Digital Twins for Engineering Asset Management:Synthesis,Analytical Framework,and Future Directions

Effective engineering asset management(EAM)is critical to economic development and improving livability in society,but its complexity often impedes optimal asset functionalities.Digital twins(DTs)could revolutionize the EAM paradigm by bidirectionally linking the physical and digital worlds in real time.There is great industrial and academic interest in DTs for EAM.However,previous review studies have predominately focused on technical aspects using limited life-cycle perspectives,failing to holistically synthesize DTs for EAM from the managerial point of view.Based on a systematic literature review,we introduce an analytical framework for describing DTs for EAM,which encompasses three levels:DT 1.0 for technical EAM,DT 2.0 for technical-human EAM,and DT 3.0 for technical-environmental EAM.Using this framework,we identify what is known,what is unknown,and future directions at each level.DT 1.0 addresses issues of asset quality,progress,and cost management,generating technical value.It lacks multi-objective self-adaptive EAM,however,and suffers from high application cost.It is imperative to enable closed-loop EAM in order to provide various functional services with affordable DT 1.0.DT 2.0 accommodates issues of human-machine symbiosis,safety,and flexibility management,generating managerial value beyond the technical performance improvement of engineering assets.However,DT 2.0 currently lacks the automation and security of human-machine interactions and the managerial value related to humans is not prominent enough.Future research needs to align technical and managerial value with highly automated and secure DT 2.0.DT 3.0 covers issues of participatory governance,organization management,sustainable development,and resilience enhancement,generating macro social value.Yet it suffers from organizational fragmentation and can only address limited social governance issues.Numerous research opportunities exist to coordinate different stakeholders.Similarly,future research opportunities exist to develop DT 3.0 in a more open and complex system.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Inspection Routing and Scheduling for Engineering Management

Technological advancements in unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)have revolutionized various industries,enabling the widespread adoption of UAV-based solutions.In engineering management,UAV-based inspection has emerged as a highly efficient method for identifying hidden risks in high-risk construction environments,surpassing traditional inspection techniques.Building on this foundation,this paper delves into the optimization of UAV inspection routing and scheduling,addressing the complexity introduced by factors such as no-fly zones,monitoring-interval time windows,and multiple monitoring rounds.To tackle this challenging problem,we propose a mixed-integer linear programming(MILP)model that optimizes inspection task assignments,monitoring sequence schedules,and charging decisions.The comprehensive consideration of these factors differentiates our problem from conventional vehicle routing problem(VRP),leading to a mathematically intractable model for commercial solvers in the case of large-scale instances.To overcome this limitation,we design a tailored variable neighborhood search(VNS)metaheuristic,customizing the algorithm to efficiently solve our model.Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to validate the efficacy of our proposed algorithm,demonstrating its scalability for both large-scale and real-scale instances.Sensitivity experiments and a case study based on an actual engineering project are also conducted,providing valuable insights for engineering managers to enhance inspection work efficiency.

A Discussion on Innovative Methods for Green Engineering Management in Construction Engineering

With the rapid development of society,the construction industry has made significant progress.However,as environmental issues intensify,many construction projects contribute to pollution.In this context,applying green project management methods in construction can enhance energy conservation and environmental protection,reduce energy consumption and costs,and minimize environmental damage,promoting balanced development between the environment and the economy.Therefore,integrating green construction concepts into current construction projects is essential.Based on project requirements and construction activities,effective green project management strategies should be developed to improve management standards and promote more efficient green construction.This paper analyzes green project management in construction engineering and offers recommendations for reference.

Crack Prevention and Management Strategies in Bridge Engineering Construction

Cracking during construction is a common occurrence in modern bridge engineering that can directly impact the overall safety of the bridge.Therefore,it is essential to focus on preventing and controlling cracks.As the construction technology for bridge engineering has evolved,the internal quality of construction has significantly improved.However,the appearance quality remains a crucial factor that reflects the technical expertise of a construction company.Therefore,minimizing cracks and improving the appearance quality of concrete are critical issues that require the attention of construction units,supervision departments,and construction companies.This article will analyze the causes of cracking and suggest corresponding prevention and treatment methods.

Application Analysis of BIM Technology in Construction Engineering Cost Management

With the rapid development of information technology,Building Information Modeling(BIM)technology has gradually occupied an important position in the construction industry.With the introduction of BIM technology,the cost control of construction projects can be greatly improved[1].The use of this technology can not only reduce the project approval time but also improve the quality of the project.In addition,it can also help the construction personnel to solve the project changes,maintenance costs,insurance rates,and other related issues,so that the operation of the project is more efficient and economical.This paper will discuss the role of BIM technology in depth,and explore the advantages and disadvantages of each link through the research of the project,to provide a reference for the promotion of this new project.By constantly adjusting the application strategy,the goal is to meet the current market demand.

