Narrow Results

Changing requirements cause flexible automated Production Systems (aPS) to evolve over decades. Digital Twins (DT) of the different hierarchy levels and design steps ease this evolution, e.g., by enabling requirement analysis and compatibility checks ahead of any physical changes. To ensure up-to-date models and integrate additional knowledge, information gained during operation is included in DTs. Consequently, evolvability, decomposability, control software modularity, and learning during operation are identified as four requirements to achieve such evolvable DTs. Concepts to realize every requirement are introduced and exemplarily validated using a demonstrator machine. AutomationML (AML), the XML-based vendor neutral language for information modeling and exchange in between different disciplines and their tools and product classification systems like ECLASS that specify components attributes vendor neutral enable evolvability during the design phase. Decomposability is achieved by assembling DTs of components according to ISA 88 levels from control unit to facility. A control primitive concept that realizes control software modularity is introduced and validated. Based on data analytics and operation data the DT can be updated by using the versioning mechanism of AML. Thereby, the DT for the next machine generation is improved with knowledge from operation and represents the already existing machine more precisely.

The need for enterprises to manage project portfolio risks over the life cycle has become increasingly prominent. It is essential to evaluate and manage them to achieve project portfolios and organizations’ success. Unlike project risk, project portfolio risk is more complex and uncertain due to risk interactions. Risk management is unsatisfactory in project portfolios due to the lack of awareness of risk interactions and the life cycle. The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical risks of project portfolios over the life cycle considering risk interactions. We primarily verified 20 identified risks through a questionnaire survey and an expert interview method and evaluated the interactions among them using the Delphi method. Furthermore, risk interactions were analyzed using the social network analysis (SNA) methodology to determine the important risks. Finally, a comprehensive evaluation of important risks was carried out to identify critical risks according to the evaluation principles. The results identified six critical portfolio risks, two key risk contagion paths and revealed risk characteristics of different life cycle phases. This research considerably contributes to the body of knowledge pertaining to project portfolio management that will enable organizations that implement project portfolios and similar multi projects to emphasize critical risks.

Based on the life cycle, competitive strategy and continuous innovation theory, we empirically examine how life cycle and competitive strategy affect firms’ continuous innovation in China. The results show that declining firms tend to engage in less continuous innovation compared with growing or mature firms, which are more inclined to engage in continuous innovations. Results have also indicated that firms with offensive strategy engage in more continuous innovation compared with those following defensive strategy. Surprisingly, continuous innovation has a significant negative effect on business performance in different dimensions, such as return on assets, operating profit margin and enterprise value. Considering that the effect of continuous innovation on enterprise business performance may not be evident during the same financial period, we further examined the effects of continuous innovation on firms’ assets return ratio, operating profit ratio and enterprise value over 1–5 years ahead. However, we do not find continuous innovation having any positive effects on business performance.

Owing to the rise of societal awareness and hence governmental quest for environmental conservation worldwide, environmental friendliness in products has become a critical design consideration for all manufacturers during new product development. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a comprehensive method to quantitatively assess the environmental burdens of products or services. However, such studies are difficult to carry out at the early product development process because of uncertain or limited product information. Also, LCA is a time and resource-consuming methodology. This paper proposes a shortcut approach to support product designers to carry out the environmental impact evaluations especially in the initial product development stage. This paper discusses the key challenges of implementing environmental impact evaluation in new product development. The combined Evidential Reasoning (ER) and Fuzzy Set Theory (FST) approach is applied to handle the uncertain information of the environmental data and deficiency of LCA. The result demonstrates the superiority of the combined ER and FST for evaluating several design alternatives while the uncertain information has been considered.

Advancements in science and technology have impacted the global scenario significantly in each and every sphere of life. Unfortunately, this has also caused an increase in the number of frauds in various fields. Fraudsters are making an illegal access to the users' account in parallel with the users without being detected which results in heavy losses in terms of money, data and time. Therefore, detection of frauds has become an important need for the organizations not only to prevent the misuse but also to detect and report any such access as and when it is made. In this paper, a fraud detection life cycle model is proposed which reveals the detection of fraudulent behavior of customers. The objective of this life cycle model is to minimize the frauds occurring in different areas which are sensitive to fraudulent behavior such as telecommunication, credit card, finance industry and so on. We have presented a case study of Public Sector Telecommunication Company to demonstrate the life cycle model and further shown how our proposed life cycle model works on it by using some fuzzy-based inference rules for efficient detection of frauds.

This paper uses loan-level data from Thailand's National Credit Bureau to study household debt over the life cycle of borrowers. We decompose two aggregate and commonly used measures of debt—debt per capita and delinquency rate—into components that unveil the extensive and intensive margins of household indebtedness. We find a striking inverted-U life-cycle pattern of indebtedness as predicted by economic theories. However, peaks are reached at different ages for different loan products and different lenders. We also find that debt has expanded over time for all age groups. Younger cohorts seem to originate debt earlier in their lives than older generations. Meanwhile, older borrowers remain indebted well past their retirement age. Finally, we find a downward pattern of delinquency over the life cycle. Our findings have important policy implications on financial access and distress of households as well as on economic development and financial stability of the economy.

We tried to understand the relation of residential interior renovation and sustainable development of low-carbon design in this study. We used the low carbon building alliance that was established by the interior renovation carbon footprint evaluation system. Investigation on ten interior renovation projects helped evaluate the carbon footprints of the projects over 20 year life cycle.

Based on the research of small- and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) life cycle, plus the data and information that was acquired from bankrupt SMEs in five metropolises including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Changsha, Zhengzhou, and Chengdu during period 2000–2007, the relationship between the life cycle of SMEs in the five metropolises and their external environment is evaluated and comparatively analyzed. The results show that the external environment has positive impact on SMEs' lifecycle; the economic environment, technological environment, and human resources environment have prominent influences on SMEs' lifecycle, but the influences of political environment, socioculture environment, and natural resources environment on SMEs' lifecycle are inconspicuous. Furthermore, the reason for the results above is analyzed and the countermeasures on how to prolong the life cycle of SMEs in China from the perspectives of both government and corporation are proposed.

China has not formed an advanced and mature collaborative development model based on information technology in the key industry fields of complex products. Aiming at the problem, a collaborative development frame-work of complex products based on the commercial PLM system is constructed in the paper. Combining with the research of representative projects, such as Boeing B787, Airbus A380 and ARJ21 of Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd., the characteristics of complex product development is analyzed, the collaborative development hiberarchy based on systems engineering is explored, and the general function framework which support the whole life cycle and the entire supplier network of complex product development is put forth and realized based on the commercial PLM system. The project practice shows that the framework can effectively perform the integration of cross-regional, multi-heterogeneous systems and the unified management of data.

The application of intelligent substations just begins in China, and an accurate understanding of their economic benefits is very important to the popularly of this kind of substations. This paper takes Intelligent Substation A in Ningxia as the main study object, and analyses the cost discrepancies between it and the conventional substation in the same size from the life cycle cost angle. Based on the life cycle cost model, it shows the difference between intelligent substation and conventional substation accurately, and highlights the economic advantages of the former.