G. G. Vieira

Technologies Integration for Distributed Manufacturing Scheduling in a Virtual Enterprise

Distributed scheduling problems are challenging tasks to researchers and practitioners that have been gaining increasing popularity over the years. This is partly attributed to the fact that multi-site production and networked manufacturing environments are increasing as a consequence of globalisation. In this paper a system for technologies integration for supporting distributed scheduling in a Virtual Enterprise, by combining a simulation-based approach, with the Hungarian algorithm, for solving job-shop scheduling problems is presented, in order to show how we can benefit from this combination of procedures for distributed manufacturing scheduling.

A multi-perspective integrated framework of critical success factors for supporting on-line shopping

E-commerce promotes economic growth by enabling online shops to compete within a global market scenario. There are critical success factors that permit to distinguish a good business on the Internet and this knowledge may allow reaching an important competitive advantage for business sustainability. As many disciplines are involved, when determining critical success factors, e-commerce requires an effective coordination and integration in a collaborative way. In e-commerce, as well as in any other ecosystem, the breaking down of some integrating elements may provoke a collapse on the whole system. The various stakeholders involved in a given business should, therefore, be involved and work together to achieve a high quality product that fully satisfies the end customers needs and wishes. To meet the above requirement, this paper proposes a multi-perspective critical success factors (MPCSF) model for online shopping.

Intelligent Platform for Supervision and Production Activity Control in Real Time

Nowadays there is a need for platforms, methodologies and tools for enabling to enhance either project or production activity control along with maintenance activities within production companies. In order to help small companies to overcome these difficulties in this paper, we propose a platform that intends to enable these companies to acquire top software tools, at a low cost. Our proposed platform intends to integrate smart objects, able to communicate with central processors and computers, in a network-based environment, including a set of associated input and output devices. These devices enable precise data and information acquisition and processing, in order to better support production management and maintenance decision-making. The proposed platform enables to support decision-making at several distinct hierarchical decision levels within a company, from the shop floor up to higher strategic planning levels. In this paper, a module for supporting the attribution of operations to operators, based on the Hungarian algorithm is presented and briefly discussed.

Web-Based Decision System for Distributed Process Planning in a Networked Manufacturing Environment

Distributed manufacturing sector is increasingly enabling the Web-enabled services due to the advancements in Information technology and pervasive applications of recently advanced manufacturing systems. In this paper, world wide web (WWW) collaborative model is developed, and architecture with the web enabled service system for effective integration of distributed process planning and scheduling is proposed to assists the geographically distributed enterprises located in the context of networked manufacturing for effective coordination and collaboration. To validate the feasibility of the proposed approach, a case study has been presented and found that the proposed method and developed tool offers some benefits such as high interoperability, openness, cost-efficiency, and production scalability.

A simulation platform prototype for evaluating alternative scenarios of members integration in virtual organizations

Companies are facing growing challenges motivated by globalization. A globalized market means that the number of companies with which they will need to compete to maintain or enlarge their market share is increased. Additionally, it also brings greater opportunities to conquer new markets and increase existing market shares, since the geographical, political and economical boundaries are gradually being removed. This paper proposes and illustrates the use of a platform prototype for enabling the evaluation and selection of attractive members for being included as members in a virtual organization. An extended simulation study is described and results obtained presented which show advantage of a used dynamic evaluation and selection model, based on a varying set of criteria.

Fuzzy Web Platform for Electrical Energy Losses Management

Recently, electricity distribution companies have already done many investments to identify and calculate energy losses along the distribution network. Although these big efforts, most approaches for clearly identifying and solving the related problems still remain rather inefficient. The accurate identification and the precise calculation of electricity losses enables the clear specification of the critical points and segments in the networks and, consequently, the effective prioritization of actions and interventions in order to reduce those electricity losses and problems. Moreover, the work already performed on this issue, the existing approaches focus mainly on empirical and probabilistic data. Hence, there is still a clear gap between real information and the considered one, which tends to be poor and imprecise. Due to this reality and the lack of appropriate software applications, in this paper we propose a web platform for the management of the whole network of electricity distribution, from medium voltage (MV) down to low voltage (LV), including billing on the transformation centers (TCs), electricity losses calculation and proposals for solving actions, by means of a fuzzy decision-making model.

P2P Decision Support System for Cooperative Electrical Energy Distribution Network Management

Nowadays, electricity distribution companies have already performed great investments in order to identify and calculate energy losses along the distribution network. Although that big effort, the applications and approaches for clearly identifying and solving the related problems still remain too poor and inefficient. The accurate identification and the precise calculation of electricity losses enables the clear specification of the critical points and segments in the networks and, consequently, the effective prioritization of actions and interventions in order to reduce those electricity losses and problems. Although some researchers and companies have already carried out work on this issue, the existing approaches focus almost only on empirical and probabilistic data. There is still a clear gap between real information and the considered one, which tends to be poor and imprecise. Due to this reality and the lack of appropriate software applications, in this paper we propose a P2P system for the management of the whole network of electricity distribution, from medium voltage down to low voltage, including billing and other functions processing on the transformation centers, electricity losses calculation and proposals for solving actions.