Search

L’impacte de les noves tecnologies en la societat en que vivim és innegable, aquestes ja formen part de la nostra vida laboral, social i privada. Part d’aquest impacte és degut a la importància d’uns petits components electrònics anomenats xips, també coneguts com a semiconductors, aquests components es troben en la majoria d’aparells electrònics que fem usar al nostre dia a dia. L’objectiu d’aquest treball és entendre la fragilitat de la cadena de valor global d’aquests semiconductors, o xips, i veure la història, les crisis i les oportunitats que aquesta cadena ha tingut als últims anys. També es pretén conèixer quins són els punts més crítics d’aquesta cadena de valor, aquelles empreses o països sense els quals la cadena falla del tot. La informació que es dona en el treball prové en molts casos de les mateixes empreses involucrades en la indústria dels semiconductors, sobretot quan es tracta de valors de mercat o vendes, però en altres casos prové d’anàlisis fets en llibres, d’articles publicats o vídeo–reportatges. Finalment les conclusions del treball són diverses. La primera de totes és que la cadena de valor global tractada al treball és una de molt fràgil a causa de la seva poca diversitat, ja que unes poques empreses es reparteixen tota la influencia, i canvis sobtats com la crisi de la COVID-19 causen greus problemes de subministrament. En segon lloc, cal destacar alguns dels punts crítics analitzats al treball, com pot ser l’empresa TSMC (Taiwan) que és la més important de les empreses productores de xips i que aporta el 90% dels xips d’última generació a nivell mundial. Finalment, una última conclusió és que aquesta indústria és una encara emergent, i que no farà més que guanyar importància en el futur, a causa d’això diferents països, regions o empreses ja estan preparant-se per les oportunitats que pot portar, El impacto de las nuevas tecnologías en la sociedad en la que vivimos es innegable; estas ya forman parte de nuestra vida laboral, social y privada. Parte de este impacto se debe a la importancia de unos pequeños componentes electrónicos llamados chips, o semiconductores, que se encuentran en la mayoría de los dispositivos electrónicos que utilizamos en nuestro día a día. El objetivo de este trabajo es entender la fragilidad de la cadena de valor global de estos semiconductores, o chips, y ver la historia, las crisis y oportunidades que esta cadena ha tenido en los últimos años. También se pretende conocer cuáles son los puntos más críticos de esta cadena de valor, es decir, las empresas o países sin los cuales la cadena falla por completo. La información que se presenta en el trabajo proviene en muchos casos de las mismas empresas involucradas en la industria de los semiconductores, especialmente cuando se trata de valores de mercado o ventas. Sin embargo, en otros casos, la información proviene de análisis realizados en libros, de artículos publicados o video-reportajes. Finalmente, las conclusiones del trabajo son diversas. La primera de todas es que la cadena de valor global tratada en el trabajo es una muy frágil debido a su poca diversidad, ya que unas pocas empresas se reparten toda la influencia, y cambios abruptos como la crisis de la COVID-19 causan graves problemas de suministro. En segundo lugar, cabe destacar algunos de los puntos críticos analizados en el trabajo, como la empresa TSMC (Taiwán), que es la más importante de las empresas productoras de chips y que aporta el 90% de los chips de última generación a nivel mundial. Finalmente, otra conclusión es que esta industria aún está emergiendo y que solo ganará más importancia en el futuro, por lo que diferentes países, regiones o empresas ya se están preparando para las oportunidades que puede traer, The impact of new technologies on the society we live in is undeniable; these devices are already part of our work, studies, and private lives. Part of this impact is due to the importance of small electronic components called chips, also known as semiconductors, which are found in most electronic devices we use in our daily lives. The aim of this project is to understand the fragility of the global value chain of these semiconductors, or chips, and to examine the history, crises, and opportunities that this chain has faced in recent years. Another objective of the work is to identify the most critical points in this value chain, those companies or countries without which the chain would fail completely. The information provided in the work often comes from the companies involved in the semiconductor industry, especially when it comes to market values or sales. In other cases, the information comes from analyses in books, especially from the book, from published articles or video reports. Finally, the conclusions of the work are diverse. The first one is that the global value chain discussed in the work is one that is very fragile due to its lack of diversity, where just a few companies share all the influence, and sudden changes like the COVID-19 crisis cause serious supply problems. Secondly, it is worth highlighting some of the critical points analyzed in the work, such as the company TSMC (Taiwan), which is the most important among chip-producing companies and provides 90% of the latest generation chips worldwide. Finally, another conclusion is that this industry is still emerging and will only gain more importance in the future. As a result, different countries, regions, or companies are already preparing for the opportunities it may bring

