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As world-wide container volume increases and very large container ships emerge as a dominant player in the maritime cargo transport market, functional capabilities of container ports need to be greatly enhanced. To address this problem, KAIST is undertaking a project to design a novel container transport system, namely Mobile Harbor. Mobile Harbor refers to a system that can go out to a large container ship anchoring in the open sea, load and unload containers between the container ship and the Mobile Harbor, and transport them to their destinations. Designing Mobile Harbor presents a number of challenges as with many other large-scale engineering projects, especially at the beginning stage of the project.

This paper describes the implementation effort behind adding a pair of suspension links between the axle and frame of a light truck with a Hotchkiss-type suspension. These links, referred to as anti-windup bars (or traction bars), were introduced into an existing system to improve NVH performance; however, doing so required modifications to maintain other vehicle attributes, including vehicle safety and durability life. The authors address the management of these attributes and related design decisions for the components involved, focusing on the conflicting requirements involved. Physical vehicle testing, using design revisions recommended by Finite Element (FE) simulations, was performed to confirm component performance and related system behavior. Test results suggested improvements to the FE models that were required to more closely approximate the vehicle's behavior.

Performance data offers a powerful tool for system condition assessment and health monitoring. In most applications, a host of various types of sensors is employed and data on key parameters (describing the system performance) is compiled for further analysis and evaluation. In ensuring the adequacy of the data acquisition process, two important questions arise: (1) is the complied data robust and reasonable in representing the system parameters; and (2) is the duration of data acquisition adequate to capture a favorable percentage (say for example 90%) of the critical values of a given system parameter? The issue related to the robustness and reasonableness of data can be addressed through known values for key parameters of the system. This is the information that is not often available. And as such, methods based on trends in a given system parameter, expected norms, the parameter's relation with other known parameters, and simulations can be used to assure the quality of the data.

If you can't measure it, you can't control it. If you can't control it, you can't change it. If you can't change it, you can't improve it. This logic seems simple when it comes to improving the efficiency of an isolated process, but it quickly becomes complex when attempting to improve the efficiency of a complete system. For compressed air systems, the economic argument for improving efficiency is compelling - with up to 90% of the energy consumed by an electric air compressor lost as waste heat due to mechanical friction and electric motor losses [1]. There is value and opportunity to improve efficiency in a single air compressor, but to realize the greatest impact a manufacturer must address compressed air efficiency through a system wide approach.

If a business is to be profitable and experience growth in the 1980’s and become competitive in the world economy, top management has to reorganize its priorities and systems of capitalizing on emerging technology. A practical approach for large or small businesses is the development of “partnership relations” beyond the company’s internal resources. The efficient diffusion and commercialization of technology can be significantly improved through a partnership relation. A number of practical suggestions in structuring successful partnership technology relationships will be reviewed.

The history behind Polymer Class “A” Body Panels for automotive applications is very interesting. The driving factors behind these applications have not changed significantly over the past sixty years. Foremost among these factors is the need for corrosion and dent resistance. Beginning with Saturn in 1990, interest in polymer body panels grew and continues to grow up to the present day, with every new global application. Today, consumers and economic factors drive the industry trend towards plastic body panels. These include increased customization and fuel economy on the consumer side. Economic factors such as lower unit build quantities, reduced vehicle mass, investment cost, and tooling lead times influence material choice for industry. The highest possible performance, and fuel economy, at the lowest price have always been a goal.

Multiple approaches have been created to enhance intra-vehicle communications security over the past three decades since the introduction of the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol. The twin pair differential-mode communications bus is tremendously robust in the face of interference, yet physical access to the bus offers a variety of potential attack vectors whereby false messages and/or denial of service are achievable. This paper evaluates extensions of a Physical-layer (PHY) common-mode watermark-based authentication technique recently developed to improve authentication on the CAN bus by considering the watermark as a side-channel communications means for high value information. We also propose and analyze higher layer algorithms, with benefits and pitfalls, for employing the watermark as a physical-layer firewall.

Franklin Associates, Ltd. (FAL) is developing a methodology to deal with the issues of uncertainty and data quality in Life Cycle Inventories (LCI). In traditional LCIs, single point estimates of input variables (such as fuel requirements) are used to determine single point estimates for the output variables (such as total energy used or solid waste generated). These point estimates contain no information about the uncertainty of the data, and therefore give a false sense of precision. If LCIs are to become more widely used by decision makers and others, an acceptable method of dealing with uncertainty needs to be developed. This paper discusses the data uncertainty methodology being developed at Franklin Associates, and uses a previously completed case study as a real-world example of its use. The FAL methodology involves the assignment of data quality indicators to the variables used as inputs to our computer models.

A typical risk assessment or audit used in industry today will look at a single organizations risk in an isolated business system dimension, such as the management system, product, or process deployed at a specific company. Risk must be found in both material and information flows and quantified in order to enable effective management decisions. Value Stream Risk Assessment™ (VSRA™) is a tool to identify, quantify, prioritize, and intelligently mitigate risk wherever it resides in a the Value Stream. VSRA™ has been developed to compliment Lean and Six Sigma techniques and enhances the quality audit process to provide more value to the organization.

