Forecasting System and Project Monitoring in Industry

Abstract

Competitiveness is a term that is very present in companies across several activity sectors. To keep higher competitive levels, product’s quality and customer service are a must. Indeed, by establishing a contract with a client that encompass a delivery (physical product or software), it is important to comply with the contract. As such, a good forecasting procedure is a facilitator to ensure that the established delivery schedule is executed without delays. With the presented work, the goal is to apply Artificial Intelligence techniques to ensure the best forecasts for the conclusion of a given project. Through it, it is possible to increase the level of trust between company and client. The proposed system, which is under development and is to be applied in a metalworking company, is subdivided in two main stages: (i) forecasting system with Artificial Intelligent models, such as Artificial Neural Networks, to predict production dates, and (ii) project management integration that, using the previous predictions, create a schedule that ensures the correct execution of the project. Indeed, through phase (i), one may estimate the duration of all project’s subtasks and, in (ii) subtasks of all projects are schedule and resources are allocated. Considering the fourth industry revolution which introduced concepts as digitalization through sensors, devices and machines, there are huge amounts of data that needs to be processed. Machine Learning helped in the development of intelligent decision support systems. Based on such ideas the goal is to apply such concepts into a set of companies that do not evolve to this new technological era.