Despite technological advancements, chemical and process industries are still prone to accidents due to their complexity and hazardous installations. These accidents lead to significant losses that represent economic losses and most importantly human losses. Risk management is one of the appropriate tools to guarantee the safe operations of these plants. Risk analysis is an important part of risk management, it consists of different methods such as Fault tree, Bow-tie, and Bayesian network. The latter has been widely applied for risk analysis purposes due to its flexible and dynamic structure. Bayesian networks approaches have shown a significant increase in their application as shown by in the publication in this field. This paper summarizes the result of a literature review performed on Bayesian network approaches adopted to conduct risk assessments, safety and risk analyses. Different application domains are analysed (i.e. accident modelling, maintenance area, fault diagnosis) in chemical and process industries from the year 2006 to 2018. Furthermore, the advantages of different types of Bayesian networks are presented.

Nowadays, successful and innovative product development is highly correlated with the company’s success and reason for existence. A development process is a major factor influencing cost, timing and quality of product development. It requires additional attention to decisions made about programme, budget, technical and market risks. In this paper a product development process model is proposed in an innovation context and strategy framework of design process and project management. The process modelling is complex network theory based, to improve characterization analysis for product development process modelling. Required concepts for complex process are established to build product development mathematical model, and provide an overview of key definitions and complex networks advanced tools. Finally, a case study for an Algerian electric generator company is carried out to prove the practicality of the proposed model.

Prevention and protection of explosions are two notions often used subjectively, and to transform them into operative terms of decision support, it is indispensable to develop quantitative or semiquantitative approaches to determine the hazardous zones. The “classical and point-source” approaches that determine ATEX (explosive atmospheres) zones are semiquantitative methods that can meet the requirements of the ATEX directives (Directives 99/92/EC and 94/9/EC). The methodology’s principle in determining ATEX zones consists in making a comparison with typical examples “classical approach” and to identify the source points, determine the degree of discharge, identify the type of the zone, determine the radius of the zone and ultimately the extent and shape of this zone “source point approach.” The aim of this work is, on the one hand, to propose and present a classification methodology of the ATEX zones and, on the other hand, to apply the proposed methodology in a hydrocarbon separator.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic poses an unprecedented global challenge, impacting profoundly on health and wellbeing, daily life, and the economy around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has also changed education forever. The COVID-19 has resulted in schools shut all across the world. Globally, all children at schools or students at universities are out of the classroom. As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the notable rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. Batna 2 University -situated in East of Algeria- is one of the universities suggested after the spread of COVID-19 in March, that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, and take less time, meaning the changes coronavirus have caused might be here to stay. All institutes and departments, including the Industrial Engineering department, are started using the e-learning Moodle platform to publish courses for all degrees of study and establish online sessions, especially for Ph.D. students.

In this paper, a new length changeable extreme learning machine is proposed. The aim of the proposed method is to improve the learning performances of a Single hidden layer feedforward neural network (SLFN) under rich dynamic imbalanced data. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is involved for hyper-parameters tuning and updating during incremental learning. The algorithm is evaluated using a subset from C-MAPSS (Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation) dataset of gas turbine engine and compared to its derivatives. The results prove that the new algorithm has a better learning attitude. The toolbox that contains the developed algorithms of this comparative study is publicly available.

In this paper, we consider a parallel machine scheduling problem with non-renewable resources. Each job consumes several components and must be processed in one stage composed of identical parallel machines. Resources availability operations, jobs assignment and sequencing are considered and optimized simultaneously. In order to find an optimal solution, an exact method is applied to optimize the total completion time. Due to the problem complexity and prohibitive computational time to obtain an exact solution, a metaheuristic approach based genetic algorithm is proposed and several heuristics are adapted to solve it. Moreover, the impact of non-renewable resources procurement methods on production scheduling is analyzed. The system performances are evaluated in terms of measures such as the solution quality and the execution time. The simulation results show that the proposed genetic algorithm gives the same results as the exact method for small instances and performs the best compared to heuristics for medium and large instances.

The organisations having a futuristic look and aiming to impose their presence in the industrial field for a long possible term, are seeking for finding solutions linked to controlling their cash flow and assessing their competitiveness performances. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a new quality and cost value stream mapping for monitoring the costs consumption and assessing the competitiveness of a company. We use three key concepts namely life cycle costing for estimation of the most influential costs on the manufacturing process, the weighted DPMO and Sigma level for assessing the quality level and the competitiveness of the company. Finally, the data obtained are mapped using value stream mapping method for enabling the determination of dysfunctions in the cost and quality context.

