J.C.O. Matias

Integrated total quality management: Beyond zero defects theory and towards innovation

This paper reviews the benefits of integrating management systems (MSs) and proposes a rationale for the integration in manufacturing companies, contributing to increased competitiveness. Benefits accrue from the integrated implementation of MSs for quality, environment, occupational health and safety, social responsibility, maintenance and energy. integrated total quality management, as the largest system, represents all management sub-systems in the organisation, converging to assure convenient satisfaction to all organisation stakeholders. Additionally, it is widely accepted that quality management strategically supports the management of innovation. However, while the importance of innovation for competitiveness is increasingly acknowledged, countries with a culture less prone to foster innovation increasingly face the need to encourage implementation of effective innovation MSs in companies in order to achieve competitive advantages in the global market, even if not immediately, but upon implementation. Springing from this approach, this paper reviews benefits of integration and intends to emphasise how integration of MSs should consider an innovation MS as a key part. Although available empirical evidence of the benefits of the latter approach is yet hardly significant, preliminary data support the viability of attaining added efficiency in generating competitive advantages in manufacturing companies by integrating the innovation MS within the group of already integrated MSs.

Proactive reliability maintenance: a case study concerning maintenance service costs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to emphasize that the choice of the most appropriate maintenance model and policies is the best way to reduce significantly the maintenance costs as well as to optimize the useful Key Performance Indicators – failure rates, reliability, mean time between failures, mean time to repair, and equipment availabilities.Design/methodology/approach – In order to implement the Asset Effectiveness Optimization AEO as well as the Overall Equipment Effectiveness OEE, improving productivity in a complex food‐products plant, the paper presents a theoretical and experimental study related to the maintenance costs directly associated with the equipment used in production tasks.Findings – The developed tool is an efficient method of calculating the maintenance costs and allows one by means of computational simulation to define the most advisable maintenance policy. On the other hand, the proposed relationships are universal and could be used as an economic evaluation indicator for ot...

Edite - A Natural Language Interface to Databases A new dimension for an old approach

This article presents the Edite system, a Natural Language Interface for Databases (NLIDB), that tries to explore the advantages of joining natural language processing with the expressiveness of graphical interfaces. In order to guarantee a permanent adaptation of this type of solution to a dynamic domain one should consider two critical fundamental factors: extensibility and portability.

ZigBee standard in the creation of wireless networks for advanced metering infrastructures

The current grid must be updated and controlled with automated systems that offer the intelligence of the smart grid. In this task the wireless networks for sensors and actuators are very important component of the future grid infrastructure, being the “nerve cells” of the entire system. The most important player in the smart grid is probably the consumer, that can use the electricity and at the same time can have its own generation to be feed into the grid. Hence, metering devices are essential components in the smart grid, monitoring the consumers behavior and offering valuable information to the utilities and electric entities that will adapt the generation to match the consumption in a seamless way. The ZigBee standard is getting an increased adoption for the creation of cheap wireless networks that will connect the smart grid devices with each other. Still, there are little or no works that study the actual installation approaches, minimizing possible obstacles and decreasing costs. This paper present new field tests that study the integration and installation of ZigBee capable meters, offering at the same time several installation approaches.

A review of short-term hydro scheduling tools

This paper presents a review of short-term hydro scheduling tools reported by the scientific community, presenting different methodologies and models published over the last 20 years about operations, scheduling and optimization of hydro systems, in competitive electricity markets, considering the short-term horizon, i.e., between one day and one week, with the goal of maximizing profits and reducing losses, considering also different hydro configurations around the world. Hence, a comprehensive study is carried out in order to gather the maximum information possible to clarify and show the most recent advances in this field of research, contributing also for the appearance of future contributions.

