Inspection Activity Research Articles

Preventive replacement for systems with condition monitoring and additional manual inspections

Condition monitoring (CM) and manual inspection are increasingly used in industry to identify a system's state so that necessary preventive maintenance (PM) decisions can be made. In this paper, we present a model that considers a single-unit system subject to both CM and additional manual inspections. There are two preset control limits: an inspection threshold and a preventive replacement (PR) threshold. When a CM measurement is equal to or greater than the inspection threshold but is less than the PR threshold, a manual inspection activity is initiated. When a CM measurement is greater than the PR threshold, a PR activity should be carried out. The system's degradation process evolves according to a two-stage failure process: the normal working stage, which is from new to the initial point that a defect occurs, with the CM measurement coming from a stochastic process; and the delay-time stage, which is from the initial point that a defect occurs until the point of failure, with the CM measurement coming from an increasing stochastic process. We assume that a manual inspection is perfect in that it can always identify which of these two stages the system is in. In our study, the decision variables are the CM interval and the inspection threshold, and we aim to minimize the expected cost per unit time. We provide a numerical example to demonstrate the applicability and solution procedure of the model.

Inspection control and the environmental protection

Environmental protection is the task of many administrative bodies, but the activity of the environmental inspection is of special importance. According to the Law on Environmental Protection, inspection's tasks in this area belong to the competence of republican bodies, ie. Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection. Autonomous province and local self-government have only delegated competence in this field, under condition that this is explicitly regulated in special laws. Environmental inspection's activity consists in preventive actions, certain prior - preparatory activities and the audit itself. In addition, following the intervention of the Inspector issue of the control may be corrective or repressive. According to the Law on Inspection Control and the Law on Environmental Protection, the inspectors have a number of powers and responsibilities, which enable them to ensure the lawful and proper conduct of individuals and legal entities.

Maintenance of Buildings Using BIM Methodology

Building maintenance is the responsibility of its owner which must use, whenever appropriate, a technician to perform the inspection. A good maintenance depends on the analysis of the anomalies detected during the inspection of the site. Building Information Models (BIM) have revealed themselves as a good tool when it comes to supporting maintenance actions, due to their ability to store enough information in one digital model. The aim of the proposed work was to implement the benefits provided by BIM on a software tool used as support to maintenance of buildings. During an inspection activity for maintenance purposes, the implemented application, containing a rigorous database, allows the user to identify each anomaly present in building components, directly onto the BIM model, automatically associating them with probable causes, repair methods and a photograph of the anomaly uploaded at the site. Therefore, gains in productivity and a decrease in the error probability can be achieved. The inspection data is stored in the BIM model, making it suitable for consultation when planning maintenance. Additionally, it was case study the interoperability between BIM modeling and visualizing software, regarding the preservation of information, especially in the standard format Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). This work contributed to demonstrate, not only that there are still problems concerning the interoperability between BIM software, but also the advantages of employing BIM for building maintenance purposes.

PENALTIES IMPOSED BY THE LABOR INSPECTORS WITHIN THE INSPECTION ACTIVITY CARRIED OUT BETWEEN 2008-2012 IN THE COMMERCIAL UNITS OF ROMANIA

As a result of recent EU directives adoption concerning measures taken by Member States in order to eliminate the “illegal work” but also the need to protect the interests of the employees. Labour Inspection represents within the area of labor relations, the administrative control body on application of general or specific regulations, necessary and without of which the labor relations cannot take place in a normal and correct legal frame. But in practice of the employment relationships are often found violations of the legal norms which are punishable by the civil law Labour Inspection. The purpose of this article is to capture the offenses covered by the Labour Code which can be committed by the employers and the coercive measures that can be applied by the labour inspectors without neglecting a brief review of the sanctions from the field of labour relations in Romania between2008-2012. Balaneasa, M. C. (2014). PENALTIES IMPOSED BY THE LABOR INSPECTORS WITHIN THE INSPECTION ACTIVITY CARRIED OUT BETWEEN 2008-2012 IN THE COMMERCIAL UNITS OF ROMANIA. European Journal of Law and Public Administration, Year 2014, Issue 2, December, pp. 5-15. DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/eljpa.2014.0102.01

