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The increasing demand for water in arid regions has driven the adoption of seawater desalination plants as critical infrastructure for industrial and domestic applications. However, these plants face unique challenges, including high operational costs, environmental vulnerabilities, and system reliability concerns. The critical nature of these infrastructures demands maintaining elevated levels of availability and demonstrating robust resilience. Resilience is framed as the system’s capacity to recover from disruptions and maintain operational efficiency under varying conditions. Quantitative assessment of resilience is essential to facilitate the development and implementation of optimal strategies that ensure operational continuity. This paper puts into practice a novel approach to evaluate the resilience of a seawater intake and pumping system using permutation entropy computed using time series availability data derived from different maintenance strategies. The methodology integrates reliability block diagrams (RBD) and symbolic time series analysis to identify critical components and evaluate maintenance strategies. A case study of a seawater pumping station demonstrates the application of the proposed resilience index. The analysis explored four scenarios to evaluate how these changes improved the system’s resilience: the first three hypothetical scenarios involved testing improvements in the maintainability and reliability indexes of the critical pump. These improvements matched the values of these parameters to the benchmark of the pump, historically showing the best indicators, first one by one, separately, and then both changes simultaneously. The initial resilience index was 0.652 in the baseline scenario. Scenario 1 (reduction in MTTR) showed a negligible impact, while scenario 2 (reduction in downtime) increased the resilience index to 0.682. The combination of both (scenario 3) maintained the index at 0.682, emphasizing the importance of reducing downtimes. Scenario 4, which consisted of reducing and standardizing the frequency of planned maintenance to 100 h, significantly raised the resilience index to 0.778. The results highlight how adjustments in maintenance strategies, including the reduction in preventive interventions, impact the system’s resilience and availability. The study also underscores the importance of aligning maintenance strategies with resilience goals to enhance the operational reliability of marine infrastructure. By providing a quantitative tool for resilience assessment, this work contributes to the sustainable management of desalination plants and offers practical insights for engineers and decision-makers in the marine engineering and water management sectors.

In today’s competitive industrial landscape, Reliability Engineering plays a vital role in minimizing costs and expenses in energy projects. The main focus of this paper is to propose the integration of a fuzzy-based FMECA process into a RAM analysis to assess modernization and reconfiguration strategies for LNG facilities. This approach estimates, through a systematic procedure, the system’s failure probabilities and gauges the impact of various maintenance and topological modification initiatives on the asset and the system’s availability as a driver of profitability. A methodology based on fuzzy-FMEA is proposed to collect and process imprecise data about reliability and maintainability of the components of the facility. Furthermore, Monte Carlo-based RAM experiments are performed. The selection of parameters for conducting Monte Carlo experiments is done after the defuzzification of MTBF and MTTR values defined in the FMEA stage. The proposed procedure allows for the prediction of the system’s reliability across hypothetical scenarios, incorporating design tweaks and potential improvements. As a case study, the proposed was applied to a Pumping and Vaporization facility in a Chilean LNG plant. Sensitivity analysis was performed on critical elements, leading to an optimization strategy for key components like Open Rack Vaporizers (ORV) and Submerged Combustion Vaporizers (SCV). The anticipated availability rate was found to be 99.95% over an 8760 h operating period. Final conclusions and managerial insights are discussed.

In a highly dynamic and complex environment where risks and uncertainties are inevitable, the ability of a system to quickly recover from disturbances and maintain optimal performance is crucial for ensuring operational continuity and efficiency. In this context, resilience has become an increasingly important topic in the field of engineering and the management of productive systems. However, there is no single quantitative indicator of resilience that allows for the measurement of this characteristic in a productive system. This study proposes the use of permutation entropy of ordinal patterns in time series as an indicator of resilience in industrial equipment and systems. Based on the definition of resilience, the developed method enables precise and efficient assessment of a system’s ability to withstand and recover from disturbances. The methodology includes the identification of ordinal patterns and their analysis through the calculation of a permutation entropy indicator to characterize the dynamics of industrial systems. Case studies are presented and the results are compared with other resilience models existing in the literature, aiming to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The results are promising and highlight a highly applicable and simple indicator for resilience in industrial systems.

