Ottimizzazione di un Sistema di Key Performance Indicators per la Divisione Engineering aziendale. Il caso INTERTABA S.p.A.

Il seguente elaborato è la diretta conseguenza di un periodo di stage, pari a cinque mesi, svolto presso l’azienda INTERTABA S.p.A., a Zola Predosa (BO). Il Dipartimento presso cui è stato svolto il tirocinio è l’Engineering. In particolare è stata compiuta un’analisi dei KPIs presenti e sono state proposte delle azioni migliorative. Il lavoro si è sviluppato in tre fasi. Nella prima fase è stata fatta un’analisi dei KPIs attuali per ciascuna funzione appartenente all’Engineering: Engineering Support, Project Engineering, Plant & Utilities Maintenance, Technical Warehouse e General Services. Nella seconda fase sono state descritte, per ciascuna funzione, alcune proposte migliorative per i KPIs presenti. Infine, per alcune funzioni, sono state proposte alcune iniziative in merito all’implementazione di nuovi KPIs.

Investigating strategies and indicators for sustainable campus: Comparison and synergies between University of Bologna and Delft University of Technology

Sustainable development is one of the biggest challenges of the twenty fist-century. Various university has begun the debate about the content of this concept and the ways in which to integrate it into their policy, organization and activities. Universities have a special responsibility to take over a leading position by demonstrating best practices that sustain and educate a sustainable society. For that reason universities have the opportunity to create the culture of sustainability for today’s student, and to set their expectations for how the world should be. This thesis aim at analyzing how Delft University of Technology and University of Bologna face the challenge of becoming a sustainable campus. In this context, both universities have been studied and analyzed following the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) methodology that provides a common framework to formalize commitments and goals at campus level. In particular this work has been aimed to highlight which key performance indicators are essential to reach sustainability as a consequence the following aspects has been taken into consideration: energy use, water use, solid waste and recycling, carbon emission. Subsequently, in order to provide a better understanding of the current state of sustainability on University of Bologna and Delft University of Technology, and potential strategies to achieve the stated objective, a SWOT Analysis has been undertaken. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats have been shown to understand how the two universities can implement a synergy to improve each other. In the direction of framing a “Sustainable SWOT” has been considered the model proposed by People and Planet, so it has been necessary to evaluate important matters as for instance policy, investment, management, education and engagement. Regarding this, it has been fundamental to involve the main sustainability coordinators of the two universities, this has been achieved through a brainstorming session. Partnerships are key to the achievement of sustainability. The creation of a bridge between two universities aims to join forces and to create a new generation of talent. As a result, people can become able to support universities in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching. For this purpose the project "SUCCESS" has been presented, the project aims to create an interactive European campus network that can be considered a strategic key player for sustainable campus innovation in Europe. Specifically, the main key performance indicators have been analyzed and the importance they have for the two universities and their strategic impact have been highlighted. For this reason, a survey was conducted with people who play crucial roles for sustainability within the two universities and they were asked to evaluate the KPIs of the project. This assessment has been relevant because has represented the foundation to develop a strategy to create a true collaboration.

Performance measurement review: a comparison between English and Italian companies

Il sistema di misurazione delle performance (PMS) ha ricevuto particolare attenzione dalla ricerca in ambito accademico e dalle aziende che ogni anno investono risorse nell’implementazione e nel miglioramento di questo strumento. I ruoli assegnati al PMS possono essere: misurazione della performance, implementazione della strategia, comunicazione, allineamento dei comportamenti, apprendimento e miglioramento. Queste differenti finalità sottolineano quanto sia strategica un’efficace implementazione di tale strumento. Negli ultimi anni le aziende si trovano a dover competere in ambienti sempre più turbolenti e mutevoli. La capacità di adattarsi al cambiamento è fondamentale, pertanto anche il PMS deve essere aggiornato per garantire un’implementazione di Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) che siano appropriati e rilevanti, considerando le nuove priorità aziendali e le condizioni al contorno. Questa tesi ha come obiettivo quello di analizzare la revisione del PMS, in quanto un inappropriato set di KPIs implementati possono causare un indebolimento del potenziale di tale strumento ed ancor peggio un fallimento degli investimenti riguardanti tale strumento. L’approccio metodologico di questa tesi è un multiple case-study. Per avere una visione più ampia di come viene sviluppata la revisione del PMS nella pratica si è deciso di inserire nel campione aziende di grandi dimensioni operanti in differenti settori industriali. Le informazioni raccolte attraverso le interviste, hanno permesso di fornire un contributo non presente in letteratura: una categorizzazione delle revisioni svolte dalle aziende e riflessioni su di esse. La limitazione di questo studio è legata ad un basso numero interviste svolte.

