Design and Planning of Manufacturing Networks for Mass Customisation and Personalisation: Challenges and Outlook

AbstractManufacturers and service providers are called to design, plan and operate globalized manufacturing networks, addressing to challenges such as ever-decreasing lifecycles and increased product complexity. These factors, caused primarily by mass customisation and demand volatility, generate a number of issues related to the design and planning of manufacturing systems and networks, which are not holistically tackled in industrial and academic practices. The mapping of production performance requirements to process and production planning requires automated closed-loop control systems, which current systems fail to deliver. Technology-based business approaches are an enabler for increased enterprise performance. Towards that end, the issues discussed in this paper focus on challenges in the design and planning of manufacturing networks in a mass customization and personalization landscape. The development of methods and tools for supporting the dynamic configuration and optimal routing of manufacturing networks and facilities under cost, time, complexity and environmental constraints to support product-service personalization are promoted

What influences the speed of prototyping? An empirical investigation of twenty software startups

It is essential for startups to quickly experiment business ideas by building tangible prototypes and collecting user feedback on them. As prototyping is an inevitable part of learning for early stage software startups, how fast startups can learn depends on how fast they can prototype. Despite of the importance, there is a lack of research about prototyping in software startups. In this study, we aimed at understanding what are factors influencing different types of prototyping activities. We conducted a multiple case study on twenty European software startups. The results are two folds, firstly we propose a prototype-centric learning model in early stage software startups. Secondly, we identify factors occur as barriers but also facilitators for prototyping in early stage software startups. The factors are grouped into (1) artifacts, (2) team competence, (3) collaboration, (4) customer and (5) process dimensions. To speed up a startups progress at the early stage, it is important to incorporate the learning objective into a well-defined collaborative approach of prototypingComment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version can be accessed at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_2, XP2017, Cologne, German

A Combined Fuzzy Goal Programming and Big-Bang Big-Crunch Algorithm for Workforce Optimisation with Facility Layout Consideration

Small scale enterprises constitute an important subset of manufacturing economy and the contribution of facility redesign in bridging the performance gaps in small-scale enterprises is necessary for enterprise growth and stability. In this paper, a bi-objective programming-based facility layout design problem is formulated. We minimise workforce costs and maximise efficiency improvement in a layout. We utilised fuzzy goal programming and big-bang big-crunch algorithm in generating a Pareto solution. The model was tested using a small-scale sachet water production enterprise data. Increase in finished goods area was 66.55% while reduction in total annual distance travelled in the facility was 48.22% when the proposed layout was compared with existing one. Reduction in annual cost of labour was 16.2%. The possibility of using work-centres with high number of interrelationship was confirmed using quality function deployment and Hurwicz criterion. The optimal workforce size was found to be 14 workers against the existing workforce strength of 18 workers. The study provides a framework upon which small-scale sachet water production factories can be designed for optimum performance

A cyber-physical system for smart healthcare

Abstract: The increasing number of patients in hospitals is becoming a serious concern in most countries owing to the significantly associated implications for resources such as staff and budget shortages. This problem has prompted researchers to investigate low-cost alternative systems that may assist medical staff with monitoring and caring for patients. In view of the recent widespread availability of cost-effective internet of things (IoT) technologies such as ZigBee, WiFi and sensors integrated into cyber-physical systems, there is the potential for deployment as different topologies in applications such as patient diagnoses and remote patient monitoring...M.Tech. (Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technology

CONCEPTUAL COST MODELING OF INNOVATIVE INDUSTRIAL ESTATES USING SYSML AND CASE-BASED REASONING

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Collaborative Networks, Decision Systems, Web Applications and Services for Supporting Engineering and Production Management

This book focused on fundamental and applied research on collaborative and intelligent networks and decision systems and services for supporting engineering and production management, along with other kinds of problems and services. The development and application of innovative collaborative approaches and systems are of primer importance currently, in Industry 4.0. Special attention is given to flexible and cyber-physical systems, and advanced design, manufacturing and management, based on artificial intelligence approaches and practices, among others, including social systems and services