The aim of this project was to design a shoulder rehabilitation machine tailored for elderly individuals, focusing solely on the mechanical aspect initially. Following industry-standard and safety-regarding methodology, the specific rehabilitation needs of the elderly population were identified, and detailed specifications and requirements were established. A design concept was proposed and evaluated, with the selected concept being further developed to address the identified rehabilitation needs effectively, meeting all the previously specified requirements. Risk assessment methodology has been carried out, deeply defining the limits of the designed machine, identifying the potential hazards, estimating and evaluating the risks and proposing the first iteration of safety measures to be furtherly implemented. Basic design has been developed, by considering weights and dimensions of the mechanical components, considering factors such as ease of use, comfort, and safety for elderly users. Also material selection was carefully assessed, taking into account properties like durability, cost-effectiveness, and eco-friendliness. More detailed design was materialised via virtual CAD model, which has been created using SolidWorks software, allowing for detailed visualisation and refinement of the design. Structural analysis was conducted using SolidWorks FEM simulations to ensure the mechanical integrity and safety of the machine. Optimisation was performed based on the results of the structural analysis to enhance the machine's performance while minimising its weight and ensuring it met safety standards for elderly users. Finally, the project's technical and economic feasibility was assessed, documenting the manufacturing and assembly processes, as well as considering factors such as environmental impact and budget constraints specific to the development of a shoulder rehabilitation machine for elderly individuals.

The aforementioned work centres on demonstrating the significance and efficacy of collaboration, as well as its various manifestations, within corporate settings. In the contemporary era, characterised by the ubiquitous phenomenon of globalisation and the convergence of diverse business domains, I have conducted a comprehensive analysis of the nature of collaboration, its applications, and advantages. The introductory chapter, titled "The Theory of Collaboration," expounds upon various facets of inter-organizational collaboration. These include an elucidation of the definition and characteristics of collaboration, the diverse types of collaborative relationships, the entities involved in collaboration, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of collaborative efforts. Inter-organizational collaboration pertains to the phenomenon wherein two or more autonomous organisations collaborate to attain shared business objectives that are beyond the capacity of a single organisation to accomplish. Collaboration can manifest in diverse forms, including but not limited to business amalgamations, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, strategic alliances, and business networks. Each of the aforementioned forms exhibits unique characteristics and distinctions; however, the fundamental component that underlies all of them is inter-organizational collaboration. Collaborative partners play a crucial role in the process of inter-organizational collaboration. Inter-organizational collaboration is a phenomenon that can occur among diverse entities such as competitors, customers, suppliers, and other companies within the same industry or sector. In order to attain shared objectives, collaborative partners ought to exhibit reciprocal trust, transparency, and comprehension. The collaboration between organisations yields several advantages, including enhanced resource utilisation, heightened innovation, superior market positioning, and improved financial outcomes. Simultaneously, it i

Wastewater treatment plays a crucial role in preserving the environment and public health, particularly by promoting access to clean water and sanitation, which is a fundamental human right. Moreover, in a world where many still lack access to safe drinking water services, the increasing risks of water scarcity due to the climate crisis underscore the urgent need for effective water resource management. The Downflow Hanging Sponge (DHS) process is a promising technology that utilizes vertical sponges to facilitate the growth of microorganisms, providing a cost-effective and highly efficient system for wastewater treatment compared to other conventional aerobic processes. Additionally, the use of Pure Oxygen (PO) has garnered attention for its significant potential in enhancing treatment performance compared to traditional aeration methods. Consequently, combining Downflow Hanging Sponge (DHS) systems with pure oxygen supply could present a suitable solution for treating urban effluents in areas with limited resources. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate the impact of supplying pure oxygen on the performance of Downflow Hanging Sponge (DHS) systems treating municipal wastewater. The study involved a four-month experiment with two reactors (control and treatment) conducted in two phases (stabilization and operation), where pure oxygen was supplied during the operation phase to assess its effects on the system's performance. Different analyses were conducted, such as pH, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Ammonium (NH4), Nitrites (NO2), and Nitrates (NO3), using standardized analytical models to assess the water quality and evaluate the treatment efficiency of the system. Also, a taxonomical microbiological analysis was conducted on the initial inoculum sourced from a wastewater treatment plant in Nagaoka (Japan) to determine the composition and diversity of microorganisms present in the system at the start of the experiment. R

