1,720,983 research outputs found
Sustainable people home-work logistics: An integrated model of circular economy in the chiampo valley
Full text linkLogistics activities, e.g., transportations of goods and people, are responsible for at least one-third of energy consumption and Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. About 70% of them are related to people’s mobility, with millions of cars moving every day. The people home-work logistics represents undoubtedly an important part of it since flows are concentrated on fixed time windows (beginning, lunch break, and end of the working day) creating huge traffic congestions and negative impacts on time, economics, and the environment. This study proposes an integrated model, summarized through a methodological framework, where three actors (companies, public administrations and local shops) work together aiming to economically incentivize the use of sustainable mobility systems. Three are the main elements of the proposed sustainable people home-work logistics model: (1) the economic self-sustainability of the incentives, funded in different ways by the actors, (2) the scalability, thanks to the possibility to add new territories to the project and (3) the territorial circular economy generated thanks to the incentive’s destinations and the public-private integration. Starting from survey questionnaires and territorial attributes, sustainable mobility ways are defined. Then, participant workers are monitored by activating a mobile app, called Ecoattivi, during their home-work journeys. In such a way, workers can directly analyze their sustainable mobility and reach the possibility to accumulate and spend money in local shops as a function of the saved CO2 . On the other hand, companies and public administrations compete in a special ranking for sustainable mobility. The methodological framework has been applied to a real case study in the Chiampo Valley, in the northeast of Italy, where about 10 small towns and dozens of companies in 2020 started the “Bike to Work Valchiampo” project
A new methodological framework to schedule job assignments by considering human factors and workers' individual needs
Full text linkOne of the biggest management challenges for companies consists in including workers’ features during production process decisions to obtain more realistic planning and scheduling outcomes. The increasing percentage of ageing operators in manufacturing areas, due to the postponement of retirement age, contributes to enhance the level of both physical and cognitive disparity among workers. Moreover, workers could present physical limitations that restrict the execution of certain tasks. Strong seasonality and the current spread of e-commerce lead companies to face sudden high peaks of market demand through constant operators’ turnover. Consequently, workers are not equally skilled and work-related injuries can arise whether tasks are not performed correctly by an ergonomic viewpoint. In such a context, Industry 4.0 tools and real-time monitoring systems have gained higher attention since they can be adopted for training purpose and also such as data collector for every single worker in order to propose ad hoc job rotation solutions. In this paper, we propose a new methodological framework that integrates anthropometric and ergonomics measures during the scheduling decision process and defines all steps needed to define a worker-oriented and flexible scheduling of assembly tasks or job assignment. Each task is categorized in the framework according to three drivers: physical stress, ergonomic risk and execution time. According to the variability of each of them among workers, we propose a step-by-step procedure that can help practitioners to select the most suitable worker in executing each task aiming to reach flexible scheduling by an inclusive workforce
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Smart Power Device Targeted To Educational Purposes
No full textThis paper presents the tools and methodology used to introduce students to the problem of Smart Power Design, resorting to low cost standard technologies. The theoretical support is envisaged to provide the required knowledge to specify characteristics and performance of the most common blocks used in Smart Power and to develop skills to implement them in integrated form. Through design, layout, simulation and experimental characterization, the students were able, in 60 hours of one semester course, to experience different steps of a smart power design, from the basic switching cell to the final system prototype. A Power Integrated Circuit embedding digital, analog basic blocks and HV transistor arrays is presented. Based on this PIC, different topologies required by power switches and drives, control and protection, for power electronics systems were implemented. Experimental results for one out of five completed systems implemented by the students are shown and discussed. This methodology was applied with success in a course offered to a small group of graduate students.2473478Ballan, H., Declercq, M., (1999) High Voltage Devices and Circuits in Standard CMOS Technologies, , Kluwer Academic PublishersMeyer, W.G., Dick, G.W., Lee, K.H., Shimer, J.A., Integrable high-voltage CMOS: Devices, process, applications (1985) IEDM Tech. Dig, pp. 732-735Parpia, Z., Salama, C.A.T., Hadaway, R.A., Modelling and characterization of CMOS compatible high-voltage device structures (1987) IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices, ED-34, pp. 2335-2343Santos, P.M., Casimiro, A.P., Lança, M., Castro Simas, M.I., High-voltage solutions in standard CMOS technologies IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference, PESC'2001, Proceedings CD ROM, Vancouver, Canada, June 2001Casimiro, A.P., Finco, S., Tavares, P., Behrens, F., Castro Simas, M.I., Integration strategies for smart power fast prototyping IEEE Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, IAS'2001, Proceedings CD ROM, Rome, Italy, October 2000Finco, S., NMOS based power integrated circuits (2000), Ph. D. Thesis (in Portuguese), UNICAMP, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil, JuneMendonça Santos, P., Finco, S., Behrens, F.H., Lança, M., Castro Simas, M.I., Breakdown voltage improvement of standard MOS technologies targeted at smart power (1995) IEEE Industrial Applications Society Annual Meeting, IAS'95, 2. , Orlando, USA, OctoberMurari, B., Bertotti, F., Vignola, G.A., (1995) Smart Power IC's - Technologies and Applications, , Springer EditorDal Fabbro, P.A., Pessati, M.P., Pomilio, J.A., Finco, S., An integrated class D audio amplifier using standard CMOS technology The 6th Brazilian Power Electronics Conference - COBEP'2001, Florianópolis, SC - Brazil. November 2001Mentor Graphics IC design EDA tools manual