Innovation in the organisation of management systems in Portuguese SMEs

In the past, economic success of most countries depended on the performance of their greater companies. Nowadays, bearing globalisation in mind and the wide implementation of the multinational companies, the economic success of developing countries and the internationalisation of their economy depends on the performance of SMEs. However, these companies, in some countries mostly of a family scope, usually have insufficient know-how about new forms of management. Recognising that management systems are nowadays considered market qualifiers, this paper presents two ways the smaller companies can direct their efforts to production while implementing the various management systems. Outsourcing the implementation and management of the several management systems to companies specialising in that activity is one way. The alternative is forming new companies with the same goal, but in a cooperative way amongst several small or medium sized companies operating in the same industrial sector or in close geographical proximity. The choice between alternatives for an SME depends on its sector of activity, its financial health, and applicable market qualifiers and order winners. Examples of both forms of outsourcing are discussed and the selection criteria inherent to this decision process are discussed based on the results of a survey of Portuguese companies.

Economic evaluation and experimental setup of biomass energy as sustainable alternative for textile industry

The use of biomass as energy source becomes considered again as a possibility, after a period in which practically felt in disuse, especially in industrial environments. Nowadays it is again an important alternative, mainly due to the increasing prices of fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, as well as by the growing environmental and sustainability concerns, since the biomass fuel is considered neutral in terms of CO2 emissions. The use of biomass as solid fuel poses several logistic difficulties that do not allow their straightforward dissemination in all industrial units, which intend to change its fuel source. In this paper, a case study of integration of renewable energy sources provides results obtained based on an experimental setup using biomass technology, posing a major advantage for the Portuguese textile industry, in particular the dyeing textile industry, over the traditional use of fossil fuels.

A proposed framework to assess upstream supply chain sustainability

There are few methods that are suitable for assessing the sustainability of companies and supply chains in an integrated way, taking into consideration the economic, social and environmental dimensions. This paper proposes a framework for assessing the sustainability of individual companies and their corresponding upstream supply chain. The framework consists of a set of steps to evaluate the sustainability of both the individual company and their upstream supply chain. The linear aggregation technique is suggested to combine the set of indicators from the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability into a unique value, giving rise to a composite index for the company and corresponding supply chain. The proposed framework represents a contribution in the area of index construction and could be used as a valuable component of sustainability reporting and sustainability management practices. It also represents an important benchmarking tool, offering managers the possibility of identifying the supply chain partners that are best and worst performers in terms of sustainability while at the same time making it possible to improve company performance. Managers can adjust their company’s behaviour according to their sustainability index score and improve economic, social and environmental performance.

Application of biomass for the production of energy in the Portuguese textile industry

The use of biomass as energy source becomes considered again as a possibility, after a period in which practically felt in disuse, especially in industrial environments. Nowadays is becoming again an alternative, mainly due to the increasing prices of fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, as well as by the growing environmental and sustainability concerns, since the biomass fuel is considered neutral in terms of CO2 emissions. The use of biomass as solid fuel presents logistic difficulties, which do not allow their straightforward dissemination in all industrial units that intend to change its fuel. However, counterbalanced by excellent results from the economical point of view, achieved due to the stability of biomass prices in Portugal, the application of biomass is envisaged in this paper as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels for the Portuguese textile industry. Hence, a real case study is provided to discuss advances and developments in the field of biomass applications.

Torrefied Biomass Pellets: An alternative fuel for coal power plants

This paper aims to make a comparison between the logistics costs of buying Wood Pellets (WP) and Torrefied Biomass Pellets (TBP) produced in Portugal and exported to the major consumer markets of Northern Europe. The starting point is to determine the value of a shipload of WP and TBP delivered to a North European port and loaded in Aveiro, the main Portuguese WP expeditor port. Torrefaction implies higher energy and bulk density pellets, which contributes to increase the logistics costs associated with them. The loss of mass is greater than the loss of energy. These changes in bulk and energy densities are an advantage in terms of logistics: more tonnes per unit of volume and more energy per tonne will decrease the transportation cost per energy unit. The analysis carried out in this paper determines the energy in gigajoules (GJ) per tonne and all the comparisons are based on the cost per energy unit. This analysis is supported by real data collected in the Argus Biomass Markets report.