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.

In this work, we introduce the objective of minimizing energy consumption in a job shop scheduling problem with unidirectional transport constraint. In this problem, it is planned to process a set of N jobs (parts) on four machines. The Movement of jobs between these machines is in a single direction that is mean all the parts follow the same direction of movement. Indeed, the energy consumption in this type of problem depends; on the one hand on the speed of the machines processing the jobs and on the other hand on the speed of the means of transport. To solve this optimization problem, we have proposed a metaheuristic method that allows us to find a better sequencing of jobs in order to minimize the cost generated by energy consumption. Several simulations have been studied and the results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Nowadays, the distributed computing plays an important role in the data mining process. To make systems scalable it is important to develop mechanisms that distribute the workload among several sites in a flexible way. Moreover, the acronym ERP refers to the systems and software packages used by organisations to manage day-by-day business activities. ERP systems are designed for the defined schema that usually has a common database. In this paper, we present a collaborative multi-agent based system for association rules mining from distributed databases. In our proposed approach, we combine the multi-agent system with association rules as a data mining technique to build a model that can execute the association rules mining in a parallel and distributed way from the centralised ERP database. The autonomous agents used to provide a generic and scalable platform. This will help business decision-makers to take the right decisions and provide a perfect response time using multi-agent system. The platform has been compared with the classic association rules algorithms and has proved to be more efficient and more scalable.

In this paper, we propose new fusion and selection approaches to accurately predict the remaining useful life. The fusion scheme is built upon the combination of outcomes delivered by an ensemble of Gaussian process regression models. Each regressor is characterized by its own covariance function and initial hyperparameters. In this context, we adopt the induced ordered weighted averaging as a fusion tool to achieve such combination. Two additional fusion techniques based on the simple averaging and the ordered weighted averaging operators besides a selection approach are implemented. The differences between adjacent elements of the raw data are used for training instead of the original values. Experimental results conducted on lithium-ion battery data report a significant improvement in the obtained results. This work may provide some insights regarding the development of efficient intelligent fusion alternatives for further prognostic advances.

This paper investigates the use of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to quantify the effect of RUL uncertainty on predictive maintenance planning. The prediction of RUL is influenced by many sources of uncertainty, and it is required to quantify their combined impact by incorporating the RUL uncertainty in the optimization process to minimize the total maintenance cost. In this work, predictive maintenance of a multi-functional single machine problem is adopted to study the impact of RUL uncertainty on maintenance planning. Therefore, the PSO algorithm is integrated with a random sampling-based strategy to select a sequence that performs better for different values of RUL associated with different jobs. Through a numerical example, results show the importance of optimizing maintenance actions under the consideration of RUL randomness.

This work presents the prediction of the rate of progression in oil drilling based on random forest algorithm, which is part of the family of ensemble machine learning. The ROP parameter plays a very important role in oil drilling, which has a great impact on drilling costs, and its prediction allows drilling engineers to choose the best combination of input parameters for better progress in drilling operations. To resolve this problem, several works have been realized with the different modeling techniques as machine learning: RNAs, Bayesian networks, SVM etc. The random forest algorithm chosen for our model is better than the other MLS techniques. in speed or precision, following what we found in the literature and tests done with the open source machine learning tool on historical oil drilling logs from fields of Hassi Terfa located in southern Algeria.

This work presents the prediction of the rate of progression in oil drilling based on random forest algorithm, which is part of the family of ensemble machine learning. The ROP parameter plays a very important role in oil drilling, which has a great impact on drilling costs, and its prediction allows drilling engineers to choose the best combination of input parameters for better progress in drilling operations. To resolve this problem, several works have been realized with the different modeling techniques as machine learning: RNAs, Bayesian networks, SVM etc. The random forest algorithm chosen for our model is better than the other MLS techniques. in speed or precision, following what we found in the literature and tests done with the open source machine learning tool on historical oil drilling logs from fields of Hassi Terfa located in southern Algeria.

In this work a new data-driven approach for Remaining Useful Life estimation of aircraft engines is developed. The proposed approach is a regularized Single Hidden Layer Feedforward Neural network (SLFN) with incremental constructive enhancements. The training rules of this algorithm are inspired form different Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) variants. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm is integrated to enhance tracking ability of the best regularization parameter to reduce the norm of the tuned weights. The proposed approach is evaluated using C-MAPSS (Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation) dataset and compared to its other derivatives and proved its accuracy. C-MAPSS software has revisions in military and civil applications. In this paper, the military version of its application is the used one.

The main objective of this works is to study and improve the performances of the Single hidden Layer Feedforward Neural network (SLFN) for the application of Remaining Useful Life (RUL) prediction of aircraft engines. The most common problems in SLFNs based old training algorithms such as backpropagation are time consuming, over-fitting and the appropriate network architecture identification. In this paper a new incremental constructive learning algorithm based on Extreme Learning Machine algorithm is proposed for founding the appropriate architecture of a neural network under less computational costs. The aim of the proposed training approach is to study its maximum capabilities during RUL prediction by reducing over-fitting and human intervention. The performances of the proposed approach which are evaluated on C-MAPPS dataset and compared with its original variant from the literature. Experimental results proved that the new algorithm outperforms the old one in many metrics evaluations.

A reverse logistics planning problem is modeled and analyzed. The model considers returns of a particular electronic device from customers. Some of the collected products are remanufactured or refurbished. Others are disassembled for their key parts which can be considered as good as new. New products are assembled either using new parts or extracted ones. There are two types dynamic demands: demands for remanufactured/refurbished products and demands for new products. Demand of remanufactured/refurbished products can be satisfied using new products in case of shortage. This is a one way downward substitution. The objective is to minimize total costs while satisfying all demands. This problem is formulated as a MILP. The numerical results show that: i) it is hard for a solver to find optimal solutions for the problem in reasonable computational times for several instances with relatively small time horizons and ii) substitution is justified for a certain range of cost and demand parameters.

Ce livre présente un système de coordonnées virtuelles appelé VCSCClockwise. Ce dernier est libre-GPS et sans points de référence aidant à créer les coordonnées virtuelles. En se basant sur la notion de cluster, ce système fonctionne parfaitement dans un réseau homogène avec une forte connectivité en produisant trois coordonnées virtuelles uniques associées à chaque nøe}ud-capteur dans le réseau. Declivity est un protocole de routage géographique utilisé pour tester et évaluer ce système de coordonnées virtuelles. Ce protocole peut choisir le chemin le plus court avec le minimum de dissipation de l’énergie. En plus, la livraison est toujours garantie que se soit dans un réseau homogène avec une forte densité ou non.