Latifa Ouzizi

Decision Support Tool for Supply Chain Configuration Considering New Product Re-Design: An Agent-Based Approach

In the decline phase of product lifecycle, industrials need to re-design their products to introduce new functions and/or customers’ new preferences. These changes may not only affect the product’s bill of material, but also its supply chain network. Consequently, new supply chain costs are generated. This paper addresses the problem of supply chain configuration considering new product re-design using a multi-agent system (MAS). The objective of the system is to ensure good collaboration between two different points of view, supply chain partners and product designers, to make better decisions. To model the proposed system, we select the multi-agent system engineering (MaSe) methodology. The MAS framework contains three types of agents, namely, “product design agent” and “supply chain agents” which are fitted with optimization tools. These tools allow costs’ optimization and selection of supply chain means (suppliers, technologies, etc.). Finally, the system contains a “communication agent” acting like a...

A multi agent approach for simultaneous design of a product and its supply chain: Suppliers' selection example

In recent decades, the simultaneous design of a product and its supply chain has become a trend in the manufacturing industry. This approach, requiring massive data sharing that allows different designers to collaborate in order to choose the best product design along with its corresponding supply chain, taking into account cost, quality, and time. To get a successful collaboration between designers, a model of multi agent system is presented. The model is based on a framework containing two different levels: product design level and Supply chain design level. This architecture aims to have a better cooperation between designers. Since the presented agents are autonomous and have the power to decide about product design choices and supply chain configuration in a simultaneous way, we present an example based on a multi-objective approach to select from several product redesigns and among several suppliers, the best redesign accompanied by the best suppliers that optimize supply, transportation, storage and quality of components. A case study is presented in the end to have a better insight of the proposed model.

Product lifecycle management approach to design a product and its optimised supply chain

This paper deals with two major issues for current manufacturing organisations: the product design and the supply chain design. These problems are usually solved separately, but in recent years, approaches were proposed to tackle these two issues together. Integrating product and supply chain optimisation is relevant. Indeed, the design decisions made in the early phases of product design will have significant impact upon future manufacturing and logistical activities. In this paper, we investigate more precisely the role of product lifecycle management (PLM) as an integrating element and a supply chain optimiser. PLM is a business strategy that aims to collaboratively manage the product centred activities during the whole product lifecycle and through the extended enterprise. In fact, PLM enables a supply chain to become much more competitive by an effective collaboration among all its partners throughout the product lifecycle, particularly, their involvement in the early phases of product design. We propose a methodology based on PLM approach to design simultaneously the product and its optimised supply chain.

PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) Model for Supply Chain Optimization

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is an integrated business approach to the collaborative creation, management and dissemination of engineering information throughout the extended enterprise.

A dynamic model for the redesign of a product and its upstream supply chain integrating PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) approach

This paper deals with a recent approach that tackles the product and the supply chain design issues at the same time. The simultaneous design of a product and its supply chain is relevant. In fact, supply chain decisions incorporated during the early phases of the product design enhance its performance. Therefore, collaboration among all supply chain partners is very important, especially at the product design phase. In this paper, we investigate the role of the PLM (Product Life Cycle Management) as a key to integrating product and supply chain optimization. We study the case of an existing products redesign. The design change affects either the components or the process of the product or both of them at once. First, we present an UML model for designing the product and its supply chain integrating PLM. Then, we propose a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation to determine simultaneously the optimal redesign alternative accompanied with its optimal upstream supply chain configuration. Being at a strategic design, time periods in the mathematical model are considered to be product life cycle phases. This consideration gave a dynamic aspect to the model. Finally a numerical example is given to illustrate the application of the model.

A FAST ADAPTIVE BALLOON ACTIVE CONTOUR FOR IMAGE SEGMENTATION

Active Contour Models (ACM) have been widely used for segmentation in many computer vision applications. These models are defined by an energy functional attached to an initial curve that evolves under some constraints to extract desired objects in the image. New models are proposed, and existing techniques are investigated and improved in different domains. Among these ACM, Balloon ACM is an edge-based model that adds a normal force as constraint making the curve to have more dynamic behaviors and more effectiveness in detecting objects boundary. However, some problems have been pointed out including segmentation of complex shape and high runtime processing. In this paper, we develop a new method -called Fast Adaptive Balloon (FAB)- sufficient to segment complex shape with lower computational complexity. The proposed definition for balloon force achieves satisfactory segmentation performance compared with other ACMs using both synthetic and medical images in two dimension. The results demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness in segmentation besides the convergence speed.

Fuzzy Logic and Multi-agent for Active Contour Models

With many techniques and new concepts that use energy minimization in edge-based Active Contour Models, the accurate segmentation is of great interest. However, most existing models are not accurate to capture uncertainty and vagueness appearing around object boundaries. In this work, we developed a model for image segmentation based on an active contour model using fuzzy logic and multi-agent system. We define Fuzzy sets using membership values assigned to local and global features of the active contour points. The parallel agents are employed to define a mapping to crisp sets using the information contained in the fuzzy set. The model is evaluated in several images and compared with other fuzzy ACMs in the literature. The results show that the proposed model can distinguish between noise, background and objects of interest whose boundaries are not necessarily defined by the gradient. In addition, better performance in optimizing runtime is obtained for several tests.

Collaborative System Model for Dynamic Planning of Supply Chain

The business need to be structured as an integrated supply chain pushes companies to make use of a greater level of co-operation and coordination. As a means of coordination, negotiation has been chosen in this work. The object of this paper is to present formalism for negotiation in dynamic planning of a supply chain with the objective of maximizing the overall profit of each partner. To model the SC, we use the multi agent approach. Each enterprise is represented by its negotiator agent. The negotiations are formalized using UML language. The proposed negotiation process allows agents to develop a feasible production schedule.

3D CAD model reconstruction of a human femur from MRI images

Medical practice and life sciences take full advantage of progress in engineering disciplines, in particular the computer assisted placement technique in hip surgery. This paper describes the three dimensional model reconstruction of human femur from MRI images. The developed program enables to obtain digital shape of 3D femur recognized by all CAD software and allows an accurate placement of the femoral component. This technic provides precise measurement of implant alignment during hip resurfacing or total hip arthroplasty, thereby reducing the risk of component mal-positioning and femoral neck notching.