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Published in Advances in Production Management Systems. Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable and Resilient Production Systems. APMS 2021. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 630 , pp. 73-80, Springer, Cham, 2021Part II - Hybrid Approaches for Production Planning and Scheduling; International audience; This paper proposes an approach for robust scheduling on parallel machines. This approach is based on a combination of robust mathematical and discrete event systems models which are iteratively called in order to converge towards a schedule with the required robustness level defined by the decision maker. Experimentations on a small instance (10 jobs and 2 unrelated machines) and a more complex one (30 jobs and 6 uniform machines) show that this approach permits to converge quickly to a robust schedule even if the probability distribution associated to the uncertainties are not symmetrical. The approach achieves a better rate of convergence than those of the literature’s methods.

Published in IFAC-PaperOnLine 54(1):1168-1173, 2021; International audience; Industry 4.0 reflects a new area for production workshops. This new concept aims to bring more flexibility and agility to the production shop floor. In this context, the scheduling problem is an important issue. In fact, a proposed schedule has to guarantee a high performance level able to take into consideration the several changes and perturbations occurring in the workshop. The proposed approaches usually aims to find a robust schedule capable of optimizing some criteria with considering a perturbation. With the new requirements of the workshop and the importance of decision making when implementing the schedule, it is essential to extend the robust scheduling problem to be adaptable to the needs of the decision maker in evaluating several properties. We propose, in this paper, a robust scheduling framework based on a robustness specification. The paper gives also the using of this framework in a decision making context.

International audience; This chapter presents a generic methodology when considering robustness in production systems of Industry 4. It is the first milestone for coupling Operations Research models for robust optimization and Discrete Event Systems models and tools for property checking. The idea is to iteratively call Operations Research and Discrete Event Systems Models for converging towards a solution with the required robustness level defined by the decision-maker.

Published in IFAC-PapersOnLine, 51(7):271-276, 2018; International audience; Discrete Event Systems (DES) have already proved their efficiency to model and solve scheduling production problems in the field of manufacturing systems. Their main asset is the capacity to represent the dynamic behavior of workshops.The stochastic extensions of DES models offers, actually, interesting characteristics to take into consideration the perturbations in scheduling. In this paper, we propose to use a stochastic DES approach (using stochastic timed automata) to evaluate the robustness of schedules under perturbations. The perturbations that are considered are the machine failures with uncertain reparation duration.

Published in IFAC-PapersOnline, 51(11):921-926, 2018; International audience; Six sigma is a well-assessed methodology for optimizing the performance of the enterprise through the reduction of the variability of their process outputs. Six sigma implementation consists of the development of the DMAIC phases to improve existent processes. Each phase of this methodology adopts statistical as well as qualitative tools to fix variability sources and assess the process to a six sigma level of quality. However, there is a lack of an implementation model on how to guide effectively the implementation of the methodology DMAIC. This is particularly true for SMEs that not have enough human resources for supporting the needed knowledge. To answer to this limitation of six sigma, the objective of this paper is to present a framework to support the implementation of six sigma approach in SMEs. This framework is formalized by a meta-model, which is based on different studies on six sigma, its phases and its tools. This framework aims to propose a solution to validate the passage between the DMAIC phases defining the requirements to be satisfied during each phase.

Published in Service Orientation in Holonic and Multi-Agent Manufacturing, Borangiu T., Trentesaux D., Thomas A., Cardin O. (eds). Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 762, pp. 345-357, Springer, Cham; International audience; Industry 4.0 implies new scheduling problems linked to the optimal using of flexible resources and to mass customisation of products. In this context, first research results show that Discrete Event Systems models and tools are a relevant alternative to the classical approaches for modelling scheduling problems and for solving them. Moreover, the challenges of the industry 4.0 mean taking into account the uncertainties linked to the mass customisation (volume and mix of the demand) but also to the states of the resources (failures, operation durations,. . .). The goal of this paper is to show how it is possible to use the simulation based on statistical model checking for taking into account these uncertainties and for evaluating the robustness of a given schedule.

International audience; Global competitiveness has challenged manufacturing industry to rationalize different ways of bringing to the market new products in a short lead-time with competitive prices, high quality, and customization. Modern Product Development Process (PDP) has been requiring simultaneously collaboration of multiple groups, exchanging information from multiple perspectives within and across enterprise boundaries. However, semantic interoperability issues (misinterpretation and mistakes) in view of the information heterogeneity from multiple perspectives and their relationships. This research proposes a semantic reconciliation view to support the interoperable information relationships in product design and manufacturing. This view is part of the conceptual framework of an Interoperable Product Design and Manufacturing System (IPDMS). The semantic reconciliation method uses three approaches (Adjustment Context, Ontology Intersection, and Semantic Alignment) to provide support for the semantic information relationships across the product design and manufacturing. The method is applied in a rotational thin-wall plastic injected design and manufacturing and evaluated through the development of semantic rules responsible for the information mapping of sharing, conversion and translation. This semantic rules were modeled in Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) supported by Web Ontology Languages (OWL). Sequentially, the potential benefits and limitation of the method was discussed, contributing to the semantic information interoperability during the development of complex products.