A study of air-sea interaction processes on water mass formation and upwelling in the Mediterranean sea

Air-sea interactions are a key process in the forcing of the ocean circulation and the climate. Water Mass Formation is a phenomenon related to extreme air-sea exchanges and heavy heat losses by the water column, being capable to transfer water properties from the surface to great depth and constituting a fundamental component of the thermohaline circulation of the ocean. Wind-driven Coastal Upwelling, on the other hand, is capable to induce intense heat gain in the water column, making this phenomenon important for climate change; further, it can have a noticeable influence on many biological pelagic ecosystems mechanisms. To study some of the fundamental characteristics of Water Mass Formation and Coastal Upwelling phenomena in the Mediterranean Sea, physical reanalysis obtained from the Mediterranean Forecating System model have been used for the period ranging from 1987 to 2012. The first chapter of this dissertation gives the basic description of the Mediterranean Sea circulation, the MFS model implementation, and the air-sea interaction physics. In the second chapter, the problem of Water Mass Formation in the Mediterranean Sea is approached, also performing ad-hoc numerical simulations to study heat balance components. The third chapter considers the study of Mediterranean Coastal Upwelling in some particular areas (Sicily, Gulf of Lion, Aegean Sea) of the Mediterranean Basin, together with the introduction of a new Upwelling Index to characterize and predict upwelling features using only surface estimates of air-sea fluxes. Our conclusions are that latent heat flux is the driving air-sea heat balance component in the Water Mass Formation phenomenon, while sensible heat exchanges are fundamental in Coastal Upwelling process. It is shown that our upwelling index is capable to reproduce the vertical velocity patterns in Coastal Upwelling areas. Nondimensional Marshall numbers evaluations for the open-ocean convection process in the Gulf of Lion show that it is a fully turbulent, three-dimensional phenomenon.

Smart Data Analysis on Lamborghini Connected Vehicles

The thesis is the result of work conducted during a period of six months at the Strategy department of Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. in Sant'Agata Bolognese (BO) and concerns the study and analysis of Big Data relating to Lamborghini's connected cars. The Big Data is a project of Connected Car Project House, that is an inter-departmental team which works toward the definition of the Lamborghini corporate connectivity strategy and its implementation in the product portfolio. The Data of the connected cars is one of the hottest topics right now in the automotive industry; in fact, all the largest automotive companies are investi,ng a lot in this direction, in order to derive the greatest advantages both from a purely economic point of view, because from these data you can understand a lot the behaviors and habits of each driver, and from a technological point of view because it will increasingly promote the development of 5G that will be an important enabler for the future of connectivity. The main purpose of the work by Lamborghini prospective is to analyze the data of the connected cars, in particular a data-set referred to connected Huracans that had been already placed on the market, and, starting from that point, derive valuable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on which the company could partly base the decisions to be made in the near future. The key result that we have obtained at the end of this period was the creation of a Dashboard, in which is possible to visualize many parameters and indicators both related to driving habits and the use of the vehicle itself, which has brought great insights on the huge potential and value that is present behind the study of these data. The final Demo of the project has received great interest, not only from the whole strategy department but also from all the other business areas of Lamborghini, making mostly a great awareness that this will be the road to follow in the coming years.

