Dynamic Industrial Environment Research Articles

Self-developing fuzzy expert system: a novel learning approach, fitting for manufacturing domain

The foremost challenge faced by expert systems, for their applicability to real world problems, is their inherent deficiency of dynamism. For an expert system to be more pragmatic and applicable, the whole structure of an expert system--including rule-base, fuzzy sets, and even user-interface--needs to be upgraded continuously. This continuous up gradation demands full-time, repetitive, and cumbersome involvement of knowledge engineers. Machine learning is an answer to this problem, but unfortunately, the solutions that have been provided are limited in scope. For example, most of the researchers put forward techniques of either generating just rules from data, or self-expanding and self-correcting knowledge-base only. The innovative approach presented in this paper is broader in scope. It enhances the efficacy and viability of expert systems to be more capable of coping with dynamic and ever-changing industrial environments. The objective is facilitated by rendering, concurrently, the self-learning, self-correcting, and self-expanding abilities to the expert system, without requiring knowledge engineering skills of the developers. This means that the user needs just to feed data in form of the values of input/output variables and the complete development of expert system is done automatically. The superiority of the proposed expert system, regarding its continuous self-development, has been explained with the help of three examples related to prediction and optimization of milling and welding processes.

A Coordination Technique for Automatic Guided Vehicles in an Industrial Environment

Abstract In this paper we propose a methodology for coordinating a group of mobile robots that go through predefined paths in a dynamic industrial environment. The technique is developed to be implemented into a real industrial framework. Coordination diagrams are used for representing the possible collisions among the vehicles. We exploit this information for developing a centralized and incremental planning algorithm that allows to coordinate the vehicles and to take into account unexpected events that can occur in an industrial environment. Simulation tests considering a real plant have been executed in order to compare the performance of our technique with the one currently implemented by the company.

Regulatory focus and new venture performance: A study of entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation under conditions of risk versus uncertainty

AbstractResearch on cognitive fit suggests that entrepreneurs will be most successful at leading their firms when approaching the entrepreneurial process through the self‐regulatory mode that most closely matches the requirements of their environment and its accompanying perspective on the nature of entrepreneurial opportunities. Consistent with the discovery view of entrepreneurial opportunities, it is suggested that a prevention focus will be the most effective self‐regulatory mode for entrepreneurs leading their firms within stable industry environments, which are characterized by risk. Building from the creation view of entrepreneurial opportunities, it is argued that a promotion focus will be the most effective self‐regulatory mode for entrepreneurs leading their firms within dynamic industry environments, which are characterized by uncertainty. These arguments are tested using a national (United States) random sample of 201 lead entrepreneurs. The findings indicate that in dynamic environments, entrepreneurs' promotion focus is positively associated with venture performance (i.e., lagged measures of revenue and employment growth), while entrepreneurs' prevention focus is negatively related to performance in such environments. In both cases, these effects are found to be fully mediated by deviation from firms' original business concepts. In stable environments, however, no significant relationships between entrepreneurs' promotion or prevention focus and new venture performance were observed. These results suggest that low cognitive fit (a mismatch between entrepreneurs' mode of self‐regulation and the decision‐making context in which they operate) is more damaging in dynamic environments (i.e., a context of uncertainty) than in stable environments (i.e., a context of risk). Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society.

A contextual examination of new venture performance: entrepreneur leadership behavior, top management team heterogeneity, and environmental dynamism

AbstractThis study examined the relationship of entrepreneur leadership behavior (empowering and directive), top management team heterogeneity (functional, educational specialty, educational level, and skill) and industry environmental dynamism (rate of unpredicted change in number of industry establishments, number of industry employees, industry revenue, and industry research and development intensity) on new venture performance (revenue growth and employment growth) using two different samples—theInc. 500 list of America's fastest growing startups and a national (United States) random sample of new ventures. In dynamic industry environments, startups with heterogeneous top management teams were found to perform best when led by directive leaders and those with homogenous top management teams performed best when led by empowering leaders. Conversely in stable industry environments, startups with heterogeneous top management teams were found to perform best when led by empowering leaders and those with homogenous top management teams performed best when led by directive leaders. These findings were consistent across both samples and demonstrate the value in a contextual approach to leadership, which considers adjusting leadership behavior in accordance to factors that are both internal and external to the firm. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

IT valuation in turbulent times

This paper investigates performance impacts of two types of IT value practices – efficiency and knowledge management (KM) – by taking two external environmental factors – dynamism and hostility – into account. A survey of IT managers was conducted to assess the environmental conditions under which one mode of value practice or the other becomes more salient. Results suggest that despite the apparent value of knowledge management in the new economy, IT managers continue to emphasize the traditional orientation of efficiency. This tendency persists in highly dynamic and hostile industrial environments. Interestingly, however, when these environmental factors are controlled for, KM-based IT valuation clearly pays off for firm performance.