Published in IFAC-PapersOnLine, 50(1):1225-1230, July 2017; International audience; This paper investigates the relevance of modeling workshop scheduling problems using a Discrete Event System (DES) approach based on timed automata (TA). To realize this study, the DES approach is compared with a classical approach based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). In order to compare these two modeling approaches, an evaluation system is proposed based on: (i) a problem instances generation system using the classical three-fields notation of Graham (alpha|beta|gamma), (ii) a measurement system based on three criteria and associated metrics: complexity, genericity and scalability. This system covers the most common problems when dealing with flexible workshop scheduling. The results obtained by the application of the method is finally discussed.

International audience; Global competitiveness challenges manufacturing industry to rationalise different ways of bringing to the market new products in a short lead-time with competitive prices while ensuring higher quality levels and customisation. Industries need to effectively share heterogeneous information during Product Development Process (PDP) within and across their institutional boundaries to be competitive. However, problems with misinterpretation and mistakes have been identified during information exchange due to the semantic interoperability obstacles. Thus, this research proposes a systematic literature review to identify the main researches and the milestones reference works on semantic interoperability field. A rigorous methodology was conducted in different databases, covering the articles published in scientific journals from 2005 to 2015 as a preliminary study had indicated that the incidence of articles related to the subject was more frequent from the second half of the 2000s. The research structure consisted of four steps: Survey-searching, analysis and selection of recent researches; Categorization-categorization of the selected papers; References citation frequency analysis-the selected papers were analysed and the main researches and milestones references were identified; and Main researches critical analysis – the main researches were analysed for their contributions and limitations, their contributions and limitations, resulting in 14 selected scientific articles and 8 identified milestones references. It is evident that this field has interesting perspectives on future research opportunities on semantic interoperability of information issues across PDP, contributing to the new concepts of future factories.

An approach for the representation, the retrieval and the reuse of design knowledge for product families design is proposed.All methods in literature rely on (at least) a partial representation based on natural language.The relation between the natural language and the ambiguity of the retrieval (and the consequent reuse) is highlighted.An anti-logicist approach to unambiguously represent the design knowledge.The impacts on the ambiguity of the retrieval and the reuse for the product family design are tested on an industrial case. The product family design is a design approach to meet the demand of customisable products. This paper deals with the knowledge representation, retrieval and reuse supporting the design stage of product families. Usually, the methods in the literature do not focus on the retrieve and the reusability of the knowledge. In other words, they do not ensure if a non-expert user can effectively retrieve and reuse the represented knowledge. To cope with this point, here, the aim is to apply an anti-logicist approach for the unambiguous design-knowledge representation to support the unambiguous retrieval and the automatic reuse of the knowledge during a product family design stage. The retrieval is unambiguous because the link between the knowledge models and the requirements is based on a syntax comparison, e.g. intervals of numbers, units of measure. An algorithm for the automatic reuse has been developed: provided an unambiguous definition of the new requirements related to the product family, the algorithm's outputs are the functional and physical definitions of all the products included in the product families, i.e. performances and CAD files. The case study is a family of components of the HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) systems sector. Finally the advantages and issues of a potential industrial implementation are discussed.

International audience; Production planning and control and more generally taking a decision in the context of production systems often consider that input information are known, static and predictable. However, uncertainties on data and perturbations are recorded in the genetic of every production system. For instance, it is impossible to know exactly the level of the demand for a product, the availability of resources, etc. Dealing with this issue asks the question of the ability to take robust decisions against uncertainty (off-line) or the ability to be flexible (on-line). This paper proposes to analyze how Product Driven Systems – as reactive systems against unpredicted perturbations – can be part of operational research solution process against perturbations. Moreover, an overview of models and approaches for dealing with uncertainty in Operational Research is given and a first proposition is made for applying these elements into PDS as decision-making-against-perturbations engines.

Part 3: Interoperability and Systems Integration; International audience; The semantic interoperability of information has become increasingly important in Product Development Process (PDP) to support different phases during the product development. This article presents a proposal of an Interoperable Product Design and Manufacturing System (IPDMS) concept based on a set of engineering domain ontologies and sematic mapping approaches. The concept explores the potentials of semantic well-defined core-foundations in a Semantic Web ontology language. The formal core-foundations can be specialised to perform application view in Product or Manufacturing Model. The application view is used to support the information sharing between product design and manufacturing and verify the accordance with product requirements. A preliminary experimental has been realised, using a test case to share information from the design to manufacturing of an injection moulding plastic. As results, it was identified potential benefits and limitations. The mains contributions are: semantic interoperability during information sharing in PDP and analysis of inconsistencies in PDP.