Increasing the Probability of Fault Detection in Non Perfect Inspection Model of Delay Time Analysis with Compromise on Inspection Time

This study separates the real inspection content (soft portion) within the total maintenance inspection activity and attempts to repeat the same some additional number of times during actual inspection. Effect of repetition of soft portion on inspection related time, fault detection probability and the consequence variable of down time per unit time is analyzed. Statistical test proves that both the inspection time and probability of fault detection has nearly same rate of influence on the consequence variable though in opposite direction. A factor ω is introduced to account for the proportion of soft portion over the maintenance inspection time. As the number of repetitions of soft portion is increased for a given value of ω, it is found from analysis that the new set of inspection time and probability of fault detection improves downtime per unit time until an optimum number of repetitions is reached. Improvement is better as the value of ω is on the lower side. The practitioner is to take this possibility of soft repeatable portion of maintenance inspection time into account while estimating these two input parameters when employing delay time methodology as a preventive maintenance strategy.

Construction of Single Sampling Plans by Attributes for Heterogeneous Lots Using a Mixture of Two Poisson Distributions

Abstract In many manufacturing processes, production takes place in more than one stream, with the objective of increasing the production in order to meet the demands of the consumers for the products. The lots or batches of finished products that can be constructed by grouping the products manufactured from various streams are generally heterogeneous (non-homogeneous) in nature. In such a situation, the lot quality might vary as a result of the machines used, the skill of working personnel, and the raw materials, and existing sampling plans are not suitable or viable for carrying out inspection activity in sentencing such lots. When the inspection lots are non-homogeneous, a finite mixture distribution is an appropriate probability model for determining the quality variation of the product. In this paper, the design of single’ sampling plans by attributes under a mixture of two Poisson distributions is considered under the assumption that the products are manufactured in two independent streams. Tables providing plan parameters protecting the interests of the producer and the consumer for specified strengths are presented. The risk efficiency of Poisson bi-mixture plans relative to Poisson sampling plans is studied. The selection of plan parameters is illustrated.

조종사 운항자격 심사제도 개선방안에 관한 연구

Worldwide, air transport demand of this century is expanding rapidly, and each countries' demand is also increasing. Thus a number of low-cost carriers emerged in existing air transportation business sector and airman qualification check work regarding aviation safety management is increasing too. As the remedy for the result of aviation safety audit by ICAO and FAA in 2001 that governmental activity for aviation safety had been performed by a small number of aviation safety inspectors, airman qualification inspection system implemented by airlines was improved and the government has established the system that authorized airman qualification inspectors check airmen qualification with airlines according to the international trend. This study suggests the need of improvement of airman qualification inspection system that existing inspection system as the means of safety management can be transferred to Operations Safety Inspection(OSI) activity which is compliant with international standards.

Optimal vendor investment for reducing defect rate in a vendor–buyer integrated system with imperfect production process

This paper investigates a single-vendor single-buyer integrated production-inventory model with stochastic demand and imperfect production process. It is assumed that there is an inspection activity on the part of the buyer with a fixed screening rate greater than the demand rate. The vendor invests money in order to improve the production process quality and reduce the number of defectives. The expected annual integrated total cost is derived under the n-shipment policy and an iterative procedure is suggested to determine the optimal decisions. The benefit of investment in reducing the defect rate is illustrated by way of numerical examples. It is observed that, the higher the defect rate, the more beneficial the investment. Numerical studies further explore that an increased demand requires an increased investment to optimize the total cost.

