International Journal of Industrial Engineering: Theory, Applications and Practice
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Improving Decision Making in the Early Phases of Configuration Projects
Get PDFDuring the early phases of configuration projects very important decisions are made which will heavily influence the performance of the company, benefits in different functional areas (production, sales, purchase, product development, service etc), maintenance of the configuration system and quality of the dialogue between the configuration system and the users. Today there exists very sparse tools and procedures which can assist the early phases, i.e. conceptual modeling of the products and prod¬uct assortment. This paper presents a five-phase procedure for conceptual mod¬eling in configuration projects. Each of the five phases is sup¬ported by a set of tools. The main idea of the pro¬cedure is utili¬zation of a so-called Product Family Master Plan, which is a formal description of the product assortment and its variation. The procedure has been tested at one of Baan's (SSA Global) cus¬tomers with very convincing results
Product Modularization Considering Cost and Manufacturability of Modules
Get PDFIt is argued that modular architecture allows us to create large product variety at lower cost, and in a shorter development cycle time. While it has been widely recognized that modular design improves assemblability, the manufacturability of modules themselves have rarely been considered during modularization. This paper presents a formal and integrated framework for product modularization by optimizing manufacturability of modules and costs of modularization during the earlier stages of product development. A fuzzy logic approach is used to handle the vague and imprecise product information available during the concept development phase of product development. The framework also facilitates sensitivity analysis to provide design engineers and managers with deeper insights on tradeoffs among conflicting design objectives. The methodology is validated through a case study on the modularization of an automotive climate control system
Exploring the Use of Intelligent Agents for Team Training
Get PDFTeams within or across organizations are becoming more widely distributed in terms of their geographical location. This can result in expensive training sessions that are difficult to schedule. Therefore, tools used to train distributed team members should be designed so the knowledge, skills, and behavior of others can be learned through the assistance of remote training modules. The use of intelligent agents is becoming more popular because of its ability to simulate work related situations autonomously and flexibly. This work was performed to determine if an intelligent agent-based software tool can be used to effectively train geographically distributed teams. Five types of training were administered and compared to examine team performance, as well as individual knowledge and skills acquired during a simple manufacturing supply chain scenario. Results indicate the agent-based training has a positive training effect and can be used as an effective method of team training
Analysis of Multi-Cell Production Systems Considering Cell Size and Worker Flexibility
Get PDFThis simulation study investigates the performance of a number of multi-cell configurations generated by altering the cell size, worker flexibility and shop type, under a variety of experimental conditions. The experimental factors considered are product mix balance, due date tightness, and setup-to-processing-time ratio. The study is motivated by the challenges faced by an electronic manufacturer to design an efficient and effective multi-cell production system. The results demonstrate that everything else being equal, small cells perform better under low setup times and loose-to-moderate due date tightness levels, while larger cells perform better under high setup times and tight due date environments. Furthermore, the performance of larger cells is more robust with respect to due date tightness factor than that of smaller cells. It is also shown that the presence of some routing flexibility in the shop significantly enhances the performance of the small cells. However, shops with no routing flexibility need to be large to perform effectively, especially when facing constraints such as tight due dates and extreme product mix unbalance
AN IMPROVED HEURISTIC FOR THE TWO-DIMENSIONAL CUTTING STOCK PROBLEM WITH MULTIPLE SIZED STOCK SHEETS
No full textThis paper deals with the problem of cutting multiple sized, rectangular stock sheets into smaller rectangular order pieces to satisfy a given bill of material with minimum trim loss. A new heuristic procedure is devised that finds an effective stock sheet selection sequence, given that the layout procedure used for individual sheets is known. Results for randomly created test problems are compared with those from three previously published procedures. The new heuristic is shown to give a balanced trade-off between trim loss reduction and computational effort, especially as the number of available stock sheet sizes increases
A HYBRID SA ALGORITHM FOR INLAND CONTAINER TRANSPORTATION
No full textInland container transportation refers to container movements among customer’s locations, container terminals, and depots in a local area. In this paper, containers are defined as four types according to the destination (inbound vs. outbound containers) and the container states (full vs. empty containers). Additionally, they can be delivered not only by truck but also by train if the time windows of them can be satisfied. A graph model is designed to represent and analyze the network of the problem. Then, a mathematical model is developed based on such a graph model and a hybrid SA algorithm is proposed to obtain the near-optimal transportation schedule of containers. The performance of the proposed algorithm is investigated by numerical examples
DETERMINATION OF BUFFER STOCK BETWEEN PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES FOR REPAIRABLE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
No full textThis study considers the economic manufacturing quantity model of a repairable system with two production processes in which the manufacturer can evaluate the setup problems between the two during the planning period due to the effects of preventive maintenance. We estimate the expected maintenance cost of component failures with consideration of preventive maintenance intervals for the upstream production process and demand conditions for the downstream assembly system to determine the optimal buffer stock with the minimum expected total cost of the production system. An illustrative example verifies that the inventory holding cost greatly affects the optimal buffer size, followed by the downstream production rate and the reset time. Furthermore, the optimal quantity of the buffer stock and preventive maintenance intervals determined by the proposed approach can assist managers in devising adequate strategies when planning preventive maintenance during a steady production process
RISK MANAGEMENT OF PROCUREMENT PROCESSES IN AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLY CHAIN; BAHMAN MOTOR COMPANY
No full textSupply chain risk management is one of the issues that are considered in the field of supply chain management, and its importance is increasing every day. The automobile industry is one of the vital industries in every country, and the risks of that must be given special attention. The main purpose of this research is to identify, assess, and respond to the procurement risks of the Bahman Motor Company. In the first step, 31 risks were identified and then were prioritized by FMEA and FMEA-TOPSIS methods. The results show that "Lack of timely providing of imported parts," "Failure to timely providing," "Impossibility to provide imported parts," "Failure/Delay in timely clearance of goods" are top risks. In this paper, a Three-Dimensional decision model is proposed to present response strategies to the risks, and the new controls were suggested that helps managers to make better decisions about allocating funds and resources for risks
MODELING TELECOMMUNICATION OUTAGES DUE TO POWER LOSS
No full textThis work involves analyzing reported US telecommunications outages due to power loss over an eight year period (1996- 2003). Data from the reports includes the dateltime of each outage, allowing time series reliability analysis. The arrival process is modeled by two non-homogenous Poisson processes (NHPP): the popular power law process and a piecewise linear process. The study concludes that the number of telecommunication power outages after September II, 2001 (9-11) decreased. In this case, the frequency of outages changed abruptly, strongly inferring a change or breakpoint in fundamental process. The major fmding is that there is strong evidence of reliability growth. However, the growth could not be attributed to a monotonic "learning curve" improvement process. Rather, modeling provides strong evidence that 9-11 was episodic enough of an event to act as the catalyst for improvemen
Fuzzy Topsis Decision Method for Configuration Management
Get PDFMass customization refers to an environment in which reducing quantities and increasing varieties of products are being manufactured. A product configuration is defined as an aggregation of parts whose functions and performance parameters must be defined and controlled to achieve the overall performance of a system or product. Since the product configurations would be varied based on consumer needs, selecting effective product configurations from among several alternatives is a challenge during the mass customization design stage. This study developed a structural model which combines a fuzzy quality function deployment with a fuzzy Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to solve this problem. The configuration alternatives ranked using the proposed method can provide a useful reference for decision makers in implementing configuration management