• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.187-194
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• 2011

Optimizing truck dispatching-intervals is imperative in ready mixed concrete (RMC) delivery process. Intervals shorter than optimal may induce queuing of idle trucks at a construction site, resulting in a long delivery cycle time. On the other hand, intervals longer than optimal can trigger work discontinuity due to a lack of available trucks where required. Therefore, the RMC delivery process should be systematically scheduled in order to minimize the occurrence of waiting trucks as well as guarantee work continuity. However, it is challenging to find optimal intervals, particularly in urban areas, due to variations in both traffic conditions and concrete placement rates at the site. Truck dispatching intervals are usually determined based on the concrete plant managers' intuitive judgments, without sufficient and reliable information regarding traffic and site conditions. Accordingly, the RMC delivery process often experiences inefficiency and/or work discontinuity. Automatic data collection (ADC) techniques (e.g., RFID or GPS) can be effective tools to assist plant managers in finding optimal dispatching intervals, thereby enhancing delivery performance. However, quantitative evidence of the extent of performance improvement has rarely been reported to data, and this is a central reason for a general reluctance within the industry to embrace these techniques, despite their potential benefits. To address this issue, this research reports on the development of a discrete event simulation model and its application to a large-scale building project in Abu Dhabi. The simulation results indicate that ADC techniques can reduce the truck idle time at site by 57% and also enhance the pouring continuity in the RMC delivery process.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.579-603
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• 2018

In this paper we propose a QoS-enhanced intelligent stochastic optimal fair real-time packet scheduler, QUEST, for 4G LTE traffic in routers. The objective of this research is to maximize the system QoS subject to the constraint that the processor utilization is kept nearly at 100 percent. The QUEST has following unique advantages. First, it solves the challenging problem of starvation for low priority process - buffered streaming video and TCP based; second, it solves the major bottleneck of the scheduler Earliest Deadline First's failure at heavy loads. Finally, QUEST offers the benefit of arbitrarily pre-programming the process utilization ratio.Three classes of multimedia 4G LTE QCI traffic, conversational voice, live streaming video, buffered streaming video and TCP based applications have been considered. We analyse two most important QoS metrics, packet loss rate (PLR) and mean waiting time. All claims are supported by discrete event and Monte Carlo simulations. The simulation results show that the QUEST scheduler outperforms current state-of-the-art benchmark schedulers. The proposed scheduler offers 37 percent improvement in PLR and 23 percent improvement in mean waiting time over the best competing current scheduler Accuracy-aware EDF.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.117-122
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• 2005

An assembly system (AS), a valuable tool for mass production, is generally composed of a number of workstations and a transport system. While the workstations perform some preplanned operations, the transport system moves the assemblies by special designed pallets from one station to another. One common problem associated with automatic assembly systems is that some assembly operations may have relatively long cycle times. As a consequence, the productivity, as determined by the operations with the longest cycle time, can be reduced significantly. Therefore, special forms of parallel workstations were developed to improve the performance of an assembly system. In this paper, three most commonly used parallel stations: on-line, off-line and tunnel-gated stations in a free transfer assembly system are studied via discrete event simulation. Our findings revealed that the off-line parallel system has the best performance because the two independent parallel stations can lower the buffer requirement; reduce the sensitivity to variability of processing time and balance of a line. On-line parallel systems were found to have a relatively poor performance, because the operations of two parallel stations block each other, and higher buffer capacity is required to achieve similar capacity. The tunnel-gated system was more efficient than the on-line system since the first parallel station can operate independently. More importantly, we have quantified the productivity of the three different strategies mentioned. Engineers can choose the optimal strategies for installing parallel stations under their working environment.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.101-108
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• 1997

The initial token value required to the optimal performance of discrete event systems can be decided by Sum of Delay Time and Synchronic Time ratio, which are new synchronic variables in Timed Place Petri Nets. For the system consisting of two Live-and-Bounded circuits(LB-circuits) fused in common Transition-Transition-Path or common Place-Place-Path, we prove that the Synchronic Time Ratio is the initial token ratio between two LB-circuits to optimally perform system functions. These results are generalized and formulated as a theorem. The initial tokens of a specific place can imply shared resources. Using the theorem, we can decide the minimum number of the shared resources to obtain the optimal performance, and minimize the idling time of resources. As an example, an automated assembly system is modeled by Timed Place Petri Net, and the initial tokens to achieve the optimal system performance are identified. All the values are verified by simulation.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.77-88
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• 1997

