Engineering Change Research Articles

A Study on Spatial and Temporal Dynamic Changes of Desertification in Northern China from 2000 to 2020

Desertification is of significant concern as one of the world’s most serious ecological and environmental problems. China has made great achievements in afforestation and desertification control in recent years. The climate varies greatly across northern China. Using a long-time series of remote sensing data to study the effects of desertification will further the understanding of China’s desertification control engineering and climate change mechanisms. The moist index was employed in this research to determine the climate type and delineate the potential occurrence range of desertification in China. Then, based on the Google Earth Engine platform, MODIS data were used to construct various desertification monitoring indicators and applied to four machine learning models. By comparing different combinations of indicators and machine learning models, it was concluded that the random forest model with four indicator combinations had the highest accuracy of 86.94% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.84. Therefore, the random forest model with four indicator combinations was used to monitor desertification in the study area from 2000 to 2020. According to our studies, the area of desertification decreased by more than 237,844 km2 between 2000 and 2020 due to the impact of human activities and in addition to climatic factors such as the important role of precipitation. This research gives a database for the cause and control of desertification as well as a reference for national-scale desertification monitoring.

Spatio-temporal analysis of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from Sentinel-5P imageries using Google Earth Engine changes during the COVID-19 social restriction policy in jakarta

The number of cases due to COVID-19 is increasing, especially in Jakarta, requiring the government to establish a policy of social restrictions. The policy impacting the mobility of people using motor vehicles becomes limited, affecting air quality such as Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2). NO2 concentrations can be determined using the Sentinel-5P satellite using Google Earth Engine. This study analyzed NO2 changes and people's mobility in residential and workplace categories through google mobility data in Jakarta spatially and temporally for January 2020 to December 2021. The Pearson's correlation (R) between NO2 from Sentinel-5P imageries and air quality monitoring stations was 0.426–0.736, indicating a moderate to strong correlation with a p-value <0.05. The decrease in NO2 occurred at the beginning of the Large-Scale Social Restriction (PSBB) from April 2020 to May 2020 and the Implementation of Restrictions on Social Activities (PPKM) policy from July 2021 to August 2021; it was −11.381 ​μmol/m2 and -23.195 ​μmol/m2, with very low and low mobility in the residential and workplace categories. The area that experienced a change in NO2 increase of 1 ​μmol/m2, the highest occurred from May 2021 to June 2021 ​at 641.571 ​km2. Meanwhile, from November 2020 to December 2020, no area experienced an increase of 1 ​μmol/m2. We discovered that there were a number of anomalies when people's mobility in the residential and workplace category was very high, NO2 actually decreased. This anomaly shows that the decrease in NO2 is influenced by decreased mobility and other factors such as precipitation.

Engine change at 80MPH: OSS projects as laboratories for participatory governance transformation

Engine change at 80MPH: OSS projects as laboratories for participatory governance transformation

A comparative study for the n-butanol/n-octanol and n-butanol/ di-n-butylether fueled dual-fuel engines with different injection timings

In this study, numerical simulations were performed to compare the combustion and emission characteristics of n-butanol/n-octanol (B/O) and n-butanol/di-n-butylether (B/D) dual-fuel engines at the different start of injection (SOI) timings. The three-dimensional dual-fuel engine simulation was implemented by coupling KIVA-CHEMKIN with a multi-component chemical reaction mechanism containing n-butanol, n-octanol, and di-n-butylether (DnBE). The reliability of the numerical models was verified by comparing the simulated and experimental in-cylinder pressure, heat release rate (HRR), and emissions. Then B/O and B/D dual-fuel engines with different premixed n-butanol ratios (B0, B10, B20, B30, and B40) were simulated at 1500 rpm with normal SOI timing (7 deg BTDC) and advanced SOI timing (20 deg BTDC), respectively. It has been found that an increased ratio of premixed fuel would increase the peak cylinder pressure due to the higher oxygen content of n-butanol. The change of SOI timing has a significant effect on the B/O engine and a minor influence on the B/D engine. When the SOI timing is advanced from 7 deg BTDC to 20 deg BTDC, the B/O engine changes from premixed to premixed-diffusion combustion phase. In addition, the B/O engine exhibits a more significant reactivity-controlled combustion mode under advanced SOI timing. In terms of emissions, the B/O engine emits more CO than the B/D engine, which is due to the fact that n-octanol is less volatile, resulting in more local high equivalence ratio areas in the cylinder. Since the in-cylinder combustion temperature and combustion duration of the B/O engine are less than those of the B/D engine, the NOx emissions of the B/O engine are lower. With advanced SOI timing, the addition of premixed n-butanol can reduce both CO and NOx, but the emission values are still high and further optimization is needed.

