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Task Management (TM) refers to the function in which the human operator manages his/her available sensory and mental resources in a dynamic, complex, safety-critical environment in order to accomplish the multiple tasks competing for a limited quantity of attention. There is reason to believe that the level of automation on the commercial aircraft flight deck may effect TM, however to date there has been little research that directly addresses this effect. Thus, the primary objective of this study was to begin evaluating the relationship between TM of commercial airline pilots and the level of automation on the flight deck by determining how automation affects the frequency of Task Prioritization errors as reported in Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) incident reports. The secondary objective of this study was to create a methodology that modeled an effective way to use ASRS incident report data in an inferential analysis. Two samples of ASRS incident reports were compared. The first sample was composed of 210 incident reports submitted by pilots flying advanced technology aircraft and the second sample was composed of 210 incident reports submitted by pilots flying traditional technology aircraft. To help avoid confounding effects, the two samples were further divided into three sub-samples each made up of 70 reports submitted during a specified time period: 1988-1989, 1990-1991, and 1992-1993. Each incident report was analyzed using an incident analysis form designed specifically for this study. This form allowed the analyst to classify the incident report as either containing a Task Prioritization error or not based on the narrative of the report. Twenty-eight incident reports from the advanced technology sample and 15 from the traditional technology sample were classified as containing Task Prioritization errors. Using the Chi Square (x��) test and a significance level of 0.05, this difference was found to be statistically significant. / Graduation date: 1998

This master thesis analyses the Volkswagen assembly lines of the Golf A5 manufacture in the mother plant in Wolfsburg, the Touran manufacture in the Auto 5000 GmbH in Wolfsburg as well as the Golf A5 manufacture in Uitenhage in South Africa - all with regard to the level of automation. The target of the analysis is the determination of the optimal level of automation in the three production sites and therefore, the investigation of the potential to automate, or rather to deautomate in particular sections of the assembly in the prevailing production locations. The three production sites are to be investigated with regard to costs, quality and quantity.

As computer hardware becomes smaller and increasingly less expensive, more contractors can now use computers to do a number of construction computations which were formally done on hand calculators. The advent of user-oriented software packages has had a significant impact on the traditional data processing procedures of the construction industry. Among the software packages that are available for a large number of computer systems are electronic spreadsheets. Electronic spreadsheets packages, such as Multiplan, are widely used where the display of information can best be depicted in an array of rows and columns. It is frequently useful in situations in which the user wants to change various elements of information or try out various assumptions in a “what if” analysis. This paper discusses, among other things, models for two very important aspects of construction: those of cost estimating and scheduling. The paper further discusses the capabilities of spreadsheets in general as they relate to specific application to the construction industry. A graphical model of a CPM precedence diagram to be used in construction scheduling is presented along with a table for estimating the cost of a building based on the structural components of which it is made. There is also discussion of other software packages with similar capabilities to Multiplan.

Presently the automotive industry is facing enormous pressure due to global competition and ever changing legislative, economic and customer demands. Both, agility and reconfiguration are widely recognised as important attributes for manufacturing systems to satisfy the needs of competitive global markets. To facilitate and accommodate unforeseen business changes within the automotive industry, a new proactive methodology is urgently required for the design, build, assembly and reconfiguration of automation systems. There is also need for the promotion of new technologies and engineering methods to enable true engineering concurrency between product and process development. Virtual construction and testing of new automation systems prior to build is now identified as a crucial requirement to enable system verification and to allow the investigation of design alternatives prior to building and testing physical systems. The main focus of this research was to design and develop reconfigurable assembly systems within the powertrain sector of the automotive industry by capturing and modelling relevant business and engineering processes. This research has proposed and developed a more process-efficient and robust automation system design, build and implementation approach via new engineering services and a standard library of reusable mechanisms. Existing research at Loughborough had created the basic technology for a component based approach to automation. However, no research had been previously undertaken on the application of this approach in a user engineering and business context. The objective of this research was therefore to utilise this prototype method and associated engineering tools and to devise novel business and engineering processes to enable the component-based approach to be applied in industry. This new approach has been named Configurable and Collaborative Automation Systems (CO AS). In particular this new research has studied the implications of migration to a COAS approach in terms of I) necessary changes to the end-users business processes, 2) potential to improve the robustness of the resultant system and 3) potential for improved efficiency and greater collaboration across the supply chain.

This work follows the design, prototyping and implementation of an automatic part loading and unloading system for use in thread rolling of aerospace fasteners. The thread rolling automation system is designed to function as part of a multi-process workcell, which emphasizes adaptability and ease of implementation. Design of the thread rolling automation facilitates the development of a universal gripping system, which is designed to grasp a large variety of fastener styles and sizes with a minimum of tooling changeover. A novel grasping model is developed to predict the error tolerance of the proposed gripping system design, which is validated experimentally. The proposed gripper and automation system are prototyped and tested, and shown to perform reliably with a wide range of fastener types.

Even though construction components account for more than fifty percent of the total installed costs, industry practices still solely rely on the human ability to individually track thousands of these components on the site. These primitive tracking processes are inefficient, error-prone, and can significantly hinder project performance. Thus, previous research efforts observed that up to eighteen percent of craft work-hours was attributable to the unavailability of components required for installation. Recently, though, the notion that these ineffective tracking processes can highly benefit from the implementation of information technologies (IT) has gained industry acceptance. However, the reality is that this IT influence on construction performance has not yet been addressed. The objectives of this study are (1) to develop a methodology for the automated identification and localization of engineered components on large industrial projects, and (2) to assess and to quantify the impact of this automating tracking process on project performance. The identification and localization methodology is proposed based on the combination of advanced sensing devices and localization algorithms. The integration of global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification (RFID) receivers facilitates a network-free data collection process capable of detecting the presence of large numbers of RFID-tagged components almost instantly. Based on the collected data, localization algorithms precisely estimate the coordinates of the tagged items. The precision of this automated approach is validated by means of lab and field experiments. Complementarily, the impact of this localization methodology on project performance was quantified during an extensive field trial on a large industrial site. For this purpose, field records from manual and automated tracking processes were collected during the trial. Then, the influence of the automated tracking process on construction performance was determined by considering the manual approach as the baseline for comparison. The results demonstrate that information technologies can significantly enhance project performance. / text

M.A. / This dissertation comprises an in-depth investigation into the domain of computer vision, with specific reference to the textile industry. The study consists of three main sections. In the first section, the computer-vision process is scrutinised in its entirety. Attention is given in this regard to what computer vision is, where it originated from, how it compares with human vision and what the motivations are for its implementation. Following, the computer-vision process is divided into four main components, namely image acquisition, image processing, image analysis and image interpretation. Subsequently, each component is discussed in greater detail, as well as aspects such as the hardware used in the course of the process, the algorithms that are implemented and the specific applications used for the process of analysis. In the second section, the focus is shifted to the textile industry, where our main focus lies. In this regard, examples are examined of the successful implementation of computer-vision technologies in the textile industry. In the third section, an investigation is launched into the specific problem for which a solution needs to be found in the present study, namely to determine whether computer vision constitutes a cost-effective way in which to locate broken thread during the spinning process. A wide range of algorithms has been applied for this purpose, whereafter the results of these experiments are announced.

Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Chemical Engineering / unrestricted

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MSc (Chemistry))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Chemistry / unrestricted