Fieldbus is the lowest level communication network in factory automation and process control systems. Performance of factory automation and process control systems is directly affected by the data delay induced by network traffic. Data generated from several distributed field devices can be largely divided into three categories: sporadic real-time, periodic real-time and non real-time data. Since these data share one fieldbus network medium, the limited bandwidth of a fieldbus network must be appropriately allocated to the sporadic real-time, periodic real-time and non real-time traffic. This paper introduces a new fieldbus design scheme which allocates the limited bandwidth of fieldbus network to several different kinds of traffic. The design scheme introduced in this study not only satisfies the performance requirements of application systems interconnected into the fieldbus but also fully utilizes the network resources. The design scheme introduced in this study can be applicable to cyclic service protocols operated under single-service discipline. The bandwidth allocation scheme introduced in this study is verified using a discrete-event/continuous-time simulation experiment.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.85-88
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• 2005

The requirement of distributed multimedia applications is the need for sophisticated QoS(quality of service) management. In terms of distributed multimedia systems, the most important catagories for quality of service are a timeless, volume, and reliability. In this paper, we discuss a method for increasing reliability through fault tolerance. We describe the desist and implementation of the ERA running on distributed multimedia environment ERA is a system is able to recover automatically a software error based on distributed multimedia. This paper explains a performance analysis of an error recovery system running on distributed multimedia environment using the rule-based DEVS modeling and simulation techniques. In DEVS, a system has a time base, inputs, states, outputs, and functions.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.785-790
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• 2008

Our Digital Carousel enables user to share media objects through media synchronization mechanism. We implemented the Digital Carousel so that the users participated in collaborative work may refer shared media or error objects as the same view to others. In this paper, we discuss a method for increasing reliability through fault tolerance. We describe the design and implementation of the ER running on distributed multimedia environment. ER is a system which is able to recover automatically a software error based on distributed multimedia. This paper explains a performance analysis of an error recovery system running on distributed multimedia environment using the rule-based DEVS modeling and simulation techniques. In DEVS, a system has a time base, inputs, states, outputs, and functions.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2002

Among the state-space description of discrete vent systems, the max-plus algebra is known as one of the effective approach. This paper proposes a model predictive control (MPC) design method based on the max-plus algebra. Several studies related to these topics have been done so far under the constraints that system parameters are constant. However, in practical systems such as production systems, it is common and sometimes inevitable that system parameters vary by each event. Therefore, it is of worth to design a new MPC controller taking account of adjustable system parameters. In this paper, we formulate system parameters as adjustable ones, and they are solved by a linear programing method. Since MPC determines optimal control input considering future reference signals, the controller can be more robust and the operation cost can be reduced. Finally, the proposed method is applied to a production system with three machines, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through a numerical simulation.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.64 no.11
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• pp.1578-1586
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• 2015

Personal rapid transit (PRT) is getting attention as a new form of transportation. It is energy efficient and provides the high level of passenger service. In this study, the dynamic PRT dispatching and routing problem is dealt with. Passengers request transportation service on a complex network, and an operating system monitors passenger arrivals and coordinates vehicles in real time. A new online dispatching and routing algorithm is proposed, which minimizes the total travel distance of vehicles and the waiting time of passengers. The algorithm dispatches vehicles by considering multiple vehicles' state and multiple passengers at the same time. In particular, finding the shortest-time path is attempted by taking into account the future congestion on lanes. Discrete-event simulation is employed to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results show the algorithm in this study outperforms others.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.2436-2448
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• 1996

This paper presents the development of three types of network performance manager for IEEE 802.4 token bus networks that are a part of Manufacturing Automation Protocol(MAP). The performance managers attempt to keep the average data latency below a certain level specified for each priority class. All of the three performance managers are based on a set of fuzzy rules incorporating the knowledge on the relationship between data latency and parameters of the priority mechanism. These Fuzzy Network Performance Managers(FNPMs) have been evaluated via discrete event simulation to demonstrate their efficacy.