Organization Evaluation of Product Development Process Using Agent Based Simulation

This study aims at highlighting the current knowledge, practices and effects of collaborative and concurrent new product development processes in the framework of the Portuguese plastic processing industry. By means of a case study approach, the conditioning factors affecting the strategic collaborations among firms are systemized. Mutual dependence, trust, and extensive information sharing were identified as prerequisites factors for a better buyer-supplier interdependence and involvement, as well as for the overall benefit of the supply chain. Moreover, collaborative and concurrent new product development processes ask for the use of cost management practices and advanced technical specifications (standards) which emerge as technical and management tools to achieve higher levels of efficiency and quality at the lower cost. Practices such as target and kaizen costing, value engineering, and design-to-cost, were perceived to play a remarkable positive effect on the internal/external organizational boundaries.

In the concurrent and collaborative product development process, the realization of quantitative analysis and overall control of the development process management is the key and the difficulties in the current study. Through describes the concept and role of data maturity, a new methods to quantitative analysis and overall control of collaborative product development process based on the idea of data maturity was proposed in this paper. Base on the explanation of the theory of data maturity to control the process, the differences and relationship between data maturity and milestone was analyzed. The division method of data maturity level was discussed, and the corresponding relationship between each data maturity level and completion degree of the digital product model was illustrated also. In addition, the overall form of the product collaborative development process based on data maturity was provided. Finally, the detailed process between product structure design, process design and tooling design driven by each data maturity were explored, which realized the quantitative analysis and overall control of the product development process.

Digital agility is a critical dynamic capability that is becoming increasingly important in the context of collaborative product development processes (PDPs). This paper aims to address the complexity of today's PDPs by considering various quality aspects including safety, environment, and the entire lifecycle, along with diverse dynamic capabilities such as digital agility and circular economy. The authors employed a semantic web methodology and created an ontology-based knowledge model. The proposed ontology uses Design for X techniques, circular economy, digital agility, and the semantic web under the PDP perspective to increase performance and cooperation between designers and the project team. To validate the ontology, measures for domain ontology evaluation have been used. The paper presents a detailed guide for ontology engineering and evaluation for collaborative smart PDP, which incorporates digital agility as a critical dynamic capability. The proposed ontology can help boost PDP performance and increase customer satisfaction.

Loading and unloading activities generate nearly fifty per cent of the total cost in port. The loading and unloading process of the container at the port is considered as a complex process since it involves several interrelated components, such as ships, cranes, and trucks. The uncertainty of these component activities might impact the loading and unloading time and cost. Agent-based modelling and simulation (ABMS) approach is a method for analyzing and modelling a complex system. This study aims to simulate the unloading process to determine a strategy to reduces unloading process time in the largest port in Indonesian using ABMS approach. The results show that the agent-based simulation approach is feasible to be applied in port activities. This approach can assist decision-makers in predicting the number of facilities that must be used to minimize processing time.

Four important issues in Information System for Collaborative Product Development Process are discussed in this paper. They are process outsourcing, process orchestration, process dynamic change, and integration of process management with synchronized collaboration. A method of dynamic refining of process model is proposed to support hierarchical activity decomposition, therefore fulfils process outsourcing. Loose coupling message communication architecture based on JMS and web services technology is developed to orchestrate the cross-organizational product development processes. In order to treat process model changes in long-running product development processes, a process evolution methodology is discussed in this paper. At last, collaborative activity is presented to support synchronized collaborative work in asynchronous activity schedule in product development process.

In product development projects in a collaborative environment, it is not uncommon for professionals to work toward goals that do not result in successful, competitive products. One way of avoiding this problem is to employ objective indicators to represent the product's competitiveness and facilitate communication in the project team. This article proposes a Customer Satisfaction indicator for this purpose, which is especially useful for product improvement projects. This indicator makes it possible to (1) simulate Customer Satisfaction at a future date based on the modifications being proposed today and (2) verify how much the technical characteristics of a product actually contribute to Customer Satisfaction. It facilitates communication among professionals from different backgrounds, especially in a collaborative product development process. Practical applications are introduced, simulated and discussed.

