Methods of representing the structure of complex industrial products on computer files, to facilitate planning, costing and related management tasks : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Manufacturing and Industrial Technology at Massey University

When the original concepts for the computerisation of product structures were developed in the late 1960's the available computer power was very limited. A modularisation technique was developed to address the situation in which a number of similar products were being manufactured. This technique tried to rationalise these products into family groups. Each member of the family differed from the others due to the possession of different features or options. However there was also a high degree of commonality to give the product membership of the family. Modularisation involved the identification of the options and features providing the variability. Those parts remaining tended to be common to all members of the family and became known as the common parts. Separate Bills of Material (BOMs) were set up for each of the identified options or features. Another BOM was set up for the common parts. The simple combination of the required options and/or features BOMs with the common parts BOM specified a product. Computer storage requirements and redundancy were reduced to a minimum. The Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) system could manipulate these option and feature BOMs to over plan product variability without over planning the parts common to all members. The modularisation philosophy had wide acceptance and is the foundation of MRP training. Modularisation, developed for MRP, is generally parts orientated. An unfortunate side effect tends to be the loss of product structure information. Most commercial software would list 6 resistors, Part No. 123, in the common parts BOM without concern as to where the resistors are fitted. This loss of product structure information can hide the fact that two products using these 6 resistors 'in common' are in fact different as they do not use the resistors in the same 6 places. Additional information must be consulted to enable the correct assembly of the 'common' portion of these products. The electronics industry is especially affected by this situation. This industry has changed considerably since the late 1960's. Product variability can be very high. Changes and enhancements are a constant factor in products having a relatively short life span. The modularisation technique does not have a good mechanism for the situation where an option itself has options or features. This situation can exist down a number of layers of the family tree structure of an electronics product. Maintenance of these BOMs is difficult. Where there are options within options the designers and production staff need to know the inter-relationship of parts between options to ensure accuracy, compatibility and plan assembly functions. The advent of computerised spreadsheets has made the maintenance of this type of product structure information easier. This matrix is another separate document which must be maintained and cross checked. It will inevitably differ from the BOMs periodically. This thesis develops a product structure Relational BOM based on the matrix for the family of products. The processing power of the 1990's computer is fully utilised to derive the common parts for any or all of the selected products of the family. All product structure information is retained and the inter-relationship of parts is highly visible. The physical maintenance of the BOMs is simple. The BOM serves all purposes without the need for supplementary information. It is fully integrated into the Sales Order Entry , MRP, Costing, Engineering Design and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) systems. This technique has been proven by being the only system used in one Electronics Design and Manufacturing organisation for over 1 year without any major problems. As described in Section 1.6 user satisfaction has been high. The response of the users to the suggestion 'lets buy an "off the shelf" package' is very negative, as it would not incorporate this BOM system. Users have expressed the opinion that EXICOM could not continue, with present staffing levels, using the traditional BOM structure

Life Cycle Costs for Alaska Bridges

INE/AUTC 15.0

Keeping Research Data Safe 2: Final Report

The first Keeping Research Data Safe study funded by JISC made a major contribution to understanding of long-term preservation costs for research data by developing a cost model and indentifying cost variables for preserving research data in UK universities (Beagrie et al, 2008). However it was completed over a very constrained timescale of four months with little opportunity to follow up other major issues or sources of preservation cost information it identified. It noted that digital preservation costs are notoriously difficult to address in part because of the absence of good case studies and longitudinal information for digital preservation costs or cost variables. In January 2009 JISC issued an ITT for a study on the identification of long-lived digital datasets for the purposes of cost analysis. The aim of this work was to provide a larger body of material and evidence against which existing and future data preservation cost modelling exercises could be tested and validated. The proposal for the KRDS2 study was submitted in response by a consortium consisting of 4 partners involved in the original Keeping Research Data Safe study (Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, Charles Beagrie Ltd, and OCLC Research) and 4 new partners with significant data collections and interests in preservation costs (Archaeology Data Service, University of London Computer Centre, University of Oxford, and the UK Data Archive). A range of supplementary materials in support of this main report have been made available on the KRDS2 project website at http://www.beagrie.com/jisc.php. That website will be maintained and continuously updated with future work as a resource for KRDS users

Economic evaluation of LIFE methodology

Background: The LIFE project (Lifecycle Information For E-Literature) was carried out during 2004-2006 by a consortium consisting of The British Library and University College London Library Services . The project was joint venture funded by JISC under the programme area Institutional Management Support and Collaboration. The project has received favourable feedback, for instance during a workshop organised at the end of it, and JISC has agreed to fund a second phase during 2007-2008. The consortium has been strengthened by three associate partners (SHERPA-LEAP Consortium, SHERPA-DP and the Medical Research Council). In addition some funds were reserved for the use of an outside economic consultant for an evaluation of the life-cycle models that emerged as the key results from the first phase. The LIFE-2 project consists of five work packages, and this report is part of the first of these. The objective of WP 1 is formulated in the LIFE 2 Project proposal as follows: Validation of the economic modelling and methodology for the Lifecycle and Generic Preservation formulae developed in Phase 1 of the LIFE project, with technical and presentational development of the models. Cloudlake Consulting Oy has been commissioned by the consortium to carry out this validation. The report has been written by Bo-Christer Björk. He is professor of Information Systems Science at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki, Finland. He has been conducting research concerning the scientific publishing process since 2000 and has published several peer reviewed journal articles as well as conference papers on the subject. He is often an invited speaker at international workshops in this area

Laparoscopic versus open colorectal resection for cancer and polyps: A cost-effectiveness study

Methods: Participants were recruited in 2006-2007 in a district general hospital in the south of England; those with a diagnosis of cancer or polyps were included in the analysis. Quality of life data were collected using EQ-5D, on alternate days after surgery for 4 weeks. Costs per patient, from a National Health Service perspective (in British pounds, 2006) comprised the sum of operative, hospital, and community costs. Missing data were filled using multiple imputation methods. The difference in mean quality adjusted life years and costs between surgery groups were estimated simultaneously using a multivariate regression model applied to 20 imputed datasets. The probability that laparoscopic surgery is cost-effective compared to open surgery for a given societal willingness-to-pay threshold is illustrated using a cost-effectiveness acceptability curve