Application of Digital Twins to Flexible Production Management: Taking a Shandong Factory as an Example

Adopting technology to achieve environmental stewardship is a high priority among greenhouse industry members. Zero runoff crop production systems can protect surface and ground water and use water, fertilizer, and labor resources more efficiently. However, scarce capital and fear of new technology are impediments to change. Our objectives were to characterize decision making and profitability related to zero runoff systems. Managers of 80 greenhouse operations with zero runoff systems in 26 states participated in a survey designed to gather information on the costs–benefits of adoption and production changes and issues related to zero runoff systems for greenhouse operations. The survey results revealed that some adjustments of production practices were essential when adopting zero runoff systems. It also appeared that greenhouse operators believe they are achieving the intended outcomes and efficiencies from their investment. Size of the operation appeared to be closely linked to the growers' willingness to adopt this new technology. Important reasons for making the decision of adopting zero runoff systems were to improve quality of productions, cut production costs, increase production efficiency, and respond to public concern for the environment. Two thirds of the operators surveyed found that special employee training in the operation of zero runoff systems was required. Most employers found in-house training was adequate for their needs. Operators verified that a significant learning curve slows implementation of zero runoff production Adjustments of cultural practices coupled with good production management were keys to growing zero runoff successfully.

Abstract Production efficiency and product quality need to be addressed simultaneously to ensure the reliability of large scale additive manufacturing. Specifically, print surface temperature plays a critical role in determining the quality characteristics of the product. Moreover, heat transfer via conduction as a result of spatial correlation between locations on the surface of large and complex geometries necessitates the employment of more robust methodologies to extract and monitor the data. In this paper, we propose a framework for real-time data extraction from thermal images as well as a novel method for controlling layer time during the printing process. A FLIR™ thermal camera captures and stores the stream of images from the print surface temperature while the Thermwood Large Scale Additive Manufacturing (LSAM™) machine is printing components. A set of digital image processing tasks were performed to extract the thermal data. Separate regression models based on real-time thermal imaging data are built on each location on the surface to predict the associated temperatures. Subsequently, a control method is proposed to find the best time for printing the next layer given the predictions. Finally, several scenarios based on the cooling dynamics of surface structure were defined and analyzed, and the results were compared to the current fixed layer time policy. It was concluded that the proposed method can significantly increase the efficiency by reducing the overall printing time while preserving the quality.

Nowadays, there is no consensus that digitalization is a threat to business security or an opportunity to comprehensively manage the entire chain of business processes in real time, taking into account incoming data from all assets. However, political and economic instability, demand volatility, and competition are all a set of global challenges that digital transformation has responded to. In industry, the competitive advantage has become not the ownership of the enterprise, the firm, but access to digital technology, on which the efficiency of work with specific resources depends. The processes of forming individual business segments related to production management based on modern digital technology have already been launched and most companies are focused on this direction. The article reveals the features of the evolutionary stage of digital economy development, presents the relationship of this process with the formation of the conceptual framework from the theoretical foundations, substantiated in the 1990s by foreign and domestic scientists to modern approaches in the interpretation of digital economy definitions. The article proposes the structural dynamics of the digital economy in today's realities, revealing internal problems, opportunities for economic growth, maturity and readiness of the state to new ways of doing business in the digital economy and digital transformation, to form the country's national strategy. In addition, the conditions under which digital transformation opens up new opportunities for the business environment, the public sector and society as a whole are presented. Changes in business strategy, organizational forms, business process capabilities, new approaches in working with clients, competitive advantages, increase in profit sources are analyzed. As a result, the efficiency of the whole system increases, which allows to reach a fundamentally new level of production efficiency in a short time.

One of the reasons that at present in research and production associations and industrial enterprises, according to the degree of implementation, analysis is almost the most backward management function, in our opinion, is still insufficient attention on the part of economic services of these production links to issues of formation of analytical information processing. Having overcome, in principle, the psychological barrier of misunderstanding the advantages of using modern computer technology in production management, the economic services of enterprises in a number of cases have not yet realized that they should be both initiators of the functional development of the management system and direct participants in the new technology for the implementation of management functions, including and analysis function. The use of electronic digital machines in economic analysis is one of the indispensable conditions for achieving its efficiency and complexity. The problem of improving the function of economic analysis is becoming the subject of increasing attention, both from a large number of specialists, and from higher education institutions and various research organizations. The increasing attention to the problem of improving integrated economic analysis is evidenced by the fact that it is the subject of consideration at International, All-Ukrainian, Regional scientific and practical conferences, seminars and is significantly reflected in the recommendations of these forums. At the same time, it should be noted that the methodology of the approach, the breadth of coverage in solving the problem, the focus and depth of development in many cases by different authors are far from the same and not equivalent. Therefore, when conducting an analytical review of scientific publications, in our opinion, it is advisable to evaluate existing developments in a certain order, namely: firstly, works that emphasize the importance and need to improve the function of economic analysis without indicating specific ways to solve this problem; secondly, works examining specific forms of organizing economic analysis in management systems. The latter, in particular, include: works in which the dispersal and implementation of individual analysis tasks are proposed as part of various functional subsystems of the control system; works whose authors consider it possible to combine the tasks of economic analysis with the tasks of other management functions in one of the generally accepted subsystems of the management system; works in which the allocation of analysis tasks to an independent functional subsystem of the control system is justified.

