151,844 research outputs found
Cell design, management and continuous improvement
A cellular manufacturing system is a shop floor that has been organised into groups of dissimilar machines producing groups of similar parts. Each group of machines is called a cell and each group of parts is called a part family. The main advantage of a cellular manufacturing system is low material handling, since ideally, a part need only travel to the cell it belongs to in order to be manufactured. If a cell can manufacture its part family without any member of that part family having to travel to another cell, then that cell is said to be independent. In reality, cells are rarely independent and this causes many complications when trying to design a cellular manufacturing system. To address these complications, a strategy for cell design, management and continuous improvement was developed. This comprises three stages: (i) Determine cell configurations. (ii) Position cells and the workstations within them. (iii) Carry out Capability Analysis to identify targets for continuous improvement. Black Box Clustering is used to determine cell configurations by clustering a workstation-part matrix representation of routings. The Cellect layout tools identify the best position for each cell and the relative positions of the workstations within them based on material handling costs. This data combined with user interaction can be used to identify the precise locations of individual workstations. Capability Analysis is a methodology developed to assess groups of performance measures that should b
The challenges for sustainable skills development in the UK automotive supply sector: policy and implementation
Original paper can be found at: http://www.gerpisa.univ-evry.fr/rencontre/16.rencontre/GERPISAJune2008/home.htmlThe European Automotive industry is a key strategic player in the European Union with an estimated 10 million workers. The majority of these work in the supply chain (CLEPA 2005). As a major employer, the sector must work to maintain its competitive edge if it is to keep that workforce engaged.Final Accepted Versio
Recommended from our members
Enabling community-based metrology for wood-degrading fungi
Background: Lignocellulosic biomass could support a greatly-expanded bioeconomy. Current strategies for using biomass typically rely on single-cell organisms and extensive ancillary equipment to produce precursors for downstream manufacturing processes. Alternative forms of bioproduction based on solid-state fermentation and wood-degrading fungi could enable more direct means of manufacture. However, basic methods for cultivating wood-degrading fungi are often ad hoc and not readily reproducible. Here, we developed standard reference strains, substrates, measurements, and methods sufficient to begin to enable reliable reuse of mycological materials and products in simple laboratory settings.
Results: We show that a widely-available and globally-regularized consumer product (Pringles™) can support the growth of wood-degrading fungi, and that growth on Pringles™-broth can be correlated with growth on media made from a fully-traceable and compositionally characterized substrate (National Institute of Standards and Technology Reference Material 8492 Eastern Cottonwood Whole Biomass Feedstock). We also establish a Relative Extension Unit (REU) framework that is designed to reduce variation in quantification of radial growth measurements. So enabled, we demonstrate that five laboratories were able to compare measurements of wood-fungus performance via a simple radial extension growth rate assay, and that our REU-based approach reduced variation in reported measurements by up to ~ 75%.
Conclusions: Reliable reuse of materials, measures, and methods is necessary to enable distributed bioproduction processes that can be adopted at all scales, from local to industrial. Our community-based measurement methods incentivize practitioners to coordinate the reuse of standard materials, methods, strains, and to share information supporting work with wood-degrading fungi
- …