Torque control techniques have been proven to control robotic arms more adaptive and safely, adding accuracy to the robot and thus allowing a wide range of applications in which uncertainties are existent such as the presence of humans in the workspace or working with materials with different stiffness. In order to implement torque control, an awareness of the aggregate of torques intervening in the system to control is needed, separating the internal torques caused by elements in the robot itself and the external torques caused by external elements. Therefore, general solution uses torque sensors to measure the external torques. Torque sensors give information with much noise, and also increase the budget, making it more expensive their use in industrial applications, together with the collocation problem present in their correct positioning on the design. Furthermore, sensors add weight, increasing the inertia of the dynamic system which makes the control of the robot more complex and computationally expensive. Moreover, stable contact with the environment is difficult when a torque sensor is used because of its soft mechanical structure and narrow bandwidth of torque sensing [1]. In this thesis, a disturbance observer (DOb) and a reaction torque observer (RTOb) are proposed, implemented and validated in a 1 DoF geared robotic arm system for torque estimation purposes, and their performance has been compared with torque sensor information. The correct functioning of disturbance observers on a geared system also add difficulty to the system due to non-linearities on the friction on the reduction gear. Moreover, simulations have been carried out and experimental data has been collected in order to validate the observers and the control algorithm diagram. With the real system mounted, tests have been performed to find the parameters that define the system dynamics accordingly. With the parameters found, the implementation in the real system of the control loop has be

Nissan Motor Corporation efectuó el cierre de su planta productiva ubicada en la Zona Franca, Barcelona, en diciembre de 2020, forzando el cierre de otros dos centros productivos en la región y suponiendo la pérdida de 23 mil empleos, de los cuales 3 mil eran directos y 20 mil indirectos(1). Dicho cierre tuvo un coste aproximado de 1.450M€(2)<. El objetivo de este trabajo de investigación ha sido averiguar los motivos detrás de dicho cierre, así como los motivos que llevaron a Nissan a cerrar la planta de Barcelona y no otra de sus plantas en Europa, luego poder fundamentar cada uno de esos motivos con algo tangible, establecer un orden de relevancia, elaborar un árbol de decisión y extraer algunas lecciones. Para alcanzar dicho objetivo, primero se ha elaborado un marco teórico que cubre los cierres de plantas productivas en empresas multinacionales, y se ha realizado un análisis general del sector de la automoción, así como un análisis histórico, corporativo, operativo y financiero a Nissan Motor Corporation y a su filial española Nissan Motor Ibérica. Después, se ha elaborado una lista de los motivos del cierre basándose en la información investigada y se han clasificado los motivos en distintas categorías, finalmente elaborando un árbol de decisión con aquellos motivos más relevantes según su impacto con el cierre, haciendo también una comparativa con el marco teórico inicial y extrayendo algunas lecciones. Tras la investigación, se ha determinado que los principales motivos de cerrar la fábrica de Barcelona fueron, en primer lugar, los pobres resultados de la empresa a nivel global, seguido de la decisión de reorganizar la alianza y las presiones de relocalización de fábricas por parte del gobierno francés, posteriormente los elevados costes y los pobres resultados de la fábrica de Barcelona, para terminar con los factores nacionales de distanciamiento por parte de los gobiernos y de inestabilidad política en la región de Cataluña, la posibilidad de trasladar l, La planta catalana de Nissan: motivos y lecciones de su cierre 4 Resum Nissan motor Corporation va efectuar el tancament de la seva planta productiva ubicada a la Zona ranca, Barcelona, al desembre de 2020, forçant el tancament de dos altres centres productius a la regió y suposant la pèrdua de 3 mil llocs de treball directes i 20 mil indirectes(1). El tancament va tenir un cost aproximat de 1.450M€(2). L’objectiu d’aquest treball d’investigació ha estat trobar els motius darrere del tancament i de perquè va tancar Nissan la planta de Barcelona i no una altre planta europea, poder fonamentar cadascun dels motius amb alguna informació tangible, establir un ordre de rellevància, elaborar un arbre de decisió i extreure algunes lliçons. Per arribar al objectiu, primer s’ha elaborat un marc teòric que cobreixi els tancaments de les plantes productives en companyies multinacionals, i s’ha realitzat un anàlisi general del sector de la automoció, així com un anàlisi històric , corporatiu, operatiu i financer de Nissan Motor Corporation i de la seva filial espanyola Nissan Motor Ibérica. Després s’ha elaborat una llista dels motius del tancament basant-se en la informació investigada i s’han classificat els motius en diferents categories, finalment elaborant un arbre de decisió amb aquells motius més rellevants en funció del seu impacte en el tancament, fent també una comparativa amb el marc teòric inicial i extraient algunes lliçons. Després de la investigació, s'ha determinat que els motius principals de tancar la fàbrica de Barcelona van ser, en primer lloc, els pobres resultats de l'empresa a nivell global, seguit de la decisió de reorganitzar l'aliança i les pressions de relocalització de fàbriques per part del govern francès, posteriorment els elevats costos i els pobres resultats de la fàbrica de Barcelona, per acabar amb els factors nacionals de distanciament per part dels governs i d'inestabilitat política a la regió de Catalunya, la possibilitat de traslladar la pr, Nissan Motor Corporation proceeded with the closure of its productive plant located in Zona Franca, Barcelona, in December 2020, driving the shutdown of two other productive centers in the region and implying the loss of 3 thousand direct jobs and 20 thousand indirect jobs(1). The closure had an approximate cost of 1.450M€(2). The objective of this investigation project has been to find out the reasons that support the closure of the plant and those that explain why Nissan closed its plant in Barcelona and not another of its European plants, then be able to support each of the reasons with something tangible, state an importance list of the reasons, elaborate a decision tree, and extract several lessons. To reach the objective, the investigation starts with the elaboration of a theorical backbone that covers the closure of productive plants in multinational companies, then follows with a general analysis on the automotive sector, and then with a historical, corporative, operative, and financial analysis on Nissan Motor Corporation and its Spanish subsidiary Nissan Motor Ibérica. Afterwards, a list of the reasons behind the closure supported by the previous investigation has been elaborated, finally proceeding with the selection of the most relevant reasons based on their impact on the closure, also comparing the conclusions with the initial theoretical backbone of the investigation, extracting several lessons. After the investigation, it has been determined that the main reasons for closing the Barcelona factory were, firstly, the poor results of the company globally, followed by the decision to reorganize the alliance and the pressures for the relocation of factories by the French government, then the high costs and the poor results of the Barcelona factory, the national factors of distancing by governments and political instability in the region of Catalonia, the possibility of transferring production to England, the free trade agreement in Japan and finally the e