ON DATA PROCESSING AND RECONCILIATION: TRENDS AND THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY

The developments in technologies are expanding the boundaries and broadening the domain of what is technically and economically feasible to achieve in the application of data reconciliation activities in manufacturing plants. They also, naturally, incorporate additional issues and open the opportunities for new research activities. For example, recent developments on model-centric technologies to support plant operations based on advanced process modelling technologies opened the opportunities for performing large-scale parameter estimation – data reconciliation applications in complex dynamic industrial environments. On the other hand, new sensor technologies are becoming available based on recent advances in microprocessor-based instrumentation and digital communications. They provide opportunities for the realization of novel sensor network architectures towards a truly distributed environment for data processing and reconciliation. In this presentation we will discuss current research activities combining efforts in these areas towards the future operation of manufacturing plants.

Tooling layout on a press brake for sheet metal air bending

Air bending is a forming process by which very complicated three-dimensional parts are produced on a press brake. A bending operation is performed on a station consisting of a punch and a die. A part is produced by performing a sequence of bending operations, often requiring different stations. The stations that are necessary to produce the part are mounted on a press brake. This paper discusses several approaches for the optimal placement of the stations on a press brake. Process constraints and objectives regarding efficiency are taken into account. Both exhaustive enumeration and neighbourhood search are used for solving the formulated problems. The reported computational experiments show that all problems can be solved satisfactorily, and that, in a dynamic industrial environment, neighbourhood search is more appropriate because of the limited available computation time.

Organizational Capabilities and Performance of SMEs in Dynamic and Stable Environments

This study examines the correlation between the organizational capabilities and firm performance of SMEs in both dynamic and stable environments in Hong Kong. Organizational capabilities are measured in terms of innovative ability, quality-enhancing capability, cost-reduction capability and ‘organicity’. Organizational capabilities are hypothesized to correlate positively with firm performance and to be moderated by environmental dynamism. A sample of 71 SMEs was drawn from the chemical and computer industries, which represent stable and dynamic industrial environments respectively. The findings suggest that organizational capabilities can significantly explain the level of SME performance and the impacts of environmental dynamism on these relationships.

Engineering the Virtual Enterprise: An Architecture-Driven Modeling Approach

The managerial and organization practices required by an increasingly dynamic competitive manufacturing, business, and industrial environment include the formation of “virtual enterprises.” A major concern in the management of virtual enterprises is the integration and coordination of business processes contributed by partner enterprises. The traditional methods of process modeling currently used for the design of business processes do not fully support the needs of the virtual enterprise. The design of these virtual enterprises imposes requirements that make it more complex than conventional intraorganizational business process design. This paper first describes an architecture that assists in the design of the virtual enterprise. Then it discusses business process reengineering (BPR) as a methodology for modeling and designing virtual organizations. While BPR presents many useful tools, the approach itself and the modeling tools commonly used for redesign have fundamental shortcomings when dealing with the virtual enterprise. However, several innovative modeling approaches provide promise for this problem. The paper discusses some of these innovative modeling approaches, such as object-oriented modeling of business processes, agent modeling of organizational players, and the use of ontological modeling to capture and manipulate knowledge about the players and processes. The paper concludes with a conceptual modeling methodology that combines these approaches under the enterprise architecture for the design of virtual enterprises.

Product performance as a unifying theme in concurrent design—I. Concepts

A key objective of concurrent design is to bring to bear all the relevant knowledge of an organization into the design of a product. A second objective is to reduce the product development schedule, thereby maintaining competitive capability in a dynamic industrial environment. All aspects of the parallel development activities must be in accord with the final objective of product performance and customer satisfaction. This paper examines some critical issues and unifying concepts in concurrent design. The discussion is grounded in an application to printed circuit board design.