The implementation of Industry 4.0 has integrated manufacturing, electronics, and engineering materials, leading to the creation of smart parts (SPs) that provide information on production system conditions. However, SP development faces challenges due to limitations in manufacturing processes and integrating electronic components. This systematic review synthesizes scientific articles on SP fabrication using additive manufacturing (AM), identifying the advantages and disadvantages of AM techniques in SP production and distinguishing between SPs and smart spare parts (SSPs). The methodology involves establishing a reference framework, formulating SP-related questions, and applying inclusion criteria and keywords, initially resulting in 1603 articles. After applying exclusion criteria, 70 articles remained. The results show that while SP development is advancing, widespread application of AM-manufactured SP is recent. SPs can anticipate production system failures, minimize design artifacts, and reduce manufacturing costs. Furthermore, the review highlights that SSPs, a subcategory of SPs, primarily differs by replacing conventional critical parts in the industry, offering enhanced functionality and reliability in industrial applications. The study concludes that continued research and development in this field is essential for further advancements and broader adoption of these technologies.

The Cell Formation Problem (CFP) is a widely studied issue that aims to group machines effectively based on criteria such as productivity, lower costs, and greater efficiency. In recent years, more characteristics were summarized relating to this problem. This paper provides a bibliographic examination of methodologies addressing the CFP in cellular manufacturing, focusing on novel approaches such as alternative routes and machine reliability. The articles were obtained from Scopus and Web of Science and filtered using the PRISMA methodology. Classification based on objective functions, constraints, and methodologies facilitated informative visualizations for analysis. Findings indicate a focus on capital utilization optimization, with cost reduction via intercellular moves minimization as the primary objective. Common constraints include limits on the number of machines per cell, restricting machines to a single cell and singular production routes per part. The genetic algorithm predominates as a non-exact solution approach, while the “ε-constraint” method is commonly used. This study offers insights into contemporary trends in solving the CFP with alternative routings and machine reliability, aiding researchers and professionals in the field to improve the quality of their investigations.

The focus on maintenance actions in the early design phases has been a trend in recent years. The main sources of information during the design of the maintainability process include operator reports, maintainer experience, failure history, and manufacturer recommendations. During this process, an important aspect is related to the configuration of maintenance tasks and interventions, such as their main phases, activities, and durations. The allocation or estimation of maintainability involves identifying and/or estimating the mean time to repair (MTTR) for each component or system. The time of the maintenance tasks or the repair time are fundamental for companies, as the availability of equipment directly depends on this parameter. In this study, a new method for evaluating maintainability during the design phases is proposed. The method is based on the integration of the maintenance task analysis (MTA) principles and the UNE 151001 maintainability evaluation standard. A data structure is proposed that serves the application of the UNE151001 procedures, obtaining a data-based maintainability evaluation. As a validation procedure, an application of the proposed approach is presented using two overhead cranes. Comparisons and recommendations are made regarding the maintainability of both pieces of equipment. Finally, some managerial and engineering insights are presented.

The operation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) marine loading arms plays a pivotal role in the efficient transfer of LNG from maritime vessels to downstream facilities, underpinning the global LNG supply chain. Despite their criticality, these systems frequently encounter operational challenges, notably slow coupling speeds and increased downtimes driven by maintenance demands. Addressing these challenges, Physical Asset Management principles advocate for maximizing process availability by minimizing both planned and unplanned outages. Recognizing maintainability as a key equipment attribute, this document proposes a procedure that extends the use of the UNE 151001 standard to evaluate the maintainability of physical assets. This proposal incorporates into traditional RCM a step for the selection of maintenance levels proposed in the standard, as well as the use of the AHP technique for selecting the weights used during the analysis process. Finally, an aggregated maintainability indicator is presented, which will allow for better evaluation, comparison, and monitoring of this characteristic in one or more industrial assets. To demonstrate its feasibility and utility, the proposed procedure is applied to a set of LNG marine unloading arms. This study identifies pivotal areas for improvement and devises strategic action plans aimed at enhancing asset’s maintainability. The outcomes of this analysis not only provide a roadmap for augmenting operational efficiency but also furnish empirical justification for the requisite investments in maintainability enhancements, thereby contributing to the resilience and sustainability of LNG logistics infrastructure.