This thesis assesses the robustness of the design of an existing test rig used to calibrate clamp-on multi-axial moment sensors. The test bench was designed to recreate different loading conditions involving bending, torsion and a combination of both. A three-dimensional finite element model was developed to identify the test rig by performing static and modal analysis. Several assumptions were done during the modelling of the setup, and a simplified version of the test rig was used for the static analysis. Based on the results of the different analysis, some suggestions are done to improve the test rig design and its performance. Using a finite element model to test different design updates leads to a reduction of the time and costs in the design process. The main proposed changes in the design include a different way of applying torsional load to ensure that the input torque using a wrench is the same as the output, and some updates in the housing of the test rig to increase its stiffness. This improves the torsional and bending stiffness and gives a higher quasi-static behaviour frequency range

During the course of this project, the A3 methodology has been rigorously followed in order to improve the original situation, in addition with the different lean tools and principles that have defined the theoretical framework of the project. Thus, the initial scenario has been defined and quantified, and the relevance of the project for the company has been evaluated. It has been observed that one of the biggest areas for improvement, due to its high impact on OEE, was the batch change, so the project has focused on them. Subsequently, some goals have been established to be reached with the improvement project, in order to be able to benchmark the results obtained. Once it was clear, using techniques such as the "5-Why's" and the Ishikawa diagram, a selection of possible causes that affected the problem was successfully identified. To mitigate or eliminate these causes, countermeasures have been developed. These countermeasures have been implemented following a defined roadmap and the results from the final scenario have been monitored. Thanks to the implemented countermeasures, a very positive outcome has been obtained, reducing the batch change time from 72 minutes to 58 minutes, exceeding the nice-to-have target, and the SKU change time from 46,4 minutes to 41,8 minutes, reaching the must-have target. In order to maintain this improvement and to prevent it from reverting to the original situation, some control charts have been designed to identify any out-of-control observation, analyse it, and detect the possible causes. To continue striving for the best, some future development countermeasures have been designed and presented, ready to be implemented in the future by the company.

