As a contribution to the emerging field of practice-based research in the arts, this thesis aims to activate space, experience and the concept in-between. As the in-between cannot be defined ahead of the rhythmic process it carries out and of which it is a part – a rhythm inherent in the city itself and in knowledge production – it is necessary to produce rhythmic relations between bodies, sites and concepts. An art experiment, a forty-two meter high swing mounted on the bridge, Älvborgsbron, in Gothenburg harbour, Sweden, serves as the point of entry to the thesis. A dancer in the swing moved slowly between the bridge and the ground, captured in a rhythmic experience of being earthbound and then weightless. The swing project, together with other rhythmic processes such as walking, weaving and acting physics, activate spatial, temporal and theoretical dimensions of the in-between. Merging my roles as an artist, teacher and researcher by pragmatic production, perception and concepts it becomes possible to transform the rhythms between the examples:   1. A swing mounted on a bridge; one of my art projects. 2. Walking and mapping strategies; as developed in my courses taught at the School of Architecture. 3. The myth about Penelope weaving. 4. Rhythmic relations between bodies and machines at CERN, the particle physics laboratory outside Geneva, a place that is important for several of my art projects.   Creative production aims to expand the capacity of the body.  By employing a bridging structure, spaces in-between are activated thus revealing the power and danger in-between. In that production collective processes merge, creating “social and collective machines” and another reality between:   1. bridge/swing/dancer, 2. map/walking/site, 3. war/loom/weaving, 4. theory/detector/bodies.   These rhythmic processes oscillate between representation and the complex forces of daily activities. However, it is not the rhythm itself that activates spaces in-between but, rather, the changing of directions of the rhythm: from moving to be in motion; from walking forward to walking and falling; from weaving cloth to producing time; from doing physics to acting physics. Activating in-between spaces means activating differences and another way of producing knowledge, a well-known strategy in contemporary art: a production of potential realities, in a constant interaction between concepts and spatial transformations. / QC 20100909

Ces dernières années, un nouveau type de système de production nommé système de production géographiquement dispersé (GDPS) est prôné par de nombreuses entreprises manufacturières internationales. Par cette vision « dispersée », il présente un certain nombre d'avantages tels que l'économie des coûts du produit livré (puisque proche des clients), l'amélioration de la qualité des services (délais de livraison courts, services après-vente de haute qualité) favorisant la pérennité et la compétitivité des entreprises dans un contexte de compétition mondiale. Cependant l’exploitation multi-sites d’un GPDS est confronté à de nombreux défis concernant les normes, les réglementations, la maîtrise des flux de production, et en particulier la planification et l'optimisation de la maintenance en raison de la dispersion géographique des sites de production. Sur ce dernier point et plus globalement la définition d’une stratégie de maintenance adaptée au GDPS, peu d'études ont été menées compte tenu de la jeunesse du sujet et de la complexité des GDPSs (ex. multi-sites, multi-composants). Cette thèse se positionne donc sur ce sujet émergeant avec comme objectif de développer une stratégie de maintenance de regroupement dynamique pour un GDPS en tenant compte de dépendances à la fois aux niveaux composants et sites de production (dépendances économique et géographique) et des impacts des contextes dynamiques (à savoir, taux de détérioration variable des composants, modification des itinéraires de maintenance, possibilités de maintenance, etc.) auxquels il est soumis. Dans cette stratégie, les itinéraires de maintenance et l'ordonnancement sont considérés conjointement dans un modèle global. Le modèle vise à trouver un plan optimal de maintenance et de routage des ressources de maintenance. A cette fin, une structure de coûts et un modèle de dépendance qui prend en compte conjointement la dépendance économique et géographique sont formulés. Ils servent de base à l'élaboration du modèle global de planification et d'ordonnancement de la maintenance et du routage. De plus, pour la recherche de la solution optimale, des algorithmes d’optimisation basés sur l'algorithme génétique et l'algorithme Branch and Bound sont proposés. Enfin, une étude numérique est investiguée pour évaluer la performance, les avantages et aussi les limites de la stratégie proposée. / In the recent years, the Geographically Dispersed Production System (GDPS) with a number of advantages such as saving the product delivered costs (closed to the clients), improving quality of services (short delivery time, high quality after-sales services) has been extensively developed by many manufacturing companies to ensure their competitiveness. In operation, the GPDS faces many challenges concerning standards, regulation, production management, and especially maintenance planning and optimization due to the geographical dispersion of production sites. However, few studies have been developed for maintenance strategies of GDPSs. To face this challenge, the main objective of this thesis is to develop a dynamic grouping maintenance strategy for a GDPS with consideration of dependencies between at both component and site level (economic, geographical dependencies) and impacts of dynamic contexts (i.e. varying deterioration rate of components, change of maintenance routes, maintenance opportunities, etc.). In this strategy, maintenance routing and scheduling are jointly considered in a global model. The model aims at finding an optimal maintenance and routing plan. For this purpose, a cost structure and a dependence model jointly considering economic and geographical dependence are formulated. They are used as a basis for the development of the global model of maintenance routing and scheduling. In addition, to find a joint optimal maintenance and routing plan, advanced algorithms using jointly Genetic Algorithm and Branch and Bound are proposed. Finally, a numerical study is investigated to evaluate the performance and the advantage as well as limits of the proposed maintenance strategy.

