Integrated Environmental Process Planning for the Design & Manufacture of Automotive Components

Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) logic is widely used by manufacturers for the design and manufacture of automotive components. Manufacturers are increasingly finding difficulties to incorporate environmental considerations in the broad range of products that they manufacture. Therefore, there is a need for a systematic method for environmental process planning to evaluate product configurations and their associated environmental impact. The framework and models discussed in this paper can deal with a variety of product characteristics and environmental impacts through a selection of Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) for a final product configuration. The framework and models have been applied in a real-life application and have proven that changes in product design or process selection can reduce the product's environmental impact and increase process efficiency. Hence, manufacturers can use the framework and models during the Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) process to benchmark each product variation that they manufacture in a standardised manner and realise cost saving opportunities

Technology implementation barriers in the Malaysian herbal industry: A case study

Technology is an essential component in all types of organisations and most organisations have reasons to implement new technology. The most fundamental justification for new technology implementation is that the technology must be able to contribute to strong competitive advantages and also increase or create long-term profit. In most small and medium enterprises (SMEs), there are barriers or obstacles in implementing these technologies. This article report a study aimed in investigating barriers faced by the Malaysian herbal industry in implementing technologies in their factory. Most of the local herbal manufacturing firms are categorised as SMEs which are usually considered to be lagged behind larger companies in technology usage. As this was an exploratory research, a case study method was used as it gave in-depth explanation of the main barriers of technology implementation. The results suggested that the main constraint in implementing technologies are lack of technical specialists and financial, aid commitment from top management, low wage rate, and future demand uncertainties

Informatics: the fuel for pharmacometric analysis

The current informal practice of pharmacometrics as a combination art and science makes it hard to appreciate the role that informatics can and should play in the future of the discipline and to comprehend the gaps that exist because of its absence. The development of pharmacometric informatics has important implications for expediting decision making and for improving the reliability of decisions made in model-based development. We argue that well-defined informatics for pharmacometrics can lead to much needed improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness, and reliability of the pharmacometrics process. The purpose of this paper is to provide a description of the pervasive yet often poorly appreciated role of informatics in improving the process of data assembly, a critical task in the delivery of pharmacometric analysis results. First, we provide a brief description of the pharmacometric analysis process. Second, we describe the business processes required to create analysis-ready data sets for the pharmacometrician. Third, we describe selected informatic elements required to support the pharmacometrics and data assembly processes. Finally, we offer specific suggestions for performing a systematic analysis of existing challenges as an approach to defi ning the next generation of pharmacometric informatics