This book presents the outcome of the European project "SERENA", involving fourteen partners as international academics, technological companies, and industrial factories, addressing the design and development of a plug-n-play end-to-end cloud architecture, and enabling predictive maintenance of industrial equipment to be easily exploitable by small and medium manufacturing companies with a very limited data analytics experience. Perspectives and new opportunities to address open issues on predictive maintenance conclude the book with some interesting suggestions of future research directions to continue the growth of the manufacturing intelligence.

This book presents the state-of-the-art methodology and detailed analytical models and methods used to assess the reliability of complex systems and related applications in statistical reliability engineering. It is a textbook based mainly on the author's recent research and publications as well as experience of over 30 years in this field. The book covers a wide range of methods and models in reliability, and their applications, including: statistical methods and model selection for machine learning; models for maintenance and software reliability; statistical reliability estimation of complex systems; and statistical reliability analysis of k out of n systems, standby systems and repairable systems. Offering numerous examples and solved problems within each chapter, this comprehensive text provides an introduction to reliability engineering graduate students, a reference for data scientists and reliability engineers, and a thorough guide for researchers and instructors in the field.

This book features selected papers from the 11th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology (AOSFST 2018), held in Taipei, Taiwan. Covering the entire spectrum of fire safety science, it focuses on research on fires, explosions, combustion science, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, risk analysis and structural engineering, as well as other topics. Presenting advanced scientific insights, the book introduces and advances new ideas in all areas of fire safety science. As such it is a valuable resource for academic researchers, fire safety engineers, and regulators of fire, construction and safety authorities. Further it provides new ideas for more efficient fire protection.

Quality and Reliability in Engineering provides an integrated approach to quality specification, quality control and monitoring, and reliability. Examples and exercises stress practical engineering applications. Steps in the development of the theory are implemented in complete, self-contained computer programs. The book serves as a textbook for upper level undergraduate courses in quality and reliability in mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, and industrial engineering programs. It can be used as a supplement to upper level capstone design courses, short courses for quality training, and as a learning resource for practicing engineers.

This book discusses the theory, method and application of non-Gaussian random vibration fatigue analysis and test. The main contents include statistical analysis method of non-Gaussian random vibration, modeling and simulation of non-Gaussian/non-stationary random vibration, response analysis under non-Gaussian base excitation, non-Gaussian random vibration fatigue life analysis, fatigue reliability evaluation of structural components under Gaussian/non-Gaussian random loadings, non-Gaussian random vibration accelerated test method and application cases. From this book, the readers can not only learn how to reproduce the non-Gaussian vibration environment actually experienced by the product, but also know how to evaluate the fatigue life and reliability of the structure under non-Gaussian random excitation.

This book covers supply chain and logistics, production and manufacturing systems as well as human factors. Topics such as applications to procurements from suppliers, suppliers developments and relationships with suppliers are reported. The techniques and tools applied to production processes, such as, machinery maintenance and quick changeover, are described in detail. The book also presents human factors as the main component in the industrial engineering field, reporting some successful teamwork organizations for improvements and applied ergonomics, among others.

This book is part of a six-volume series on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. The series aims to fill in gaps in theory and practice in the Sendai Framework, and provides additional resources, methodologies and communication strategies to enhance the plan for action and targets proposed by the Sendai Framework. The series will appeal to a broad range of researchers, academics, students, policy makers and practitioners in engineering, environmental science and geography, geoscience, emergency management, finance, community adaptation, atmospheric science and information technology. This volume discusses how to measure and build disaster resilience at society's capacity, drawing upon individual, institutional and collective resources to cope with and adapt to the demands and challenges of natural disaster occurrences. The book will serve as a guide, outlining the key indicators of disaster resilience in urban and rural settings, and the resources and strategies needed to build resilient communities in accordance with the targets of the Sendai Framework. Readers will learn about multi-risk reduction approaches using computational methods, data mining techniques, and System Thinking at various scales, as well as institutional and infrastructure resilience strategies based on several case studies.