Application of Electronic Information Engineering in Hospital Management

To further enhance the overall service quality of China’s hospitals and improve the trust of the majority of patients in hospitals,this paper takes intelligent hospital management as the object of study,analyzes the importance of electronic information engineering technology applied in hospital management,and discusses the specific application methods of electronic information engineering in hospital management.This aims the existing problems in the current hospital management,such as insufficient degree of informatization,data sharing difficulties,lack of professionals,etc.Corresponding improvement measures are proposed,including strengthening the construction of informatization,promoting data sharing,and cultivating professionals.It is hoped that this study will enable the majority of hospital managers to make better use of electronic information engineering technology to effectively solve the current problems faced by hospitals and to continuously improve the comprehensive competitiveness of China’s hospitals.

INTEGRATION OF HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Human factors engineering and quality management are different research branches in the field of industrial engineering.A basis for interaction based on the concepts and techniques of human factors engineering and quality management with some practical examples of cooperative effect is defined in this paper.The specific challenges about the quality management in manufacturing and service are presented to demonstrate that the human factors analysis of quality problems leads to new tends for integrated development.

Multimedia Engineering Database Management Systems

In the Engine CAD application system engineering database management system (ECAD-EDBMS) is the kernel. ECAD-EDBMS can manage and process the multimedia such as graphics, data, text, sound, image and video. It provides the integrated environment and more functions for many subsystems of ECAD and engine designers. So it improves the design efficiency.

DYNAMIC ENGINEERING DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT BASED ON XML TECHNOLOGY

The eXtensible markup language (XML) is a kind of new meta language for replacing HTML and has many advantages. Traditional engineering documents have too many expression forms to be expediently managed and have no dynamic correlation functions. This paper introduces a new method and uses XML to store and manage engineering documents to realize the format unity of engineering documents and their dynamic correlations.

Safety risk management of underground engineering in China：Progress, challenges and strategies

Underground construction in China is featured by large scale, high speed, long construction period,complex operation and frustrating situations regarding project safety. Various accidents have been reported from time to time, resulting in serious social impact and huge economic loss. This paper presents the main progress in the safety risk management of underground engineering in China over the last decade, i.e.（1） establishment of laws and regulations for safety risk management of underground engineering,（2） implementation of the safety risk management plan,（3） establishment of decision support system for risk management and early-warning based on information technology, and（4） strengthening the study on safety risk management, prediction and prevention. Based on the analysis of the typical accidents in China in the last decade, the new challenges in the safety risk management for underground engineering are identified as follows：（1） control of unsafe human behaviors;（2） technological innovation in safety risk management; and（3） design of safety risk management regulations. Finally, the strategies for safety risk management of underground engineering in China are proposed in six aspects, i.e. the safety risk management system and policy, law, administration, economy, education and technology.

Risk assessment and management in underground rock engineering——an overview

This paper attempts to provide an overview of risk assessment and management practice in underground rock engineering based on a review of the international literature and some personal experience. It is noted that the terminologies used in risk assessment and management studies may vary from country to country. Probabilistic risk analysis is probably the most widely-used approach to risk assessment in rock engineering and in geotechnical engineering more broadly. It is concluded that great potential exists to augment the existing probabilistic methods by the use of Bayesian networks and decision analysis techniques to allow reasoning under uncertainty and to update probabilities, material properties and analyses as further data become available throughout the various stages of a project. Examples are given of the use of these methods in underground excavation engineering in China and elsewhere, and opportunities for their further application are identified.

Multi-factors decision-making entropy method and its application in engineering management

In order to meet the strict requirements for information in engineering management, the positive interval （0, 1 ] in Shannon information entropy is extended to the real number interval [ - 1, 1 ]. The information theory and the decision theory are combined effectively, and the deficiencies that the traditional Bayes decision-making methods only consider a single factor are made up for. The multi-factors engineering decision-making methods are proposed, and some critical problems are solved in the practical engineering management decision-making process.

A Review on the Role of Risk Management (RM) and Value Engineering (VE) Tools for Project Successful Delivery

Both in developed and in developing countries, the construction industry is regarded as an economic investment activity without forgetting its significant relationship with national economic development due to its great contributions to the national gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. Concerning construction processes, both risk management (RM) and value engineering (VE) techniques have commonalities from the beginning up to the completion of the project due to enhancing the project value/quality, meeting the project deadline, and reducing overall project cost. VE includes resolving the uncertainty of project objectives and ensuring that the project is delivered in a value for money way. The key point of RM is to solve the uncertainty of the project itself and its results to ensure that the specifications are achieved within the prescribed time, cost, and quality constraints. This review work is comparatively and collectively focused on assessing the role of RM and VE tools for project successful delivery. It studies the points of difference and common features of the two aspects in terms of construction project delivery. So, this study concluded that in construction RM tool cannot be the chief aim of the all parties involved in the project execution because sometimes it produces itself negative results and reduces project management success. Therefore, RM needs a strong combination with VE due to the dependence of the target in identifying and assessing risks by considering the highest performance and lowest cost. The integration of RM and VE combination in a single study would avoid duplication of work and deliver better value for money thereby leading to better project outcomes.

