A Tool Integration Framework for Sustainable Embedded Systems Development

Subject. The article considers the development of approaches to the integration of digital technologies into production processes of industrial enterprises to improve operational efficiency. Objectives. The purpose is to develop a mechanism for digital transformation of a machine-building holding in relation to the formation of a single information space based on modern approaches to business process reengineering. Methods. I apply methods of systems and economic analysis, modeling of business processes of enterprises. Results. The key factor in the formation of positive effects of digital transformation of industrial enterprises is the integration of business processes within a single information environment. The result of automation of key processes of products’ life cycle within the framework of a single digital platform will be the replacement of "patchwork" automation in disparate information systems of enterprises with integrated monitoring and life cycle management systems, operating on the basis of a single information space. Conclusions. The introduction of "seamless" information exchange based on a single information space is urgent for holding structures characterized by heterogeneous and poorly compatible information systems. The integration of systems of development, modeling, management, and analytical processing based on digital twins, the introduction of augmented and virtual reality tools, and the use of artificial intelligence elements for production management are a necessary stage for the formation of new methods of technological preparation and organization of production, and for the creation of a full-fledged digital twin of production and product life cycle processes.

Thinking in terms of product life cycles is one of the challenges facing manufacturers today: Efforts to increase efficiency throughout the life cycle do not only mean extended responsibility of the parties concerned. Economically successful business areas can also be explored. Whether new service concepts are required, new regulations have been passed or consumer values are changing, the differences between business areas are disappearing. Life cycle management (LCM) considers the product life cycle as a whole and optimizes the interaction of product design, manufacturing and life cycle activities. The goal of this approach is to protect resources and maximize effectiveness by means of life cycle assessment, product data management, technical support and, last but not least, life cycle costing. This paper shows the existing approaches of LCM and discusses their prospects and further development.

Product Life Cycle Design for Sustainable Value Creation: Methods of Sustainable Product Development in the Context of High Value Engineering

In modern realities, it is necessary to increase the efficiency of production and use of high-tech products of industrial enterprises. This becomes possible thanks to the implementation of a cost management system for the full life cycle of high-tech products. This system allows for a significant reduction in both financial and material costs at all stages of the life cycle of high-tech products. At the same time, the main attention is paid to the cost of the full life cycle of the sample. The purpose of the publication is to develop conceptual approaches to the construction of cost management systems at the stages of the life cycle of high-tech industrial products to minimize total (total) costs. Based on the analysis of theoretical and methodological approaches in the field of life cycle management of high-tech products, as well as foreign experience in managing the cost of high-tech products at various stages of its life cycle, the authors have developed a conceptual model of a cost management system for the life cycle of high-tech products. The proposed concept will contribute to the reform of the management system of the full life cycle of high-tech products. This will solve problems in the field of providing financial and material resources for all stages of the life cycle of high-tech products, starting with its development and ending with disposal, as well as increase the efficiency of using the life cycle management system of high-tech products of industrial enterprises. The novelty of the presented results lies in the fact that the authors for the first time from the standpoint of systematic and integrated approaches describe conceptual approaches to building a cost management system for the full life cycle of high-tech products, identify the problems of managing the operating costs of high-tech products and show the tools to solve them. This will allow a systematic approach to managing the full costs of all stages of the life cycle of high-tech products in order to minimize them.

Reaching a higher level of sustainability of a products life cycle became a strategic goal for many companies over the past years. To achieve that higher level of sustainability, the transformation of linear product life cycles (cradle to grave) into circular life cycles (cradle to cradle) in the context of a Circular Economy (CE) is one promising approach. However, implementing a circular life cycle results in higher requirements in defining the best fitted strategy at the end of each product use stage depending on economic, environmental and social factors.In order to cope these increased requirements, the whole product life cycle has to become more transparent. This transparency can be reached by a holistic digital representation and virtual quality control of all life cycle stages. To implement a virtual quality control in each stage and enable the monitoring and controlling of the whole life cycle, the concept of Virtual Quality Gates can be extended. Virtual Quality Gates divide a defined manufacturing chain into different virtual, quality-relevant decision points to check the product quality and ensure a defined quality state before further manufacturing steps are approved. This concept can be transferred to each life cycle stage to ensure a holistic optimization of the products life cycle quality and an optimized selection of a strategy at the end of each use stage.This paper presents a framework for the implementation of virtual quality gates into product life cycles. These extended quality gates are defined as Life Cycle Gates, which are virtual decision points to optimize a product life cycle. The demand and applicability of the concept is shown for a mechanical recycling process of automotive parts.

