Closing the Gap is an accessible overview of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and the impact it is set to have on various sectors in South Africa and Africa. It explores the previous industrial revolutions that have led up to this point and outlines South Africa’s position been through each one.

With a focus on artificial intelligence as a core concept in understanding the 4IR, this book uses familiar concepts to explain artificial intelligence, how it works and how it can be used in banking, mining, medicine and many other fields.

Written from an African perspective, Closing the Gap addresses the challenges and fears around the 4IR by pointing to the opportunities presented by new technologies and outlining some of the challenges and successes to date

Post Normal Accident revisits Perrow's classic Normal Accident published in 1984 and provides additional insights to our sociological view of safety-critical organisations. The operating landscape of high-risk systems has indeed profoundly changed in the past 20 to 30 years but the core sociological models of safety remain associated with classics of the 1980s and 1990s. This book examines the conceptual and empirical evolutions of the past two to three decades to explore their implications for safety management based on several strands of works in various research traditions in safety (e.g. cognitive engineering and system safety, high-reliability organisation, sociology of safety, regulatory studies) and other interdisciplinary fields (e.g. international business, globalisation studies, strategy management, ecology). It offers a new and insightful interpretation to the challenges of today. It investigates how globalisation has reconfigured the operating landscape of high-risk systems and emphasises the importance of thinking safety through a strategic angle. This book serves as an ideal resource for the safety professionals and safety researchers from any established disciplines such as sociology, engineering, psychology, political science or management. Features: Introduces an original analysis of popular safety writings, including Normal Accident, by Perrow Identifies the importance of thinking safety from a sociological angle with the help of key writers Stresses the need for greater sensitivity to strategy and "errors from the top" when it comes to the safety of high-risk systems Explains how globalisation has reconfigured the operating landscape of high-risk systems Renews our understanding of the current safety management challenges in an increasingly global risk picture

The theory, practice, and example projects of international project management

A Singaporean corporation builds a manufacturing facility in Cambodia, with a Chinese partner, a Cambodian government agency, and value chain organizations in Germany, Morocco, Vietnam, and Brazil.

A Russian charity operates in the Balkans and the Persian Gulf. Pharmaceuticals and food come from ten different countries, physicians are from the EU and Russia, and donations are from Central Asia and the subcontinent.

A transnational organization markets through divisions in eighty-two countries. The products are designed in Italy, Sweden, and France, with customization done in each respective country.

International projects involve a complex network of cultures, politics, laws, languages, and resources that goes beyond the traditional training and experience of most project managers. International Project Management examines the different dimensions and responsibilities of international projects, and outlines what a project manager must know to lead global projects successfully. It also provides guidelines and examples for the international project management processes.

This book explores the professional best practices of international projects, emphasizing the importance of leadership skills and virtual teamwork to successfully navigate an international project. Along with discussions on the process groups, such as initiating, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing out, this reference is organized according to these knowledge areas:

Introduction to international project management

Integration management

HR management (Diversity & Communications)

Scope management

Cost and progress management

Risk management

Time management

Customer satisfaction (Quality)

Procurement management

CPE in the future

Integrating the PMBOK Guide--Fourth Edition, and the ICB, International Project Management provides international project managers, whether experienced or beginners, with the high cross-cultural intelligence, creative communication skills, ability to establish and maintain dependable project management processes, and compelling curiosity to manage international projects successfully.

Optimization is the act of obtaining the "best" result under given circumstances. In design, construction, and maintenance of any engineering system, engineers must make technological and managerial decisions to minimize either the effort or cost required or to maximize benefits. There is no single method available for solving all optimization problems efficiently. Several optimization methods have been developed for different types of problems. The optimum-seeking methods are mathematical programming techniques (specifically, nonlinear programming techniques). Nonlinear Optimization: Models and Applications presents the concepts in several ways to foster understanding. Geometric interpretation: is used to re-enforce the concepts and to foster understanding of the mathematical procedures. The student sees that many problems can be analyzed, and approximate solutions found before analytical solutions techniques are applied. Numerical approximations: early on, the student is exposed to numerical techniques. These numerical procedures are algorithmic and iterative. Worksheets are provided in Excel, MATLAB(R), and Maple(TM) to facilitate the procedure. Algorithms: all algorithms are provided with a step-by-step format. Examples follow the summary to illustrate its use and application. Nonlinear Optimization: Models and Applications: Emphasizes process and interpretation throughout Presents a general classification of optimization problems Addresses situations that lead to models illustrating many types of optimization problems Emphasizes model formulations Addresses a special class of problems that can be solved using only elementary calculus Emphasizes model solution and model sensitivity analysis About the author: William P. Fox is an emeritus professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. He received his Ph.D. at Clemson University and has taught at the United States Military Academy and at Francis Marion University where he was the chair of mathematics. He has written many publications, including over 20 books and over 150 journal articles. Currently, he is an adjunct professor in the Department of Mathematics at the College of William and Mary. He is the emeritus director of both the High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling and the Mathematical Contest in Modeling.