This paper reports the results of a project which aimed to eliminate, or at least reduce, the demand amplification effect in a value stream within the UK automotive component supply chain. The paper describes the progression from the identification of demand amplification, through a practical approach for its measurement, to the development of a methodology to overcome the negative impacts of the effect across three echelons of the supply chain. The results of a six-month trial implementation are reported.

A key component of developing a safety-critical automotive system in compliance with ISO 26262 is developing what is known as the safety case. This delivery justifies that the system is free from unreasonable risk and that the safety requirements are complete and satisfied according to evidence from ISO 26262 work products. However, the standard provides neither practical guidance on how the safety case should be developed, nor how the safety argument should be evaluated in the functional safety assessment process. This paper discusses quality and product readiness of the system under development in the context of safety case generation. We will focus on the software level and ISO 26262-6 requirements that relate to this. We will look at the software lifecycle of the system and how to measure and deliver key data throughout this lifecycle.

Managing the security of the infrastructure and applications for any aviation IT system necessitates some sort of control mechanism(s) for defining how the various components and processes of the system work. This is true for both the network components, applications within the infrastructure, and the various security infrastructure components such as access control mechanisms, intrusion detection systems, etc. The need for a comprehensive, defense in depth, solution to security can only be met if there is an association between the controls regulating the various security components, so that there is a consistent approach to regulating and controlling security. To meet this need we propose a unifying Global Policy Framework concept, that includes a Policy Workbench for developing and administrating the policies associated with security components and the security infrastructure.

This paper describes an embedded software solution to manage the various powertrain component and system diagnostics required for On-Board Diagnostics (OBDI and OBDII) regulatory compliance. It utilizes flexible configuration of the complex interactions between systems and components that would otherwise be very difficult to define early enough in the Engine Control Module (ECM) software process to meet lead-time requirements. This method for managing the OBD test routines and their interdependencies allows the interactions to be configured through the use of calibration tables after software verification testing has been completed. This results in higher reliability of productionized software by avoiding the need to have the interactions pre-defined and included in the software up-front, and by enabling configuration changes later in the process without affecting the software itself.

Most multinational companies have searched for cooperation within their units around the world when developing global products. To achieve this goal, those companies are making use of project teams whose members are geographically dispersed and culturally diverse. That context introduces more complexity to project management techniques especially on what concerns the communication among the project staff. Based on a bibliography research, this work intends to analyze how communication is affected by transnational context, what the importance of communication is to reach the project goals, and how it is possible to coordinate and communicate activities and information throughout multicultural and dispersed project members.

In order to produce high-quality vehicles today, Management must find new approaches to effectively increase focus and follow-up on quality objectives. At the Westmoreland Assembly Plant, we have made structural organization changes, increased employe involvement, and upgraded quality information systems. These changes have been integrated into an existing operation over a period of several years with good results. Details of the new approaches as well as discussions of how the old supports the new are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a management system which integrates proactive thinking and state-of-the-art statistical tools into the culture of an organization. Specifically, this paper defines a system for developing and manufacturing new products. Emphasis is put on product planning with respect to customer driven requirements of quality, reliability, cost and delivery.

This paper will discuss the issues associated with the creation of embedded software for automotive electronic control systems and show how these issues can be addressed using model-based methods to design, test and implement these systems. Model-based methods are already in use for many automotive applications, and there are potentially many more areas where they could be used, especially as the number and complexity of automotive embedded control systems increase. This paper will cite several examples of the successful use of model-based design.

Monte Carlo simulation is a popular tool for reliability assessment because of its robustness and ease of implementation. A major concern with this method is its computational cost; standard Monte Carlo simulation requires quadrupling the number of replications for halving the standard deviation of the estimated failure probability. Efforts to increase efficiency focus on intelligent sampling procedures and methods for efficient calculation of the performance function of a system. This paper proposes a new method to manage cost that views design as a decision among alternatives with uncertain reliabilities. Information from a simulation has value only if it enables the designer to make a better choice among the alternative options. Consequently, the value of information from the simulation is equal to the gain from using this information to improve the decision. A designer can determine the number of replications that are worth performing by using the method.

Importance Sampling is a popular method for reliability assessment. Although it is significantly more efficient than standard Monte Carlo simulation if a suitable sampling distribution is used, in many design problems it is too expensive. The authors have previously proposed a method to manage the computational cost in standard Monte Carlo simulation that views design as a choice among alternatives with uncertain reliabilities. Information from simulation has value only if it helps the designer make a better choice among the alternatives. This paper extends their method to Importance Sampling. First, the designer estimates the prior probability density functions of the reliabilities of the alternative designs and calculates the expected utility of the choice of the best design. Subsequently, the designer estimates the likelihood function of the probability of failure by performing an initial simulation with Importance Sampling.

Quality itself is no longer a differentiator among aerospace manufacturers. High quality is expected and achievable. With enough time and money, any manufacturer can turn around a high-quality product. Around the globe, the focus of manufacturing quality is shifting to a discussion about the cost of quality and how to manage it. The question being asked by manufacturers is no longer how to achieve quality, but how to achieve it within cost and time constraints. The aerospace manufacturer that can achieve quality with the least expense, while producing products the fastest, is the one that will win in today's tough, global market. This paper will describe the “closed-loop” approach to dimensional engineering, utilizing virtual simulations and tolerance analyses, and how such an approach can link cost factors with tolerance adjustments so that users have the data they need to make the most strategic business decisions regarding the balance between quality and cost.