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This paper reports on the design, development and first use experience of Mariotel: a free-software project for deploying virtual remote computer science labs simply accessible from ordinary web browsers. Mariotel platform has been developed during the first generalized lockdown period due the Covid-19 pandemic situation. Simplicity has been the main principle that guided the design and development process of Mariotel. We show that this principle has largely contributed to the quick adoption of this new platform. The system has been successfully used at USPN since 2020. 42 different teachers have used the platform in order to supply ensure 9989 lab sessions, each has in average three hour duration. © 2022 IEEE.
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Summary The COVID‐19 pandemic generated impacts on all segments of society, including the food industry, which had to adapt to the reality of greater demand and increased costs. During the pandemic period, the new Brazilian legislation on microbiological food standards came into force, demanding documentary evidence of the adequacy of production processes and food safety. Every day, the need for international cooperation, local actions and agile working methods becomes more evident. The objective of this work was to engage professionals remotely to verify a new egg handling process in a food industry, where powdered eggs were replaced by the in natura form during the pandemic. A process description was developed with a flowchart and microbiological sampling plan to verify the process, using the design thinking method, conducted by videoconference by professionals from four microbiology laboratories together with professors, researchers and industry technicians. The analysis results proved the microbiological adequacy of the egg handling process. The method of remote decision‐making by design thinking and the engagement of different laboratories and professionals intends to subsidise other food and food service industries, making it possible to structure the monitoring and verification of food processes, in an agile and economical way. [ FROM AUTHOR]
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This paper reviewed the literature on the topics of organizational redesign, digital transformation, strategic planning, process management, administrative simplification, continuous improvement, redesign and automation, and also considered the activities developed to implement organizational redesign in the quarantine declared by the Peruvian state as a result of COVID 19, with the purpose of proposing a method for organizational redesign towards digital transformation in public entities, with a strategic and operational approach. For the implementation of the strategic approach, the institutions that functionally depend on the Ministry of Education were involved, considering the current situation in relation to the operational and territorial capacities of each region, to develop the strategic and process design. Likewise, for the implementation of the operational approach, the results of the virtual course on process management for administrative simplification 2 were used, involving several institutions that proposed and implemented improvements towards the digitization of processes, promoting digital transformation. The results of the present work consider the effective time of the administrative procedures and the cost of implementation. The effective time of the procedures was reflected in a reduction of 11% and 52% in the reduction of the cost of the procedures. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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It is the intent of the work to support experts in the organization process of Covid-19 vaccination hubs. An approach based on Modelling & Simulation (M&S) is proposed and in particular, a simulation model of a real vaccination hub, located in South of Italy, has been developed. The simulation model recreates, with satisfactory accuracy, the evolution over the time of the real system and it has been used to analyze the system behavior under several operative scenarios. The generation of the alternative operative scenarios comes from the variation of multiple design parameters that affect multiple performance measures. The quantitative evaluation of the effects of the multiple design parameters on the multiple performance measures can be used as starting point to improve processes as well as to plan effectively available resources within vaccination hubs. 2724-0371 © 2022 The Authors.
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In product design fields where the demand for an efficient usability is critical to its final success, it is essential to integrate user requirements into the design process from the earliest design stages. Particularly in the medical context, it is essential to systematically control the design phases in order not to neglect the strict constraints related to engineering design quality, safety, and usability requirements for the end user. Hence, in this work, an integrated user-centered product design and process simulation method is proposed. This method is aimed at enriching the state of the art in integrated product design and process simulation in the early design stages, as well as providing a novel design example of a device thought for medical contexts. The case study consists in the design of an intercom, aimed at improving patient-doctor communication in the case of bedridden patients on with helmet for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy during COVID-19 pandemic emergency. Patients undergoing helmet-assisted ventilation are often immersed in a highly noisy environment, unable to fully communicate their needs to the doctors. Intercom devices are addressed to the doctors for improving ease communication with the patient. The proposed user-centered design for manufacturing and assembly proved to be efficient in such a complex design context. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Confronted with the global challenges including COVID-19, pharmaceutical manufacturing needs to simultaneously achieve long-term efficiency and short-term resilience. Process systems engineering (PSE) can provide scientific basis here, and in fact, PSE researchers have made significant contributions to pharma in the last decade. The author, after having worked for a global pharmaceutical company, initiated research on pharmaceutical process systems engineering: Pharma PSE. The research tackles different challenges in small molecules, biopharmaceuticals, and regenerative medicine, at the scales of molecules/cells, processes, and the society. This paper first introduces the viewpoint of Pharma PSE, followed by showcasing a research example that involved a range of computer-aided analyses at different scales. The multiscale approach of Pharma PSE can provide a new horizon to “reimagine” pharmaceutical manufacturing processes and beyond, towards establishment of a sustainable healthcare society. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.
