Gudmundur V. Oddsson

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Iceland

The Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry has seen remarkable growth since its beginnings merely 60 years ago. Key to this growth have been technological innovations resulting in major productivity improvements and a licensing scheme that has enabled much faster growth than in other salmon-producing countries. This growth and efficiency improvement...

The purpose of this research was to portray productivity in a larger context than has previously been presented, using system analysis. The result was a single causal loop diagram describing productivity in a work setting. Information on the components affecting productivity and how they interact was gathered from the industrial and organizational...

Many jobs today are predominantly knowledge work. This makes organizations dependent on value created by knowledge workers (KWs). Many of the initiatives to improve and manage knowledge worker productivity (KWP) give unpredictable results depending on factors that are often hidden and unknown. It is important to find a holistic approach to improve...

Salmon is the most consumed farmed seafood in the EU and there is no indication that demand will abate. Yet salmon aquaculture’s environmental impacts are significant, and its future is likely to be shaped by demands of increased but at the same time more sustainable production. This study developed an integrated theoretical framework based on the...

This research attempted to find and define holistic systems that affect the productivity of the knowledge worker (KW), using the soft systems methodology (SSM). It is not enough to look at the management and improvement of knowledge worker productivity (KWP) from the viewpoint of the organization. The viewpoint of the individual KW needs to be cons...

Presented is a methodology developed for teachers to help them to evaluate the performance of a team of students in an engineering project-based course. The methodology is a tool that will help the teacher to identify the components that are preventing the team from advancing to a high-performance level. The methodology is based on a thorough study...

Fairness issues within food systems are of increasing concern for policy makers and other stakeholders. Given the topicality and policy relevance of fairness within food systems, there is value in exploring the subject further. Simulation modelling has been successfully used to develop and test policy interventions. However, the subjectivity and in...

A methodology has been developed aimed at helping teachers to evaluate the performance of extensive student teams in engineering courses. The paper demonstrates the methodology with a case study. The case is a project course that has been taught at the University of Iceland for 10 years. In the course, students design a one-seater electric race car...

Aquaculture intensity has been used for years as a means to gauge how much production a site makes using three terms: extensive, semi-intensive and intensive aquaculture production systems. The industry has a relatively coordinated understanding of these terms, but an explicit general definition does not seem to exist. This paper aims to use three...

The aim of this study was to evaluate what is needed to improve students' understanding of the material taught in a first-year engineering course. Two flipped classroom methods were compared to traditional teaching method – based on lectures. The comparison was based on the students' achievements in the written final exam and student satisfaction w...

In recent years, a need for product traceability in the cold supply chain has emerged. The purpose of this study was to identify and map out different kinds of identification technologies and techniques used for cold supply chain traceability. This was done by looking into what traceability solutions are available right now through literature revie...

Heat pumps use the temperature difference between inside and outside areas to modify a refrigerant, either for heating or cooling. Doing so can lower the need for external heating energy for a household to some extent. The eventual impact depends on various factors, such as the external source for heating or cooling and the temperature difference....

Low knowledge worker productivity is an important problem that needs to be addressed. Current research addressing this problem is fragmented and deals with different isolated elements of the problem. There is a need for a holistic approach to knowledge worker productivity. This paper takes the first steps of a holistic approach to knowledge worker...

Energy use in food production is linked to environmental impact, as most agricultural practices are reliant on fossil fuels. It is therefore of importance to locate food production methods that are less energy intensive than current methods and are also less polluting. Energy return on investment (EROI) is the ratio between the energy used to const...

This is the third part of the taxonomy of technical solutions and treatment functions in aquaculture. This article builds on the premiss that the aquaculture production system can be viewed as a transformation process with three sets of functions, input, treatment and output. This work creates an overview of all of the technical solutions of treatm...

Designing aquaculture production units will require decisions on which treatment to include, e.g., the intensification of the system, and then a decision on a technical solution for each treatment function selected to implement. To complicate matters, each technical solution is not unique to each treatment function, but has a multiple effect on the...

In engineering design, knowing the relationship between the means (technique) and the end (desired function or outcome) is essential. The means in Aquaculture are technical solutions like airlifts that are used to achive desired functionality (an end) like controlling dissolved gasses. In previous work, the authors identified possible functions by...

The aquaculture sector has been increasing its share in the total fish production in the world. Numerous studies have been published about aquaculture, introducing a variety of techniques and methods that have been applied or could be applied in aquaculture production systems. The purpose of this study is to present a systemic overview of the funct...

A novel Monte Carlo (MC) approach is proposed for the simulation of wind speed samples to assess the wind energy production potential of a site. The Monte Carlo approach is based on historical wind speed data and reserves the effect of autocorrelation and seasonality in wind speed observations. No distributional assumptions are made, and this appro...

Wind energy harnessing is a new energy production alternative in Iceland. Current installed wind power in Iceland sums to 1.8 MW, which in contrast is 0.1% of the country’s total electricity production. This article is dedicated to the exploration of the potential cost of wind energy production at Búrfell in the south of Iceland. A levelized cost o...

Efficient maintenance of heavy machinery is of utmost importance in geothermal power plants. Icelandic geothermal power plants are striving to domesticate its maintenance procedures to decrease foreign dependency. This study shows which problems are most frequently observed in turbines at the largest geothermal power plant in Iceland, Hellisheidi....

As renewable energy sectors evolve and grow within a country, the need for expertise to maintain its infrastructure grows. Such expertise is often provided by foreign industries. It is in the global interest to facilitate expertise to grow domestically, eventually leading to widespread clusters of industries around a renewable energy sector and a g...

This paper presents a study of the relations between workload as measured by the lecturer, student grades on a final test and student satisfaction as measured in a course survey in a first year engineering course. The study covers 10 years, from 2004 to 2014, and grades/scores from 827 students. During this time the lectures were given by the same...

Markmið þessarar rannsóknar var að meta hvort „meira er betra“ gildi fyrir sambandið milli verkefnaálags og prófseinkunnar annars vegar og verkefnaálags og ánægju nemenda hins vegar. Einungis var metið verkefnaálag sem tengdist lokaprófi; þ.e., ekki var tekin með vinna sem tengdist tölvuverkefnum sem gáfu hluta af lokaeinkunn og ekki var prófað úr....

This paper presents a reference framework for the configuration process. The reference framework is established through an extensive review of existing literature, and as such consolidates an extensive theoretical base. The review of literature shows a broadening of the understanding of the configuration task. The definition of the configuration ta...

A quantitative Kano model is used in this study to identify which features are preferred by top-level maintenance engineers within Icelandic geothermal power plants to be implemented in a maintenance tool or software. Visits were conducted to the largest Icelandic energy companies operating geothermal power plants. Thorough interviews with chiefs o...

A lot of systems are assembled from near-independent mechatronic subsystems that have to be configured to match each other. An example of such systems are e.g. home entertainment systems, where TV, DVD and Receiver are matched to form an overall system, and compilation of pumps and controllers to form fresh water supply systems. Sometimes an extern...