Life Cycle Activity Research Articles

Introduction to functional safety assessments of safety controls, alarms, and interlocks: How efficient are your functional safety projects?

The return on investment (ROI) for safety controls, alarms, and interlocks (SCAI) can be significantly impacted by human error, which can occur during any lifecycle activity and be committed by competent workers. Design, installation, testing, maintenance, and operational practices are often repeated throughout a site, lowering the ROI with each flawed installation. A functional safety assessment (FSA) is a tool used to identify and correct defects before a simple human error allows an incident to propagate in spite of the capital spent on the installed SCAI equipment.Significant efficiency can be gained when FSAs are periodically conducted during the SCAI lifecycle, so that critical information is gathered when needed. This article will discuss the internationally endorsed five‐stage approach to FSA. The purpose and content of each FSA stage is reviewed and execution timing is suggested that focuses project resources to maximize FSA benefit to project cost and schedule. Finally, a case study illustrates how lack of effective and timely FSA contributed to the occurrence of a costly and catastrophic loss event. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 36: 392–398, 2017

Data and Manufacturing Innovation

This article discusses various aspects of data and manufacturing innovation. Industry today is rapidly adopting digital thread, a best practice in product data management that emphasizes a closed-loop process in which product lifecycle data is linked and traceable to design intent. The best practices in design and manufacturing stand in stark contrast to data revolutions being fomented in other fields. The data ecosystem is the collective memory of the complete output of a project, from conception to post-production and lifecycle activity for its artefact. It must encompass the dead ends as well as the amazing insights; the unbuilt alternatives and the simulation tests for prototypes; the information arcs traced out in the course of design and manufacturing process; and the consumer reviews and in-service information feeds from devices in the field. Vision of design requires engineers, designers, and manufacturers to reconsider some long-held beliefs about best practices. Computer scientists are developing solutions that might enable this transition; however, enterprises need to commit to underlying processes and cultures that will truly affect change.

ESTIMATION OF REST PERIODS FOR NEWLY CONSTRUCTED/RECONSTRUCTED PAVEMENTS

Newly-constructed and reconstructed highway pavements under the effect of traffic loading and climatic severity deteriorate progressively and need preservation intervention after a certain number of years following their construction. In the literature, the term ‘rest period’ has been used to refer to the number of years that elapse between the construction completion to the application of first major repair activity. The rest period is a critical piece of information that agencies use to not only plan and budget for the first major repair activity but also to develop more confidently, their life-cycle activity schedules for life cycle costing, work programming, and long-term plans. However, the literature lacks established procedures for predicting rest periods on the basis of pavement performance thresholds. In the absence of such resources, highway agencies rely mostly on expert opinion for establishing the rest periods for their pavement sections. In addressing this issue, this paper presents a statistical methodology for establishing the rest periods for newly-constructed or reconstructed pavements. The methodology was demonstrated using empirical data from in-service pavements in a Midwestern State in the US. The paper’s results show that the rest periods of newlyconstructed and reconstructed highway pavements are significantly influenced by their functional class, surface material type, traffic loading level, and climate severity.

Investigation of the use of three existing methodologies to determine optimal life-cycle activity profiles for bridges

Bridges are vital objects in public road networks. They should be managed to ensure that they result in minimum costs for all stakeholders, e.g. intervention costs for the owner and travel time costs for the user. An important part of bridge management is, therefore, the determination of the optimal interventions to be executed on a bridge over its life cycle, i.e. the optimal life-cycle activity profile, which adequately takes these costs into consideration. This is challenging as some of the costs to be considered are related to the condition of the elements of which a bridge is composed, whereas others are related to the performance of the structure as a whole and only indirectly to the performance of the individual elements. Among the methodologies developed recently, a few have the potential to overcome this challenge. In this paper, the possibility of using two state-of-the-art methodologies and a state-of-practice methodology to determine optimal life-cycle activity profiles are investigated. This is done by using them to determine the optimal life-cycle activity profile for a multi-span weathering steel girder bridge. The strengths and weaknesses of each are discussed.

Guidelines From 80001 : Maintaining a Medical IT Network

<i>Guidelines From 80001</i> : Maintaining a Medical IT Network

Fad-like technology adoption as a social action

When technology adoption takes on fad-like characteristics, large swings in demand and expectations for the technology result. Companies can see revenues skyrocket, only to fall just as fast without understanding the dynamics of the consumer adoption decision process. In this paper, we present a model for fad-like technology adoption built upon Rogers' technology adoption lifecycle, to which we add the theory of information cascades and adopter thresholds. Adopter behaviour in each stage of the lifecycle may be individualistic or holistic, as suggested by the theories of Watkins and Durkheim. Macro product and micro adopting user level case analyses of the adoption of the Apple iPhoneTM illustrate the application of the model and the individual and holistic social actions of fad-like technology adoption. The paper closes with advice for consumer technology companies and a call for further study of industry and consumer factors that complicate the interpretation and prediction of adoption lifecycle activity.

Patterns for design in microtechnology

Miniaturization is a trend in mechanical engineering, in which 3D mechanical structures are required. Consequences are changed production and design processes. Furthermore micro-specific design requires in-depth knowledge of production technology. One successful means for ensuring the consideration of these restrictions are design rules. However, many aspects of design relevant knowledge are not restrictive and cannot be represented by design rules. The authors propose the application of design patterns, which represent problem- and solution-oriented knowledge. A pattern describes the abstract solution for a frequently occurring problem in a specific context. This approach was first introduced to architecture and then adapted to software engineering. Also first moves were made to use pattern languages in engineering design. The authors propose design patterns to represent design knowledge for microsystem technologies. As methodological means of support, a pattern lifecycle activity model and subordinate methods are presented.

A Multidimensional Design Framework and Its Implementation in an Engineering Design Environment

This paper describes a multidimensional design framework that distinguishes in an explicit way the role that control and opera tion play in the generation of the behavior of the device as a whole. This multidimensional framework that represents physical, behavioral, and operational aspects of the plant is intended to provide the means for consistency along the life-cycles of the enterprise, plant and prod uct, as well as, clear interactions between the plant structure and its associated behaviors. The design environment based on such frame work is being developed to support the increasing fidelity of the models that dictate the behavior associated to each piece of equipment, combined behaviors, inheritance of actions and interoperable life-cycle activity performers.

Modeling the Supply of Nurse Labor

Using 1980 membership data made available by the provincial nurses' association, a simple, age-specific projection model was developed that comprised two submodels: a Markovian one to monitor yearly movements from one membership state to another and a linear submodel for the infusion of new members. The model assumes that the likelihood of moving to any membership state depends only on the nurse's current age and membership state. A comparison of actual/projected data for 1981-1984 indicates a fairly high level of accuracy, despite the oscillatory pattern of the nurse labor market in the Province of British Columbia since 1982. The details of the projections of labor force over time show a particular age cohort's characteristic behavior and delineate the effect of childbearing and aging on the supply of nurses. As well as projecting future manpower, the age-specific transition matrices were used to estimate the professional life expectancy of registered nurses. This information includes the average number of continuous years of practice for each age, as well as the average total number of years of practice until being deleted from the system at the age of 75. The forecasting capability developed from this work attempts to address two questions central to manpower planning: how many nurses will there be in the province in the next 5 years? and what is the time-frame involved in nurses' life-cycle activity patterns?