The Cell Formation Problem (CFP) involves the clustering of machines to enhance productivity and capitalize on various benefits. This study addresses a variant of the problem where alternative routes and machine reliability are included, which we call a Generalized Cell Formation Problem with Machine Reliability (GCFP-MR). This problem is known to be NP-Hard, and finding efficient solutions is of utmost importance. Metaheuristics have been recognized as effective optimization techniques due to their adaptability and ability to generate high-quality solutions in a short time. Since BWO was originally designed for continuous optimization problems, its adaptation involves binarization. Accordingly, our proposal focuses on adapting the Black Widow Optimization (BWO) metaheuristic to tackle GCFP-MR, leading to a new approach named Binary Black Widow Optimization (B-BWO). We compare our proposal in two ways. Firstly, it is benchmarked against a previous Clonal Selection Algorithm approach. Secondly, we evaluate B-BWO with various parameter configurations. The experimental results indicate that the best configuration of parameters includes a population size (Pop) set to 100, and the number of iterations (Maxiter) defined as 75. Procreating Rate (PR) is set at 0.8, Cannibalism Rate (CR) is set at 0.4, and the Mutation Rate (PM) is also set at 0.4. Significantly, the proposed B-BWO outperforms the state-of-the-art literature’s best result, achieving a noteworthy improvement of 1.40%. This finding reveals the efficacy of B-BWO in solving GCFP-MR and its potential to produce superior solutions compared to alternative methods.

In capital-intensive organizations, decisions regarding capital costs play an important role due to the significant amount of investment required and the expected return on investment. Spare parts management is crucial to those ends, as spare parts management can constitute a significant portion of OPEX. Companies must implement a trade-off analysis between stock levels and assets’ availability. Decision-making supports mechanisms such as the Level of Repair Analysis (LORA), Integrated Logistics Systems (ILS), and life-cycle costing (LCC) models have been developed to aid in equipment selection, implementation, and decommissioning. Nowadays, these mechanisms appear to be integrated with risk-management models and standards. This paper proposes a long-term costing model that integrates a capacity analysis, reliability functions, and risk considerations for the cost management of logistics activities, particularly in MRO structures. The model is built upon Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TD-ABC) and incorporates the volume of activities generated by MRO needs. It also addresses uncertainty through the integration of a cost-at-risk model. By integrating spare parts, activity-based cost models, and risk measurement through Monte Carlo simulation, this study offers powerful insights into optimizing spare parts logistics activities. The proposed model is a novel approach to include the risk of cost in spare parts management, and its matrix-activity-based structure makes possible the development of sophisticated mathematical models for costing and optimization purposes in different domains.

Resilience is an essential quality of systems. This characteristic is based on the ability of a system to cope with disruptive events. To prevent decreases in system functionality and performance and to respond promptly to unexpected situations or shocks, systems must possess this capacity. One challenge lies in identifying and measuring resilience. Recently, various metrics have been proposed in the literature to represent the resilience of systems. Despite this, there is still no global resilience measure that can be used in any type of industrial system. This work investigated a series of moment statistics and explored the field of entropy in the search for a general resilience indicator. A set of 27 hypothetical cases were proposed to calculate the indices under evaluation. Then, a series of comparisons were made between these indices and two resilience indicators found in the literature. The main results of this work lead to the overall conclusion that it is possible to use some of these indicators as potential resilience indicators for engineering systems and production lines. Specifically, negentropy appears to be a good option for this purpose.

In this study, the performance and the useful life of a mixed ceramic tool with S-type edge microgeometry are evaluated for the case of dry turning of AISI 4140 steel hardened to 55 HRC. The influence of the cutting speed and feed rate of the cutting parameters on the tool failure was investigated. The experiments were designed and analysed using the complete factorial design technique. Our results indicate that the cutting speed and feed rate values exert significant influence on the tool lifespan. Crater and flank wear occur in all cutting conditions. The predominant tool wear mechanisms are diffusion, abrasion, and adhesion, which are also known as attrition. The tool life curve and equation were established for the machining conditions of this investigation to achieve the subsequent optimisation of this process.