For Resilience Engineering, 'failure' is the result of the adaptations necessary to cope with the complexity of the real world, rather than a breakdown or malfunction. The performance of individuals and organizations must continually adjust to current conditions and, because resources and time are finite, such adjustments are always approximate. This definitive new book explores this groundbreaking new development in safety and risk management, where 'success' is based on the ability of organizations, groups and individuals to anticipate the changing shape of risk before failures and harm occur. Featuring contributions from many of the worlds leading figures in the fields of human factors and safety, Resilience Engineering provides thought-provoking insights into system safety as an aggregate of its various components, subsystems, software, organizations, human behaviours, and the way in which they interact. The book provides an introduction to Resilience Engineering of systems, covering both the theoretical and practical aspects. It is written for those responsible for system safety on managerial or operational levels alike, including safety managers and engineers (line and maintenance), security experts, risk and safety consultants, human factors professionals and accident investigators.

Computational intelligence is rapidly becoming an essential part of reliability engineering. This book offers a wide spectrum of viewpoints on the merger of technologies. Leading scientists share their insights and progress on reliability engineering techniques, suitable mathematical methods, and practical applications. Thought-provoking ideas are embedded in a solid scientific basis that contribute to the development the emerging field. This book is for anyone working on the most fundamental paradigm-shift in resilience engineering in decades. Scientists benefit from this book by gaining insight in the latest in the merger of reliability engineering and computational intelligence. Businesses and (IT) suppliers can find inspiration for the future, and reliability engineers can use the book to move closer to the cutting edge of technology.

This contributed book focuses on major aspects of statistical quality control, shares insights into important new developments in the field, and adapts established statistical quality control methods for use in e.g. big data, network analysis and medical applications. The content is divided into two parts, the first of which mainly addresses statistical process control, also known as statistical process monitoring. In turn, the second part explores selected topics in statistical quality control, including measurement uncertainty analysis and data quality. The peer-reviewed contributions gathered here were originally presented at the 13th International Workshop on Intelligent Statistical Quality Control, ISQC 2019, held in Hong Kong on August 12-14, 2019. Taken together, they bridge the gap between theory and practice, making the book of interest to both practitioners and researchers in the field of statistical quality control.

This book reports the most recent, advanced, successful, and real applications of ergonomics in order to improve the human well-being and performance in a short term, as well as the organizational performance in a long term. The book is organized as follows: Physical Ergonomics. This section reports case studies where physical risk factors are presented in the workplace, such as physical risk factors including uncomfortable body postures, repetitive movements, force application, manual material handling, and physical environmental conditions. In addition, case studies must report applications from physical ergonomics methods, for instance, RULA, REBA, OWAS, NIOSH, JSI, Suzane Rodgers, ERIN, among others. Cognitive Ergonomics. This section reports the implementation of ergonomic tools, techniques, and methods in real case studies. These applications are aimed to know, decrease, and control cognitive and psychological risk factors, such as mental workload, information processing, situation awareness, human error identification, and interface analysis. These applications may include the following methods NASA-TLX, SWAT, CWA, SHERPA, HET, TAFEI, SAGAT, SART, SACRI, QUIS, SUMI, to mention a few of them. Macro-ergonomics. This section is focused on the analysis, design, and evaluation of work systems. It reports case studies where risk factors are beyond a specific workstation. These risk factors may include supervision styles, teamwork management, task variety, social relationships, organizational culture, organizational communication, technology, work schedules, and motivation, among others. In addition, case studies report the application of macro-ergonomic methods, such as MOQS, focus group, participatory ergonomics, HITOP, MAS, and MEAD, among others.

Technology has made human lives incomparably better. Civilization as we know it would utterly collapse without it. However, if not properly managed, technology can and will be systematically abused and misuse and thereby become one of the biggest threats to humankind. This open access book applies proactive crisis management to the management of technology organizations to make them more sustainable and socially responsible for the betterment of humankind. It forecasts the unintended consequences of technology and offers methods to counteract it.

This book addresses remaining life prediction and predictive maintenance of equipment. It systematically summarizes the key research findings made by the author and his team and focuses on how to create equipment performance degradation and residual life prediction models based on the performance monitoring data produced by currently used and historical equipment. Some of the theoretical results covered here have been used to make remaining life predictions and maintenance-related decisions for aerospace products such as gyros and platforms. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable reference guide for those pursuing theoretical or applied research in the areas of fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control, remaining life prediction, and maintenance decision-making.

