Internal levers for servitization: How product-oriented manufacturers can upscale product-service systems

Manufacturing companies that venture into servitisation can experience difficulties when upscaling product-service systems (PSS) for further growth. This research study has two main objectives: first, to develop insight into the internal levers to increase firms’ servitisation capacity, and second, to apply a new methodology to support companies in upscaling PSS. For these purposes, we conduct an exploratory research study of eight manufacturing companies, consisting of both multiple-case and participatory action research methods. We find that manufacturers often experience challenges when either designing or rolling out PSS, which varies based on the company’s chosen strategy. Additionally, they can be confronted with an organisational logic that hinders PSS upscaling efforts. This research offers guidance to practitioners facing internal barriers for servitisation, providing a new method to explore, prioritise and work out concrete PSS-enhancing projects.     

Automatic feedback control of relative blood volume changes during hemodialysis improves blood pressure stability during and after dialysis

Automatic feedback systems have been designed to control relative blood volume changes during hemodialysis (HD) as hypovolemia plays a major role in the development of dialysis hypotension. Of these systems, one is based on the concept of blood volume tracking (BVT). BVT has been shown to improve intra-HD hemodynamic stability. We first questioned whether BVT also improves post-HD blood pressure stability in hypotension-prone patients and second, whether BVT is effective in reducing the post-HD weight as many hypotension-prone patients are overhydrated because of an inability to reach dry weight. After a 3-week period on standard HD, 12 hypotension-prone patients were treated with two consecutive BVT treatment protocols. During the first BVT period of 3 weeks, the post-HD target weight was kept identical compared with the standard HD period (BVT-constant weight; BVT-cw). During the second BVT period of 6 weeks, we gradually tried to lower the post-HD target weight (BVT-reduced weight; BVT-rw). In the last week of each period, we studied intra-HD and 24 hr post-HD blood pressure behavior by ambulatory blood pressure measurement (ABPM). Pre- and post-HD weight did not differ between standard HD and either BVT-cw or BVT-rw. Heart size on a standing pre-dialysis chest X-ray did not change significantly throughout the study. There were less episodes of dialysis hypotension during BVT compared with standard HD (both BVT periods: p<0.01). ABPM data were complete in 10 patients. During the first 16 hr post-HD, systolic blood pressure was significantly higher with BVT in comparison with standard HD (both BVT periods: p<0.05). The use of BVT in hypotension-prone patients is associated with higher systolic blood pressures for as long as 16 hr post-HD. BVT was not effective in reducing the post-HD target weight in this patient group.     

Influence of nitrogen-containing components on the hydrodesulfurization of 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene over Pt, Pd, and Pt–Pd on alumina catalysts

Pyridine and piperidine inhibited the hydrodesulfurization of 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DM-DBT) over alumina-supported Pt, Pd, and Pt–Pd catalysts. The Pd catalyst was least sensitive and the Pt–Pd catalysts were most sensitive to the nitrogen-containing compounds. Pyridine was a stronger inhibitor than piperidine at low initial pressure, but the reverse was true at high initial pressure. Hydrogenation of the tetrahydro to the hexahydro and on to the perhydro sulfur-containing intermediate as well as the removal of sulfur from these intermediates was slowed down by piperidine and pyridine. The hydrogenation pathway in the hydrodesulfurization of 4,6-DM-DBT was inhibited much more than the direct desulfurization pathway. The hydrogenation of the desulfurized products 3,3′-dimethylcyclohexylbenzene and 3,3′-dimethylbiphenyl over the Pt–Pd catalysts was suppressed by piperidine and pyridine. Piperidine and pyridine substantially decrease the ability of noble metal particles to convert refractory molecules like 4,6-DM-DBT and diminish the advantage of bimetallic Pt–Pd over monometallic Pt or Pd catalysts.     

On the expressibility of functions in XQuery fragments

XQuery is a powerful XML query language with many features and syntactic constructs. For many common queries we do not need all the expressive power of XQuery. We investigate the effect of omitting certain features of XQuery on the expressive power of the language. We start from a simple base fragment which can be extended by several optional features being aggregation functions such as count and sum, sequence generation, node construction, position information in for loops, and recursion. In this way we obtain 64 different XQuery fragments which can be divided into 17 different equivalence classes such that two fragments can express the same functions if they are in the same equivalence class. Moreover, we investigate the relationships between these equivalence classes and derive some properties of the fragments within these equivalence classes.     

Meta-heuristics for stable scheduling on a single machine

This paper presents a model for single-machine scheduling with stability objective and a common deadline. Job durations are uncertain, and our goal is to ensure that there is little deviation between planned and actual job starting times. We propose two meta-heuristics for solving an approximate formulation of the model that assumes that exactly one job is disrupted during schedule execution, and we also present a meta-heuristic for the global problem with independent job durations.     

New Tool Coatings for Light Metal Cutting

REDUCTION of fabrication costs and more and moreextended regulations for environmental protection arethe main reasons for going to dry machining in metalcutting applications.For example costs forcooling/cutting liquids may rise to8-16%of themachining costs[1].Dry machining of al-alloys is especially difficultbecause of the tendency of aluminium to stick to thecutting tools.This results in formation of built up edge(BUE)and makes removal of aluminium chips from theflute of the cutting tool …     

Enzymatic Polymerization of Phosphonate Nucleosides

5′‐O‐Phosphonomethyl‐2′‐deoxyadenosine (PMdA) proved to be a good substrate of the Therminator polymerase. In this article, we investigated whether the A, C, T and U analogues of this phosphonate nucleoside (PMdN) series can function as substrates of natural DNA polymerases. PMdT and PMdU could only be polymerized enzymatically to a limited extent. Nevertheless, PMdA and PMdC could be incorporated into a DNA duplex with complete chain elongation by all the DNA polymerases tested. A mixed sequence of four nucleotides containing modified C, T and A residues could be obtained with the Vent(exo^?) and Therminator polymerases. The kinetic values for the incorporation of PMdA by Vent(exo^?) polymerase were determined; a reduced K_M value was found for the incorporation of PMdA compared to the natural substrate. Future polymerase directed evolution studies will allow us to select an enzyme with a heightened capacity to process these modified DNA building blocks into modified strands.     

Toolbox for development and validation of grey-box building models for forecasting and control

As automatic sensing and information and communication technology get cheaper, building monitoring data becomes easier to obtain. The availability of data leads to new opportunities in the context of energy efficiency in buildings. This paper describes the development and validation of a data-driven grey-box modelling toolbox for buildings. The Python toolbox is based on a Modelica library with thermal building and Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning models and the optimization framework in JModelica.org. The toolchain facilitates and automates the different steps in the system identification procedure, like data handling, model selection, parameter estimation and validation. To validate the methodology, different grey-box models are identified for a single-family dwelling with detailed monitoring data from two experiments. Validated models for forecasting and control can be identified. However, in one experiment the model performance is reduced, likely due to a poor information content in the identification data set.