Innovative Production Machines and Systems Conference - Fit and Sustainable Manufacturing

Welcome

rodondo4 — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 10:59:12 +0100

Dear participants,

I am Taufiq your co-chairman for this session. I would like to extend my warmest welcome to you to this session as part of the 2007 IPROMS virtual conference. I hope you will gain much from this conference and please do participate in the discussions with your comments, not only in this session but also in the other sessions.

Everyone is encourged to join in the conference and the best way to do so is by posting questions to our authors, to do so please don't forget to register (which is free).

If you require help please do not hesitate to contact me at the email address below or the support page

Fit Manufacturing

Richard Barton — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:43:33 +0100

Despite the increasingly challenging demands being placed on companies involved in the manufacturing sector, successful operations, both new and old, are seen to be flourishing where they can take advantage of a gap in the market. This demonstrates that the constantly changing manufacturing economy is still creating opportunities which can be exploited. However, there is currently no structured approach to enable companies to do so. This paper describes a generic structure of elements common to the identification, characterisation and realisation of opportunities for sustainable growth. The paper subsequently uses the elements discussed to contribute to the new Fit Manufacturing paradigm.

Sustainable Manufacturing as Factor of Innovative Production Processes

Jens Koenig — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:48 +0100

Sustainable Manufacturing as Factor of Innovative Production Processes

The challenge of a modern society is to assure a permanent economical impact in terms of goods and services. It attends to rising demands of the market for high quality, reliable and reasonably priced products and short cycle times. Therefore, the entire production process is characterized by ongoing innovations and reorganizations. The aim of modern industrial production processes is to provide products with a higher added value in a shorter time-to-market. This is ensured by technological innovations in all parts of manufacturing. Moreover, the whole life cycle of products is accompanied by customer related service provisions. Commencing with time and cost reducing product design and development, up to the recycling in the end of the product life cycle, the implementation of new production processes increases. The paper presents new developments and applications in case of product design, machining strategies, finish operations and recycling technologies.

A survey into the adoption of Lean in SMEs

yet unknown — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:47 +0100

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), defined as firms employing up to 250 people [1], represent over 99% of Welsh businesses and are both socially and economically vital to Wales [2]. It is therefore extremely important that SMEs continue to remain competitive, profitable and sustainable in business.

The application of lean thinking has made a significant impact both in academia and industry over the last decade [5]. Lean has proven to be a vital tool for successfully achieving growth and sustainability in business. Extended learning (e-learning) experiences on the other hand take advantage of an enriched environment where classroom instruction is supplemented by an interactive component facilitated by technology tools [3]. Adoption of Lean through E-learning (ELean) in this research is being considered as a key driver of economic growth, sustainability and increased productivity within the SME community in Wales.

A Holistic Manufacturing Model for Supplier Development

yet unknown — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:47 +0100

In order for companies to remain competitive in an increasingly complex and demanding global market, they must discover innovative ways in which to manage their production operations effectively and efficiently whilst ensuring that new markets are penetrated and sustainable growth is achieved. Manufacturing strategies such as Lean and Agility allow companies to deliver bottom-line savings in production terms although their effectiveness depends upon the volume and demand profile of their products. The new trend towards mass customisation requires companies to provide personalised products and services at mass production prices. This now places a further burden on companies and therefore a holistic manufacturing framework must be developed in order to ensure that the factory of the future is able to meet this new demand. This paper proposes a Holistic Manufacturing Model (HMM) which integrates the manufacturing efficiencies achieved through Lean and Agility with the need to break into new markets through effective marketing and product innovation strategies to achieve long term economic sustainability.

Technology Implementation in Manufacturing SMEs: A Model for Change

yet unknown — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:47 +0100

In order for UK manufacturing companies to meet the current pressures of a modern manufacturing environment they need to develop leaner, flexible and more responsive manufacturing systems. At the heart of these requirements is the need to introduce advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) into companies in order to improve their efficiency and responsiveness to customer demands. Whilst technology continues to be developed at unprecedented rates, the number of companies implementing such technologies is low. This in turn threatens their long term economic sustainability.

This paper initially identifies the reasons why SMEs fail to adopt new and advanced technologies. It then goes onto propose a coherent strategy for the effective introduction and application of AMT in SMEs before proposing a model for the introduction of new and advanced technologies into these companies. The model is subsequently evaluated through its application in a number of SMEs and compares its performance through assessing the companies who adopted the model against those who decided not to use such a formal approach to Technology Implementation (TI).

ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING AS A MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR MAKING INFORMED STRATEGIC DECISIONS

Mostafa1 — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:46 +0100

As an alternative to the traditional cost-allocation method of accounting, activity-based costing is gaining popularity as a management tool for making informed strategic decisions. This paper illustrates the benefits of activity-based management and presents an example of how activity-based costing concepts were integrated into a model of a composite assembly shop. The model demonstrates how analysing production processes to gain an understanding of resource and activity relationships improves cost driver visibility. Adding the distinction between value-added and non-value-added tasks to th

A Fuzzy Intelligent Agents based approach for modeling agility in integrated supply chains

Benyoucef — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:46 +0100

The ability to build agile supply chains has not developed as rapidly as anticipated, because the development of technology to manage agile integrated supply chains is still under way. Also, due to ill-defined and vague indicators, which exist within agility assessment, many measures are described subjectively by linguistic terms, which are characterized by vagueness and multi-possibility, and the conventional assessment approaches cannot suitably nor effectively handle such dynamic situations. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to model agility and introduce Dynamic Agility Index (DALi) through fuzzy intelligent agents. Generally, it is difficult to emulate human decision making if the recommendations of the agents are provided as crisp, numerical values. The multiple intelligent agents used in this study communicate their recommendation as fuzzy numbers to accommodate ambiguity in the opinion and the data used for modeling agility attributes for integrated supply chains. Moreover, when agents operate based on different criteria pertaining to agility like flexibility, profitability, quality, innovativeness, pro-activity, speed of response, cost, robustness etc for integrated supply chains, the ranking and aggregation of these fuzzy opinions to arrive at a consensus is complex. The proposed fuzzy intelligent agents approach provides a unique and unprecedented attempt to determine consensus in these fuzzy opinions and effectively model dynamic agility.

Fit maintenance engineering for sustainable manufacturing

Dentsoras — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:46 +0100

In the reality of the mass customization paradigm, increased manufacturing competition and technology breakthrough, all manufacturing organizations are willing to preserve their long-term sustainability and to increase their operational efficiency. As product success is increasingly depending on the consumersâ€™ special preferences and the reaction to market needs, the companies adopt fit manufacturing as their main manufacturing strategy. The discrepancy between the installed manufacturing systems and the adopted manufacturing strategy, may, under certain circumstances, affect negatively quality, cost, and delivery measures.

Supply chain intelligence

Nenad — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:17:46 +0100

Supply chains are complex systems with silos of information that is very difficult to integrate and analyze. In order to effectively analyze these disparate systems, we propose the use of Supply Chain Intelligence (SCI). This paper briefly describes challenges, issues, and trends related to supply chain intelligence. It presents SCI architecture and supply chain metamodel for modelling any supply chain network. The basis of the SCI lifecycle and dimensional modelling are described. Finally, SCI analytical solution based on OLAP technologies and web portal that enables companies to combine and