Deogratias Kibira

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Researcher at National Institute of Standards and Technology

Digital twins are poised to improve the engineering, operation, and management of manufacturing facilities. However, implementing digital twins has been a challenge primarily due to a lack of resources and the absence of standardized digital twin frameworks and methods. This paper describes creating a digital twin of a robot workcell using availabl...

Digital Twins are becoming more prevalent in a wide range of industries such as manufacturing, construction, smart city, and healthcare for various purposes, including observing, predicting, optimizing, and controlling. Digital Twins are in the early adoption stage. Currently, few standards directly address Digital Twins and a commercial ecosystem...

Robots are increasingly being adopted in manufacturing industries and this trend is projected to continue. However, robots, like all equipment, degrade once in operation and eventually fail. Yet today’s manufacturing systems are highly paced requiring high equipment availability. Tools and methods are being developed for monitoring, diagnostics, an...

A digital twin of a manufacturing system can positively impact its performance with respect to productivity, energy consumption, product quality, and cost. However, leveraging available methods and tools to build a digital twin is a challenge for many manufacturers, especially small and medium-sized manufacturers. The result is that the uptake of d...

Current maintenance research often includes modeling equipment degradation to support determining when any degradation will exceed a specified threshold. Such models provide critical intelligence to determine an impending failure and promote the timely scheduling of maintenance, yet, the models require equipment data. While healthy state data can b...

Determining key performance indicators (KPI) is a first step in achieving environmental sustainability of manufacturing operations. KPI selection is a multi-criteria decision making problem, because of various criteria that must be considered. Intuitively, one can rank candidate KPIs by specifying a numerical value indicating the effectiveness of a...

ABSTRACT The need for an open, inclusive, and neutral procedure for selecting key performance indicators (KPIs) for sustainable manufacturing has been increasing. The reason is that manufacturers seek to determine what to measure in order to improve environmental sustainability of their products and manufacturing processes. A difficulty arises in u...

The need for an open, inclusive, and neutral procedure in selecting key performance indicators (KPIs) for sustainable manufacturing has been increasing. The reason is that manufacturers seek to determine what to measure in order to improve environmental sustainability of their products and manufacturing processes. A difficulty arises in understandi...

Manufacturers are facing an ever-increasing demand for customized products on the one hand and environmentally friendly products on the other. This situation affects both the product and the process life cycles. To guide decision-making across these life cycles, the performance of today’s manufacturing systems is monitored by collecting and analyzi...

Production planning is a complex problem that is typically decomposed into decisions carried out at different control levels. The various methods used for production planning often assume a static environment, therefore, the plans developed may not be feasible when shop floor events change dynamically. In such an operating environment, a system sim...

Developing optimal production plans for smart manufacturing systems is challenging because shop floor events change dynamically. A virtual factory incorporating engineering tools, simulation, and optimization generates and communicates performance data to guide wise decision making for different control levels. This paper describes such a platform...

The emerging concept of smart manufacturing systems is defined in part by the introduction of new technologies that are promoting rapid and widespread information flow within the manufacturing system and surrounding its control. These systems can deliver unprecedented awareness, agility, productivity, and resilience within the production process by...

Modern manufacturing systems are installed with smart devices such as sensors that monitor system performance and collect data to manage uncertainties in their operations. However, multiple parameters and variables affect system performance, making it impossible for a human to make informed decisions without systematic methodologies and tools. Furt...

With the increasing attention directed to sustainable manufacturing, systematic methodologies are needed for not only incorporating the traditional performance indicators such as cost and quality, but also environmental impacts during the production stage. This requires the selection of processes and process settings for the production of the desig...

The emerging concept of smart manufacturing systems is defined in part by the introduction of new technologies that are promoting rapid and widespread information flow within the manufacturing system and surrounding its control. These systems can deliver unprecedented awareness, agility, productivity, and resilience within the production process by...

Production planning is carried out at the enterprise, operation, and process levels. Although production plans at higher levels constrain those at the lower levels, the processes for generating those plans are typically not well integrated in practice. Because of that, the schedules at lower levels may not accurately reflect what was planned at the...

Manufacturers are always seeking ways to increase the performance of their production systems. Today, the principal ways include the use of smart technologies for data collection, analysis, prediction and decision-making. These technologies will facilitate the deployment of smart manufacturing systems to enable manufacturers achieve the increased a...

To address the inadequacy of existing standards regarding interior layout design of ambulance patient compartments, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and BMT Designers and Planners...

Providing emergency care services in the confined space of the patient compartment of a moving ambulance has proven a hazardous activity. A National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)/Department of Homeland Security (DHS) project is applying systems engineering approaches to analyze requirements and develop design guidance that will improve...

Current ambulance designs are ergonomically inefficient and often times unsafe for practical treatment response to medical emergencies. Thus, the patient compartment of a moving ambulance is a hazardous working environment. As a consequence, emergency medical services (EMS) workers suffer fatalities and injuries that far exceed those of the average...

Emergency medical services (EMS) providers riding in ambulance patient compartments, while caring for patients, are at high risk of suffering injuries in case of a vehicle crash or sudden maneuver. One option to reduce this risk is to have providers use seat belts. However, providers have complained that the seat belts make it difficult to reach eq...

NIST conducted a survey (Office of Management and Budget, Control No. 1090-0007) of the emergency medical services (EMS) professionals in December 2011. The objective of the survey is to aid in the development of design standards for the patient compartment in ambulances and to measure customer satisfaction with current design standards. A total of...