Data-based similarity assessment of engineering changes and manufacturing changes

The highly dynamic environment and the increasing complexity of products and production systems are forcing manufacturing companies to handle a high and further growing number of technical changes. Efficient change management is becoming an essential requirement for the long-term competitiveness of companies. One strategy in dealing with changes more efficiently is to learn from past changes and to use the gained knowledge. A necessary step for this strategy is the identification of similar past changes to enable further analysis. However, the identification of similar past changes represents a major challenge for change coordinators due to the variety and number of changes. Therefore, this work introduces an approach to assess the similarity of engineering and manufacturing changes based on structured as well as unstructured data extracted from IT systems used for the coordination of change management. It combines the methods of Natural Language Processing, clustering, and classification. The aim is to introduce an approach that meets industrial requirements and thus has the potential to support change management in practice. A data set of a medical technology company is used for a first industrial evaluation.

Acquisition and validation of expert knowledge for high-mix and low-volume production scheduling problems

The application of a cyber physical system (CPS) in a production system to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its operation is called a cyber physical production system (CPPS). A digital twin (DT) is widely regarded as a cornerstone for the realization of CPPS, and many tools, methods and guidelines for developing DT have been proposed in recent years. However, DT alone is not sufficient for solving practical problems that occur in actual production systems (e.g., frequent rescheduling caused by unpredictable events, such as machine failure or engineering changes). Because DT is a digital representation of a physical object, it cannot individually provide a problem-solving procedure for unpredicted situations. Therefore, the integrated utilization of human experts’ knowledge with DT is indispensable for the realization of CPPS. This paper proposes a systematic method for acquiring experts’ knowledge that can be integrated with a DT to construct a production system that is robust against unpredicted changes in a production environment. In particular, the study focuses on the knowledge acquisition for the high-mix and low-volume production scheduling problem. This is because quick modification of the existing schedule considering complicated constraints among processes, resources, delivery time and so forth is regarded as a typical problem that only human experts can solve. Through a case study in the die machining industry, this study demonstrates the validity and limitations of the method and concludes that the proposed method is effective for acquiring experts’ knowledge.

Flexibility - Grand Challenge for Product Design and Production: Review and Status

As seen in recent years, the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment has made flexibility in product design and production planning more important than ever. Therefore, companies must be able to quickly respond to the dynamically changing environment. However, research on the flexibility of product design and manufacturing systems has been underway for a long time, only a few studies address their relationship.In this paper, we give an overview of literature related to flexibility and add transparency to the relationship between engineering changes, product development, and production. Based on that, we propose a conceptual framework for co-development to improve the flexibility of product development and production. As part of the framework, we introduce a visualization that reveals the propagation of changes in the product and into the production to create deeper insights for conjoint redesign. To exploit further synergies of product and production, we suggest modularization with focus on strategic module drivers enhancing flexibility. Further support for the comparison of alternative concepts can be provided through digital twin-based simulations of the production system.

Concept and implementation path for model-based impact analysis in product development

Engineers must evaluate the effects of changes in requirements during product design. Due to strongly linked design, production, and operation networks, these effects have tremendous consequences in cross-company engineering change and configuration management. Implications for development effort, the degree of fulfillment of requirements, functional costs, and follow-up costs in product variants and each system lifecycle stage (e.g., production, validation, and maintenance) must be assessed. Today, this is done without sufficient ICT (information and communication technology) support. In the German research project ImPaKT, reliable answers are to be inferred as to how technical and organizational changes to a partial model affect a complex, interdisciplinary overall system in an ICT-supported way. Therefore, a reference architecture is created using a Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach and a common parameter space. Adapted by corporate networks with their heterogeneous product and application lifecycle management (PLM/ALM) landscapes, homogeneous MBSE networks are created. The ImPaKT technology alliance is convergently developing existing ICT base technologies to enable engineering change management, linking isolated solutions and creating standards for handling changes to develop products faster and cost-efficiently and reduce risks.