In Wallonia, there are many buildings and houses built in the 1960s, after World War II, that have envelopes and facades with many heat losses. Due to the poverty of the envelopes of these buildings, they are very energetically inefficient buildings (Attia et al., 2021) that need to be overheated in cold seasons to be comfortable inside. For this matter, it has been developed a methodology through infrared thermography in order to detect the poorest elements of the envelopes of these buildings for a possible renovation. This study takes as a reference a building of the University of Liege residence built in 1968. The first stage of the work consists of making a 3D model of the building. This model has been made from images obtained by drone and printing it with a 3D printer to evaluate the accuracy of the method. The second part of the work consists of estimating the thermal transmittance (U-value) of the facade of the residence through infrared thermography. This method will be compared with real monitoring of the U-value using measurement sensors and the calculation of the Uvalue following the ISO 9869 standard. The study aims to compare the three methods in terms of accuracy, speed, usability, and cost. The main results of this study have been to obtain the U-value by the three developed methods and the detailed comparison of these. A 3D modelling method has also been developed through images captured with the drone where good accuracy is achieved. This study provides an interesting basis for future research using drones equipped with thermal cameras to develop 3D thermal models of buildings.

This paper is divided into two parts, a literature review, and a case study on Airbnb. The first section exhaustively describes startups, considering the different stages they experience throughout their first years and the forms of financing they have. Next, twelve valuation methods are evaluated, divided into six traditional and six alternative methods for startups. Finally, in order to adapt the study to aspects that are beyond the intrinsic characteristics of the company, it is important to take into account macroeconomic facets such as interest rates, which are directly related to the valuation of startups. This is what is being seen in the current situation, that a high inflation has resulted in a pronounced rise in interest rates, causing the valuation of companies to plummet, as investors have less incentive to risk their capital with less predictable ventures instead of lending it at high rates, and founders find it more expensive to borrow money from banks, making them more dependent on investors. The second section begins with a qualitative assessment of Airbnb, with both a company and an industry overview, and it is followed by the company valuation using the methods analyzed before. The study suggests a share price range between $170.0 and $185.0, which is above the market price at the time of the valuation, on April 30, 2022, valuing the company’s stock at $159.7. These results indicate that Airbnb stock is slightly underpriced in the market, probably due to the still uncertain COVID-19 future outcome. In addition, it is shown that the price of $68 per share in the IPO was particularly low, a fact that could already be seen on the same day when the price was adjusted to $146 before starting to trade. Thus, the price with which Airbnb started on the stock market is also justified, having been a success for its first shareholders. Finally, from this analysis can be seen the great complexity when valuing a startup given the variability of the results obta

The growth of e-scooter users on the urban micromobility over the past years has been such that the study of this vehicle is gaining more and more importance thus opening many branches of study. This paper intends to present a detailed study of the user comfort while riding an electric scooter through an exhaustive experimentation and the consequent creation of a mathematical model that simulates the e-scooter dynamics. The thesis is organized as follows. First, a thorough overview of the electric scooter will be presented. This contains a definition of the vehicle with an enumeration of its advantages and disadvantages, a brief story of its evolution, a comparison with other powered micromobility devices, a depiction of the different elements that form an e-scooter and a description of the specific model used throughout the study. Second, an explanation of the experiments carried out and the aim of every and each of them is detailed. While one of the experiments allowed to study the influence of the vibration on human comfort, another one permitted to study the vehicle’s braking response. On the other hand, a couple of other tests helped to create the mathematical model. Next, an explanation of the data acquisition system can be found. The data acquirement was done thanks to the proper configuration of a SCADA-XS device and the appropriate disposition of the sensors: a GPS and four accelerometers. Afterwards, a preliminary study followed by an in-depth analysis are deeply exposed. Meanwhile the first one verified the rightfulness of the data acquired by the sensors to later process it, the second one post-processed the data by varying the survey according to the final aim of the corresponding experiment. Last but not least, the mathematical model created thanks to the data extracted from the study is showcased. Finally, conclusions from this research are drawn

