1,720,966 research outputs found
A new Lean tool for efficiency evaluation in SMED projects
The ability of companies to rapidly conduct a changeover from one product to another as part of a production process is a fundamental step towards a more flexible production system that can deal with an increasingly dynamic and competitive market. Single-Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) is the best-known lean tool that aims to reduce time consumption in the changeover process. This paper presents a new Lean tool called Set-up Saving Deployment (SSD), which improves set-up efficiency by classifying, analyzing, and removing set-up losses within a changeover process, and which supports decision-making for SMED implementation. SSD uses three matrices, constructed sequentially from the first (L-Matrix) to the last (ECE-Matrix), in order to assess the possible time savings that can be achieved by eliminating losses and, in addition, to forecast possible improvements resulting from implementing a SMED project. SSD also provides a new basket of tailored set-up efficiency indicators that allow the analysis team to correctly assess set-up efficiency, and compare the 'as is' condition with the subsequent 'to be' condition from an operational perspective. The effectiveness of SSD in addressing set-up losses and predicting time savings is illustrated using an industrial case study of a resin doming machine. Thanks to its structured step-by-step procedure, SSD significantly improves the efficiency of the changeover process
A new set of Lean indicators to assess Greenhouse Gas emissions related to industrial losses
Purpose – This paper presents a new and well-structured framework that aims to assess the current environmental impact from a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions perspective. This tool includes a new set of Lean Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which translates the well-known logic of Overall Equipment Effectiveness in the field of GHG emissions, that can progressively detect industrial losses that cause GHG emissions and support decision-making for implementing improvements.
Design/methodology/approach – The new metrics are presented with reference to two different perspectives: (1) to highlight the deviation of the current value of emissions from the target; (2) to adopt a diagnostic orientation not only to provide an assessment of current performance but also to search for the main
causes of inefficiencies and to direct improvement implementations.
Findings – The proposed framework was applied to a major company operating in the plywood production sector. It identified emission-related losses at each stage of the production process, providing an overall performance evaluation of 53.1%. The industrial application shows how the indicators work in practice, and the framework as a whole, to assess GHG emissions related to industrial losses and to proper address improvement actions.
Originality/value – This paper scrutinizes a new set of Lean KPIs to assess the industrial losses causing GHG emissions and identifies some significant drawbacks. Then it proposes a new structure of losses and KPIs that not only quantify efficiency but also allow to identify viable countermeasures
Quick Changeover Design: a new Lean methodology to support the design of machines in terms of rapid changeover capability
Purpose - This paper presents Quick Changeover Design (QCD), which is a structured methodological approach for Original Equipment Manufacturers, to drive and support the design of machines in terms of rapid changeover capability.
Design/methodology/approach - To improve the performance in terms of set up time, QCD addresses machine design from a Single-minute digit exchange of die. Although conceived to aid the design of completely new machines, it can be adapted to support for simple design upgrades on pre-existing machines. The QCD is structured in three consecutive steps, each supported by specific tools and analysis forms to facilitate and better structure the designers’ activities.
Findings - QCD helps equipment manufacturers to understand the current and future needs of their customers to: (i) anticipate the requirements for new and different set-up process; (ii) prioritize the possible technical solutions; (iii) build machines and equipment that are easy and fast to set-up under variable contexts. When applied to a production system consisting of machines subject to frequent or time-consuming set-up processes, QCD enhances both responsiveness to external market demands and internal control of factory operations.
Originality - The QCD approach is a support system for the development of completely new machines and is also particularly effective in upgrading existing ones. Its practical application is demonstrated using a case study concerning a vertical spindle machine
A new lean tool to enhance internal logistics in Engineer and Design-to-Order industrial environment - plan for every order
The paper presents a new Lean Logistics tool specifically designed for Engineer and Design-To-Order (ETO and DTO) industrial environments. The new tool, namely Plan For Every Order (PFEO), conceptually derives from the well-known Plan For Every Part used in the automotive serial production context. PFEO is proposed as a tool for industrialization, focusing on the design and logistics optimization of internal material flows at ETO and DTO plants. In the paper, the principles, and concepts behind PFEO are presented and developed. The tool collects information on both suppliers and materials, improving both the management of materials and spaces and communication between the company and suppliers. The operability of the tool is proven in a real business case involving an shipyard. The PFEO has provided a solid database for the development of auxiliary monitoring and visualization tools, the application of which increases order in the warehouse and assembly areas and reduces costs and errors
A new lean tool for design management: design cost deployment
The design process wields substantial influence across various dimensions in product's life cycle, encompassing functionality, manufacturability, assembly, safety and numerous other facets. Consequently, it represents a significant contributor to the product's overall cost. Enhancing the design process translates into accessing diverse opportunities within an ever-competitive market landscape. This paper introduces a novel lean framework explicitly that pinpoints and eradicates losses occurring during the design phases using an Overall Design Effectiveness (ODE) metric that assesses the performance of a company's technical department. Our Design Cost Deployment (DCD) lean toolkit then identifies, analyses and eliminates design-related losses. The DCD implementation involves five core steps, each necessitating a purpose-built matrix for loss detection, cause-effect relationship investigation, cost quantification related to losses and guidance for decision-making in the context of improvements. This framework was tested in a real-world industrial scenario, involving a mechanical manufacturing company and was both to use straightforward and effective in its results
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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