We are developing a unified distributed communication environment for processing of spatial data which integrates web-, desktop- and mobile platforms and combines volunteer computing model and public cloud possibilities. The main idea is to create a flexible working environment for research groups, which may be scaled according to required data volume and computing power, while keeping infrastructure costs at minimum. It is based upon the "single window" principle, which combines data access via geoportal functionality, processing possibilities and communication between researchers. Using an innovative software environment the recently developed planetary information system (<a href="http://cartsrv.mexlab.ru/geoportal"target="_blank">http://cartsrv.mexlab.ru/geoportal</a>) will be updated. The new system will provide spatial data processing, analysis and 3D-visualization and will be tested based on freely available Earth remote sensing data as well as Solar system planetary images from various missions. Based on this approach it will be possible to organize the research and representation of results on a new technology level, which provides more possibilities for immediate and direct reuse of research materials, including data, algorithms, methodology, and components. The new software environment is targeted at remote scientific teams, and will provide access to existing spatial distributed information for which we suggest implementation of a user interface as an advanced front-end, e.g., for virtual globe system.

Basically, the purpose of production management is directed to create production efficiency and effectiveness to improve the results and contribute to the maximum profit achievement of the company. One of the problems in production management that influences the efficiency and effectiveness of production is layout arrangement of production facilities. This research is conducted through direct observation in Banana Chips Company ‘Cahaya Indi’ located in Donggala District. The type of research is quantitative using line balancing method and travel chart. The result of the line balancing method shows the efficiency of banana chips production process is 90,73% with idle time of 9,27%. While the result of travel chart method indicates a new layout design of banana chips production facility at Cahaya Indi is more effective with material flow load of 198,83 from the initial layout of 259,93. Pada dasarnya, tujuan manajemen produksi selalu diarahkan pada terciptanya efisiensi dan efektifitas produksi, agar dapat meningkatkan hasil produksi serta memberikan konstribusi yang maksimal terhadap laba perusahaan. Salah satu permasalahan manajemen produksi yang berpengaruh terhadap efisiensi dan efektifitas produksi adalah pengaturan tata letak (layout) fasilitas produksi. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan cara observasi langsung pada Cahaya Indi yang bertempat di Kabupaten Donggala. Jenis penelitian yang diguanakan adalah penelitian kuantitatif dengan menggunakan metode line balancing dan travel chart. Hasil penelitian dengan menggunakan metode line balancing diperoleh efisiensi dari proses produksi kripik pisang sebesar 90,73% dengan waktu menganggur 9,27%. Sedangkan hasil dari metode travel chart diperoleh rancangan baru tata letak fasilitas produksi kripik pisang pada Cahaya Indi yang lebih efektif sebesar 198,83 beban aliran bahan dari tata letak mula-mula sebesar 259,93 beban aliran bahan.

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to discuss the scope for improving the delivery of FM services through the use of wireless web‐based communications infrastructure, delivered via an application service provider (ASP) business model. This paper discusses the findings from case studies of three organisations and their approach to the management of facilities.Design/methodology/approachAn investigation was undertaken to ascertain the current state of play in terms of managing and tracking processes within the facilities management department of three different organisations. These case studies were chosen from distinct sectors, namely health care, higher education, and banking. Emphasis is placed on analysing how the organisations currently operate with their existing FM systems and the degree of influence technology has on existing processes. This was considered mainly in terms of computer‐aided facilities management (CAFM) and computer‐integrated facilities management (CIFM).FindingsThe study found that a new wireless web‐based service for FM systems would be considered useful. Although notoriously slow adopters of new technology, there was an acceptance by the facilities managers interviewed that a wireless web‐based approach would improve current practice, especially with respect to real‐time job reporting and tracking and in the determination of FM operative working time utilisation.Practical implicationsFurther work by the author is focusing on the development of a suitable demonstrator to illustrate the key concepts of a wireless web‐based FM service which will then be tested and evaluated. For further information, visit the research project web site at www.wirelessfm.org Originality/value – The paper hopefully stimulates discussion in the area of emerging wireless technologies that have the potential to streamline and improve current practices for the management of facilities, in particular that of real‐time job reporting and tracking.

This paper introduced the laboratory model of Real-time monitor system based on the 3D Visualization for calefaction furnace, depicted the process of the model.In this paper we created a virtual environment and transport the real-time data which we collected from the locale to the virtual scene,to realize the real time monitor on the real environment.Through simulating in the lab,the effect of this system was realistic at the same time it arrived at the goal of better monitoring with better real-time.