The demand of rapid, portable and effective point of care testing has been increasing in the last decade. Point of care (POC) testing devices can rely on several analytical signals such as electrochemical (i.e. glucose meter used by diabetic patients) and optical (colorimetric, as in pregnancy tests). However, this project will focus on fluorescence signals. The ultimate aim will be to develop a POC based on a sandwich immunoassay with antibodies labelled with fluorescent probes (i.e. quantum dots) that can recognise and quantify simultaneously important disease biomarkers (such as the interleukins IL-6 or IL-1). For that, this work has been focusing on the first step and specifically on the fluorescence approach and the probes that will be used in the sandwich assays and will give the possibility to do multiple quantifications. One of the approaches investigated has been the FRET method and it has been discovered that it is necessary to have a complete overlapping between the acceptor (i.e. dye) excitation and the donor (i.e. quantum dot) emission for it to work properly. The second approach was to find fluorescent probes with similar excitation wavelength, but well separated emissions to permit their simultaneous quantification when they are present in the same solutions. A dye and a quantum dots were selected and tested here in this format and the results showed that, it is easy to quantify them simultaneously, when present in the same solution, by recording their fluorescence at different wavelengths, Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::3 - Salut i Benestar

This documet shows step by step the procedure of aproject develpement from an analytical and executive point of view. The aim of this work is to explain how a project is started, how it develops and how it ends till the installation start-up. Going through these steps, it is going to be shown the aspects to care about in order to proper design a photovoltaic grid connected self-consumption installation. Some years ago, renewable small-scale projects have started to play a more important role in the society and industry developements. The main idea is to use the plots used for other goals, in the case of study to potabilaze water by several treatments from residual flows, to generate electricity. That way, not just the consumption is reducing but the visual impact of large-scale power plants needed to support the world’s sustainable deveolpement do so.

La transition vers une économie durable est un objectif important autant pour la société que pour les entreprises, particulièrement les grandes industries manufacturières telles que l'aviation. La croissance de l'industrie aérospatiale a contribué à environ 2 % des émissions annuelles mondiales de carbone. Contribuant à la moitié de la production totale de l'industrie aérospatiale canadienne, le Québec doit déployer des stratégies importantes pour stimuler une croissance durable et atteindre les objectifs mondiaux de réduction de l'empreinte carbone fixés pour cette industrie d'ici 2050. Pour que cette transition soit rendue possible, le concept innovant d'Économie Circulaire (EC), visant à "boucler le cycle de vie", permet de réduire la consommation de matières premières, d'énergie, d'eau ainsi que la production de déchets. Cependant, la complexité de ce concept pose certaines difficultés à sa réalisation individuelle. Ainsi, des écosystèmes circulaires doivent être construits pour soutenir la mise en œuvre d’une EC pour toute une industrie. Ce mémoire de Maîtrise s’inscrit dans un projet mené par l'École Polytechnique de Montréal, dont le but est de réaliser des études de cas pour comprendre comment les écosystèmes circulaires sont mis en place par les entreprises aérospatiales au Québec. À la suite d’une étude qualitative de l’EC, nous avons mené une entrevue avec des gestionnaires d’une grande entreprise manufacturière de ce secteur afin d'évaluer leurs connaissances sur le sujet, de s'enquérir de leurs pratiques adoptées et de vérifier si celles-ci s’inscrivent bien dans une perspective d’EC. Afin de protéger l'identité de l'entreprise, seules ses principales caractéristiques ont été révélées dans le mémoire. Nous démontrons que l'entreprise susmentionnée maintient une transition vers les pratiques d'EC à différents stades. L'entreprise déclare déployer des stratégies de réduction des déchets et de recyclage de matériaux en fin de vie utile, telles que leurs pr, Making the transition to a sustainable economy is an important goal for both the society and the companies, particularly in large manufacturing industries such as aviation. The unstoppable growth of the aerospace industry during the last decades has contributed to about 2% of global annual carbon emissions. Owning half of the aerospace production of the entire Canada, the province of Quebec needs to deploy strategies to drive sustainable growth for the incoming decades, and achieve the global climate-action goals set for this industry for 2050. To make this transition possible, the innovative concept of Circular Economy (from now on CE) stands for the principle of “closing the life cycle”, allowing a reduction in the consumption of raw materials, energy, water and waste generation. Yet the complexity and interdependencies of the concept put some difficulties to achieving it individually. Thus, circular ecosystems must be embraced to support the implementation of CE to the whole industry. This project is aligned with current research carried out in École Polytechnique Montréal, whose goal is to conduct case studies to understand how circular ecosystems are being implemented by aerospace companies in Quebec. Based on qualitative approach, we conducted an interview with managers of an aerospace company in Quebec, to inquire about which circular practices are being adopted and identify key collaborators. To protect the identity of both the company and the participants, only their main features have been revealed. We provide evidence that the aforementioned company sustains a transition toward CE practices in different stages. From a product-focused perspective, the company states to deploy strategies to reduce waste and recycle materials in their end-of-life cycle, such as a qualified dismantling process of the aircrafts. Based on institutional theory, we analyzed the main drivers and barriers that enable their circular activity, Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::12 - Producció i Consum Responsables::12.2 - Per a 2030, assolir la gestió sostenible i l’ús eficient dels recursos naturals