Asset administration shell-based engineering change management process: Challenges and ways forward

Engineering change management (ECM) is a complex process that requires extensive documentation work and dedicated communication between the parties involved. In addition, the increasing complexity of products and the various fluctuations in market conditions lead to a significant increase in the quantity of engineering changes which are reflected throughout the stages of a product's life cycle. Recent studies show the lack of standards that enable the exchange of information resulting from the interaction of the actors involved in the change process. The advancing digitalization in industrial production has led to the establishment of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) as a concrete implementation of the digital twin concept. In this regard, the recently published standards on AAS allow it to be considered as a candidate for improving the current ECM situation. Based on this consideration, in this paper we first present the challenges of the ECM process not only through an overview of the current literature and standards, but also based on observations from experts in industrial ECM processes. Afterwards, we present the potential of AAS for solution development with regard to the challenges identified for ECM. A concrete concept for streamlining the ECM process with the help of AAS concludes this contribution.

Part Change Management: A Case Study on Automotive Engineering and Production; Domestic and International Perspectives

AbstractDue to interest in aspects such as process, strategies, and tools of engineering changes expressed in a literature review, a case study was done on a major automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to assess the perceived quality of its part engineering change management process and supporting system through its employees’ eyes. A combination of 12 interviews lasting 12 h and 46 written surveys was used to capture the views of participants from all major functions found at the research and development (R&amp;D) headquarters of the OEM: Purchasing, Production, Development, and one group consisting of all other functions (“Other”). Statistical analysis was performed to identify statistically significant differences between employee perceptions of an engineering change management system among different departments, amount of use, and years of use. It was found that statistically significant differences exist in terms of understanding the usability of the system between different departments and also between different years of experience.

Experimental Evaluation of the Effect of Replacing Diesel Fuel by CNG on the Emission of Harmful Exhaust Gas Components and Emission Changes in a Dual-Fuel Engine

The constant development of civilization increases environmental pollution as a result of industrial activity and transport. Consequently, human activity in this area is restricted by regulations governing the permissible emission of harmful substance components into the environment. These include substances emitted by combustion engines, the use of which remains high in many industries. Consequently, research is being conducted to reduce the emissions of harmful exhaust components from existing and newly manufactured internal combustion engines. This research presents a used semi-truck engine, in which an innovative Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) supply system was applied. Using this fuel supply installation allows a mass exchange of the base diesel fuel to natural gas of up to 90%. The study evaluated the effect of the diesel/CNG exchange ratio for different engine operating conditions (engine load, speed) on the concentration of toxic components, such as CO, NO, NO2, NOX, as a sum of NO, NO2, CH4, C2H4, C2H6, C3H8, NH3, and CH2O. The use of a dual-fuel system had a positive effect on the emissions of some harmful exhaust components, even in an engine from a vehicle that had been running for many years on diesel and at high mileage, but, simultaneously, the emissions of some harmful exhaust gas components increased.

DETERMINATION OF THE OPTIMAL FREQUENCY OF ENGINE OIL REPLACEMENT BY THE METHOD OF EXPRESS DIAGNOSTICS OF THE CONDITION OF OILS

Currently, the task of optimizing car maintenance intervals for various operating conditions is urgent. To do this, it is necessary to conduct research to justify the frequency of car maintenance through mileage or time interval. At the same time, the service intervals (period, mileage) may differ for different elements of the car. The use of modern diagnostic tools (external and built-in) allows you to assess the technical condition of units, components and operational materials and perform routine maintenance, in particular, oil change, according to the actual condition, and not by mileage or time interval. This helps to increase the resource of aggregates and save financial resources by optimizing the maintenance interval of cars. In this paper, the authors analyzed car maintenance systems in Russia and abroad, in particular, the frequency of oil change of passenger car engines in Europe, Asia and the USA. The features of the operation of vehicles in difficult and difficult conditions, including in mountainous terrain, are considered. The analysis of the main factors affecting the quality of engine oil and, accordingly, the frequency of oil change is given. In the article, based on the conducted research and analysis of the issue, recommendations have been developed for replacing oil in car engines according to its condition for various conditions of the Republic of Dagestan (RD). The use of external and built-in diagnostic tools to assess oil quality allows you to calculate the recommended engine oil replacement interval. As a result of the conducted research on a certain number of cars, recommendations have been developed to determine the optimal engine oil replacement period for various operating conditions in the region.