As manufacturing systems are often costly to develop and operate, simulation technology has been demonstrated to be an effective tool for improving manufacturing system design and the efficiency of manufacturing operations and maintenance. However, effectively and efficiently using simulation remains an important issue in the manufacturing industry...

Recently, the U.S Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate‰s Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division and First Responder Resources Group sponsored formation of the Ambulance Patient Compartment Design Project. Project participants are NIST, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and BMT Design...

In 2010, there were more than 250 U.S. ambulance crashes that were reported in the news media. During such accidents, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who ride in the ambulance patient compartment while caring for patients are at high risk of suffering injuries. Restraint systems are the first line of defense against injuries or death; however,...

The recycling infrastructure for end-of-use vehicles in the United States is driven by profitability due to the absence of regulations. Typically, the recycling consists of removing reusable components for resale and shredding and separating remaining material for material recovery. Profitability depends on the quantity and type of components and m...

Sustainability has become a very significant research topic as it impacts many different manufacturing industries. Therefore, the technologies for monitoring, analysing, evaluating and optimising the sustainability performance of manufacturing processes and systems are very critical for decision makers on the shop floor. This paper introduces a dec...

This paper proposes a multi-resolution framework for application of system dynamics modeling to sustainable manufacturing. Sustainable manufacturing involves interaction of four complex systems namely manufacturing, environmental, financial, and social domains. The proposed framework integrates model components corresponding to the four major domai...

Manufacturing systems can be very complex and are often costly to develop and operate. Simulation technology has been shown to be an effective tool for optimizing manufacturing system design, operations, and maintenance procedures. However, each manufacturing simulation is usually developed to address a specific set of industrial issues, and may on...

The production capacity of corn ethanol as a transportation fuel is experiencing rapid growth in the United States. The demand is driven by increased prices of gasoline, government mandates, incentives, desire for cleaner fuels, and the need to be more self-reliant in energy sources. Continued strong growth of the corn ethanol industry will depend...

Sustainable manufacturing could be promoted by the effective use of Modeling and Simulation (M&S) applications. These applications can evaluate manufacturing operations in light of increasing legislation and awareness for environmental protection. They can help determine the operational policy and strategy, and evaluate day-to-day manufacturing dec...

Sustainability has become a very significant research topic since it impacts many different manufacturing industries. The adoption of sustainable manufacturing practices and technologies offers industry a cost effective route to improve economic, environmental, and social performance. As a major manufacturing process, the machining system plays an...

The production capacity of corn ethanol as a transportation fuel is experiencing rapid growth in the United States. The demand is driven by increased prices of gasoline, government mandates, incentives, desire for cleaner fuels, and the need to achieve energy independence. Continued strong growth of the corn ethanol industry will depend on profitab...

This paper describes the construction of an automotive assembly line simulation where manufacturing data is defined using the Core Manufacturing Simulation Data (CMSD) information model. This work is part of the Simulation-based Manufacturing Interoperability Standards and Testing (SBIT) project underway at the National Institute of Standards and T...

The need for interoperability of information systems among supply chain partners has been recognized. A number of standards have been or are being developed to ensure interoperability of applications used along the supply chain. An associated need for interoperability testing has emerged. There is a need to evaluate compliance of applications to st...

Computer simulation is effective in improving the efficiency of manufacturing system design, operation, and maintenance. Most simulation models are usually tailored to address a narrow set of industrial issues, e.g., the introduction of a new product. If generic data-driven simulations could be developed they would be reusable for wider application...

Studies have documented the high cost of the lack of software interoperability on manufacturing. New interface standards are being developed by various organizations to address interoperability issues. Unfortunately these standards often overlap and conflict with each other. Adequate testing facilities are not available for evaluating the suitabili...

The paper presents the application of constraint directed search to production scheduling at Uganda Clays Limited, to increase productivity and timely order delivery. An experienced human has in the past performed the scheduling task for the 69 clay products made on the same facility. This has been a serious challenge. The production process consis...

Simulation technology is applicable across a distributed enterprise in the pursuit of bringing high quality products to the market in minimum time. The proliferation of computing technology and software applications now makes simulations available to many organizations in an enterprise. Significant focus has been devoted to manufacturing facility s...

This paper presents our work on the application of virtual reality simulation to the design of a production line for a mechanically-assembled product. The development of this simulation was undertaken as a part of the Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. The ma...

This paper presents our work on the application of virtual-reality simulation to the design of a production line for a mechanically-assembled product. The development of this simulation was undertaken as a part of the Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. The ma...

This paper describes experiments performed to demonstrate the feasibility of applying human learning and machine induction to reactive scheduling of an unbalanced telephone production line in a simulated environment. The simulation model is used to accelerate human training, to log the scheduling decisions of a so trained human expert, and to form...

This paper reports experiments performed to demonstrate the feasibility of applying machine induction to reactive scheduling of a telephone production line. A simulation model of the plant is used to log the scheduling decisions of an experienced human. Machine learned decision rules designed to achieve must then schedule and control the production...

With increasing frequency the news media reports that the planet is warming, pollutants are contaminating the environment, energy costs are rising, and precious natural resources are dwindling. These reports are sounding an alarm that we need to change the way we manufacture products so as to minimize the negative impact of industrial operations on...

This paper proposes a framework for application of system dynamics modeling to sustainable manufacturing. Sustainable manufacturing involves interaction of multiple complex systems including those in manufacturing, environmental, financial, and social domains. A concerted effort involving a number of researchers may be required to develop the requi...