Search results

A real-time production scheduling method for semiconductor back-end manufacturing process becomes increasingly important in industry 4.0. Semiconductor back-end manufacturing process is always accompanied by order splitting and merging; besides, in each stage of the process, there are always multiple machine groups that have different production capabilities and capacities. This paper studies a multi-agent based scheduling architecture for the radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled semiconductor back-end shopfloor, which integrates not only manufacturing resources but also human factors.

The architecture includes a task management (TM) agent, a staff instruction (SI) agent, a task scheduling (TS) agent, an information management center (IMC), machine group (MG) agent and a production monitoring (PM) agent. Then, based on the architecture, the authors developed a scheduling method consisting of capability & capacity planning and machine configuration modules in the TS agent.

The authors used greedy policy to assign each order to the appropriate machine groups based on the real-time utilization ration of each MG in the capability & capacity (C&C) planning module, and used a partial swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to schedule each splitting job to the identified machine based on the C&C planning results. At last, we conducted a case study to demonstrate the proposed multi-agent based real-time production scheduling models and methods.

This paper proposes a multi-agent based real-time scheduling framework for semiconductor back-end industry. A C&C planning and a machine configuration algorithm are developed, respectively. The paper provides a feasible solution for semiconductor back-end manufacturing process to realize real-time scheduling.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how emerging open standards are replacing traditional industrial networks. Current industrial Ethernet networks are not interoperable; thus, limiting the potential capabilities for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). There is no forthcoming new generation fieldbus standard to integrate into the IIoT and Industry 4.0 revolution. The open platform communications unified architecture (OPC UA) time-sensitive networking (TSN) is a potential vendor-independent successor technology for the factory network. The OPC UA is a data exchange standard for industrial communication, and TSN is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers standard for Ethernet that supports real-time behaviour. The merging of these open standard solutions can facilitate cross-vendor interoperability for Industry 4.0 and IIoT products.

A brief review of the history of the fieldbus standards is presented, which highlights the shortcomings for current industrial systems in meeting converged traffic solutions. An experimental system for the OPC UA TSN is described to demonstrate an approach to developing a three-layer factory network system with an emphasis on the field layer.

From the multitude of existing industrial network schemes, there is a convergence pathway in solutions based on TSN Ethernet and OPC UA. At the field level, basic timing measurements in this paper show that the OPC UA TSN can meet the basic critical timing requirements for a fieldbus network.

This paper uniquely focuses on the specific fieldbus standards elements of industrial networks evolution and traces the developments from the early history to the current developing integration in IIoT context.

The technique of cross-docking is attractive to organisations because of the lower warehousing and transportation (consolidated shipments) costs. This concept is based on the fast movement of products. Accordingly, cross-docking operations should be monitored carefully and accurately. Several factors in cross-docking operations can be impacted by uncertain sources that can lead to inaccuracy and inefficiency of this process. Although many papers have been published on different aspects of cross-docking, there is a need for a comprehensive review to investigate the sources of uncertainties in cross-docking. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse and categorise sources of uncertainty in cross-docking operations. A systematic review has been undertaken to analyse methods and techniques used in cross-docking research.

A systematic review has been undertaken to analyse methods and techniques used in cross-docking research.

The findings show that existing research has limitations on the applicability of the models developed to solve problems due to unrealistic or impractical assumption. Further research directions have been discussed to fill the gaps identified in the literature review.

There has been an increasing number of papers about cross-docking since 2010, among which three are literature reviews on cross-docking from 2013 to 2016. There is an absence of study in the current literature to critically review and identify the sources of uncertainty related to cross-docking operations. Without the proper identification and discussion of these uncertainties, the optimisation models developed to improve cross-docking operations may be inherently impractical and unrealistic.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically how information and communication technologies (ICT) can contribute to reduction of CO₂ emissions in road freight transport and to identify opportunities for further improvements.

This research adopts a multiple case study approach with three leading UK grocery retailers as exemplars of fast-moving consumer goods retailers, conducted using multiple data collection techniques including interviews, system demonstrations, onsite observations and the use of archive information.

ICT solutions have a direct positive impact on CO₂ emissions reduction but opportunities to further reduce CO₂ emissions are perceived as lying beyond retailers’ own distribution networks. These opportunities are not fully utilised due to the complexities of collaborative ICT provisions and retailers’ reluctance to share information with competitors.

A limitation of the study is that it is exploratory and only three cases were examined. Even though these three retailers represent over 60 per cent of the UK grocery retail sector, other retailers may deploy significantly different ICT applications.

The research provides an overarching insight for businesses on how to leverage the existing and emerging information technologies for environmental and economic benefits.

While sustainability issues have received increasing attention recently, the role of ICT in freight transport for CO₂ emissions reduction has not been investigated in depth and its impact is largely unknown. This research advances understanding about how ICT contributes CO₂ emissions reductions and provides a framework for further investigation.