Workers’ availability definition through the energy expenditure evaluation
Full text linkThis paper aims to evaluate worker’s availability for tasks and general activities that require a high level of physical effort, in order to study human availability in the industrial context. According to many studies, when physical effort for a specific working time is higher than a threshold value, workers are subjected to fatigue and so recovery time is mandatory to avoid injuries or accidents. However, the threshold value is influenced by workers’ characteristics like age, body mass, height, gender or level of aerobic exercises and for this reason, recovery time can assume several values according to workers’ features. Moreover, the workers’ availability cannot be the same for workers with different characteristics. For this reason, this paper proposes a new approach to define workers’ availability considering the worker’s age and the working time as two main features. Results are very interesting as they could help managers and practitioners to assign activities to workers according to their characteristics in order to maximize their productivity, reducing injuries and idle time at the same time
Ageing workforce effects in Dual-Resource Constrained job-shop scheduling
No full textCurrently, the ageing population is getting higher attention in production systems due to the increasing percentage of the ageing workforce, which persists longer in the working environment. Older workers are more vulnerable because of a possible decrease in physical capacities but can have a higher experience level. It is important to evaluate these factors during production process decisions and adapt the working environment to such workers. In such a way, production systems performance and workers’ well-being are jointly achieved. In companies aiming to include these aspects, digitalisation and automation can provide tools that can be used at tactical, strategic or operational levels. For example, at the operational level, wearable sensors, smart devices or trackers can be used in analysing the working time, effort and physical fatigue of operators via human-energy expenditure. These measures can be used to assess the required recovery time. However, the most challenging step is to include these measures in the decision-making process to organise the working process for operators according to their profiles and health restrictions. In this paper, we show how fatigue can be incorporated into operational processes such as scheduling in the context of a Dual-Resource Constrained (DRC) job shop. We consider several models to integrate rest allowance into the scheduling process and present a heuristic approach to assign operations to workers and machines. The impact of rest allowance on system performance is measured and managerial insights are provided
Workload balancing and scheduling in picking tower systems considering different storage strategies
Full text linkPicking tower systems are particularly suitable in the e-commerce distribution field. They permit to stock and pick a wide variety of items by maximizing storage capacity and space utilization. Such types of systems are comparable to zone picking solutions, since pickers work on one floor during the same working shift. However, differences also exist since, for example, once the picking tower system is designed, it is not possible to improve or reduce the area of each floor. Thus, a proper workload balancing is required to avoid an efficiency reduction of this system. This paper proposes a mixed integer linear programming mathematical model to assign pickers to floors and jointly schedule the picking list of each of them aiming to minimize the completion time of all orders. The model is applied to a real case study and first managerial insights are derived by investigating how the number of floors, the storage strategy and the number of pickers allowed on each floor influence the workload and the completion time. The results show that, for the considered case, the most effective configuration is the brand-based storage strategy with four picking levels
Consideration of workforce differences in assembly line balancing and worker assignment problem
Full text linkWorkforce differences in terms of skill, age, gender and physical measures have a large impact on production systems performance. Moreover, the role of differences between workers can be particularly seen in assembly lines, where a vast range of tasks are performed manually, and workers are involved widely. In this work, we introduce a new assembly line balancing and worker assignment model with consideration of workers' diversity in terms of both workers' expertise and perceived physical effort to implement an age-inclusive workforce. Here, a new Worker Task Categorization Matrix is introduced to assure the complete involvement of the individual during the balancing process. Following, a bi-objective linear programming model is proposed and solved by using the ε-constraint approach. Finally, we test and validate the model through a real-case application
Investigating Material Handling Equipment Selection in Intralogistics: a Literature Review
No full textMaterial handling (MH) plays a critical role in any manufacturing firm as it involves the movement, protection, storage, and control of material during intralogistics operations. Material handling system design must be made wisely, as MH can account for 30%-80% of total manufacturing costs, occupies huge amounts of factory space, and requires significant workforce. The Material Handling Equipment (MHE) selection problem is an important aspect in material handling system design, focusing on identifying the most appropriate equipment to address the required material handling operations. This challenge is further compounded by the increasing variety of material handling devices currently available on the market. The existing literature on the topic of MHE selection is fragmented and lacks a clear classification, both in terms of the specific issues addressed, such as the level of selection and the methodologies employed to solve the selection problem. To fill this gap, this paper provides a comprehensive review of studies conducted over the past two decades on the MHE selection problem. It classifies and analyzes the current state of the art on MHE selection problem in intralogistics, addressing selection decisions at a strategic level. Finally, a future research agenda is provided. © 2025, AIDI-Italian Association of Industrial Operations Professors
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