The organisations having a futuristic look and aiming to impose their presence in the industrial field for a long possible term, are seeking for finding solutions linked to controlling their cash flow and assessing their competitiveness performances. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a new quality and cost value stream mapping for monitoring the costs consumption and assessing the competitiveness of a company. We use three key concepts namely life cycle costing for estimation of the most influential costs on the manufacturing process, the weighted DPMO and Sigma level for assessing the quality level and the competitiveness of the company. Finally, the data obtained are mapped using value stream mapping method for enabling the determination of dysfunctions in the cost and quality context.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate an integrated approach that aims at enhancing the application process of value stream mapping (VSM) method. It also proposes an extended VSM called Economic and Environmental VSM(E-EVSM). The proposed approach highlights the improvement of economic and environmental performances. Design/methodology/approach The proposed approach has studied the integration of VSM, fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and fuzzy quality function deployment (QFD) to improve the economic and environmental performances of manufacturing processes. The VSM method is used for data collection and manufacturing process assessment, whereas fuzzy DEMATEL is used to analyse the current state map. Finally, fuzzy QFD is used to organize the improvement phase of VSM method. Findings The clear findings of this research prove the effectiveness of VSM method on the environmental and economic performances of manufacturing processes. In addition, the proposed approach will show the advantages of fuzzy DEMATEL and fuzzy QFD approaches in improving the application of the VSM method. Research limitations/implications The limitation of this study includes the lack of consideration of other dimensions such as social, technological and managerial. In addition, the proposed approach studied an average set of environmental and economic indicators. Originality/value The novelty of the proposed approach is proved by the development of an extended VSM method (E-EVSM). Also, the proposed approach contributes by a new methodology for analysing and improving the current state map of manufacturing processes.

Nowadays, the integration of solar power into the electrical grids is vital to increase energy efficiency and profitability. Effective usage of the instable solar production of photovoltaic (PV) systems necessitates trustworthy forecasting information. Actually, this addition can gives an ameliorated service quality if the solar radiation variation can be forecasted accurately. In this paper, we propose a new forecasting approach that integrates Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) and Genetic algorithms (GA) to make benefit of both of them in order to forecast Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI) component. The proposed approach is compared with the standard ARMA model. The experimental results show that, the proposed approach outperforms the classical ARMA models in terms of mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), root mean squared error (RMSE) coefficient of determination (R)2 and the normalized mean squared error (NMSE).

This paper presents a new hardware implementation of a supervision system used in robot manipulators with two degrees of freedom. In addition to the simulation results, the new System Generator tool of Xilinx r is used to ensure self-generation of HDL codes. This code is used to configure field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) devices in the loop, and the supervision system is used mainly to ensure real-time reconfiguration of robots. In the proposed system, we used a new fault detection (FD) method for a viscous friction fault in the supervised robot combined with a fault-tolerance control method. The first module, based on residual analysis, is used to FD and to properly estimate the necessary corrections of the second module. For data transmission between the supervisor and the supervised robots, we used an approach based on the transmission control protocol. The simulation results show that the proposed method adjusts the fault effect using information transferred from the remote supervisor robot. The hardware implementation generated using Xilinx r System Generator is used to validate the proposed contribution and to ensure real-time processing in the case of industrial robots. The simulation results and the response times of both proposed systems are compared and discussed.

The emerging behavior in complex systems is more complicated than the sum of the behaviors of their constituent parts. This behavior involves the propagation of faults between the parts and requires information about how the parts are related. Therefore, the prognostic function at the system-level becomes a very tough task. Conventional approaches focus on identifying faults and their probabilities of occurrence. In complex systems, this can create statistical limitations for prognostic function where component fault relies on the connected components in the system and their state of degradations. In this paper, a new Holonic agent-based approach is proposed for system-level remaining useful life (S-RUL) estimation with different dependencies. As the proposed approach can capture fault/failure mode propagation and interactions that occur in the system all the way up through the component and eventually system level, it can work as an automatic testing-tool in reliability tasks. Through a numerical example, the implementation is done in Java Agent Development Environment with and without consideration of stochastic dependence. Results show that the indirect effect of influencing components has a massive impact on the S-RUL, and the impact of stochastic dependencies should not be ignored, especially in the early stages of the system design.

