Papers by Roberto Macchiaroli
International Journal of Project Management, Jan 1, 1998
1997 IEEE 6th International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation Proceedings, EFTA '97, 1997
Effective bottleneck management is a well-known and widely accepted practice in the operations an... more Effective bottleneck management is a well-known and widely accepted practice in the operations and production management literature. The approach recognizes that the throughput of a line is strongly aEected by the way operations are managed at the bottleneck. Therefore ...
1997 IEEE 6th International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation Proceedings, EFTA '97, 1997
Effective bottleneck management is a well-known and widely accepted practice in the operations an... more Effective bottleneck management is a well-known and widely accepted practice in the operations and production management literature. The approach recognizes that the throughput of a line is strongly aEected by the way operations are managed at the bottleneck. Therefore ...
Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1994
Abstract This paper addresses the issue of tool nianagenient in a FMS composed of two machining c... more Abstract This paper addresses the issue of tool nianagenient in a FMS composed of two machining centers. Machines are equipped with local tool magazines and a tool handling system is in charge of tool niovenients between the tool room and the two machines. Each machine is able to ...
International Journal of Production Research, 1998
ABSTRACT In this paper we consider a manufacturing problem arising in a robotic cell for aircraft... more ABSTRACT In this paper we consider a manufacturing problem arising in a robotic cell for aircraft panels assembly. An initial technological analysis has shown that some mechanical assembly phases, which involve a huge amount of riveting and screwing operations, can be automated. The motivation of this research is to find the most profitable sequencing of the operations from the viewpoint of throughput time. In particular, we focus on the set-up activities related to switching between operations. The problem is to find the permutation of operations such that the overall switching time is a minimum. In the situation on hand, major precedence constraints among the operations hold. The problem is formulated as an instance of the well-known 'sequential ordering problem', for which we propose a tabu search solution heuristic. In this paper we report on both the modelling process and the solution procedures.
International Journal of Production Research, 1998
ABSTRACT In this paper we consider a manufacturing problem arising in a robotic cell for aircraft... more ABSTRACT In this paper we consider a manufacturing problem arising in a robotic cell for aircraft panels assembly. An initial technological analysis has shown that some mechanical assembly phases, which involve a huge amount of riveting and screwing operations, can be automated. The motivation of this research is to find the most profitable sequencing of the operations from the viewpoint of throughput time. In particular, we focus on the set-up activities related to switching between operations. The problem is to find the permutation of operations such that the overall switching time is a minimum. In the situation on hand, major precedence constraints among the operations hold. The problem is formulated as an instance of the well-known 'sequential ordering problem', for which we propose a tabu search solution heuristic. In this paper we report on both the modelling process and the solution procedures.
IIE Transactions, 1997
ABSTRACT This paper deals with a sequencing problem arising in the management of paced-flowlines,... more ABSTRACT This paper deals with a sequencing problem arising in the management of paced-flowlines, that is production lines where jobs are released at constant time intervals. The problem is to sequence jobs to minimize total tardiness. The problem can be formulated as an assignment problem with a number of knapsack constraints. We prove the strong NP-hardness of the problem and give a number of lower bounds which are used in a branch-and-bound algorithm. Computational results in realistic settings confirm the effectiveness of the procedure developed. The results are particularly interesting with reference to mixed-model assembly lines in which several jobs of few different types are produced periodically.
L'interesse degli organismi di ricerca, degli operatori professionali e del mondo aziendale ... more L'interesse degli organismi di ricerca, degli operatori professionali e del mondo aziendale per i problemi inerenti la Sicurezza del Lavoro è cresciuto nell'ultima decade culminando con la formulazione del D. Lgs. 626/94; quest'ultimo ha costituito una svolta sul piano culturale ed organizzativo sancendo che la salute sul lavoro non è garantita soltanto dall'applicazione di un insieme di regole, ma è parte integrante dell'organizzazione e della pianificazione aziendale alla stregua per esempio delle tematiche sulla qualità. A detto ...
In the last years an increasing attention has been paid to distributed energy production from sma... more In the last years an increasing attention has been paid to distributed energy production from small wind turbines (i.e. < 200 kWp). The market, especially in Italy, has grown up very rapidly in the last years (basically not existing since 3-4 years ago, now it counts approximately 8 MWp). The main purpose of the paper is therefore to provide a reliable cost analysis reference to design, plan and control a project, which also includes a correct estimation of the financial risk incurred by both EPC contractors and investors. For the firsts, it also represents a cash flow analysis tool useful for financial planning, while for the seconds it's useful for financial control.
Chemical risk assessment is an increasing problem in the industrial environment due to the partic... more Chemical risk assessment is an increasing problem in the industrial environment due to the particular nature of the risk. The need to measure the concentration of chemical substances, moreover, may cause additional costs for assessment. So, the main problem that arises is to avoid sampling and measuring campaigns whenever possible. This objective can be achieved using a more reliable assessment model, like the one proposed in this paper. The aim of this paper is to describe the model, which is based on the assumption that the concentration of chemical agents has a log-normal distribution, and to discuss its increased reliability features.
In the last decades studies on health care management topics has drawn increasing attention in th... more In the last decades studies on health care management topics has drawn increasing attention in the scientific community. Issues related to health care management were analyzed using different analytical and methodological instruments, among which typical approaches of the operational management framework are mention to worth. Up to date, several studies were devoted to a general taxonomy definition for the problem, to the definition of the main performance indexes for health care services and to the application of specific models derived by the operational management and decision making science. These efforts were carried out with the aim to develop management models able to reduce costs and to improve the performance of these great generators of costs for the national governments.
