Feasibility study of the materials handling and development of a sustainable conveying system in plastics recycling and manufacture

Abstract: The appropriate handling of materials in manufacturing is essential for the realization of reductions in direct and indirect costs. This research was carried out at a plastic manufacturing company in Zimbabwe where polymer pellets are used to produce plastic packaging. An in-depth work study was carried out at the plant followed by the feasibility, review and analysis of available and affordable conveying systems. A semi-automated pneumatic conveyor system comprising of a prime mover, feeder, and mixer was designed to replace the manual handling of materials. The analysis and eventual development of the optimal conveying system assisted the company in not only freeing up space for the uninterrupted movement of materials, but also improvements in safety and reduction in transportation and operational costs for the sustainable recycling and manufacture of plastic packaging. The research also contributed to the company’s product quality and variability

Automated system of freight traffic optimisation in the interaction of various modes of transport

Advances in information technology have contributed to increased transport efficiency. The use of the latest information technologies allows automating all the information technology activities of transport enterprises that take part in the processes of organising freight traffic. Automation of transport logistics provides increased efficiency and optimisation of transportation. Due to the introduction of automated routing, accounting and planning systems at transport enterprises, transport logistics is reaching a new level. The purpose of the study is to develop an automated control system for the operation of the production and transport complex, based on the use of the latest information technology – Embarcadero RAD Studio XE10 visual programming system. It will help to optimise the transportation of mineral construction materials using the road, railway, and water modes of transport, the change of which occurs at the goods transshipment points. To solve this problem, a mathematical economic model and an automated control system for the operation of the production and transport complex have been developed. The proposed method would take into account the technical and technological capabilities of land and water modes of transport and the capacity of transshipment points, at which the cost of transporting goods will be minimal. Using the software package, the base for the transportation of mineral construction materials was calculated. The obtained initial transportation plan for each type of delivery was optimised, taking into account the production capacities of manufacturers and the needs of customers. The results of the optimal distribution of goods between different modes of transport are given (taking into account their production capacities), their change takes place in transshipment points. The results obtained allow optimal use of the technical and technological capabilities of vehicles and handling mechanisms. Based on the mathematical economic model, an automated control system for the operation of the production and transport complex has been developed, it has the form of a software package. The calculation of the initial (reference) freight traffic plan was carried out and the optimisation of the initial plan for these transportations was performed for each of the delivery options. The operability of the developed software package has been confirmed experimentally, which gives reason to offer it for the use in industrial production associated with the movement of sizable freight traffic

Optimization of material transportation system for factory logistic

Material transportation system (MTS) often being used to move materials inside a factory, warehouse, or other facility. The five main types of equipment are industrial trucks, automated guided (AGV) vehicles, rail-guided vehicles, conveyors, and hoist and cranes. This report focused on AGV where the optimization of MTS is further studied. Applying an AGVs in logistic factory may help in improving the efficiency in material flow and distribution among workstation at right time and right place. The main objective of this project is to study transportation requirement in a factory which consist of dynamic factors. The used of dynamic system in modelling gives an advantages in term of flexibility for changes of orders, unexpected machine or equipment failure, production delays, and other decisions then feedback to alter inventories and backlogs. This report present the method to organize and analyze the movement of AGV in warehouse area to obtain the optimum number of AGVs required in the warehouse to fulfill all the task given by simulation software. Anylogic software is being used to build a simulation model and analyzed the system performance. The obtained results was the optimization of MTS for factory logistic which produce effective material handling system and creates the systematic handling system in warehouse. By manipulating number of AGV, system throughput and cycle time being observed. Data obtained from simulation being compared as number of AGV had change. Minitab 17 software are used to create statistical graph in 2D and 3D surface in order to analyze and evaluate the results

A robust digital image watermarking using repetition codes against common attacks

Digital watermarking is hiding the information inside a digital media to protect for such documents against malicious intentions to change such documents or even claim the rights of such documents. Currently the capability of repetition codes on various attacks in not sufficiently studied. In this project, a robust frequency domain watermarking scheme has been implemented using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). The idea of this scheme is to embed an encoded watermark using repetition code (3, 1) inside the cover image pixels based on Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) embedding technique. The proposed methods have undergone several simulation attacks tests in order to check up and compare their robustness against various attacks, like salt and pepper, speckle, compress, Gaussian, image contrast, resizing and cropping attack. The robustness of the watermarking scheme has been calculated using Peak Signal-To-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Squared Error (MSE) and Normalized Correlations (NC). In our experiments, the results show that the robustness of a watermark with repetition codes is much better than without repetition code

