Richard Greenough

State-of-the-art in product service-systems

Abstract A Product-Service System (PSS) is an integrated combination of products and services. This Western concept embraces a service-led competitive strategy, environmental sustainability, and the basis to differentiate from competitors who simply offer lower priced products. This paper aims to report the state-of-the-art of PSS research by presenting a clinical review of literature currently available on this topic. The literature is classified and the major outcomes of each study are addressed and analysed. On this basis, this paper defines the PSS concept, reports on its origin and features, gives examples of applications along with potential benefits and barriers to adoption, summarizes available tools and methodologies, and identifies future research challenges.

State-of-the-art in integrated vehicle health management

Abstract Integrated vehicle health management (IVHM) is a collection of data relevant to the present and future performance of a vehicle system and its transformation into information can be used to support operational decisions. This design and operation concept embraces an integration of sensors, communication technologies, and artificial intelligence to provide vehicle-wide abilities to diagnose problems and recommend solutions. This article aims to report the state-of-the-art of IVHM research by presenting a systematic review of the literature. The literature from different sources is collated and analysed, and the major emerging themes are presented. On this basis, the article describes the IVHM concept and its evolution, discusses configurations and existing applications along with main drivers, potential benefits and barriers to adoption, summarizes design guidelines and available methods, and identifies future research challenges.

Development of a digital manual for a manufacturing system – a case study

This paper describes the development and evaluation of an information system to identify spare parts associated with an automated assembly machine that is part of a Ford engine assembly line. The information system is a digital manual, similar to a class of document called an integrated electronic technical manual. The requirements of teams of users in the engine plant are described before explaining the use of multimedia tools to create a suitable information system. The result is a collection of digital documents connected by hyperlinks to form a digital manual. Usability trials indicated that maintenance technicians and line operators would actually use such a manual in the factory. Ford maintenance managers indicated that such a manual would benefit them and the benefits are presented in detail. A version of the manual was developed for data collection and it is suggested that, in future, such manuals might be the factory users’ interface to a computerised maintenance management system.

A review of the benefits of using hypermedia manuals

The acceptance of a hypermedia system to support maintenance applications is to a large extent dependant on the ability to convince management that the system will prove beneficial. This paper reviews the assessment criteria used by a number of authors, with the objective of providing a common set of criteria that can be applied to very large industrial applications.

Factory modelling: combining energy modelling for buildings and production systems

Traditionally, manufacturing facilities and building services are analysed separately to manufacturing operations. This is despite manufacturing operations using and discarding energy with the support of facilities. Therefore improvements in energy and other resource use to work towards sustainable manufacturing have been sub-optimal. This paper presents research in which buildings, facilities and manufacturing operations are viewed as inter-related systems. The objectives are to improve overall resource efficiency and to exploit opportunities to use energy and / or waste from one process as potential inputs to other processes. The novelty here is the combined simulation of production and building energy use and waste in order to reduce overall resource consumption. The paper presents a literature review, develops the conceptual modelling approach and introduces the prototype IES Ltd THERM software. The work has been applied to industrial cases to demonstrate the ability of the prototype to support activities towards sustainable manufacturing.

Empirical study of attitudes to teamworking in manufacturing system maintenance

This paper describes a study of attitudes to team working in an engine plant of a major UK motor manufacturer. The aim of the study was to identify causes of resistance to teamworking and suggest possible solutions. A survey was designed to obtain input from the workers and, in addition, workers were interviewed. The results indicated that workers valued the chance to interact more and get to know each other better. However, they felt strongly that there was not enough communication between the company management and the teams.

Low carbon buildings: a solution to landlord-tenant problems?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors present in successful energy efficiency investments that might indicate how to resolve the landlord-tenant dilemma in existing and new commercial property. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews literature to indicate the importance of energy efficiency in buildings and to explore the barriers to such investments, including problematic landlord-tenant relationships. Such relationships have been investigated by the International Energy Agency, and a similar approach is used here in two case studies in new and existing buildings. These studies explore the nature of landlord-tenant relationships and the importance of policy and standards of building performance. Findings – In neither case did landlord-tenant issues constitute barriers to investments in energy efficiency, however, these investments were made for other reasons than simple cost savings. Construction of new commercial property to Passivhaus standards ensures a high-build qua...

A Decision Support Framework for Evaluation of Environmentally and Economically Optimal Retrofit of Non-domestic Buildings

Currently, the building sector has an oversized carbon footprint as it represent the single largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), with approximately one third of global energy end use taking place within buildings. The challenge to successfully reduce the energy consumption in the building sector is to find effective strategies for retrofitting existing buildings. Significant emissions reductions are possible from applying low carbon retrofit intervention options to existing buildings. The choice of low carbon retrofit intervention options involves evaluation of applicability, energy end uses, environmental impact and cost of application versus energy savings. To develop energy efficiency strategies for building stock, there is the need for optimised methodologies and decision aid tools to evaluate whole-life economic and net environmental gain of the options. This paper describes the development of an integrated framework for a Decision Support System (DSS) based on the optimal ranking and sequencing of retrofit options for emissions reduction in non-domestic buildings. The DSS framework integrates economic (cost) and net environmental (embodied and operational emissions) cost or benefit parameters and an optimization scheme to produce an output based on ranking principles such as marginal abatement cost curve (MACC). The methodology developed can be used to identify and communicate trade-offs between various refurbishment options to aid decisions that are informed both by environmental and financial considerations.

Evaluation of the usability of digital maintenance manuals developed without either user input or a task analysis

The primary objective was to investigate the value that can be added to a low-cost digital maintenance manual by the addition of a navigational aid. Two versions of a digital maintenance manual were developed, the difference between them being the number of design heuristics observed when designing navigational aids. Neither version was based on an analysis of the tasks carried out by users, nor were users involved in the design process. Instead, the manuals were developed directly from the digital information used to produce the existing paper manual. Usability trials were carried out to test both versions according to the time taken and errors committed by users during typical information retrieval tasks. Users were questioned to determine their ease of use (EOU) perceptions for each manual. The main outcomes were that the navigation aid used in the second version reduced the time taken to use the manual but increased the number of errors made by users. The navigational aid also seemed to reduce the perceived EOU compared with the first version. In both cases, the perceived EOU was lower than for a previous digital manual that had been developed using a task analysis and user input. The paper concludes by recommending the development of a generic task model of user interaction with digital maintenance manuals.

Using Policy Instruments to Drive Optimal Living and Sustainable Consumption in the Built and Natural Environment

In order to drive optimal living and sustainable consumption in the built and natural environment, there is the need to develop more sustainable, less energy-intensive systems and approaches that offer economic advantages, better operational performance, environmental merits and social acceptability. Measures to achieve these objectives including low-carbon technologies such as renewable energy generation technologies and energy efficiency measures are widely available today. Current focus on these technologies to reduce operational energy requirements has led to the neglect of embodied energy. This may result in obscuring the actual or net environmental gain for a given technology. Understanding the actual life cycle environmental gains is therefore necessary if a holistic effort in achieving sustainable built environment is to be attained. Furthermore, these environmental measures (operational and embodied) must be considered within an economic context. Against this backdrop, this chapter illustrates how policy instrument such as Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC) can be used as a mechanism for evaluating low-carbon technologies taking into account both operational and embodied emissions and financial cost. The implication of emissions embodied in international trade flows within a MACC framework is also discussed.