Hypericum perforatum L. as Adjuvant to Opioid Analgesia in an Animal Model of Migraine

Aims: Despite their high analgesic efficacy, opioids can provide only partial pain relief during a migraine attack and their tolerability profile is unsatisfactory. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potentiating properties of Hypericum perforatum L. (SJW) to identify a safe and tolerable adjuvant to opioid analgesia in migraine therapy. Study Design: Experimental study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug Research, and Child Health (NEUROFARBA), University of Florence, Florence, Italy, between September 2008 and July 2009. Methodology: A mouse model of meningeal nociception induced by administration of the nitric oxide donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) was used. The following treatment groups were used: saline, SNP, morphine, SJW, SNP+morphine, SNP+SJW, SNP+morphine+SJW. The presence of thermal allodynia was evaluated through the cold plate test. The presence of behavioural side effects was determined by the evaluation of locomotor activity (rotarod test), spontaneous mobility and inspection activity (hole board test). Results: SNP induced a long lasting thermal allodynia that appeared after 1 h, peaked after 3-4 h and disappeared 6 h after administration. The co-injection of a single low Original Research Article British Journal of Medicine & Medical Research, 4(7): 1591-1603, 2014 1592 dose of SJW (1 mg/kg) with morphine (2-5 mg/kg) greatly increased the opioid analgesia (P<.05). SJW, when administered alone,was unable to counteract SNP-induced allodynia. Among the main components of this herbal drug, hypericin produced a potentiating activity comparable to that induced by SJW whereas hyperforin and flavonoids were ineffective. Animal gross’ behavior and locomotor activity were not altered by co-administrationof morphine and SJW. Conclusion: Present results showed the potentiating activity of SJW on morphine antinociception in an animal model of migraine. This herbal drug might be proposedas adjuvant to opioid agonists to produce analgesia using lower, safer doses of opioids. This combination might represent a therapeutic perspective for migraine pain.

Failure Analysis of α-MDEA Air-Cooled Heat Exchanger of CO2 Removal Unit Based on the Semiquantitative Risk-Based Inspection Method

Risk-based inspection program (RBI) is a decision making techniques for providing refineries and petrochemical plants with an effective and appropriate inspection planning. The aim of the present study is to analyze failure behavior and risk ranking of α-MDEA fin/fan cooler of CO2 removal unit based on API 581 in order to find out the reason(s) of tubes failure. According to previous experience in similar plant, risk calculation results and conducted inspection activity by using RFT eddy current technique, CO2 corrosion damage mechanism was identified as a main reason of tubes failure. In next step, process key variable, prevention/mitigation methods and inspection planning programs were determined so as to minimize the similar failure behavior in the rest of the lean amine air-cooled heat exchangers of CO2 removal unit.

Product quality deficiencies in the prefabrication industry for single-family houses

In the industry for the prefabrication of single-family houses, previous research had indicated that individual companies have problems in securing the product quality of incoming softwood timber. This implies that they need to carry out a quality inspection and adjust the softwood timber when it arrives at their facility in order to fit their production. Opinions within the industry concerning product quality deficiencies differ with regard to the handling procedures and the percentage of perceived deficiencies. However, there are prefabricators of single-family houses that need to find additional areas for use for their purchased softwood timber, and spend several working hours on softwood timber to meet the quality criteria agreed upon. A previous study by Eliasson and Gustafsson puts forward a number of proposals regarding the quality deficiencies of softwood timber in this context. The present work transforms some of these proposals into hypotheses and aims at describing and understanding what affects the perception of product quality deficiencies. Questionnaires were used to collect data. The paper concludes that the purchase volume is indicated to be related to the volume portion of the deficiency in the product quality and that the level of information- and communication-technology support in production (i.e. the degree of automation) is indicated to be related to the inspection activity point. An extension of the proposed hypotheses concludes that the inspection activity point on arrival and/or on delivery into production also affects how companies do perceive product quality deficiencies. Research regarding what affects product quality deficiencies is lacking in recognizing and knowing what is aligned with the perception of product quality deficiencies; the individual companies will have an opportunity to affect and manage their appearance and thereby enhance the use of softwood timber.

Delamination buckling and growth phenomena in stiffened composite panels under compression. Part I: An experimental study

An experimental investigation has been carried out on skin delaminations buckling and growth phenomena in stiffened composite panels subjected to compression loading. Optical fibers have been used to monitor the delamination-related phenomena. The optical fibers have been embedded in the skin close to an artificial delamination following paths with minimum length, satisfying the grating sensor locations and direction requirements and fulfilling specific embedding/integrity constraints. The stiffened panel has been also instrumented with back-to-back strain gauges in skin and stringer locations to acquire additional information on delamination and panel buckling and on delamination growth. Finally, a lock-in thermography inspection activity has been performed at different levels of the applied compressive load to acquire information on the delamination buckling and growth shapes. The performed experimental activity was aimed to study the delamination-related phenomena by comparing experimental data obtained from different sources focusing on delamination growth initiation and delamination growth stability.