Reconceptualizing the Product Life Cycle Concept - Lessons from Diffusion of Innovations

This paper deals with productivity enhancement of a Caravan Manufacturing company located in United Arab Emirates. A continuous improvement technique: define, measure, analyse, improve, and control (DMAIC) has been implemented in the production department of the case company. A model was developed using Arena software to simulate the caravan manufacturing process and the proposed solution. The model was verified and validated. Control charts were also developed to control and maintain productivity in the case company. It was suggested to change caravan doors from wooden to aluminium. After thorough and careful analysis using simulation, it was found that the production of caravan increased from six per every three days to 11 per every three days. This resulted in increased profit of 500 AED (USD 135) per caravan, 600 more caravans per year and enhanced product life cycle. Moreover it resulted in saving cost, increased production, and product life cycle.

Low-carbon design is a design process for a product with the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions during its entire life cycle, which has an essential effect on product carbon footprint. However, existing approaches for low-carbon product design are either inextensible to achieve low-carbon design solutions in product life cycle or prone to a loss of optimal solutions under the dual consideration of carbon footprint and cost in product life cycle. This paper is devoted to a systematic Lagrange Relaxation-based approach to cost-constrained low-carbon product design for product life cycle. After the calculation model of carbon footprint for product life cycle is proposed, network-based representation model for low-carbon product design under the consideration of carbon footprint and cost in product life cycle is proposed. A Lagrange Relaxation-based constrained shortest path algorithm is then applied to produce design solutions with the consideration of carbon footprint and cost in product life cycle. The cost-constrained low-carbon product design of cold heading machine tool is given as an example, which demonstrates that the methodology is helpful to produce valuable solutions with the dual consideration of product carbon footprint and cost in product life cycle.

Nowadays, typical software and system engineering projects in various industrial sectors (automotive, telecommunication, etc.) involve hundreds of developers using quite a number of different tools. Thus, the data of a project as a whole is distributed over these tools. Therefore, it is necessary to make the relationships of different tool data repositories visible and keep them consistent with each other. This still is a nightmare due to the lack of domain-specific adaptable tool and data integration solutions which support maintenance of traceability links, semi-automatic consistency checking as well as incremental update propagation. Currently used solutions are usually hand-coded one-way transformations between pairs of tools only. In this article we propose a new rule-based approach that allows for the declarative specification of data integration rules concerning multiple data repositories. Hence, we call our approach “Multi Document Integration”. It generalizes the formalism of triple graph grammars and replaces the underlying data structure of directed graphs by the more general data structure of MOF-compliant meta models. Our integration rule specifications are translated into JMI-compliant Java code which is used for various purposes by a tool integration framework. As a result we give an answer to OMG’s request for proposals for a MOF-compliant “queries, views, and transformation” approach from the “model driven application development” (MDA) field.

This paper addresses a competition problem in two Pharmaceutical Supply Chains (PSCs) with their exclusive retailer and manufacturer. However, the key to successful manufacturing is not just understanding a Product Life Cycle (PLC), but also proactively managing products throughout their lifetime, applying the appropriate resources and sales and marketing strategies, depending on what stage products are at in the cycle. Providing a competitive pharmaceutical supply chain under a product life cycle and offering Nash and Stackelberg games under the marketing mix strategies (i.e., price, product quality, location, and advertising) and product life cycle (i.e., introduction, growth, and maturity) is a novel idea that needs to be studied. So, a demand function depends on the marketing mix strategies. The competition between PSCs is considered based on the levels of price, quality, access, and promotion (i.e., marketing mix) across different stages of their PLC. Concerning the PLC and the position of a supply chain in a specific period of their PLC, the considered competitions are Nash and Stackelberg. The results of the level of the marketing mix, demand, and profit for each supply chain are obtained by given different games in line with the stage of their PLC. Furthermore, based on investigating the previous annual data, the sensitivity coefficients of the marketing mix of PSCs in the demand function, these coefficients are considered as stochastic fuzzy parameters. Based on the obtained results, the average total profit of the two supply chains in the product life cycle, at Nash equilibrium, is 6.5 times that of Stackelberg. The average total profit of the first supply chain in the product life cycle, at Stackelberg, is 10% higher than Nash equilibrium. Moreover, the average total profit of the second supply chain in the product life cycle, at Nash equilibrium, is 19 times that of Stackelberg.