This book describes a new control design technique called Coefficient Diagram Method (CDM), whereby practical control engineers without deep control theories and mathematics background can design a good controller for their specific plants. In addition, control experts can solve some complicated design problems. Since the CDM was first introduced in 1998, it reveals from the literature that CDM has provided successful controller designs for a variety of practical control problems. In the last two decades, a great deal of research has been done on CDM, while a growing number of researchers want to learn and utilize the method. However, there has been no textbook to learn it systematically so far. This book is motivated by such a need. It is also suitable as a textbook or reference book for master programs in control engineering.

This book presents a collection of real cases from industrial practices that production system and quality managers implement to ensure a high quality as well as a low cost in products. This book is divided in sections that are focused on: * The quality and philosophies implemented to production systems; starting from the product design as well as from the supply system. * The principal statistical techniques applied to the quality assurance (statistical quality control, analysis of tests and failure, quality function deployment, accelerated life tests, among others), the process of gathering information, its validation, its reliability process, and techniques for data analysis. * The techniques applied to the integration of human resources in the process of quality assurance, such as managers and operators' participation, training, and training processes. * Use of information and communications technologies, software, and programs implemented to guarantee the quality of the products in the production systems. ISO standards and policies that are used for quality management and monitoring.

This book provides, as simply as possible, sound foundations for an in-depth understanding of reliability engineering with regard to qualitative analysis, modelling, and probabilistic calculations of safety and production systems. Drawing on the authors' extensive experience within the field of reliability engineering, it addresses and discusses a variety of topics, including: * Background and overview of safety and dependability studies; * Explanation and critical analysis of definitions related to core concepts; * Risk identification through qualitative approaches (preliminary hazard analysis, HAZOP, FMECA, etc.); * Modelling of industrial systems through static (fault tree, reliability block diagram), sequential (cause-consequence diagrams, event trees, LOPA, bowtie), and dynamic (Markov graphs, Petri nets) approaches; * Probabilistic calculations through state-of-the-art analytical or Monte Carlo simulation techniques; * Analysis, modelling, and calculations of common cause failure and uncertainties; * Linkages and combinations between the various modelling and calculation approaches; * Reliability data collection and standardization. The book features illustrations, explanations, examples, and exercises to help readers gain a detailed understanding of the topic and implement it into their own work. Further, it analyses the production availability of production systems and the functional safety of safety systems (SIL calculations), showcasing specific applications of the general theory discussed. Given its scope, this book is a valuable resource for engineers, software designers, standard developers, professors, and students.

The book concentrates on powder flow properties, their measurement and applications. These topics are explained starting from the interactions between individual particles up to the design of silos. A wide range of problems are discussed - such as flow obstructions, segregation, and vibrations. The goal is to provide a deeper understanding of the powder flow, and to show practical solutions.

This book focuses on the latest scientific and technological advancements in the field of railway turnout engineering. It offers a holistic approach to the scientific investigation of the factors and mechanisms determining performance degradation of railway switches and crossings (S&Cs), and the consequent development of condition monitoring systems that will enable infrastructure managers to transition towards the implementation of predictive maintenance. The book is divided into three distinct parts. Part I discusses the modelling of railway infrastructure, including switch and crossing systems, while Part II focuses on metallurgical characterization. This includes the microstructure of in-field loaded railway steel and an analysis of rail screw failures. In turn, the third and final part discusses condition monitoring and asset management. Given its scope, the book is of interest to both academics and industrial practitioners, helping them learn about the various challenges characterizing this engineering domain and the latest solutions to properly address them.

The legislative requirement for cannabis to undergo laboratory testing has followed legalization of medical and recreational use in every U.S. state to date. Cannabis safety testing is a new investment opportunity within the emerging cannabis market that is separate from cultivation, processing, and distribution, allowing individuals and organizations who may have been reluctant to enter previously a new entry route to the cannabis space. However, many of the costs, timelines, operational requirements, and compliance issues are overlooked by people who have not been exposed to regulated laboratory testing. Cannabis Laboratory Fundamentals provides an in-depth review of the key issues that impact cannabis testing laboratories and provides recommendations and solutions to avoid common - but expensive - mistakes. The text goes beyond methodology to include sections on economics, regulation, and operational challenges, making it useful for both new and experienced cannabis laboratory operators, as well as all those who want to understand the opportunities and risks of this industry.

