Standard mass-production is a well-known manufacturing concept. To make small quantities or even single items of a product according to user specifications at an affordable price, alternative agile production paradigms should be investigated and developed. The system presented in this paper is based on a grid of cheap reconfigurable production units, called equiplets. A grid of these equiplets is capable to produce a variety of different products in parallel at an affordable price. The underlying agent-based software for this system is responsible for the agile manufacturing. An important aspect of this type of manufacturing is the transport of the products along the available equiplets. This transport of the products from equiplet to equiplet is quite different from standard production. Every product can have its own unique path along the equiplets. In this paper several topologies are discussed and investigated. Also, the planning and scheduling in relation to the transport constraints is subject of this study. Some possibilities of realization are discussed and simulations are used to generate results with the focus on efficiency and usability for different topologies and layouts of the grid and its internal transport system.
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Standard mass-production is a well-known manufacturing concept. To make small quantities or even single items of a product according to user specifications at an affordable price, alternative agile production paradigms should be investigated and developed. The system presented in this article is based on a grid of cheap reconfigurable production units, called equiplets. A grid of these equiplets is capable to produce a variety of different products in parallel at an affordable price. The underlying agent-based software for this system is responsible for the agile manufacturing. An important aspect of this type of manufacturing is the transport of the products along the available equiplets. This transport of the products from equiplet to equiplet is quite different from standard production. Every product can have its own unique path along the equiplets. In this article several topologies are discussed and investigated. Also, the planning and scheduling in relation to the transport constraints is subject of this study. Some possibilities of realization are discussed and simulations are used to generate results with the focus on efficiency and usability for different topologies and layouts of the grid and its internal transport system. Closely related with this problem is the scheduling of the production in the grid. A discussion about the maximum achievable load on the production grid and its relation with the transport system is also included.
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The transition from diesel-driven urban freight transport towards more electric urban freight transport turns out to be challenging in practice. A major concern for transport operators is how to find a reliable charging strategy for a larger electric vehicle fleet that provides flexibility based on different daily mission profiles within that fleet, while also minimizing costs. This contribution assesses the trade-off between a large battery pack and opportunity charging with regard to costs and operational constraints. Based on a case study with 39 electric freight vehicles that have been used by a parcel delivery company and a courier company in daily operations for over a year, various scenarios have been analyzed by means of a TCO analysis. Although a large battery allows for more flexibility in planning, opportunity charging can provide a feasible alternative, especially in the case of varying mission profiles. Additional personnel costs during opportunity charging can be avoided as much as possible by a well-integrated charging strategy, which can be realized by a reservation system that minimizes the risk of occupied charging stations and a dense network of charging stations.
MULTIFILE
Currently, various higher education (HE) institutes develop flexible curricula for various reasons, including promoting accessibility of HE, the societal need for more self-regulated professionals who engage in life-long learning, and the desire to increase motivation of students. Increasing flexibility in curricula allows students to choose for example what they learn, when they learn, how they learn, where they learn, and/or with whom. However, HE institutes raise the question of what preferences and needs different stakeholders have with regard to flexibility, so that suitable choices can be made in the design of policies, curricula, and student support programs. In this workshop, we focus on student preferences and share recent insights from research on HE students' preferences regarding flexible education. Moreover, we use participants’ expertise to identify new (research) questions to further explore what students’ needs imply for several domains, namely curriculum-design, student support that is provided by educators/staff, policy, management, and the professional field. Firstly, a conceptual framework on flexible education and student’s preferences will be presented. Secondly, participants reflect in groups on student personas. Then, discussion groups have a Delphi-based discussion to collect new ideas for research. Finally, participants share the outcomes on a ‘willing wall’ and a ‘wailing wall’.
MULTIFILE
This report focuses on the feasibility of the power-to-ammonia concept. Power-to-ammonia uses produced excess renewable electricity to electrolyze water, and then to react the obtained hydrogen with nitrogen, which is obtained through air separation, to produce ammonia. This process may be used as a “balancing load” to consume excess electricity on the grid and maintain grid stability. The product, ammonia, plays the role of a chemical storage option for excess renewable energy. This excess energy in the form of ammonia can be stored for long periods of time using mature technologies and an existing global infrastructure, and can further be used either as a fuel or a chemical commodity. Ammonia has a higher energy density than hydrogen; it is easier to store and transport than hydrogen, and it is much easier to liquefy than methane, and offers an energy chain with low carbon emissions.The objective of this study is to analyze technical, institutional and economic aspects of power-to-ammonia and the usage of ammonia as a flexible energy carrier.
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Best practice guide on creating an IT architecture that supports smart mobility services. Joint work of Karlstad University and Hanze University of Applied Sciences within the Interrg IVb project ITRACT.
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The objective of the ITRACT2 project is to create attractive transport options for regions with low population densities including rural areas. A basic assumption of the ITRACT project is that information and communication technology can be used to build IT services that allow for more adaptive transport services and that these adaptive transport services create a better match between supply (transport schedules) and demand (traveller needs) and therefore a more viable business case.
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Organic wastes like cooking-waste, farm-waste and manure have detrimental effect on the environment, health and hygiene of people. Within India there are possibilities to manage the available biomass in an efficient way, which can bringenvironmental, health and economic benefits. Through anaerobic digestion, biomass can be converted into biogas and digestate, which can be used as renewable energy source and fertilizer respectively. However, there is a lack of knowledge on how to use the available biomass and, thus, its products in a beneficial way. This leads to the main question: How to fit biogas productionwithin the existing energy infrastructure of India? Our approach involves modelling biogas chains from production to consumption and then analyse several different options. Within the Flexigas project a flexible BioGas simulator is being created, which is capable of simulating biogas production and consumption process. The simulator takes into account the location andavailability of biomass, different biomass and biogas transport, anaerobic digesters, biogas upgraders and various cost involved in the biogas production process. A multi-touch User Interface is used for simulation control and result visualization. Results from the simulator shows how feasible it is to set up the biogas chains, its advantages and increases knowledge on effective biomass use.
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One of the goals of this research is to arrive at an implementation of a CAN-bus that can be used for lab exercises in regular student courses. In this paper, an overview is given of our basic ideas concerning the CAN concept and its application to the control of a manufacturing system. This system consists of two robots, a milling machine and some transportation means. In this system, every workstation will have its own CAN controller. The concept consists of a specially designed hardware structure, embedded software for the protocol and initialisation and a high level production environment, that makes it possible to configure a production system in an easy way.
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The traditional energy industry is transitioning from a centralised fossil fuel based industry to a decentralised renewable energy industry for several reasons including climate change, policy, and changing customer needs. Furthermore, renewable sources, such as wind and solar, are intermittent and unpredictable. This has implications for the business models of energy producers, such as increased mismatch between demand and supply, increased price volatility, shift in drivers of value creation. Due to the low marginal cost of production and the intermittent nature of renewables, the price volatility on the electricity markets, in particular the imbalance market, are expected to increase. However, there is potential for market parties operating in the electricity sector to profit from this development by providing flexibility to balance electricity supply and demand. Therefore, new business models are needed that can harness and exploit flexibility in a viable manner. In these business models, flexibility becomes the key driver of value creation.
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