Best track paper (1/20); International audience; Today, sustainability becomes one of the biggest challenges. It represents a key issue in every production activity. To face this issue, a possible solution is to enhance knowledge usage in manufacturing and sustainability domains. In this paper, we extend the ONTO-PDM ontology for formalizing sustainable manufacturing knowledge. An industrial case is presented for instantiating the extension. Moreover we design a knowledge-based system, which exploits sustainable manufacturing knowledge for supporting design and process planning with sustainability proposals, generating machine code starting from product specifications.

International audience; The grown complexity of the modern enterprise poses a series of challenges, among them keeping competitiveness in the fast changing environment in which the enterprise evolves. Addressing Enterprise Integration is considered as a key to achieve the goal of any enterprise either it is a single or a networked enterprise. Enterprise Modelling is a prerequisite to enable the common understanding of the enterprises and its various interactions in order to "provide the right information, at the right time, at the right place". However, problems often emerge from a lack of understanding of the semantics of the elaborated models resulting from various modelling experience based on different methods and tools. This paper describes the challenges associated to semantics enactment in Information Systems models. To facilitate this enactment, it proposes an approach based on a fact-oriented modelling perspective. Then, it also provides an algorithm to automatically build semantic aggregates that help in highlighting Enterprise Models core embedded semantics. A case study on the field of B2M interoperability is performed in order to illustrate the application of the presented approach.

International audience; This paper focuses on the configuration of a parallel multi-purpose machines workshop. An admissible configuration must be chosen in order to ensure that a load-balanced production plan meeting the demand exists. Moreover, the demand is strongly subject to uncertainties. That is the reason why the configuration must exhibit robustness properties: the load-balancing performance must be guaranteed with regard to a given range of uncertainties. A branch-and-bound approach has been developed and implemented to determine a cost-constrained configuration that maximizes a robustness level. Computational results are reported for both academic and industrial-scale instances. More than 80% of the academic instances are solved to optimality by the proposed method. Moreover, this method appears to be a good heuristic for industrial-scale instances.

International audience; Reference models play an important role in the knowledge management of the various complex collaboration domains (such as Supply Chain Networks). However, they often show a lack of semantic precision and, they are sometimes incomplete. In this paper, we present an approach to overcome semantic inconsistencies and incompleteness of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model and hence, improve its usefulness and expand the application domain. First, we describe a literal OWL specification of SCOR concepts (and related tools), built with the intention to preserve the original approach in the classification of process reference model entities and hence, to enable effectiveness of usage in original contexts. Next, we demonstrate the system for its exploitation, in specific - tools for SCOR framework browsing and rapid supply chain process configuration. Then, we describe the SCOR-FULL ontology, its relations with relevant domain ontology and show how it can be exploited for improvement of SCOR ontological framework competence. Finally, we elaborate the potential impact of the presented approach, to interoperability of systems in Supply Chain Networks.

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the following 8 International Workshops: OTM Academy; OTM Industry Case Studies Program; Enterprise Integration, Interoperability, and Networking, EI2N; International Workshop on Fact Based Modeling 2015, FBM; Industrial and Business Applications of Semantic Web Technologies, INBAST; Information Systems, om Distributed Environment, ISDE; Methods, Evaluation, Tools and Applications for the Creation and Consumption of Structured Data for the e-Society, META4eS; and Mobile and Social Computing for collaborative interactions, MSC 2015. These workshops were held as associated events at OTM 2015, the federated conferences "On The Move Towards Meaningful Internet Systems and Ubiquitous Computing", in Rhodes, Greece, in October 2015. The 55 full papers presented together with 3 short papers and 2 popsters were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 100 submissions. The workshops share the distributed aspects of modern computing systems, they experience the application pull created by the Internet and by the so-called Semantic Web, in particular developments of Big Data, increased importance of security issues, and the globalization of mobile-based technologies.

International audience; Requirements Engineering (RE) is an important activity in system engineering and produces, from the users' needs, specifications related to what the final system must be. This process in complex systems engineering is extremely intense, because there is a large number of stakeholders involved, with expertise deriving from heterogeneous domains. Moreover, requirements' improvements and variations are common during system life cycle phases. Thus, there is a risk of inconsistency of requirements during the engineering of a system. This paper provides a contribution in requirements engineering as it explores requirements interoperability in complex systems when multiples dimensions are involved. It discusses requirement management according to the cross-domains dimension, the cross-systems life cycle dimension, the cross-requirements dimension and the risk of inconsistency when three dimensions are involved simultaneously during the life cycle phases. The main result is an overview of the existing gaps in one and/or more dimensions allowing a discussion on the possibilities to cope with the problem of requirements inconsistency in multiples dimensions.