Ontology-based assembly design and information sharing for collaborative product development

The widespread adoption of computer-aided design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM) tools has resulted in the acceleration of the product development process, reducing the time taken to design a product [46]. However, the product development process, for the most part, is still decentralized with the design and manufacturing reviews being performed independently, leading to differences between as-designed and as-manufactured component. A successful product needs to meet its specifications, while also being manufacturable. In general, the design engineer ensures that the product is able to function according to the specified requirements, while the manufacturing engineer gives feedback to the design engineer about its manufacturability. This iterative process is often time consuming, leading to longer product development times and higher costs. Recent researches in integrating design and manufacturing [24, 28, 46] have tried to reduce these differences and making the product development process easier and accessible to designers, who may not be manufacturing experts. In addition, there have been different efforts to enable a collaborative product development process and reduce the number of design iterations [8, 10, 41]. However, with the increase in complexity of designs, integrating the manufacturability analysis within the design environment provides an ideal solution to improve the product design process.

Coordination of multiple autonomous robots is a typical research problem in Multi-agent systems. The distributed agent models that represent the supervisory controllers of autonomous soccer robots are capable of communication, interaction and collaboration. By introducing the multi-agent based control architecture, the soccer robots perform seamless team cooperation to achieve the desired mission during competition. Due to the multi-soccer robot system is a discrete event dynamic system with concurrent and asynchronous characteristics, the distributed agent-oriented Petri net (DAOPN) is selected in this paper to model and control the behaviors of the multi-soccer robot systems. The agent models proposed in this work consist of the coordination model and the skill oriented robot behavior models. Especially, the agent based communication places enable the distributed agent models to be communicated directly. In this manner, the DAOPN based agent models can act as the robot controllers and coordinator to perform run-time controls of the soccer robot team. Therefore, the proposed approach not only resolves problems of the multi-robot coordination, but also provides a feasible way to overcome the complicated mathematical functions or rule bases. Finally, this system is tested using four soccer robots, and the results verify the proposed DAOPN based controller. Index Petri nets, agent-based simulation and modeling, cooperation and coordination among agents.

The combination of computer-aided tools for the support of planning and execution of product development processes opens new possibilities especially for the collaboration in virtual enterprises and globally distributed supply chains. The use of simulation tools for process analysis not only enables the enterprises to design optimised product development processes across company borders but can also form the basis for the execution of these processes. The support granted by product library and workflow-management functionalities ensures that planned processes are carried out in an effective way without struggling with the usual information management problems.The described approach of a continuous support of the design and execution of product development processes helps companies to face the challenges of a globalised world by using the opportunities that such a globalised world offers.Keywordsproduct development processessimulationdistributed designproduct data management

Process planning for collaborative product development with CD-DSM in optoelectronic enterprises

The internationalization of firms is a growing important phenomenon in the Economy. Thus, to face the new competitive challenges of globalized markets, industrial small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to implement new organizational approaches to take on new challenges in international markets. Based on a case study, this chapter reviews the literature on internationalization theories. Drawing on the network-based approach and on the resource-based view of the firm, we examine how collaborative new product development processes played a fundamental role in the internationalization process of a SME using a relationship-based perspective. The featured case concerns to a successful ex-small technical textile firm that leveraged its competitive strategy, climbed up the value chain, and extended its international activities following a technology-based path.

The Effect of On-Net/Off-Net Differentiation and Heterogeneous Consumers on Network Size in Mobile Telecommunications - an Agent-Based Approach

Many cities around the world have experienced an increase in population and pose challenges in planning and managing the freight transportation within the city. Off-peak hour delivery (OPHD) is a strategy of delivering goods in the afternoon and evening to reduce congestion during peak periods, increase the efficiency of delivery companies, and reduce emissions. This research proposed a model of city logistics in the retail supply chain by implementing OPHD in the logistics system. The aim of this study is to explore the extent of potential implementation of OPHD in urban logistics. An agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) approach is applied to model the autonomous and dynamic interactions of stakeholders involved in city logistics systems. Preliminary results are presented in this paper to provide illustrations of the model. It shows that OPHD can significantly reduce the transportation cost and emissions cost, and ABMS is able to provide results that are relatively close to pilot test drive research which is carried out in real world.

This thesis is addressed to politicians and scientists dealing with renewable electricity generation and electricity markets. It analyses the impact of the German support scheme for renewable electricity generation on the German electricity sector. Special emphasis is given to the quantification of the monetary effects of the support scheme. Thereby the thesis provides helpful insights into the most important effects that dominate the current discussion on the German support scheme and the cost.