The purpose of this thesis is to study the role of Private Equity and LBOs in the creation of value within the medical technology sector. In order to have a more practical picture, this thesis studies the drivers that contributed to the value creation in KCI's buyout by the consortium of investors formed by Apax Partners, CPPIB and PSP Investments. The research paper is divided into two distinct parts. On the one hand, the first part presents an overview of the Private Equity industry and the evolution and rationale of LBOs. This same section includes the conflicts of interest between the different LBO participants and concludes with the main metrics and drivers of value creation that are subsequently used in the case study. On the other hand, the second part consists of a case study of the KCI leverage buyout between the entry in 2011 and the exit in 2019 with the strategic sale to 3M Health Care. The section starts with an introduction to the medical technology sector and the company itself and continues with the rationale and risks associated with the deal. Finally, the analysis concludes with the calculation of the returns for all stakeholders and the breakdown of the value created among the different drivers following a methodology based on empirical studies published by different academics and studied in the first section., Incoming

One of the major challenges in engineering contexts is the efficient collection, management, and sharing of data. To address this problem, semantic technologies and ontologies are potent assets, although some tasks, such as ontology population, usually demand high maintenance effort. This thesis proposes a framework to automate data collection from sparse web resources and insert it into an ontology. In the first place, a product ontology is created based on the combination of several reference vocabularies, namely GoodRelations, the Basic Formal Ontology, ECLASS stan- dard, and an information model. Then, this study introduces a general procedure for developing a web scraping agent to collect data from the web. Subsequently, an algorithm based on lexical similarity measures is presented to map the collected data to the concepts of the ontology. Lastly, the collected data is inserted into the ontology. To validate the proposed solution, this thesis implements the previous steps to collect information about microcontrollers from three differ- ent websites. Finally, the thesis evaluates the use case results, draws conclusions, and suggests promising directions for future research.

Pick-and-place motions executed by robotic arms are widely used in the industry and they need to be performed effectively and without errors, such as slips and grasp failures. Concretely, rotational slip may occur when the object is grasped away from its center of mass and may cause issues when placing it due to its change of orientation. In this thesis, this problem is tackled using an event-based camera, which is designed to trigger an input event only the change in illumination at a specific image location crosses a predefined threshold. This enables us to exclude redundant information from static parts of the scene and build systems with low latency, high dynamic range, high temporal resolution and low power consumption. The topic of slip detection in manipulation tasks using event-based cameras is novel. Only a handful of papers in the literature tackle this problem and most of them do not perform as large motions as this thesis considers, typical of pick-and-place scenarios. The main contributions of this work are the design of the data acquisition system and some exploration on data processing methods to infer properties of the scene (motion, slip, etc.) from the data acquired by the platform. In terms of the experiment setup, the event-based camera (DAVIS 346) is mounted to the robotic arm (Panda) with the designed reconfigurable camera mount, offering an external view of the contact between the object and the two-finger parallel gripper used as end-effector. With this setup some small sets of data were recorded, containing slip and non-slip cases during pick-and-place motions with different objects and backgrounds. Since this is an exploratory topic and data is therefore scarce, the approach to data processing consists of feature engineering. To this end, events are processed to investigate the usefulness of alternative representations, such as event histograms and optical flow, to detect slip. Concretely, the ratio between the events coming from the object

Due to the need of higher control strategies for the viability of autonomous vehicles on an ever changing environment, this thesis will cover the development of an autonomous vehicle simulation considering longitudinal control from an Adaptive Cruise Controller (ACC) and lateral control from a Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) controller. The implementation of the control model and code will be made in Simulink and Matlab and simulated using the virtual testing software IPG CarMaker. The vehicle simulated is a Volkswagen Beetle equipped with two sensors. For the ACC, a radar sensor is placed at the front bumper providing relevant information about the preceding traffic object, in particular, the presence of an object and the relative distance and velocity. On the other hand, a line sensor is placed behind the windshield rear-view mirror to monitor the lane bounds and provide the relative position of the lane with respect to the sensor. A line sensor, essentially, emulates a camera sensor with some image processing layers capable of reliably detect lines. To enable longitudinal control, the Intelligent Driver Model calculates the desired acceleration by comparing the desired ego car speed with the actual value. Also, it compares the actual relative distance to a desired distance calculated by considering a standstill gap, a desired time gap at a certain speed and the relative velocity with a preceding vehicle. This model though does not precisely track the relative distance when approaching the desired speed. To address this issue, an algorithm that enables this functionality is implemented monitoring the relative velocity beyond the speed limit to avoid undesired driving conditions. On the other hand, lateral control is achieved by considering both degrees of freedom of a four wheeled vehicle, yaw angle and lateral deviation from the lane centreline. For this, Catmull-Rom curves are fitted in the lane centre to measure both magnitudes and compare them to their ego vehicle’s