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The COVID-19 epidemic is spreading globally, and the efficient operation of emergency logistics can effectively reduce the harm caused by the epidemic. Considering the characteristics of COVID-19 and the speed of response required by emergency logistics, this paper takes the COVID-19 epidemic as the background and the circulation of medical supplies as the research object, constructs the operation framework of emergency logistics, designs the operation process of emergency logistics under the COVID-19 epidemic, and makes a detailed analysis of each link. It is expected to provide a reference for improving the emergency management system in China. © 2021 SPIE
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Keywords: Digital;Transformation;Quality Purpose: PhysioNow is a digital self-assessment application that was collaboratively developed by Connect Health and EQL. The main aims of introducing this technology were to: (1) Improve patient access pathways (2) Utilise digital triage to stratify patients, allowing urgent clinical conditions to be picked up rapidly and directed to appropriate care (3) Work towards recommendations of the TOPOL report and the NHS five-year forward view around digital healthcare (4) Reduce administrative processing time (5) Provide information to improve the quality and focus of clinical consultations Methods: PhysioNow was co-produced by digital and clinical colleagues as informed by an EIA through an innovative service improvement programme. An AGILE approach was adopted within implementation, working in sprints to ensure all components were met. Process design was applied to use robotic process automation (RPA) in both registration of patients and handling of patients in the clinical system following PhysioNow completion, additionally the linking of our data warehouse to the registration portal and web application via an Application Programming Interface (API) allowed seamless patient transition and information flow. Time was invested developing the clinical decision tree algorithms to ensure patients were asked appropriate questions and stratified safely, in line with normal volumes of red flags/urgent cases. Decision tree changes involved clinician feedback and clinical audit of all patients’ outcomes to continually improve the decision tree. Patient focus groups were employed to look at specific questions and all patients that used PhysioNow were involved in service user feedback. Results: Between July 2020 and the 14th of April 2021 PhysioNow was transitioned in a phased approach to 15 NHS physiotherapy services. To date, 22,422 patients were eligible to use PhysioNow and 96% were offered the opportunity to complete it. 15,366 patients have subsequently completed, with an uptake of 73%. 11,219 patients have been stratified to routine care, 3393 patients were stratified to an urgent physiotherapy assessment, 487 patients were advised to seek advice of NHS 111. Benefits achieved are an accessible platform for patients available 24/7;patient access and improved patient journey, clinicians effectively using PhysioNow outputs to target and inform clinical assessment;improved waiting times;reduction in volume of admin registrations via RPA has led to financial savings. Conclusion(s): This programme of work has enabled Connect Health to deliver a safe, effective, cost neutral solution to stratification of patients referred to Community MSK Physiotherapy services. We have demonstrated high levels of patient uptake by adopting an AGILE delivery cycle and identified barriers to clinical effectiveness and user accessibility/digital literacy via Continuous Improvement. Plans include further stratification of clinical conditions, enabling direct referral from PhysioNow into a supported self-management environment along with using AI and machine learning, to enhance the decision tree and pathways. Impact: This project has been implemented into routine practice across Connect Health, providing patients with a new accessible way of accessing MSK physiotherapy services. PhysioNow has been trialled with Welsh Health Boards to support Covid Recovery successful and demonstrates enhanced patient care pathways, clinician interactions and effectively detects clinically urgent conditions that needed urgent care. Funding acknowledgements: This work was funded by Connect Health and EQL as the Healthcare provider and the technology develop respectively.
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After more than a year of online teaching resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is time to take stock of the status quo in teaching practice in all things concerning process systems engineering (PSE), and to derive recommendations for the future to harness what we have experienced to improve the degree to which our students achieve mastery. This contribution presents the experiences and conclusions resulting from the first COVID-19 semester (spring 2020), and how the lessons learned were applied to the process design course taught in the second COVID-19 semester (winter 2020) to a class of 53 students. The paper concludes with general recommendations for fostering active learning by students in all PSE courses, whether taught online or face to face.
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Combating the COVID-19 pandemic has raised the demand for and disposal of personal protective equipment in the United States. This work proposes a novel waste personal protective equipment processing system that enables energy recovery through producing renewable fuels and other basic chemicals. Exergy analysis and environmental assessment through a detailed life cycle assessment approach are performed to evaluate the energy and environmental sustainability of the processing system. Given the environmental advantages in reducing 35.42% of total greenhouse gas emissions from the conventional incineration and 43.50% of total fossil fuel use from landfilling processes, the optimal number, sizes, and locations of establishing facilities within the proposed personal protective equipment processing system in New York State are then determined by an optimization-based site selection methodology, proposing to build two pre-processing facilities in New York County and Suffolk County and one integrated fast pyrolysis plant in Rockland County. Their optimal annual treatment capacities are 1,708 t/y, 8,000 t/y, and 9,028 t/y. The proposed optimal personal protective equipment processing system reduces 31.5% of total fossil fuel use and 35.04% of total greenhouse gas emissions compared to the personal protective equipment incineration process. It also avoids 41.52% and 47.64% of total natural land occupation from the personal protective equipment landfilling and incineration processes.
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic leads to a surge on consumption of respirators. This study proposes a novel and effective waste respirator processing system for protecting public health and mitigating climate change. Respirator sterilization and pre-processing technologies are included in the system to resist viral infection and facilitate unit processes for respirator pyrolysis, product separation, and downstream processing for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction. We evaluate the system's environmental performance through high-fidelity process simulations and detailed life cycle assessment. Techno-economic analysis results show that the payback time of the waste respirator processing system is seven years with an internal rate of return of 21.5%. The tipping fee and discount rate are the most influential economic factors. Moreover, the unit life cycle GHG emissions from the waste respirator processing system are 12.93 kg CO2-eq per thousand waste respirators treated, which reduces GHG emissions by 59.08% compared to incineration-based system so as to mitigate climate change.