This paper aims to provide top-level design and basic platform for intelligent application in China high-speed railway.

Based on the analysis for the future development trends of world railway, combined with the actual development needs in China high-speed railway, The definition and scientific connotation of intelligent high-speed railway (IHSR) are given at first, and then the system architecture of IHSR are outlined, including 1 basic platform, 3 business sectors, 10 business fields, and 18 innovative applications. At last, a basic platform with cloud edge integration for IHSR is designed.

The rationality, feasibility and implementability of the system architecture of IHSR have been verified on and applied to the Beijing–Zhangjiakou high-speed railway, providing important support for the construction and operation of the world’s first IHSR.

This paper systematically gives the definition and connotation of the IHSR and put forward the system architecture of IHSR for first time. It will play the most important role in the design, construction and operation of IHSR.

The huge demand for fresh goods has stimulated lots of research on the perishable food supply chain. The characteristics of perishable food and the cross-regional transportation have brought many challenges to the operation models of perishable food supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to address these challenges based on the real-time data acquired by the Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

IoT and the modeling of the Supply Hub in Industrial Parks were adopted in the perishable food supply chain.

A conceptual model was established for the IoT-enabled perishable food supply chain with two-echelon supply hubs. The performance of supply chain has improved when implementing the proposed model, as is demonstrated by a case study.

By our model, the supply hubs which act as the dominators of the supply chain can respond to the real-time information captured from the operation processes of an IoT-enabled supply chain, thus to provide public warehousing and logistic services.

Although proactive fault handling plans are widely spread, many unexpected data center outages still occurred. To rescue the jobs from faulty data centers, the authors propose a novel independent job rescheduling strategy for cloud resilience to reschedule the task from the faulty data center to other working-proper cloud data centers, by jointly considering job nature, timeline scenario and overall cloud performance.

A job parsing system and a priority assignment system are developed to identify the eligible time slots for the jobs and prioritize the jobs, respectively. A dynamic job rescheduling algorithm is proposed.

The simulation results show that our proposed approach has better cloud resiliency and load balancing performance than the HEFT series approaches.

This paper contributes to the cloud resilience by developing a novel job prioritizing, task rescheduling and timeline allocation method when facing faults.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the productivity improvement potentials from maintenance planning practices in manufacturing companies. In particular, the paper aims at understanding the connection between machine criticality assessment and maintenance prioritization in industrial practice, as well as providing the improvement potentials.

An explanatory mixed method research design was used in this study. Data from literature analysis, a web-based questionnaire survey, and semi-structured interviews were gathered and triangulated. Additionally, simulation experimentation was used to evaluate the productivity potential.

The connection between machine criticality and maintenance prioritization is assessed in an industrial set-up. The empirical findings show that maintenance prioritization is not based on machine criticality, as criticality assessment is non-factual, static, and lacks system view. It is with respect to these finding that the ways to increase system productivity and future directions are charted.

In addition to the empirical results showing productivity improvement potentials, the paper emphasizes on the need for a systems view for solving maintenance problems, i.e. solving maintenance problems for the whole factory. This contribution is equally important for both industry and academics, as the maintenance organization needs to solve this problem with the help of the right decision support.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the economic feasibility of a three-echelon Halal Meat Supply Chain (HMSC) network that is monitored by a proposed radio frequency identification (RFID)-based management system for enhancing the integrity traceability of Halal meat products and to maximize the average integrity number of Halal meat products, maximize the return of investment (ROI), maximize the capacity utilization of facilities and minimize the total investment cost of the proposed RFID-monitoring system. The location-allocation problem of facilities needs also to be resolved in conjunction with the quantity flow of Halal meat products from farms to abattoirs and from abattoirs to retailers.

First, a deterministic multi-objective mixed integer linear programming model was developed and used for optimizing the proposed RFID-based HMSC network toward a comprised solution based on four conflicting objectives as described above. Second, a stochastic programming model was developed and used for examining the impact on the number of Halal meat products by altering the value of integrity percentage. The ε-constraint approach and the modified weighted sum approach were proposed for acquisition of non-inferior solutions obtained from the developed models. Furthermore, the Max-Min approach was used for selecting the best solution among them.

The research outcome shows the applicability of the developed models using a real case study. Based on the computational results, a reasonable ROI can be achievable by implementing RFID into the HMSC network.

This work addresses interesting avenues for further research on exploring the HMSC network design under different types of uncertainties and transportation means. Also, environmentalism has been becoming increasingly a significant global problem in the present century. Thus, the presented model could be extended to include the environmental aspects as an objective function.

The model can be utilized for food supply chain designers. Also, it could be applied to realistic problems in the field of supply chain management.

Although there were a few studies focusing on the configuration of a number of HMSC networks, this area is overlooked by researchers. The study shows the developed methodology can be a useful tool for designers to determine a cost-effective design of food supply chain networks.