Alternative line delivery strategies support a forklift free transition in a high product variety environment

Forklift transport fails when it comes to efficiency. As a result, more and more attention is going to alternative transport systems that automate or further structure the material flow; such as line deliveries by train and conveyor technology. Only substituting the transport system itself is not cost-effective. The resulting improvements are rather low compared to the high investment cost. Therefore, in this paper alternative material flow and line delivery strategies are taken into consideration. Within a high product variety environment a combination of materials kitting and line stocking is proposed. This approach has some important benefits on top of the pure forklift free transition. A basic model is constructed to calculate the kitting area and transport system requirements. A truck assembly company is used as case study. A feasibility study is carried out, to give a rough indication of the cost-effectiveness of the model

Automated processing of whole blood samples for the determination of immunosuppressants by liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry

Background: Liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is an efficient technology for routine determination of immunosuppressants in whole blood; however, time-consuming manual sample preparation remains a significant limitation of this technique. Methods: Using a commercially available robotic pipetting system (Tecan Freedom EVO), we developed an automated sample-preparation protocol for quantification of tacrolimus in whole blood by LC-MS/MS. Barcode reading, sample resuspension, transfer of whole blood aliquots into a deep-well plate, addition of internal standard solution, mixing, and protein precipitation by addition of an organic solvent is performed by the robotic system. After centrifugation of the plate, the deproteinized supernatants are submitted to on-line solid phase extraction, using column switching prior to LC-MS/MS analysis. The only manual actions within the entire process are decapping of the tubes, and transfer of the deep-well plate from the robotic system to a centrifuge and finally to the HPLC autosampler. Whole blood pools were used to assess the reproducibility of the entire analytical system for measuring tacrolimus concentrations. Results: A total coefficient of variation of 1.7% was found for the entire automated analytical process (n=40; mean tacrolimus concentration, 5.3 mu g/L). Close agreement between tacrolimus results obtained after manual and automated sample preparation was observed. Conclusions: The analytical system described here, comprising automated protein precipitation, on-line solid phase extraction and LC-MS/MS analysis, is convenient and precise, and minimizes hands-on time and the risk of mistakes in the quantification of whole blood immunosuppressant concentrations compared to conventional methods

Development of a Computationally Efficient Fabric Model for Optimization of Gripper Trajectories in Automated Composite Draping

An automated prepreg fabric draping system is being developed which consists of an array of actuated grippers. It has the ability to pick up a fabric ply and place it onto a double-curved mold surface. A previous research effort based on a nonlinear Finite Element model showed that the movements of the grippers should be chosen carefully to avoid misplacement and induce of wrinkles in the draped configuration. Thus, the present study seeks to develop a computationally efficient model of the mechanical behavior of a fabric based on 2D catenaries which can be used for optimization of the gripper trajectories. The model includes bending stiffness, large deflections, large ply shear and a simple contact formulation. The model is found to be quick to evaluate and gives very reasonable predictions of the displacement field

Antecedents and outcomes of brand management from the perspective of resource based view (RBV) theory

Brand management requires greater emphasis on internal factors to increase brand performance. A model of antecedents and outcomes of brand management is developed in this study based on the Resource Based View (RBV) Theory. Top management emphasis on brand, corporate supportive resources and market orientation are identified as crucial internal factors or antecedents for success of brand management. Apart from that, the brand management measurement are expanded in this study with the introduction of three new marketing constructs namely marketing capabilities, innovation and brand orientation as new dimensions in brand management which currently comprised of management related constructs. This study also contributes in the brand management of small and medium enterprise (SMEs) literature as previous studies mainly focused on the brand management for multinational companies or large organizations. One important issue of SMEs is the “internal” brand management which is currently under-researched even though it is critical in brand building and management. Therefore, this research aims to highlight the antecedents and outcomes of brand management in Malaysians’ SMEs based on RBV theory. A comprehensive literature review was done and a conceptual model is proposed in this literature review

Space station automation study. Automation requirements derived from space manufacturing concepts. Volume 1: Executive summary

The two manufacturing concepts developed represent innovative, technologically advanced manufacturing schemes. The concepts were selected to facilitate an in depth analysis of manufacturing automation requirements in the form of process mechanization, teleoperation and robotics, and artificial intelligence. While the cost effectiveness of these facilities has not been analyzed as part of this study, both appear entirely feasible for the year 2000 timeframe. The growing demand for high quality gallium arsenide microelectronics may warrant the ventures