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Detalhes

Detalhes

  • Nome

    António Manuel Amaral
  • Cargo

    Investigador Sénior
  • Desde

    09 março 2022
Publicações

2024

Development of a Cost Estimation Model in a Furniture Manufacturer

Autores
Reis, F; Amaral, A; Oliveira, M; Ferreira, A; Pereira, M;

Publicação
Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering

Abstract
This work was developed to improve the costing process of new products within the Product Development Department of a furniture manufacturer. It consisted of creating a parametric cost estimation model based on applying simple and multiple linear regressions, considering the existing data of the products produced and their respective costs. The proposed model considers the cost estimation of creating a product that covers the materials and operations costs. The suitability of the different independent variables was studied by applying simple and multiple linear regressions. A set of functions that return an estimate of the cost as a function of these predictor variables was obtained. The model built with the functions obtained provides the materials and operations cost estimation. The results indicated that 75% of the tests performed show an estimation error of less than 2% in the total cost of a product. Incorporating this model in a tool with the purpose of cost estimation brings the ability to predict prices faster, improving the internal process of obtaining costing and enhancing the analytical capacity of the team in the relentless pursuit of cost minimization and value creation. © 2024, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

2023

A Review of Use Cases of Gamification in Mobility Systems and Services

Autores
Barreto, L; Amaral, A; Pereira, T; Paiva, S;

Publicação
SMART ENERGY FOR SMART TRANSPORT, CSUM2022

Abstract
Nowadays, Mobility, in all its dimensions (transport mobility, sustainable mobility, active mobility, and Mobility as a Service (MaaS)), is an essential dimension in sustainable development goals, allowing to increase in the quality of life, the health, the social inclusion and to reduce climate action in any society. To increase the citizens' awareness and promote a true behavioral change, the citizens need to feel part of the process. Gamification has proved to be effective in raising citizens' awareness, encouraging their participation, and promoting a gradual but profound behavior change in various areas such as participatory governance, tourism, culture, education, etc. Gamification can also propel a Smart Living Society 5.0 among the younger groups of the society, especially in the context of academic communities that are more knowledgeable and eager to foster a healthier, more sustainable, and more inclusive society. Smart Living Society 5.0 is an activity in the scope of the TECH - Tecnologia, Ambiente, Criatividade e Saude - a project of NORTE 2020, focusing on creating an Academic MaaS (AMaaS). At this stage, it is essential to know about gamification use cases related to new mobility solutions and practices. The paper presents successful cases of mobility systems and services that consider gamification to promote and incentivize their use concerning active mobility and sustainable mobility; it discusses the potential of gamified systems to achieve a gamification proposal approach to implement in the AMaaS under development.

2023

Project Management Maturity in Renovation and Remodelling Construction Firms

Autores
Machado, F; Duarte, N; Amaral, A;

Publicação
BUILDINGS

Abstract
Project Management Maturity Models (PMMM) are considered practical tools to deal with poor Project Management (PM) performance, an issue that concerns academics and practitioners. However, the models that exist are something close to one size fits all. This means that those models might not be suitable for activity sectors with specific requirements, such as construction, in particular, the renovation and remodelling construction firms. The present research proposes a PMMM to assess the PM capabilities of Portuguese renovation and remodelling Project-Based Firms (PBF). To achieve this goal, the authors developed documental research, followed by exploratory research through qualitative analysis. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews and performed a content analysis of the fully transcribed interviews. Compared with the literature review's findings, qualitative analysis results made it possible to find closure on previous research that indicated two models to have the best fit for an assessment project on construction PBFs: the OPM3 from the PMI and the MMGP-Prado. Based on those findings, the latter has the best fit for an assessment project on construction PBF. However, the model needs adjustments to fit the Portuguese context of renovation and remodelling organisations. This article presents a new PMMM for Portuguese renovation and remodelling construction firms based on obtained results. Furthermore, regarding construction PM, this article is among the few that studied PMMM on renovation and remodelling construction companies. Unlike large construction companies, these are small organisations that academics do not target for research.

2023

Sustainable Urban Last-Mile Logistics: A Systematic Literature Review

Autores
Silva, V; Amaral, A; Fontes, T;

Publicação
SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract
Globalisation, urbanisation and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has been raising the demand for logistic activities. This change is affecting the entire supply chain, especially the last-mile step. This step is considered the most expensive and ineffective part of the supply chain and a source of negative economic, environmental and social externalities. This article aims to characterise the sustainable urban last-mile logistics research field through a systematic literature review (N = 102). This wide and holistic review was organised into six thematic clusters that identified the main concepts addressed in the different areas of the last-mile research and the existence of 14 solutions, grouped into three types (vehicular, operational, and organisational solutions). The major findings are that there are no ideal last-mile solutions as their limitations should be further explored by considering the so-called triple bottom line of sustainability; the integration and combination of multiple last-mile alternative concepts; or by establishing collaboration schemes that minimise the stakeholders' conflicting interests.

2023

Visually Impaired People Positioning Assistance System Using Artificial Intelligence

Autores
Lima, R; Barreto, L; Amaral, A; Paiva, S;

Publicação
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL

Abstract
Blindness and visual impairment are commonly associated with social and functional limitations, almost 45 million people in the world have blindness, and 135 million have any visual impairment. This condition has a significant impact on the quality of life and brings many challenges to the individual, one of which is the navigation and positioning tasks. Although there are already apps capable of helping visually impaired people (VIP) for mobility purposes, most of them focus on detecting obstacles and, therefore, on avoiding dangerous situations. However, mobility of VIP involves many more tasks, such as knowing their exact position and staying informed along an entire route. For this purpose, a standalone and customizable solution is proposed that uses traditional visual recognition of landmarks to process the surroundings of the current location of the visually impaired person using a smartphone and informing about the nearby places assuring the user a sense of the site. For feature detection, it used the oriented features from accelerated segment test (FAST) and rotated binary robust-independent elementary feature (BRIEF) (ORB) algorithm, and for feature matching, it used the brute-force method with the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm. Results show that the proposed solution can analyze pictures in fractions of a second with satisfactory accuracy.