Comparison of different solutions for the hybridization of a motorcycle engine for Formula Student applications and evaluation of the effectiveness on the simulated lap time

Following the latest environmental concerns, the importance of minimising the detrimental effect of emissions of terrestrial vehicles has become a major goal for the whole automotive field. The key to achieve an emission-free long term future is the electrification of vehicle fleets; this huge step cannot be taken without intermediate technologies. In this context, hybrid vehicles are fundamental to reach this goal. Specifically, mild hybrid vehicles represent a trade-off between cost and emissions that could act now as a bridge towards electrification. Like the industry, also student engineering competitions are likely to take the same route: Combustion vehicles may well turn into hybrid vehicles. For this reason, a preliminary design overview is necessary to pinpoint the key performance indicators for the prototypes of the future.

The use of remote sensing imagery for monitoring recovery in the aftermath of a natural disaster: the Hurricane Katrina Case

Although Recovery is often defined as the less studied and documented phase of the Emergency Management Cycle, a wide literature is available for describing characteristics and sub-phases of this process. Previous works do not allow to gain an overall perspective because of a lack of systematic consistent monitoring of recovery utilizing advanced technologies such as remote sensing and GIS technologies. Taking into consideration the key role of Remote Sensing in Response and Damage Assessment, this thesis is aimed to verify the appropriateness of such advanced monitoring techniques to detect recovery advancements over time, with close attention to the main characteristics of the study event: Hurricane Katrina storm surge. Based on multi-source, multi-sensor and multi-temporal data, the post-Katrina recovery was analysed using both a qualitative and a quantitative approach. The first phase was dedicated to the investigation of the relation between urban types, damage and recovery state, referring to geographical and technological parameters. Damage and recovery scales were proposed to review critical observations on remarkable surge- induced effects on various typologies of structures, analyzed at a per-building level. This wide-ranging investigation allowed a new understanding of the distinctive features of the recovery process. A quantitative analysis was employed to develop methodological procedures suited to recognize and monitor distribution, timing and characteristics of recovery activities in the study area. Promising results, gained by applying supervised classification algorithms to detect localization and distribution of blue tarp, have proved that this methodology may help the analyst in the detection and monitoring of recovery activities in areas that have been affected by medium damage. The study found that Mahalanobis Distance was the classifier which provided the most accurate results, in localising blue roofs with 93.7% of blue roof classified correctly and a producer accuracy of 70%. It was seen to be the classifier least sensitive to spectral signature alteration. The application of the dissimilarity textural classification to satellite imagery has demonstrated the suitability of this technique for the detection of debris distribution and for the monitoring of demolition and reconstruction activities in the study area. Linking these geographically extensive techniques with expert per-building interpretation of advanced-technology ground surveys provides a multi-faceted view of the physical recovery process. Remote sensing and GIS technologies combined to advanced ground survey approach provides extremely valuable capability in Recovery activities monitoring and may constitute a technical basis to lead aid organization and local government in the Recovery management.

Risk assessment of liquid hydrogen tanks for heavy duty vehicles

The advent of the hydrogen economy has already been predicted but it does not represent a tangible reality yet. However, decarbonizing the global economy and particularly the energy sector is vital to limit global warming and reduce the incumbent environmental problems. Hydrogen is a promising zero-emission fuel that could replace traditional fossil fuels, playing a key role in the transition towards a more sustainable economy. At present, hydrogen-powered cars are already spread worldwide and the deployment of hydrogen buses seems to be the next goal in the decarbonization process of the transportation sector. In contrast with the undeniable benefits introduced by the use of this alternative fuel, given its hazardous properties, safety is a topic of high concern. The present study concerns the evaluation of the risks linked to the on board storage of hydrogen on hydrogen-powered buses in case of road accident. Currently, hydrogen can be stored on board as a high-pressure gas, as a cryogenic liquid or in cryo-compressed form. Those solutions are compared from a safety point of view. First, the final accidental scenarios that could follow the release of the fuel in case of a road crash are pointed out. Secondly, threshold values for the hazardous effects of each scenario are fixed and the corresponding damage distances are calculated thanks to the use of the software PHAST 8.4. Finally, indicators are quantified to compare the different options. Results are discussed to find out the safer solution and to evaluate whether the replacement of fossil fuels with hydrogen introduces new safety issues.