The present paper aims to provide production systems with a decision-making tool that allows the assessment of the resilience of their equipment, processes and/or sub systems and, certainly, the system itself. The ultimate goal is to detect the critical points of a production system in order to gain strength, efficiency and resilience to face new and existing threats and challenges. In this regard, this paper presents a model that aims to calculate the resilience score of a process from various parameters and to rate it on the resilience scale using linguistic terms. In order to manage uncertainty, a fuzzy model has been put forward with the objective of being an integral tool of maintenance strategy surveillance and definition. Finally, and towards putting into practice the proposed model, a real case study, in the context of mining operations, is presented. This will help the process identify the areas/equipment for improvement and afterwards overcome weaknesses that may affect the entire system’s resilience. The aforementioned model provides great support to the decision-making process in the field of plant maintenance strategies and physical asset management. We believe that the main impact of this proposal is that through the use of this type of decision tool, the correct definition of maintenance strategies and the appropriate selection of system topologies could be made regarding the systemic resilience as an overall objective.

In capital-intensive industries, physical assets and maintenance activities play a relevant and strategic role in terms of providing operational continuity and business sustainability. As a result, maintenance support structures are highly complex and sophisticated. Therefore, maintenance capacity planning must be addressed using reliable techniques to assure the adequate service levels and availabilities of critical assets at the minimum opportunity cost. There has been relatively limited research on how to determine and optimize the maintenance support structure (human resources) in such organizations. This paper proposes a novel technique for dimensioning and optimizing maintenance capacity that combines Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing and Life-Cycle Costing with the Weibull function-based reliability model. Following the main principles of the Design Science Research we propose a sophisticated but simple artifact. Through this model, it is possible to compute maintenance costs and assess both used and idle capacities, considering the behavior over time of the failure rates and the reliability of critical assets within a plant. To demonstrate how the proposed methodology addresses the problem, the model was applied in a real medium-sized Chilean comminution plant and a sensitivity analysis was performed, particularly, to evaluate the relevance of appropriate maintenance workforce planning.

Resilience is an intrinsic characteristic of systems. Through it, the capacity of a system to react to the existence of disruptive events is expressed. A series of metrics to represent systems’ resilience have been proposed, however, only one indicator relates the availability of the system to this characteristic. With such a metric, it is possible to relate the topological aspects of a system and the resources available in order to be able to promptly respond to the loss of performance as a result of unexpected events. This work proposes the adaptation and application of such a resilience index to assess the influence of different maintenance strategies and topologies in fleets’ resilience. In addition, an application study considering an actual mining fleet is provided. A set of critical assets was identified and represented using reliability block diagrams. Monte Carlo simulation experiments were conducted and the system availability data were extracted. Resilience indexes were obtained in order to carry out the definition of the best maintenance policies in critical equipment and the assessment of the impact of modifying system redundancies. The main results of this work lead to the overall conclusion that redundancy is an important system attribute in order to improve resiliency along time.

A physical asset’s health is the consequence of a series of factors, ranging from the characteristics of the location where it operates to the care it is submitted to. These characteristics can influence the durability or the horizon of the useful life of any equipment, as well as determine its operational performance and its failure rates in the future. Therefore, the assessment of the influence of asset health on Life Cycle Costs is a compelling need. This paper proposes the incorporation of a factor that reflects the projected behavior of an asset’s health index into its corresponding Life Cycle Costing (LCC) model. This allows cost estimates to be made more realistic and LCC models to be operated more accurately. As a way of validating this proposal, a case study is shown. The methodology proposed in this case study was applied in a real case, considering an LNG facility located in central Chile. In addition, sensitivity studies and comparisons with the results obtained by a traditional Life Cycle Costing model are included. The results show the usefulness of incorporating asset health aspects into the Life Cycle Costing of physical assets.