Roadside NO2/NOx and primary NO2 from individual vehicles

Traffic-derived nitrogen oxides (NOx) is a major component of kerbside pollution in large cities and represent an important source of exposure and health risk to urban populations, especially during the use of roadside pavements. The ratio of ambient NO2/NOx (xNO2) varies widely in urban environments, influenced by relative source strengths, but also oxidation. Primary NO2 emissions have changed over the years, with changes in engine and exhaust controls. Over the years 1998/2021 the NO2 fraction in exhaust (fNO2) in Hong Kong has changed from 0.05 in the late 1990s to values ∼0.2 in the years 2010/2015, and has fallen to ∼0.08 in recent years. To better understand fNO2 from individual on-road vehicles, this study monitored NO and NO2 at the kerb in a busy street canyon in Hong Kong, capturing the rapid concentration changes in response to vehicles passing by. The kerbside xNO2 was much lower (∼0.2) than that at the roadside air quality monitoring station (∼0.5) whose inlet was elevated some 3 m above the road nearby. Output from pollution sensors was deconvoluted to explore rapidly changing concentrations in the plume segments from individually identifiable vehicles as they passed and enable to estimate of the NO2 fraction in the exhaust for individual vehicle. Each vehicle was assigned to a type, Euro emission class and year of manufacture. The fNO2 from individual vehicles depends on emission class, increasing from Euro 4 to Euro 6, while fNO2 decreases as vehicles get older. The estimates of fNO2 made at the kerb were similar to those derived for the local air quality monitoring station, but not necessarily that of the city as a whole, where fNO2 varies by a factor of two.

Analysis of the First Metallic Works That Represented a Geometric Innovation in Their Architectural Application: The Origin of the Architecture-Engineering Dichotomy

This research analyses the geometric modifications and improvements that the application of the technique of metallurgy meant for architecture. In the early days of engineering and without having the historical burden that architecture bore, the small variations in the classical definition of geometry meant the greatest advances at a structural and conceptual level in the world of metal structures. The use of metal as a structural element capable of containing new uses and responding to the great challenges that progress required was definitive for the development of the new architecture and paradigms of the new century. The new metallic materials and their mathematical and constructive models were the cause and effect of what would be the basis of the great change in modern architecture and engineering and would lay the foundations of today’s world. The interaction of these two new disciplines, architecture and engineering, and their relationship with metal is the basis of this research, which aims to find out where, when, and how these geometric changes took place that started to change the conception of metal structures.

ВПЛИВ МЕТРОЛОГІЧНОГО ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ НА ЯКІСТЬ ПРОДУКЦІЇ І ЗМІНИ ЕКСПЛУАТАЦІЙНИХ ВИТРАТ У СПОЖИВАЧА І ВИРОБНИКА

The main methodological provisions and recommendations on the impact of metrological support of technical indicators of product quality on changes in operating costs of the consumer and the producer are presented in the article. Revolutionary changes in engineering and technology lead to fully automated production where control over all processes is realized in real time taking into account changing external conditions. Cyber physical systems create virtual copies of the physical world objects, control physical processes and make decentralized decisions. They can be combined into one network, interact in real-time mode, can be self-corrected and self-educated. Experts highlight several basic technologies, implementation of which is expected to result in revolutionary changes. Therefore, today, a metrological toolkit for tracking and verifying the mechanized factory system not only ensures a high level of safety, reliability and its operability, but also creates value in business processes. As a result, it becomes a strategic focus for companies and requires a comprehensive approach. In the process of the life cycle, the factory system of machines can be in a number of conditions: working, faulty, unworking, other marginal states. Organizational and technical metrological systems, which are used in the control and regulation of the factory system of machines, as a rule, require certain material and financial resources. Accordingly, this leads to changes in certain items of economic costs for a product manufacturer as well as its consumer. Therefore, metrological support of equipment, machines and aggregates gains particular importance as well as the process of their restoration. Thus, the task of organizing equipment technical maintenance not only preserves the appropriate level of suitability throughout the whole period of operation, that is acceptable probability of special situations occurrence caused by malfunctions of equipment, machines, aggregates and other complex subsystems, but also the ability to determine the level of error of a particular state of the system of machines. In other words, metrological support is required in the systems of machine functioning management and this changes the philosophy of the approach to recovery, and accordingly, the task of merological service. The quality of the technical condition of modern factory system of machines must be provided, mainly by maintenance methods according to the technical condition. The use of metrological methods requires constant control of the level of suitability of equipment, machines, aggregates and other complex aggregates in operation, as well as early detection of negative trends in their technical condition.