The existing literature on process scheduling issues have either ignored installation times or assumed that installation times on all machines is free by association with the task sequence. This working arrangement addresses hybrid flow shop scheduling issues under which there are sequence-dependent configuration times referred to as HFS with SDST. This family of production systems are common in industries such as biological printed circuit boards, metallurgy and vehicles and automobiles making. Due to the increasing complexity of industrialized sectors, simple planning systems have failed to create a realistic industrial scheduling. Therefore, a hybrid multi-agent and immune algorithm can be used as an alternative approach to solve complex problems and produce an efficient industrial schedule in a timely manner. We propose in this paper a multi-agent and immune hybrid algorithms for scheduling HFS with SDST. The findings of this paper suggest that the proposed algorithm outperforms some of the existing ones including PSO (particle swarm optimization), GA (Genetic Algorithm), LSA (Local Search Algorithm) and NEHH (Nawaz Enscore and Ham).

The existing literature on process scheduling issues have either ignored installation times or assumed that installation times on all machines is free by association with the task sequence. This working arrangement addresses hybrid flow shop scheduling issues under which there are sequence-dependent configuration times referred to as HFS with SDST. This family of production systems are common in industries such as biological printed circuit boards, metallurgy and vehicles and automobiles making. Due to the increasing complexity of industrialized sectors, simple planning systems have failed to create a realistic industrial scheduling. Therefore, a hybrid multi-agent and immune algorithm can be used as an alternative approach to solve complex problems and produce an efficient industrial schedule in a timely manner. We propose in this paper a multi-agent and immune hybrid algorithms for scheduling HFS with SDST. The findings of this paper suggest that the proposed algorithm outperforms some of the existing ones including PSO (particle swarm optimization), GA (Genetic Algorithm), LSA (Local Search Algorithm) and NEHH (Nawaz Enscore and Ham).

In this paper we analyze a problem of inventory management in a multi-levels multi-products distribution network with three echelon, the studied system consists of a central warehouse and three distribution centers identified by their location zones where each center is connected to a wholesaler group that serve the retailers of his region, which in turn feeds the customers of the regions located in the Algerian territory. The aim of this study is to apply a collaboration between the different actors of the same level in a form of an exchange of products, the exchange can occurs only when the actual demand is being received, in order to study the impact of product exchanges in the distribution networks and its influence on the total costs of the logistics chain from the central warehouse to the delivery to the final customer.

Communication and teamwork are among the most recurrent skills associated with knowledge of engineering sciences. However, their application is not simple, due to the lack of a pedagogical approach that contributes to the development of knowledge based on experience. The problem in factories is the lack of daily self learning to avoid the essential presence of the experts in to resolve problems. In this work, we defined what is a learning organization, what is a tutorial and why a personalized tutorial in a trade, its different forms and steps for the development of a tutorial. After we gave a presentation of the company that is Textile Batna. This article discusses how to design a personalized tutorial, oriented and aimed at learning and knowledge transfer in the industry. By developing this system we aim to build an experimental database serving to preserve the knowledge of the production industry expertise of the Batna textile factory. We have designed a tutorial for the company in the form of a website. For this, the UML language was used. The tutorial features were presented. It helped employees to aquire certain skills without assistance of experts.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated approach for assessing the sustainability of production and simplifying the improvement tasks in complex manufacturing processes. Design/methodology/approach The proposed approach has been investigated the integration of value stream mapping (VSM), analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). VSM is used as a basic structure for assessing and improving the sustainability of the manufacturing process. AHP is used for weighting the sustainability indicators and TOPSIS for prioritizing the operations of a manufacturing process regarding the improvement side. Findings The results carried out from this study help the managers’ staff in organizing the improvement phase in the complex manufacturing processes through computing the importance degree of each indicator and determining the most influential operations on the production. Research limitations/implications The major limitations of this paper are that one case study was considered. In addition, to an average set of sustainability indicators that have been treated. Originality/value The novelty of this research is expressed by the development of an extended VSM in complex manufacturing processes. In addition, the proposed approach contributes with a new improvement strategy through integrating the multi-criteria decision approaches with VSM method to solve the complexity of the improvement process from sustainability viewpoints.

Manufacturing automation is a double-edged sword, on one hand, it increases productivity of production system, cost reduction, reliability, etc. However, on the other hand it increases the complexity of the system. This has led to the need of efficient solutions such as artificial techniques. Data and experiences are extracted from experts that usually rely on common sense when they solve problems. They also use vague and ambiguous terms. However, knowledge engineer would have difficulties providing a computer with the same level of understanding. To resolve this situation, this article proposed fuzzy logic to know how the authors can represent expert knowledge that uses fuzzy terms in supervising complex industrial processes as a first step. As a second step, adopting one of the powerful techniques of machine learning, which is Support Vector Machine (SVM), the authors want to classify data to determine state of the supervision system and learn how to supervise the process preserving habitual linguistic used by operators.