This book is presented to demonstrate how energy efficiency can be achieved in existing systems or in the design of a new system, as well as a guide for energy savings opportunities. Accordingly, the content of the book has been enriched with many examples applied in the industry. Thus, it is aimed to provide energy savings by successfully managing the energy in the readers' own businesses. The authors primarily present the necessary measurement techniques and measurement tools to be used for energy saving, as well as how to evaluate the methods that can be used for improvements in systems. The book also provides information on how to calculate the investments to be made for these necessary improvements and the payback periods. The book covers topics such as: * Reducing unit production costs by ensuring the reduction of energy costs, * Efficient and quality energy use, * Meeting market needs while maintaining competitive conditions, * Ensuring the protection of the environment by reducing CO2 and CO emissions with energy saving and energy efficiency, * Ensuring the correct usage of systems by carrying out energy audits. In summary, this book explains how to effectively design energy systems and manage energy to increase energy savings. In addition, the study has been strengthened by giving some case studies and their results in the fields of intensive energy consumption in industry. This book is an ideal resource for practitioners, engineers, researchers, academics, employees and investors in the fields of energy, energy management, energy efficiency and energy saving.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations and applications in the field of condition monitoring, plant maintenance and reliability, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the 5th International Conference on Maintenance Engineering and the 2020 Annual Conference of the Centre for Efficiency and Performance Engineering Network (IncoME-V & CEPE Net-2020), held in Zhuhai, China on October 23-25, 2020. Topics include vibro-acoustics monitoring, condition-based maintenance, sensing and instrumentation, machine health monitoring, maintenance auditing and organization, non-destructive testing, reliability, asset management, condition monitoring, life-cycle cost optimisation, prognostics and health management, maintenance performance measurement, manufacturing process monitoring, and robot-based monitoring and diagnostics. The contributions, which were selected through a rigorous international peer-review process, share exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster new multidisciplinary collaborations.

This book, to reflect the system's diverse, relevant characteristics, uses three different mathematical tools, namely probability theory, fuzzy theory and random fuzzy theory, to model and analyze the reliability of each system. Reliability system engineering is an interdisciplinary area that chiefly focuses on the lifecycle characteristics of products and involves many fields of basic mathematics, technical science and management science. In recent years, there have been many books on reliability theory, but comparatively few on the reliability of mathematical models, or the reliability of mathematical models based on single probability theory or fuzzy theory. The findings presented here will not only enrich and expand traditional reliability theory, but also promote the development of related disciplines, lending the book considerable theoretical significance.

This book analyses and quantifies how and where energy and water are consumed by the ceramic sanitary-ware industry and provides solutions as to how to reduce this. The whole production process is mapped, including modelling methods. The book begins by providing an introduction to ceramic sanitary-ware production and types of factories casting technology. It then moves on to discuss the process and energy modelling for the production line, analysis of energy and water consumptions and proposals for improvements. The last chapter presents the practical implementation of the selected modelling configuration. This book is of particular interest to water and energy management professionals within the ceramic industry, but the methods are of interest to those in other production industries as well.

This book presents the select peer-reviewed proceedings of the International Conference on Futuristic Trends in Mechanical Engineering (ICOFTIME 2020). The contents focus on latest research in different areas of mechanical engineering such as additive manufacturing, vibrations, robotics and automation, nano and smart materials, green energy, supply chain management, aviation, and biomechanics. The book also includes numerical and optimization methods relevant for several real-life mechanical engineering problems. Given its contents, this book will prove useful for researchers and professionals alike.