Ce rapport présente le travail effectué lors du stage TFE d’une durée de 5 mois et demi au sein de l’entreprise Enedis, et en collaboration avec l’IMT Atlantique. Ces deux entités sont membres de la chaire industrielle ValaDoE, chaire au sein de laquelle se déroule ces travaux de stage. L’objectif du stage est de mener une analyse de sensibilité (AS) sur un code de calcul appelé MOSAIC (Modèle de Simulation et d’Analyse de l’Impact de la Charge sur le réseau), visant à évaluer l’impact des projets de développements locaux, à long terme, sur le réseau électrique. En réalisant cette analyse, le but est de fournir une estimation robuste de la courbe de charge (paramètre calculé en sortie du simulateur) et de critères dimensionnant, à l’échelle de plusieurs locaux. Un plan d'expériences a été élaboré dans lequel a été définie la répartition des calculs dans l’espace des paramètres d’entrée afin d’en tirer un maximum d’informations sur les sorties. L’AS a été réalisée en prenant en compte, ou non, l’aléa. Cet aléa intervient dans les appels de puissance de chaque appareil consommateur d’électricité, qui ensemble définissent la courbe de charge. A partir des résultats de simulation (avec aléa et sans aléa), des calculs de corrélation sont effectués entre les entrées et les sorties du simulateur. La méthodologie appliquée dépend de la nature des paramètres d'entrée et repose sur le calcul d'indices de corrélation de Spearman ou sur le rapport de corrélation. Cette analyse permet d’identifier les paramètres influents et l’impact de l’aléa sur ces influences. Dans ce document, on détaille la méthodologie et les résultats d’une Analyse de Sensibilité sur l’outil MOSAIC.

The current semiconductor shortage has implied delays in the supply of a range of products. It is also the case of the products researched in this thesis. This has involved deliveries of more than 1 year and increased supply costs. Companies have found themselves needing to look for cost reduction to maintain the same costs as always. This Thesis will focus on the material and labor costs reduction of the battery assembly production line at National Power Corp. based on analysis methodology. Actual line performance has been analyzed to disaggregate the processes implied as much as possible, to ease the understanding of the production process as a whole. Once the lines were analyzed, improvements were proposed to each of the batteries studied. These improvements have been scheduled based on the potential time reduced, difficulty and cost. A Gantt Diagram has been given as a resource for the company. Then, a new simulated analysis has been performed with the improvements implemented. A line balance with the improvements has been carried on the lines. Lastly, an economical study with the performance results of the improvements seen has been performed

The Amazon Vendor Services (AVS) business is a B2B service that aims to support strategic brands in their partnership with Amazon. As a Brand Specialist in the AVS team, I benefit from a 360-degree exposure to all the specifics of e-commerce on a European level, while being the privileged point of contact for my brands and sharing my recommendations to key account managers as a market expert. Starting from the customer's vision, my role is to identify and implement action plans to grow my brands and monitor their daily performance while ensuring vendor’s satisfaction. I would say the main responsibilities of a Brand Specialist (from now on BS) is to provide at the same time excellent Vendor Experience and excellent Customer Experience. These responsibilities can be broken down into the following pillars: • Business Advice: Identify opportunities based on deep data analysis and provide recommendations to my vendors to improve their sales and margin. • Selection: Help grow selection by managing the launch of new products and improving discoverability. • Availability: Drive supply-chain operational excellence by reducing costs, defects, lead times, and by managing stock in our fulfillment centers. • Traffic: Provide recommendations for the brand’s marketing and advertising campaigns to promote new products/increase traffic or conversion • Conversion: Plan and implement promotional activities and improve the customer journey on Amazon through enhanced content on detail pages. My scope is to accompany 3 different Amazon strategic vendors, focusing on the above pillars mentioned. The specific situation and objectives of each of these vendors will be detailed in the following pages.