International audience; The product variety management is a key process to deal with the flexibility requested by the mass customisation. In this paper we show that current variety-modelling methods miss a customer representation: without a proper assessment of the customers is not possible to define the product variety that has to be developed to meet the requirements of a customer segment. Here we present an innovative approach to rationalise the product variety, i.e. to link each product variant to the customer profile who needs it. The aim is to optimise the product variety avoiding excesses (variants not related to a customer), lacks (customers not related to a variant) or redundancies (two or more variants proposed to a customer). An overview of customer modelling approaches in the classic product design (non-customisable) is presented. The innovative approach is here developed using system-thinking concepts. A knowledge-based system that uses this approach is designed. Finally the approach is explained using a real industrial case of a quasi-real coil design process.

Part 22: Sustainable Collaborative Networks III; International audience; To cope with the customer-oriented business model in a global competitive market, enterprises tend to be networked for achieving mass customisation: i.e. offering customisable products with the same efficiency as mass production. This scenario highlights two faces of variability: variability of needs (on customer side) and variability of organisations (on production side). Both types of variability induce a huge number of specified products, namely configurations. This configuration variability must be efficiently managed. This position paper discusses trends and issues for rationalising the number of configurations: i.e. engineering the right number of configurations that match both the customer needs and the production strategy. After this positioning, we propose a systemic perspective for addressing the discussed issues from a sustainability point of view. Finally we give a perspective for a product line definition method that leads to models that meet the discussed variability rationalisation.

International audience; Sustainability is one of the biggest challenges of this century either for the environment or economical growth. The required cultural shift needs challenging action that will involve deeply software and hardware aspect of manufacturing processes. In this paper, the software part of the matter is addressed by proposing a product centric ontology, in which concepts of product, processes and resources are associated to functions and sustainable manufacturing knowledge. The aim is to design a knowledge-based system that, simulating a sustainable manufacturing expert, is able to automatically identify change opportunities and to propose alternatives on the basis of the existing production scenario.

International audience; Enterprise performance is, now more than ever, one of the key points for reaching the market success. In order to increase it, economics paradigms focus on how to better manage knowledge acquiring, sharing and update. Knowledge management can be approached with the possibility offered by the sustainability goals trying to optimize different enterprise strategic domains. The modern architecture of information systems (ISs) is based on distributed networks with a grand challenge of representing and sharing knowledge managed by ISs and consequently, to remove semantics interoperability barriers. First, this paper analyses interoperability issues between Cooperative Enterprise Information Systems (CEIS). Based on this analysis, the authors propose a conceptualisation approach for semantics discovery and management in Enterprise Information Systems models, based on applying fact-oriented transformation rules. The input of the transformation process is a conceptualised UML class model, reverse-engineered from an implemented model, and transformed into a Fact-Oriented Model (FOM), which makes explicit the finest-grained semantics. Semantics aggregates are then computed for structuring the whole semantics embedded in enterprise applications. They define independent set of concepts with their own minimal mandatory semantics. Finally a case study is proposed to validate the practicability of our approach in a real scaled scenario involving an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and a Manufacturing Execution System (MES).

International audience; The grown complexity of the modern enterprise poses a series of challenges, among them keeping competitiveness in the fast changing environment in which the enterprise evolves. Addressing Enterprise Integration is considered as a key to achieve the goal of any enterprise either it is a single or a networked enterprise. Enterprise Modelling is a prerequisite to enable the common understanding of the enterprises and its various interactions in order to "provide the right information, at the right time, at the right place". However, problems often emerge from a lack of understanding of the semantics of the elaborated models resulting from various modelling experience based on different methods and tools. In this paper, we describe the challenges associated to semantics enactment in Information Systems models. To facilitate this enactment, we propose an approach based on a fact-oriented modelling perspective. Then, we also provide an algorithm to automatically build semantic aggregates that help in highlighting Enterprise Models core embedded semantics. A case study on the field of B2M interoperability is performed in order to illustrate the application of the presented approach.

Acceptance rate: 14%; International audience; In order to increase enterprise performance, economics paradigms focus, now more than ever, on how to better manage information. The modern architecture of information systems is based on distributed networks with a grand challenge representing and sharing knowledge managed by those ISs. One of the main issues in making such heterogeneous Cooperative Information Systems (CIS) working together is to remove semantics interoperability barriers. This paper firstly analyses interoperability issues between CISs and then proposes patterns for data models conceptualisation for knowledge explicitation, based on expert knowledge injection rules and a fact-oriented approach. A case study is proposed related to a work order process in Sage X3, an Enterprise Resource Planning application.