HULL INSPECTION PRODUCTIVITY MEASUREMENT FOR A NEW SHIPBUILDING PROJECT (CASE STUDY OF BIC 11.02 A NEW SHIPBUILDING PROJECT)

Hull construction process for a new shipbuilding project usualy consist of a set of stages. Starting from material identification, marking, cutting fabrication, assembly and testing. For many shipyard hull inspection activity and hull production stages are joined to simplify production progress monitoring. A 20% credit given for inspection activity. Inspection activities particulary for hull construction which consist of inspection and repair work. Schedule slip of a new shipbuilding is very potencial. This condition is met when man power allocation and work priority are not set properly. Therefore, a clear parameter which conduct with inspection productivity to production manager should be provided. This parameter could help production manager to determine priority of repair work. In this case, differences parameter between production that is using pane measurement and inspection that is using compartement measurement. These two different parameter could make difficulties, particulary when production manager want to know how much progess has been done. A new method to converting the two different parameter has become a topic of this paper

Taï chimpanzees use botanical skills to discover fruit: what we can learn from their mistakes

Fruit foragers are known to use spatial memory to relocate fruit, yet it is unclear how they manage to find fruit in the first place. In this study, we investigated whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Taï National Park make use of fruiting synchrony, the simultaneous emergence of fruit in trees of the same species, which can be used together with sensory cues, such as sight and smell, to discover fruit. We conducted observations of inspections, the visual checking of fruit availability in trees, and focused our analyses on inspections of empty trees, so to say "mistakes". Learning from their "mistakes", we found that chimpanzees had expectations of finding fruit days before feeding on it and significantly increased inspection activity after tasting the first fruit. Neither the duration of feeding nor density of fruit-bearing trees in the territory could account for the variation in inspection activity, which suggests chimpanzees did not simply develop a taste for specific fruit on which they had fed frequently. Instead, inspection activity was predicted by a botanical feature-the level of synchrony in fruit production of encountered trees. We conclude that chimpanzees make use of the synchronous emergence of rainforest fruits during daily foraging and base their expectations of finding fruit on a combination of botanical knowledge founded on the success rates of fruit discovery, and a categorization of fruit species. Our results provide new insights into the variety of food-finding strategies employed by primates and the adaptive value of categorization capacities.

Adolescent Occupational Fatalities in North Carolina (1990–2008): An Investigation of Child Labor and OSHA Violations and Enforcement

This study investigated adolescent worker fatalities involving violations of the child labor laws and/or Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, as well as the enforcement activity involved in each case. Medical examiner records were used to identify work-related deaths among adolescents ages 11-17 between 1990 and 2008 and child labor violations. Investigations from state and federal Departments of Labor (DOL) were used to determine inspection activity, identify OSHA violations, and confirm child labor violations. Fifty-two percent of cases involved one or more child labor violations. Nine cases were investigated by either the U.S. or North Carolina DOL; among them, four had child labor violations. Eleven cases were investigated by the North Carolina DOL and all involved OSHA violations. Significant child labor and OSHA violations exist in adolescent worker fatalities in North Carolina, and gaps exist in enforcement at both the federal and state level, signaling needed improvements in the protection of adolescent workers.

Evidence of software inspection on feature specification for software product lines

In software product lines (SPL), scoping is a phase responsible for capturing, specifying and modeling features, and also their constraints, interactions and variations. The feature specification task, performed in this phase, is usually based on natural language, which may lead to lack of clarity, non-conformities and defects. Consequently, scoping analysts may introduce ambiguity, inconsistency, omissions and non-conformities. In this sense, this paper aims at gathering evidence about the effects of applying an inspection approach to feature specification for SPL. Data from a SPL reengineering project were analyzed in this work and the analysis indicated that the correction activity demanded more effort. Also, Pareto's principle showed that incompleteness and ambiguity reported higher non-conformity occurrences. Finally, the Poisson regression analysis showed that sub-domain risk information can be a good indicator for prioritization of sub-domains in the inspection activity.