Simulation plays a critical role in the design of products, materials and manufacturing processes. Increasingly, simulation is replacing physical tests to ensure product reliability and quality thereby facilitating steady reductions in design cycles. However, with the current global environmental crisis, there are gaps in the simulation tools used by industry to provide reliable results from which effective and equitable decisions can be made regarding environmental impacts at different stages of product realization and life cycle. For sustainable manufacturing planning, enhanced modeling techniques are needed to understand and predict the sustainability aspects through design and manufacturing where technologies can be applied to transform materials with reduced energy consumption, reduced emissions, reduced generation of waste products, and reduced use of non renewable or toxic materials. In this paper, a holistic and systems approach to Sustainable Manufacturing Planning and Simulation (SMPS) is identified and presented in an effort to bridge the gaps in the simulation tools to incorporate aspects pertaining to sustainability across the product lifecycle. For SMPS framework we consider building upon the previously developed Systems Integration of Manufacturing Applications (SIMA) project at NIST. Based on a case study and discussions we aim to address the usefulness of research towards having a simulation reference framework, and corresponding information models to facilitate effective decision making using simulation at different phases of product lifecycle. In the course of the paper we also identify and propose potential areas of future research in this direction.

In this paper, we consider the case when two profit-maximizing firms enter a new market with a competing product that has a finite (and known) life cycle. Both firms make design decisions simultaneously without information about the other firm's decisions. The order of entry is a function of the two firms' product design levels and design capabilities. The first firm entering the market sets a monopoly price for its product and enjoys a monopoly situation until the second firm enters the market. When the second firm enters the market, both firms simultaneously set (or reset) their product prices knowing the design of both products at that time (and we assume those prices are fixed for the remainder of the product's life). We develop a game-theoretic model that represents the new product introduction process and show that a subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium occurs under certain conditions defined by the expected product life span, product cost, development time, and customer preferences. Our model shows that product differentiation always arises at equilibrium due to the joint effects of resource utilization, price competition, and product life cycle. A critical parameter for our model is a product-specific index B that we define; we show how it can be easily calculated from existing data. We then use a numerical example to illustrate managerial implications for a new product development process when the product life span is finite. We show that the strategy of time-based competition is the natural result of firms' improving development capability, reducing product cost, and increasing customer preference. In other words, it is not wise for profit-maximizing firms to arbitrarily shorten product life cycle for the sake of competition, because all firms are worse off. Our results also indicate that the first entrant into the market does not necessarily earn the greatest profit, and that a firm with low-cost advantage or fast design capability might not choose to come to market first to maximize its profit in the product life cycle.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a key technique to achieve green design. But it isn't applied widely because of its defects. In order to enhance the operability of LCA in green design, a LCA tool, named green product life cycle design (GPLCD) is described in this paper. The paper is divided into four sections: first, based on the analysis of the existing LCA method and the product design activities, the functional model of the LCA tool is built with IDEF0 methods. And then through analyzing the product and its life cycle activities, product's life cycle model is proposed and the functional unit class and process class are presented with object oriented design. Third, aimed to the problems of the data management of product's life cycle, product configuration management is integrated into GPLCD. Finally, a case on choosing material of impeller is given to testify how to use the LCA tool to support green design.

The research study examines product life cycle and time-varying advertising elastics in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The population of the study consisted of 10 Television dealers, 10 Food and Beverages Distributors, 5 Tobacco Distributors, 10 Detergent Distributors, 10 Foam Mattress and Bedding Dealers and Suppliers registered with the Rivers State Chamber of Commerce. The sample size of the study consisted of 40 firms and a total of 120 respondents made up of owners, senior managers, sales representative and marketing executives in the frame of three (3) respondents from each firm were surveyed through the administration of questionnaire. The instrument for data collection contains 4 questions for the independent variable and 20 questions for dependent variables. Product life cycle was measured with time varying advertising elasticities, total scales of a product brand; advertising by rival firms, cumulative effect of past advertisement of product brand and advertising elasticity affected by other factors affecting demand for a product brand. The Cronbach Alpha was calculated to confirm the reliability of the study construct. The reliability coefficient obtained was 0.82 and the data generated were analyzed using mean and standard deviation scores. The researcher used Person Product Moment Correlation to test the stated hypotheses. Findings reveals that product life cycle is significantly associated with time varying advertising elasticities of product brand. The study conclude that to fully adopt product life cycle and the varying advertising elasticities dimension as key strategies for business cycle growth and continued survival. The researcher thus recommended that marketing and sales managers should utilize the huge benefit to advertising elasticity to campaign effectively in generating new sales in line with the product life cycle of a product life/brand, reduce product cost to prevent potential competitors, ensure the product should be reformulated and remodeled to suit the consumers’ preferences.

Product life cycle research: A literature review