Home Care (HC) service consists of providing care to patients in their homes. During the last decade, the HC service industry experienced significant growth in many European countries. This growth stems from several factors, such as governmental pressure to reduce healthcare costs, demographic changes related to population ageing, social changes, an increase in the number of patients that suffer from chronic illnesses, and the development of new home-based services and technologies. This study proposes a framework that will enable HC service providers to better understand HC operations and their management. The study identifies the main processes and decisions that relate to the field of HC operations management. Hence, an IDEF0 (Integrated Definition for Function Modelling) activity-based model describes the most relevant clinical, logistical and organisational processes associated with HC operations. A hierarchical framework for operations management decisions is also proposed. This analysis is derived from data that was collected by nine HC service providers, which are located in France and Italy, and focuses on the manner in which operations are run, as well as associated constraints, inputs and outputs. The most challenging research areas in the field of HC operations management are also discussed.

This paper deals with the minimization of machine tool (CNC milling centre) energy consumption during the usage phase. This study shows that the selection of the main process parameters can entail energy savings in manufacturing metal components. The analysis exploits a developed and experimentally updated energy consumption analytical model. The main analyzed machine functional modules (spindle, axis, chillers, tool change system, auxiliaries and the cutting process) are described in terms of power adsorption and energy usage. The global energy consumption function, as the summation of the energetic consumption of the listed machine tool components, is expressed in a closed analytical form and then it is numerically optimized to find out the cutting conditions (basically cutting speed and feed rate) that satisfy the minimum energy criteria. The optimization procedure takes into account the wear of the tool and the energy required to produce the tools itself. The numerical results reported in this work refer to the face milling of an aluminum prismatic workpiece. In the analyzed case, the identified optimal conditions are compared to those obtained following the production time minimization criteria

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The growing amount of knowledge on machine energy consumption underlines the increasing interest in the sustainable aspect of manufacturing. The heterogeneity of production equipment and processes makes the machine hard to modeling. A method able to build an energy state-based model of a complex machine is presented. First the machine is divided into functional modules, afterword each module is modeled in terms of states and events with automata theory. A specific logic automaton represents the relationships existing among modules. Then, the machine state model is automatically obtained using a synchronization algorithm. The method has been validated on real machining centers

This paper presents a Geodesign tool supporting collaborative decision-making in Strategic Environmental Assessment of Local Land-use Planning. The tool consists of a Planning Support Systems implementing a spatial DPSIR model, which allows the real time interaction among plan alternatives design, impact evaluation and documentation. The Planning Support System demonstrates the opportunity for innovation in spatial planning, design and governance given by the availability of Spatial Data Infrastructures. The study proposed in this paper concerns the Sardinia (Italy) case study, but the results can be generalized to other regions in Europe and worldwide