A Domain Engineering Approach to Increase Productivity in the Development of a Service for Changes Notification of the Configuration Management Database

This paper presents a domain engineering approach to build a software product line that supports the change notification service in a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) according to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices. For the development of this product line, the proposed approach makes use of a construction of products methodology by analogy: this is a new notation which reports the variability of the products, obtaining metrics as important as the number of products and uses a language that enables, by means of the flexibilization of a product and the development of some generators, to build the rest of the product line. In addition the paper offers a standard for the analysis and design of the CMDB as well. Finally, the paper presents an economic model for the product line, where the profitability and productivity of the proposed solution are analyzed.

CREATIVE DESIGN BASED ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING DESIGN

To support and serve engineering design, creative design based on knowledge management is proposed. The key knowledge factors of creative design are analyzed and discussed, and knowledge extraction tools are utilized to distill the important knowledge to serve for knowledge resource of creative design. The implementation of creative design mode is described and executed, which can promote the intelligent asset of the enterprise and shorten the period of creative design. With this study, design afflatus and conceptual design can be achieved expediently and effectively.

Innovation and practice of petroleum engineering synergetic management for the development of difficult-to-produce reserves

Due to engineering technology and development costs,a considerable amount of proven oil and gas resources in China are difficult to develop,becoming reserves difficult to produce.Based on the successful development of some domestic oil and gas reserves difficult to recover,this article summarizes the"four in one"petroleum engineering synergetic management model to promote the effective development of these reserves.This model draws on the essence of management theories,such as system theory,cybernetics and synergetic theory,and proposes the development idea of value creating and sharing for this type of reserves.By adopting the new management method of mechanism synergy,speciality synergy,process synergy and industrial chain synergy,this model effectively overcomes the decentralization of management responsibility,different management objectives,great risks of engineering and technological innovation,and the large number of uncertain factors in project construction,and can stimulate the vitality and power of active coordination of project participants,to effectively realize the synergetic innovation of engineering technology and synergetic cost reduction of the whole chain,reduction of the balanced oil price of the project,and dispersion of the project investment risk.By adopting this model,a large proportion of difficult-to-produce reserves have been liberated,realizing the effective utilization of the difficult-to-produce oil and gas resources,and making the reserves an important supplement to ensure national energy security.

Engineering Change Management Adaptive to PLM

Engineering Change (EC) management for a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, including EC data model, EC evaluation and EC implementation is presented. A method of dynamic and parallel EC evaluation is proposed, which breaks an EC evaluation task into several subtasks. Such subtasks can be dynamically and simultaneously proceeded, disassembled and communicated by different specialists, and at the same time a set of EC objects is created. This approach provides flexible and effective evaluation of the EC. The EC implementation followed will further ensure the completeness and consistency of EC data.

The Use of Life Cycle Management Principles in Biosystems Engineering： A Pragmatic Approach to Solving Agri-industrial Sustainability Problems

LCM （life cycle management） is a systematic approach, mindset and culture that considers economic, social, and environmental factors among other factors in the decision making process throughout various business or organizational decisions that affect both inputs and outputs of a product or service life cycle. It is a product, process, or activity management system aimed at minimizing environmental and socio-economic burdens associated with an organization＇s product or process during its entire life cycle and value chain. LCM＇s application is gaining wider acceptance both in the corporate and governmental organizations as an approach to reduce ecological footprints and to improve the sustainability of human activities. But where and how can it be used in agricultural engineering applications？ This study highlights the potential areas of LCM application in agricultural and allied sectors and how it can be utilized. The study revealed that LCM tools such as design for environment and life cycle analysis can be used to evaluate the environmental impacts of-and to improve the products, equipment, and structures produced by biosystems engineers as well as the processes used to generate them.

SDWAN (Software Defined-WAN) Network Engineering and Project Management

Many organizations are struggling to provide high bandwidth and reliable internet connectivity at their branch offices and business locations and getting the most out of their operational expense.The need for internet connectivity at any branch offices and business locations is not a luxury anymore but is a necessity.Let us try to understand how to plan and document the SDWAN(Software Defined-Wide Area Network)implementation in an organization.We will try to understand why it is essential to implement the new technology instead of investing in the existing MPLS(Multi-Protocol label switching)by taking an example of a retail organization.Methods:This project/research was performed using the abilities of Software Defined Network Technology and options available in MPLS(Multi-Protocol Label Switching).The Technical Project management principles were adopted as per PMI(Project Management Institute)waterfall methodology.Results/Conclusion:SDWAN technology provides an effective replacement of MPLS network connection for providing WAN connectivity for our office locations.It is essential to follow a documented process for appropriate vendor selection based on the available features and other listed attributes in the article.To be successful in the implementation it is essential to perform a POC(Proof of Concept)in a controlled environment and validate results.SDWAN provides better network performance and improves reliability as the links operate in active-active function.

Subsurface analytics: Contribution of artificial intelligence and machine learning to reservoir engineering, reservoir modeling, and reservoir management

Traditional Numerical Reservoir Simulation has been contributing to the oil and gas industry for decades.The current state of this technology is the result of decades of research and development by a large number of engineers and scientists.Starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s,advances in computer hardware along with development and adaptation of clever algorithms resulted in a paradigm shift in reservoir studies moving them from simplified analogs and analytical solution methods to more mathematically robust computational and numerical solution models.