Browsing by Author "Silva, Francisco J. G"
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- Development of a suitable project management approach for projects with parallel planning and executionPublication . Freitas, F.; Silva, Francisco J. G; Campilho, R.D.S.G.; Pimentel, C.; Godina, R.In a big company, project management (PM) is always present. Traditional predictive PM approach is concerned with planning everything in advance and then controlling and adjusting if necessary, throughout the project timeline. This may work well when the requirements are well established, but for maintenance projects brings inherent uncertainty. When the subject is aircraft maintenance, it is almost impossible to plan everything at the beginning and expect that it will occur as planned because however a scheduled maintenance plan exists, according to statistics 60% of the aircraft total failure can only be found with ground inspection which means, that even if a plan is established before receiving the aircraft, it will most certainly need to be significantly changed. This requires a big effort from the planning team to plan everything right and ensure that all tools and resources are available to perform the required tasks. To solve this issue, in this paper we propose a hybrid project management approach developed to a case study company from the aircraft repair sector, to enable a faster planning while taking into account the priorities and dependencies of the inherent project tasks with the available resources.
- Guidelines for Machine Tool Sensing and Smart Manufacturing IntegrationPublication . Costa, S.; Silva, Francisco J. G; Campilho, R.D.S.G.; Pereira, TeresaNowadays the Industry is becoming increasingly competitive with the emergence of even more advanced technologies. This environment leads the companies to look for a bigger availability of the assets, a higher quality of the products and consequently less costs. Thus, is because of this purpose that Maintenance is becoming even more fundamental. The focus of this paper was to develop a strategy of Predictive Maintenance on a Machine Tool with the aim of reducing the unplanned stops, increasing the productivity and creating the bases for an Industry 4.0 environment in the short term. Thus, a model has been created in order to fulfil this goal. The first step was the selection of the critical component of the machine tool that would be studied. In the next phase the variables that will be monitored were selected and their trigger limits. Finally, the necessary components to monitor this system were chosen. In order to reach the objective, a system of condition-based maintenance where the acoustic emissions and vibration of the bearing of a machine tool were monitor was proposed.
- Improving Preventive Maintenance Management in an Energy Solutions CompanyPublication . Martins, L.; Silva, Francisco J. G; Pimentel, C.; Casais, Rafaela B.; Campilho, R.D.S.G.In industry, production processes and assets are constantly evolving, Thus, continually improving and updating them is essential to their sustainability. This work intended to apply a set of methods and philosophies to improve the Preventive Maintenance Management process in a case study company dedicated to the development, production and maintenance of power and distribution transformers. Thus, a Action – Research methodology was used. After identifying the main problems, a mixed maintenance strategy based on Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) was applied. The following achievements were obtained by this work: (a) method of grading equipment critically based on its importance to the production process was developed and implemented;(b) a new flowchart of decisions and actions was developed for Preventive Maintenance Plan Management; (c) a reduction of the waste time in Preventive Maintenance (PM) was obtained; (d) the implementation of Autonomous Maintenance (AM) resulted in a reduction of 66% in equipment failures; (e) a set of new Key Performance Indicators (KPI´s) were introduced; (f) maintenance plans compliance rates increased by 12%. At the end of the work a reduction of € 120 060 could be achieved. Thus, the main contribution of this work was to show that bringing to the action different tool together in an organized way and share the information and responsibilities with the workers can result in important savings to the company, becoming the maintenance function more effective.
- A new concept of automated manufacturing process for wire rope terminalsPublication . Figueiredo, D.; Silva, Francisco J. G; Campilho, R.D.S.G.; Silva, André; Pimentel, C.; Matias, J.C.O.The products related to automotive industry need to be extremely competitive. The metallic wire ropes used to open doors in the vehicles are based on a braided wire rope provided with accessories. The more expensive is the vehicle, the more complex is the required final wire rope. In order to prevent the corrosion and reduce noise, the internal metallic cable can be coated with a polymer via extrusion. However, this coating needs to be removed from the extremities of the metallic cable, allowing the zamak injection of the mechanical terminals, preventing die casting defects. Nevertheless, the standard machines able to produce the mechanical terminals by die casting process were always prepared to work only with non-coated metallic cable. Customers demanding coated metallic cables impose the need to adapt the standard machines to this new reality. Thus, new systems needed to be added to the standard machine, allowing the metallic cable strip operation. Moreover, this operation needs to be added to the process but without repercussions on the cycle time. Different approaches were studied and tested in order to find the best solution. The new device was designed and produced, allowing its test in real conditions. The system based on just one blade did not show satisfactory results, being necessary the use of a system based on multiple blades. The new device, when connected to the standard machine, allows to produce wire ropes up to 2.5 meters long, striped in both sides, letting the die casting injection of the zamak terminal in one extremity, with a cycle time of 7 seconds (1000 wire ropes per hour, as they are produced in couples).
- Recent Advances on Coated Milling Tool Technology—A Comprehensive ReviewPublication . Sousa, Vitor F. C.; Silva, Francisco J. GThe milling process is one of the most used processes in the manufacturing industry. Milling, as a process, as evolved, with new machines and methods being employed, in order to obtain the best results consistently. Milling tools have also seen quite an evolution, from the uncoated high-speed steel tool, to the now vastly used, coated tools. Information on the use of these coated tools in recent scientific researches was collected. The coatings that are currently being researched are going to be presented, highlighting some novel advances in the nanocomposite and diamond coatings area, as these coatings are seeing a growing use in the industry, with very satisfactory results, with performance and tool-life increase. Wear mechanism of various types of coatings are also a popular topic on recent research, as the cutting behavior of these coated tools provides valuable information on the tool’s-life. Furthermore, analysis of these mechanisms enables for the selection of the best coating type for the correct application. Recently, the employment of coated tools paired with sustainable lubrication methods as seen some use. As this presents the opportunity to enhance the coated tool’s and the process’s performance, obtaining better results, in terms of better tool-life and better surface finish quality, in a more sustainable fashion
- Reducing scrap and improving an air conditioning pipe production linePublication . Lopes, R.; Silva, Francisco J. G; Godina, R.; Campilho, R.D.S.G.; Dieguez, T.; Pinto Ferreira, Luís; Baptista, Gabriel A GThe automotive industry is considered one of the most demanding and competitive sectors in the global market. This increasingly implies having a stable and optimized production process, always with a view to continuous improvement. Therefore, it is very important to be aware of all the waste that is generated in all production and logistics operations and take action to reduce them. In this regard and considering the process of producing air conditioning pipes for the automotive industry, a high scrap value was detected mainly due to soldering process. Therefore, the entire production process is analyzed in order to identify the main causes behind the high scrap value. Several Lean and quality tools are used to reduce not only the amount of scrap but also to increase the line productivity. In order to face this challenge, after elaborating the action plan and corresponding implementation, the scrap value is reduced by 12% in general, and productivity increased by 29%, 55% and 22.5% in three different references produced by the same machine. Although this solution is a bit expensive, the corresponding payback is reduced, so it can easily be applied transversally to other similar machines allowing extremely interesting gains in the short term.