EXAMINING OF MARKET SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL SYSTEM

Market Surveillance and Control (MSC) is the inspection activity done by public authority on technical rules for products that have been stated by the public authority. In this sense, the general purpose of the activities of MSC is to protect consumers against hazardous products and making commercial enterprises fulfill legal obligations about supplying safe products. In this study some recommendations are presented by investigating legislation of MSC about construction materials in Turkey to about CE and G mark, obligations of the market actors and faced problems during inspection activities.

Biological Inspired Inspection Underwater Robot (SNAKEY)

This paper presents the designing and development of biological inspired inspection underwater robot. Inspection and monitoring activities have been applied in this project. Two medium involve in this project development. Land has been consider as a normal surface or medium with addition or been specialized in underwater region. Inspection activity is done using a camera at the front of the robot. The monitor display will be the user computer with addition of software and a converter to interface between camera and the computer. The ability to move can be controlled by the user. There are 7 servos been used with 8 segments been design including the head of the robot. The mechanism that been apply is side winding movement and the angle for servo is ±30 degree. The speed of the robot is 0.072 kmh-1 in land and 0.18 kmh-1 on water. This robot can capture and record using the software that been used to make the inspection activity runs perfectly.

Knowledge-directed characterization of nuclear power plant reactor core parameters

A major life-limiting factor of the UK's Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (AGRs) is the condition of the graphite core. Installation of new measurement equipment is difficult and expensive, therefore maximizing the information gained from existing equipment is highly desirable. The main approach to determining the health of an AGR core is through periodic inspections undertaken during planned outages. However, there is the desire to supplement this inspection activity through the analysis of data gathered as part of routine plant operation. One such source of data is measurements taken during refueling and this paper describes knowledge-directed characterization of this refueling data, both spatially across the reactor core and temporally across the operational lifetime of the core. Characterization provides information relating to the current condition of the reactor core and allows suspected ageing trends to be visualized and confirmed. A standard approach for characterizing reactor core data is presented and applied to a variety of different reactor core parameters. The benefit of this approach is that it allows engineers to distill large volumes of refueling data into a readily understandable format in a short period of time. It also allows hypothesized trends relating to the ageing process within the core to be tested and provides supporting evidence for these hypotheses. The trending data is also valuable as it can form the basis of a predictive model of ageing of the reactor core. The ageing process of nuclear graphite is understood from theoretical and experimental viewpoints and this empirical data, gathered from operating reactors, further supports this understanding. This paper represents the initial exploration of using refueling data to construct a predictive model of AGR reactor core ageing.

Harmonization of Inspection Supervision in the Pharmaceutical Sector of the Republic of Macedonia in conformity with the Recommendations of the European Legislation and WHO

The new Law on Inspection Supervision (Official Gazette 50/2010, implementation as of 1.04.2011) was passed in April 2010 with the aim of improving the quality of inspection in the pharmaceutical sector, as well. The new Law covers the spectrum of weaknesses recognized over time. The system of quality inspection encompasses a set of commonly required quality management process, objectives, conditions, policies, formal rules and procedures. The organizational scheme addresses all aspects of inspection activity. The inspection service has to assure that its personnel are not under any undue internal or external commercial, financial or other kind of pressure and influence that may adversely affect the quality of their work. Moreover, the inspection service needs a sufficient number of employees with the necessary education, training, technical knowledge and experience to perform inspection activities according to specified requirements and standards. An inspector’s engagements have to be within the scope of the responsibilities arising from his/her activities. Continued training in inspection activities should be established, including advanced training programs that offer various levels of inspectors’ qualification. In regard to their specific activity, new rule books governing inspection supervision in the pharmaceutical sector should be developed and adopted in the near future. This permanent upgrading process of the existing national policies in compliance with the EU legal policy has also become characteristic of the Macedonian pharmaceutical sector.