1,720,966 research outputs found
Total Cost of Ownership of melting furnaces: application of a prototypal model to aluminum die casting producers
No full textAfter reviewing current literature on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) methodology and its application to manufacturing contexts, we propose an application of this methodology to secondary aluminum melting furnaces. A prototypal calculation model is created and tested through three case studies of aluminum die casting companies. We illustrate the model structure and input data used to calculate the studied furnaces TCO. At last, results of the model test are presented and possible developments of the prototypal model are briefly discussed
Diffusione e risultati dei sistemi informativi gestionali nelle filiere dei metalli
No full textI sistemi informativi gestionali sono gli strumenti basati sulle tecnologie dell’informazione e della comunicazione (ICT), che raccolgono, catalogano, memorizzano e rendono accessibili le informazioni in azienda. Secondo i più autorevoli studi, questi sistemi favoriscono la riduzione dei costi interni attraverso l’automazione delle attività e migliorano l’efficacia e la consapevolezza del governo dell’impresa stessa, con impatto in primis sui suoi risultati sul mercato.
Ma quanto e come in realtà questi sistemi sono diffusi ed utilizzati nelle imprese italiane, in particolare nelle filiere dei metalli? Frequentemente si riscontrano differenze rilevanti tra strumenti, metodologie gestionali e tecnologie ICT attualmente disponibili e ciò che in realtà è effettivamente realizzato con profitto in azienda. Alla luce di questi elementi, l’obiettivo della presente ricerca, svoltasi tra Giugno 2009 e Giugno 2010 su un campione di imprese del settore dei metalli, è misurare il grado di diffusione delle metodologie e degli strumenti informativi a supporto dei processi gestionali.
Vengono in questa sede presentatati alcuni risultati della ricerca empirica, che misurano e consentono di porre in reciproca relazione la fiducia accordata, la soddisfazione e il conseguente investimento in tecnologie ICT a supporto dei processi gestionali dell’azienda. Viene inoltre misurato il grado di diffusione delle tecnologie ICT all’interno delle aziende intervistate. I risultati più interessanti della ricerca indicano che i rispondenti attribuiscono un buon livello di fiducia all’ICT, suffragata peraltro da risultati ritenuti soddisfacenti. A fronte di ciò, la propensione all’investimento è tuttavia significativamente inferiore alle aspettative di beneficio dichiarate. Un altro importante risultato è la misura dei margini di miglioramento disponibili, stanti le attuali tecnologie informatico-gestionali implementate nelle filiere dei metalli: le interessanti opportunità ancora sfruttabili, indipendentemente dalla dimensione dell’azienda, dovranno essere poste al centro dell’attenzione imprenditoriale nell’immediato futuro
Integrated production-inventory problem in supply chains: generalization of the ‘consignment stock’ case
No full textImplementing advanced scheduling techniques in industrial environments: evidences and outcomes
No full textImproving performance in a shop floor scheduling: a SME case
No full textIn the last 30 years the technology evolution has grown firms’ interests in increasing their performance through scheduling systems, requiring at the same time more automation and flexibility. This need of robust methodologies for shop floor planning, being possible by actual powerful information systems and high–performance hardware devices, is relevant also for small firms operating in high competition and high turnover market, that should solve their own production planning problem profitably, exploiting the nowadays available theoretical models. The main objective of this work is to develop and test an on-line computer tool designed to support managerial decisions in optimizing the shop floor schedule in an Italian manufacturing SME, encompassing a group of single machines environment. The selection of a set of relevant performance indicators is done and a data collection activity is carried out in order to depict the as-is scenario; then, static calculations estimate improvement expectations for adopting the proposed approach (to-be scenario), which is twofold: the first part comprehends heuristic dispatching rules and the second one adds a meta–heuristic G.RA.S.P. (Greedy RAndomised Search Procedure). All these procedures aim at minimizing a composed objective function, whose parameters are to be tuned by the decision maker, modelling different relevance of its components (sub- objectives). For supporting the selection of the production sequence of each machine and to build a comfortable decision environment, a simulation software with a user friendly graphic interface is implemented
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
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