wound dressings, scaffolds in tissue engineering, tissue repair/regeneration devices, drug carriers will be discussed in this review.     

Critical review of the state of the art in multi-material fabrication via directed energy deposition

Directed energy deposition (DED) is an additive manufacturing technique that employs laser melting to permit for the free form manufacturing of components from many input materials from powder or wire form of feedstock. The nature of DED processes and advancements thereof has led to research that has been aimed at leveraging this additive manufacturing technology for the fabrication of high-value metallic alloys in addition to the exploration of multi-material composites and components – many of which are only possible to produce via DED. Herein, a critical review of the present body of research regarding DED of multi-materials is presented. Assessed are the developing research trends, design methodologies, common issues and challenges, as well as identification of the areas where further research should be directed.