This book discusses the basic theoretical model and implementation method of intelligent machining technology and promotes the application of intelligent machining technology in the manufacturing of complex aviation components, such as aero-engine blisk, casing parts and blades. It not only presents the fundamental theory of intelligent machining, but also provides detailed examples of applications in the aviation industry.The topics covered include intelligent programming, intelligent processing models, process monitoring, machining process control, intelligent fixtures and applications in aviation components machining.This book is intended for researchers, engineers and postgraduate students in fields of manufacturing, mechatronics, mechanical engineering and related areas.

This book introduces the reliability modelling and optimization of warm standby systems. Warm standby is an attractive redundancy technique, as it consumes less energy than hot standby and switches into the active state faster than cold standby. Since a warm standby component experiences different failure rates in the standby state and active state, the reliability evaluation is challenging and the existing works are only restricted to very special cases. By adapting the decision diagrams, this book proposes the methodology to evaluate the reliability of different types of warm standby systems and studies the reliability optimization. Compared with existing works, the proposed methods allow the system to have an arbitrary number of components and allow the failure time distribution of components to observe arbitrary distributions. From this book, the readers can not only learn how to evaluate and optimize the reliability of warm standby systems but also use the methods to study the reliability of other complex systems.

This book introduces the metal magnetic memory (MMM) technique, one of the nondestructive testing methods, and its applications in remanufacturing engineering. It discusses the advantages of MMM and how to evaluate the early damage degree of remanufacturing cores, as well as the repairing quality of remanufactured components. Various MMM signal characteristics are extracted to reflect the damage degree of remanufacturing cores, coatings and interfaces. All the theoretical models, analysis methods and testing results of MMM in this book provide guidance to control the quality of remanufactured parts and products. This book can help readers make the best use of the MMM technique in remanufacturing engineering.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations and applications in the field of cable robots, as presented by leading international researchers and engineers at the 5th International Conference on Cable-Driven Parallel Robots (CableCon 2021), held as virtual event on July 7-9, 2021. It covers the theory and applications of cable-driven parallel robots, including their classification, kinematics and singularity analysis, workspace, statics and dynamics, cable modeling and technologies, control and calibration, design methodologies, hardware development, experimental evaluation and prototypes, as well as application reports and new application concepts. The contributions, which were selected through a rigorous international peer-review process, share exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster new multidisciplinary collaborations.

This book focuses on the implementation of AI for growing business, and the book includes research articles and expository papers on the applications of AI on decision-making, health care, smart universities, public sector and digital government, FinTech, and RegTech. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a vital and a fundamental driver for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR). Its influence is observed at homes, in the businesses and in the public spaces. The embodied best of AI reflects robots which drive our cars, stock our warehouses, monitor our behaviors and warn us of our health, and care for our young children. Some researchers also discussed the role of AI in the current COVID-19 pandemic, whether in the health sector, education, and others. On all of these, the researchers discussed the impact of AI on decision-making in those vital sectors of the economy.

This book systematically describes the weld pool behavior in laser welding and its influencing factors from the perspectives of testing technology, theoretical calculation and process simulation technology, physical state transformation behavior of weld pools, and the impact of technical conditions on the weld pool behavior. The book covers extensive research achievements made in China in this field, some of which represent the latest cutting-edging researches conducted by the authors' research team. These latest research efforts mainly relate to the weld pool behavior of dual-beam laser welding, laser welding with filler wires, full-penetration laser welding of very-thick parts, and laser welding in vacuum and low vacuum conditions. The book is intended for undergraduate, graduate students and researchers who are interested in laser welding.

This volume gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of structural health monitoring (SHM) and more broadly in the fields of smart materials and intelligent systems. The volume covers highly diverse topics, including signal processing, smart sensors, autonomous systems, remote sensing and support, UAV platforms for SHM, Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, and SHM for civil structures and infrastructures. The contributions, which are published after a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaboration among different specialists. The contents of this volume reflect the outcomes of the activities of EWSHM (European Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring) in 2020.

Mistakes occur for many reasons. This book takes a hands-on approach to the reasons mistakes happen, analyzes the actual mistakes, and develops a strategy to reduce them. This book proposes error reduction strategies in human decision making and educates the reader to further reduce the likelihood of making a mistake. It provides error reduction strategies, describes various cost-effective methods for eliminating costly errors, and discusses Anthropometry, Crew Resource Management, Human Factors, Industrial Engineering, Scientific Management, and Usability and the role these topics play in the avoidance of mistakes. This book will be of interest to professionals and students in the areas of industrial engineering, human factors, logistics, quality control, manufacturing, human resources, and safety.