A Design Flow and Tool for Avoiding Asymmetric Aging

This article proposes a design flow and tool to deal with asymmetric aging in datapath designs by employing automated engineering change order flow.

“Just Fabric”: The Becoming Black of the (Post)Human in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021)

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021), Klara is an AF (Artificial Friend), one among a range of humanoid automatons manufactured with the objective of keeping affluent, genetically augmented teenagers company. As this essay argues, a disturbing historical parallel to the position of the AFs in the social hierarchy is that of slaves. Like the deployment of black bodies as dehumanized raw materials in plantation economies, the exploitation of the androids in Ishiguro’s novel is premised, I contend, on their exclusion from the category of the “human.” The ethics of such a network of production, consumption, and disposal are hardly ever called into question in the dystopian world of the novel. This essay locates the novel in a flux of debates around the nexus between capitalism, race, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and environmental change. It deploys Achille Mbembe’s concept of “the becoming black of the world” to investigate the construction of “posthuman” races through technological advances in Ishiguro’s technologized world. Drawing on Mbembe and other theorists, I demonstrate how the historical objectification and exploitation of black bodies expand to encompass the entire planet, with androids, genetically modified humans, and the earth itself functioning as sites of mining and extraction.

The Effect of Medical Device Regulations on Deploying a Lean Six Sigma Project

This paper investigates the differences in timelines involved in Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project deployment in a regulated industry versus in an unregulated one. Two case studies utilising Lean Six Sigma methods—in order to compare the transfer of manual manufacturing lines within a medical device and electronics manufacturing site—are discussed and utilised. This research aims to show the effects of regulatory procedures on LSS project implementation and timelines. This study particularly highlights how a regulatory environment can be a barrier, or bottleneck, to project management, continuous improvement, and engineering changes in the MedTech or medical device manufacturing industry. The results of this study represent an important first step towards a full understanding of the influence of regulations on operations in medical devices and, by extension, on pharmaceutical manufacturing industries on a global scale. The research limitations are that the data collected were from two specific case study comparisons alone.

The Concept of Extinction: Epistemology, Responsibility, and Precaution

ABSTRACT Extinction is a concept of rapidly growing importance, with the world currently in the sixth mass extinction event and a biodiversity crisis. However, the concept of extinction has itself received surprisingly little attention from philosophers. I will first argue that in practice there is no single unified concept of extinction, but instead that its usage divides between descriptive, epistemic, and declarative concepts. I will then consider the epistemic challenges that arise in ascertaining whether a species has gone extinct, and how these lead to serious limitations on responsibility and accountability for preventing extinctions. I will propose two conceptual engineering changes to our understanding of extinction. Firstly, to use twin epistemic concepts of extinction, corresponding to high and low epistemic demands. Secondly, to explicitly recognize that in many contexts extinction is a thick concept that contains an evaluative component, which therefore motivates explicit ethical considerations such as the use of precautionary principles.

Briefing: Rethinking urban infrastructure from an ecological perspective in a post-Covid-19 world

Urban areas continue to change in response to climatic, engineering and socio-economic changes. Covid-19 exacerbated this by forcing many people to reflect on the composition of their local environment and evaluate the quality, quantity and provision of nature within urban areas. As a consequence of Covid-19 built infrastructure specialists have been further challenged to consider more ecologically focussed approaches to development that work within existing development frameworks. To achieve this, engineers, planners, architects and the environment sector should work more effectively to exchange knowledge, share best practice and create new practices that align engineered solutions with environmentally focussed design and management. It also requires a more nuanced appreciation of the elemental and thematic understandings of urban nature, which are often absent from development plans. If cities are to become more sustainable, a more holistic approach to development that integrates ecologically sensitive design with engineering innovation is needed. As a consequence, there is the potential to future-proof urban areas against the problems associated with health, climatic and economic change.