A gestão ambiental tem se transformado num dos elementos chave dentro da gestão empresarial atual. Sistemas Integrados de Gestão posicionam num mesmo plano as questões relativas às dimensões financeiras, da qualidade e do desempenho ambiental. Dentro desse contexto, a mensuração dos custos ambientais ocupa um lugar de destaque no que tange à informação para a Gestão. Entretanto, a mensuração dos custos ambientais tem esbarrado nas limitações já reconhecidas dos instrumentos da contabilidade tradicional. Pela sua natureza, a maioria destes custos é considerada como sendo custos indiretos de fabricação e/ou custos fixos dificultando, com isso, sua identificação e correta apropriação. Com a utilização do Método do Custeio Baseado em Atividades (ABC), os custos ambientais podem ser definidos a partir da identificação e mensuração dos recursos consumidos pelas atividades de controle, preservação e recuperação ambiental. Tudo isso é possível devido às características do Método ABC, adaptando-se de uma melhor forma à identificação, medição e monitoramento dos custos ambientais. Este trabalho apresenta os resultados obtidos no projeto de construção de um sistema de monitoramento dos custos ambientais via web, utilizando para isto um banco de dados e linguagem PHP. Este sistema, chamado de Scorecard Ambiental, disponibiliza a informação relativa aos custos ambientais através da web categorizados segundo quatro classes, custos de prevenção, custos de avaliação, custos de falhas internas e custos de falhas externas e permite aos usuários acompanhar o comportamento dessas variáveis ao longo dos períodos.Environmental Management has become recently a central issue of corporate management. Integrated Management Systems incorporate matters such as finances, quality and environmental performance, at the same importance level. Within that context, measuring environmental costs is today an essential aspect of information for the modern management. Nevertheless, measuring environmental costs is difficult because of traditional accounting instruments. By their nature, most environmental costs are considered as production indirect costs or overheads, which make their identification and correct allocation difficult. Activity Based Costing arises as a solution for defining, identifying and/or measuring the resources consumed by the activities of control, preservation and recovering of the environment. This is possible because of the characteristics of the ABC methodology, which are best suited for managing environmental costs. This paper deals with the implementation of a web-based environmental performance monitoring system. The proposed system was entirely written in PHP programming language and is interconnected with a database-based management system. The system, called Environmental Scorecard, provides information about environmental costs, which are classified according to four main types: prevention, evaluation, internal faults and external faults. The system allows users to know and monitor the behavior of the mentioned variables through long time periods.

Este trabalho apresenta os resultados da aplicação da metodologia de custeio baseado em atividades para medir o impacto que as atividades de gestão ambiental podem ter no custo industrial dos produtos. Um estudo de caso é apresentado junto com a utilização de um software comercial para o cálculo dos custos.This manuscript presents an Activity Based Costing application in an environmental protection context. The aim of this work is measuring the impact of environmental management activities on product costs. Also, a case study is discussed and the utilization of commercial software is presented.

This work presents the operational optimization of a welding operation involving using genetic algorithms. The welding curves correspond to the profile of a blade-shaped Pelton turbine. The procedure involved the development of a series of tests and observation of the parameters that will be controlled during the welding process. After the tests were performed, the samples were prepared for chemical attack, which allowed observation of the penetration, weld area, and dilution. After that, mathematical models were developed that correlate the controllable welding parameters with the aforementioned bead parameters. In those mathematical models, the optimization of the process parameters was performed using genetic algorithms. Specially programmed functions for mutation, reproduction, and initialization processes were written and used in the implemented model. After the optimization process was completed, the results were evaluated through new tests to verify whether the obtained objective functions properly describe the characteristics of the weld. The comparisons showed errors of less than 6%.

El presente ensayo trata de algunas reflexiones acerca del surgimento de la diversidad de los tipos de objetos que se dan en el diseño industrial contemporáneo. consta de dos partes; la primera, da una breve mirada a la noción de techné, el platónismo geométrico y la teoría aristotélica de las cuatro causas, que en la filosofía griega da cuenta de las raíces que identifican el telos del objeto útil, al menos en occidente.

En el último siglo, el diseño ha sido un importante agencia estética entre, el desarrollo tecnológico y el universo de artefactos difundidos en la sociedad, la cultura y el medioambiente. Simultáneamente, la economía, los modos y medios de producción se afectan por el cambio tecnológico, incidiendo en los diseños y productos derivados, transformando en grado y modo su naturaleza. Hasta hace tres décadas, el carácter de los diseños se comprendía dentro de principios: discretos, simples, contemplativos. Ahora, ese carácter es complejo: móvil, dinámico, y adaptativo. Este estudio CTS, hace una mirada general al Diseño Industrial en los dos cambios tecnológicos del último siglo.