The road and rail tunnels are increasing in number. Corresponding to this higher number of tunnel... more The road and rail tunnels are increasing in number. Corresponding to this higher number of tunnels, a higher number of accidents related to safety problems occur. The safety of road and rail tunnels is mostly related to fire safety. Our purpose in this paper is to present a new integrated approach to the analysis of fire safety in tunnels. Using different techniques from the decision support tools, such as the analytic hierarchy process, and through the use of a fire dynamics simulator, we suggest a new priority in the classification of the fire-fighting systems in tunnels. Attention will be paid especially in the analysis of the ventilation systems in tunnels.
A specific kind of post-sale contract is spreading out from the military field, in which it was b... more A specific kind of post-sale contract is spreading out from the military field, in which it was born initially. It offers to the customer an Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) service, in order to improve efficiency and availability of systems for the whole life cycle. The standard Contractor Logistic Support (CLS) standard core business is the design, construction and installation of complex hi-tech systems, which are produced in a limited number and usually esxperience a long Time-to-Market. Basically a customer enters in partnership with the CLS because it has specific and sometimes exclusive skills for the systems management. The new organization must approach problems from the point of view both of CLS and customer and resources are frequently spent for a very long time -30-35 years. Traditional approaches and methodologies are thus inadequate. Particularly, in this paper the focus is on obsolescence, that involves one of the biggest cost item in ILS service, also according to recent studies. The obsolescence problem occurs if the system's life-cycle is longer than items' one and spare parts market becomes thus closed in advance. The situation occurs very frequently and it affects directly systems availability and maintainability. Traditional approach is reactive, but the CLS needs to manage the obsolescence problem as a project risk, whose cause and frequency are well-known, effects are measurable and countermeasure have to be planned. In this paper a management model for the obsolescence issue is presented. The model is developed from the critical analysis of the specific variables defined in obsolescence management models reported in existing literature. In particular, all these variables were analysed to create a model suitable to be used for the specific problem introduced so far. The goal of the model is to support the CLS's Project Manager in planning activities and minimizing costs, and definitively to support the CLS and their clients to achieve a better management of the availability, maintainability and reliability of the products.
In the last years more relevance has been given to the distributed energy production from small w... more In the last years more relevance has been given to the distributed energy production from small wind turbines (i.e. < 200 kWp). In particular, during the last year the market in Italy is grown up very rapidly (before it was not present while nowadays the total installed power has reached 8 MWp). This market is therefore very new and often the operations of commissioning and installing a small wind turbine have to be faced and validated for the first time. Objective of this paper is to summarize the experience of the authors in the application of the traditional project management tools in this field to facilitate investors, project managers and stakeholders facing this market for the first time, to have a timeline of reference in order to plan all the financial and field activities.
The identification, assessment and reduction of the risks is among of the most important issues o... more The identification, assessment and reduction of the risks is among of the most important issues of the safety at work. This paper's goal is to demonstrate the effectiveness of a new risk assessment method proposed by the authors and presented in the past . In general, one can deal with risk assessment using different methods: quantitative, qualitative or a mix; however, the typical models proposed in the literature are difficult to implement in SMEs. The method proposed in this paper is a mixed one whose effectiveness is demonstrated through an application study carried out in different industrial systems, like a steel industry or a logistic services provider.
The aim of this work is to propose a management systems integration strategy for small and medium... more The aim of this work is to propose a management systems integration strategy for small and medium enterprises, able to lead to an optimization of supporting processes and which also implies, at the end, a reduction of jobs throughput time. The proposed approach starts with the identification of the main business processes in a generic enterprise and includes their subdivision into sub processes using the WBS technique. The application of the proposed model leads to the demonstration of the convenience to integrate management systems, mainly the Quality and the Safety processes. Moreover, the work includes an investigation of the best management models to create an integrated management system; among them we have recognized the ISO 9001:2000, for the Quality Management, and the OHSAS 18001:1999, for the Safety Management as the most integrable management systems. During the work, we have incurred into some integration problems, and for each of these problems we here describe the solutions found, usually selected as the one presenting the largest number of advantages instead of disadvantages. Finally, the model was applied to a real case test study which has demonstrated, as said before, the possibility to optimize supporting and main processes (i.e., to reduce the enterprise trough-put time).
The identification, assessment and reduction of risks is one of the most important elements of he... more The identification, assessment and reduction of risks is one of the most important elements of health and safety at work. Safety at work, nowadays, is becoming an Italian and a global relevant ethic and technical problem. Risk can be assessed with different methods: qualitative, quantitative or quali-quantitative; while qualitative models are often too simplistic, in turn many times quantitative models are difficult to implement in SMEs. The aim of this work is to present a new practical assessment model that tries to overcome the mentioned difficulties. Beyond its description, the paper also proposes an application study made in an international firm production plant to validate its results.
Since the explosion of the electronic market, managing obsolescence of items utilized in long lif... more Since the explosion of the electronic market, managing obsolescence of items utilized in long lifecycle systems has become an urgent problem, particularly for logistic support services suppliers. Actually suppliers draw up contracts for guaranteeing the availability of high value systems (like radars, mobile defense systems, etc.) during their whole life cycle. To this aim, they must manage the risk of spare parts stock-out due to their obsolescence.
ABSTRACT This paper deals with scheduling of no-wait manufacturing processes. The main features o... more ABSTRACT This paper deals with scheduling of no-wait manufacturing processes. The main features of these systems are analysed and an industrial application is described in detail. No standard solution procedure has been devised in the literature for this difficult scheduling problem. We exploit a heuristic decomposition approach which allows the reduction of the searchable solutions space and makes use of sequencing and timetabling modules. The timetabling can be performed by a polynomial time algorithm. To make the sequencing decision we propose several heuristic rules, a decomposition approach making use of fuzzy logic and an algorithm based on tabu search. The extensive computational results reported show the clear superiority of the tabu search approach.
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Papers by Roberto Macchiaroli