This volume addresses a variety of issues on traffic safety policy, ranging from issues of climate change, urban equity, and transport safety, in a broad global and societal context, while retaining situation-specific details. Written by international experts on issues of transportation and traffic safety, it will be of special interest to advanced researchers in the engineering and planning disciplines working on these issues as well as policy makers concerned with setting up institutions and legislations for traffic safety.

This book presents selected papers from the 3rd Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction - Expanding the Platform for Bridging Science and Policy Making, which was held at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Uji Campus from 19 to 21 March 2017. It was organised by the Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI), which was established soon after the second Global Summit and the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in March 2015, and is intended to support the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. The conference not only provided a platform for discussion and exchange of information on key current and future research projects on disaster risk reduction and management, but also promoted active dialogues through group discussion sessions that addressed various disaster research disciplines. In this book, authors from various disciplines working at governmental and international organisations provide guidance to the science and technical community, discuss the current challenges, and evaluate the research needs and gaps in the context of climate change, sustainable development goals and other interlinked global disaster situations. Expert opinions from practitioners and researchers provide valuable insights into how to connect and engage in collaborative research with the international science and technical communities and other stakeholders to achieve the goals set out in the agenda of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. In addition, case studies and other evidence-based research papers highlight ongoing research projects and reflect the challenges encountered in information sharing by various stakeholders in the context of disaster risk reduction and management. Chapter "Science and technology commitment to the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

[FIRST EDITION] This accessible textbook presents an introduction to computer vision algorithms for industrially-relevant applications of X-ray testing. Features: introduces the mathematical background for monocular and multiple view geometry; describes the main techniques for image processing used in X-ray testing; presents a range of different representations for X-ray images, explaining how these enable new features to be extracted from the original image; examines a range of known X-ray image classifiers and classification strategies; discusses some basic concepts for the simulation of X-ray images and presents simple geometric and imaging models that can be used in the simulation; reviews a variety of applications for X-ray testing, from industrial inspection and baggage screening to the quality control of natural products; provides supporting material at an associated website, including a database of X-ray images and a Matlab toolbox for use with the book's many examples.

This book comprises select proceedings of the international conference ETAEERE 2020, and focuses on contemporary issues in energy management and energy efficiency in the context of power systems. The contents cover modeling, simulation and optimization based studies on topics like medium voltage BTB system, cost optimization of a ring frame unit in textile industry, rectenna for RF energy harvesting, ecology and energy dimension in infrastructural designs, study of AGC in two area hydro thermal power system, energy-efficient and reliable depth-based routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor network, and power line communication. This book can be beneficial for students, researchers as well as industry professionals.

This book introduces human factors engineering (HFE) principles, guidelines, and design methods for medical device design. It starts with an overview of physical, perceptual, and cognitive abilities and limitations, and their implications for design. This analysis produces a set of human factors principles that can be applied across many design challenges, which are then applied to guidelines for designing input controls, visual displays, auditory displays (alerts, alarms, warnings), and human-computer interaction. Specific challenges and solutions for various medical device domains, such as robotic surgery, laparoscopic surgery, artificial organs, wearables, continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps, and reprocessing, are discussed. Human factors research and design methods are provided and integrated into a human factors design lifecycle, and a discussion of regulatory requirements and procedures is provided, including guidance on what human factors activities should be conducted when and how they should be documented.This hands-on professional reference is an essential introduction and resource for students and practitioners in HFE, biomedical engineering, industrial design, graphic design, user-experience design, quality engineering, product management, and regulatory affairs. Teaches readers to design medical devices that are safer, more effective, and less error prone; Explains the role and responsibilities of regulatory agencies in medical device design; Introduces analysis and research methods such as UFMEA, task analysis, heuristic evaluation, and usability testing.

This book highlights the main features of shipbuilding management which lead to successful completion of shipbuilding projects. A brief review of the market context for the industry, its historical development are given to explain how shipbuilding arrived at its current structure. First pre-production including design, planning, cost estimating, procurement of materials and sub-contracting. Then, the production sequence outlines part preparation, hull assembly and construction, outfitting and painting, testing and completion. The importance of human resources and management organisation are explained. Building a ship is a complex project, so the principles of project management are described, first in general terms and then with specific reference to their application in shipbuilding. Finally managing the progress of a shipbuilding project and achieving completion are emphasised.