Intelligent products—a step towards a more effective project delivery chain

Abstract

International projects present really dif®cult logistics challenges. In international investment projects, a vast number of individualised deliveries has to be managed through a large supply network in a tight timeframe. This article investigates how the logistic challenges of international projects can be solved by utilising advanced web technologies and product identi®cation. The paper presents a control system being built at Helsinki University of Technology, which is based on distributed programming, and wireless identi®cation technologies. The aim of the system is to change the controlling mechanisms of project deliveries by giving the deliveries themselves the means with which to control their route. This enables the material¯ows in the project delivery chains to be controlled from the inside of the material¯ow itself. #

Development of a Metamodel to Foster Interoperability along the Product Lifecycle Traceability

“…Therefore, a merging activity between the product and its information is an obligatory step, also in the most advanced issues (e.g. Auto-Id efforts in [5], or Dialog effort in [7]). This re-merging activity is still not risk-free; even if it's could be already conducted in an automated manner (e.g.…”

“…This re-merging activity is still not risk-free; even if it's could be already conducted in an automated manner (e.g. [5], [6]), transactions breakdowns could occur [7] in searching for information into the database. In general, two main problems could be advocated:…”

Material Intelligence: Cross-Organizational Collaboration Driven by Detailed Material Data

“…The idea is in line with the concept of product intelligence [33], which incorporates product orders, actual products, and further information into one system. Product intelligence relies on intelligent products, a concept with a wide range of definitions [26,27,33,34,35]. However, all these definitions agree on a common underlying assumption--the objects need to be uniquely traceable.…”

Technological Theory of Cloud Manufacturing

“…The basic principle is that the product itself, while it is in the process of being produced and delivered, directly requests processing, assembly and materials handling from available providers, therefore simplifying materials handling and control, customization, and information sharing in the supply chain. This concept is referred to as "Product Centric Control" [11], which is required and of the utmost importance from a CMfg perspective since it allows for developing fast and cost effective DDM solutions, as will be discussed in the next section. Indeed, operations and decision making processes that are triggered and controlled by the product itself result in higher quality and efficiency than standard operations and external control.…”