Comparison of ilities for protection against uncertainty in system design

The concepts of reliability, robustness, adaptability, versatility, resilience and flexibility have been used to describe how a system design can mitigate the likely impact of uncertainties without removing their sources. With the increasing number of publications on designing systems to have such ilities, there is a need to clarify the relationships between the different ideas. This short article introduces a framework to compare these different ways in which a system can be insensitive to uncertainty, clarifying their meaning in the context of complex system design. We focus on relationships between the ilities listed above and do not discuss in detail methods to design-for-ilities. © 2013 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.

An architecture design with data model for product recovery management systems

Due to concerns about environmental protection and resource utilization, product lifecycle management for end-of-life (EOL) has received increasing attention in many industrial sectors including manufacturing, maintenance/repair, and recycling/refurbishing of the product. To support these functions, crucial issues are studied to realize a product recovery management system (PRMS), including: (1) an architecture design for EOL services, such as remanufacturing and recycling; (2) a product data model required for EOL activity based on international standards; and (3) an infrastructure for information acquisition and mapping to product lifecycle information. The presented works are illustrated via a realistic scenario. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.