Em um cenário de aumento de competitividade, crescente expectativa por inovações do produto e necessidade de atender diferentes perfis de consumidores, o conceito de gerenciamento de cadeias de suprimentos globais (GSCM) surge como uma estratégia para coordenar mais eficazmente as atividades dispersas geograficamente dos sistemas produtivos. Na adoção do GSCM, as organizações devem lidar com rupturas que impactam no gerenciamento das suas atividades, tais como a interrupção de vias de transporte, pane no fornecimento de energia, desastres naturais e até ataques terroristas. Nesse contexto, o trabalho introduz um procedimento sistematizado para modelagem das cadeias de suprimentos visto como um sistema a eventos discretos e sua análise por simulação das atividades do GSCM baseada em técnicas formais como a rede de Petri (PN) e o Production Flow Schema (PFS). Um exemplo é também apresentado para ilustrar e comprovar as vantagens do método proposto na análise do GSCM. / In a context of increasing competition, rising of expectations for product innovations and need to satisfy different consumer needs, the concept of global supply chain management (GSCM) emerges as a strategy to more efficiently coordinate the geographically dispersed activities of production systems. Adopting GSCM, organizations have to deal with external disruptions that impact management activities, such as transport interruption, power supply failure, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In this way, a systematized procedure for modeling supply chains as a discrete event system and simulation analysis of GSCM activities based on formal techniques, such as Petri net (PN) and Production Flow Schema (PFS) is introduced. An example is also presented to illustrate and confirm the advantages of the proposed method for GSCM analysis.

Em um cenário de aumento de competitividade, crescente expectativa por inovações do produto e necessidade de atender diferentes perfis de consumidores, o conceito de gerenciamento de cadeias de suprimentos globais (GSCM) surge como uma estratégia para coordenar mais eficazmente as atividades dispersas geograficamente dos sistemas produtivos. Na adoção do GSCM, as organizações devem lidar com rupturas que impactam no gerenciamento das suas atividades, tais como a interrupção de vias de transporte, pane no fornecimento de energia, desastres naturais e até ataques terroristas. Nesse contexto, o trabalho introduz um procedimento sistematizado para modelagem das cadeias de suprimentos visto como um sistema a eventos discretos e sua análise por simulação das atividades do GSCM baseada em técnicas formais como a rede de Petri (PN) e o Production Flow Schema (PFS). Um exemplo é também apresentado para ilustrar e comprovar as vantagens do método proposto na análise do GSCM. / In a context of increasing competition, rising of expectations for product innovations and need to satisfy different consumer needs, the concept of global supply chain management (GSCM) emerges as a strategy to more efficiently coordinate the geographically dispersed activities of production systems. Adopting GSCM, organizations have to deal with external disruptions that impact management activities, such as transport interruption, power supply failure, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In this way, a systematized procedure for modeling supply chains as a discrete event system and simulation analysis of GSCM activities based on formal techniques, such as Petri net (PN) and Production Flow Schema (PFS) is introduced. An example is also presented to illustrate and confirm the advantages of the proposed method for GSCM analysis.