Utilizing rapid prototyping 3D printer for fabricating flexographic PDMS printing plate

Recently printed electronic field is significantly growth. Printed electronic is to develop electrical devices by printing method. Conventional printing method that has been studied for this kind of printed electronic such as flexographic, micro contact printing, screen printing, gravure and ink jet. In flexographic and microcontact printing, a printing plate is used to transfer the designed and desired pattern to substrate through conformed contact. Therefore printing plate is play a big role in this area. Printing plate making by photopolymer which used in flexographic have limitation in achieving a micro-scale of pattern size. However, printing plate of microcontact printing have an advantages in producing micro, even nano-scale size by PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane). Hence, rapid prototyping 3D printer was used for developing a PDMS micro-scale printing plate which will be used in reel to reel (R2R) flexographic due to high speed, low cost, mass production of this type of printing process. The flexibility of 3D printer in producing any shape of pattern easily, contributed the success of this study. A nickel plating and glass etching master pattern was used in this study too as master pattern mould since 3D printer has been reached the micro size limitation. The finest multiple solid line array with 1mm width and 2mm gap pattern of printing plate was successfully fabricated by 3D printer master mould due to size limitation of the FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printer nozzle itself. However, the micro-scale multiple solid line array of 100micron and 25micron successfully made by nikel platting and glass etching master mould respectively. Those types of printing plate producing method is valueable since it is easy, fast and low cost, used for micro-flexographic in printed electronic field or biomedical application

Maintenance Strategies to Reduce Downtime Due to Machine Positional Errors

Manufacturing strives to reduce waste and increase Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). When managing machine tool maintenance a manufacturer must apply an appropriate decision technique in order to reveal hidden costs associated with production losses, reduce equipment downtime competently and similarly identify the machines’ performance. Total productive maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance program that involves concepts for maintaining plant and equipment effectively. OEE is a powerful metric of manufacturing performance incorporating measures of the utilisation, yield and efficiency of a given process, machine or manufacturing line. It supports TPM initiatives by accurately tracking progress towards achieving “perfect production.” This paper presents a review of maintenance management methodologies and their application to positional error calibration decision-making. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the contribution of maintenance strategies, in particular TPM, towards improving manufacturing performance, and how they could be applied to reduce downtime due to inaccuracy of the machine. This is to find a balance between predictive calibration, on-machine checking and lost production due to inaccuracy. This work redefines the role of maintenance management techniques and develops a framework to support the process of implementing a predictive calibration program as a prime method to supporting the change of philosophy for machine tool calibration decision making. Keywords—maintenance strategies, down time, OEE, TPM, decision making, predictive calibration

Governance strategies in sustainable campus using Rasch model

In moving towards sustainability, university needs to establish a good governance strategy which practices to transform a positive sustainable culture toward successful green campus. Howe ver, due to constraint of knowledge and commitment regarding sustainability integration has caused weakness in the implementation of green concept in majority of Malaysian universities. This paper is presents one of the five dimensions of a developed hypot hetical integrated sustainable campus model which is university governance. The university governance dimension consists of 5 constructs and 23 items which are strategies for the university to be complied. These strategies were uncovered using questionnair e survey with 35 selected experts who are currently active in sustainable campus activities and researches. Collected data from this survey was analysed using Rasch method in Winstep software to measure items reliability, separation index, items polarity, item fit and item person map. Results from the analysis indicated that 19 strategies were significant to be implemented. Thus, it provides good information for universities to adopt these sustainable campus strategies in making their campus as a role mode l for a sustainable and conducive living environment

Implementing total productive maintenance in Nigerian manufacturing industries

Remarkable improvements have occurred recently in the maintenance management of physical assets and productive systems, so that less wastages of energy and resources occur. The requirement for optimal preventive maintenance using, for instance, justin-time (JIT) and total quality-management (TQM) techniques has given rise to whathas been called the total productive-maintenance (TPM) approach. This study explores the ways in which Nigerian manufacturing industries can implement TPM as a strategy and culture for improving its performance and suggests self-auditing and bench-marking as desirable prerequisites before TPM implementation

Change management and implementation of total productive maintenance: an exploratory study of Malaysian manufacturing companies

This study examines the effects of change management towards the implementation of productivity and quality improvement programs through the concept of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), in manufacturing firms in Malaysia. The factors measured are management commitment, training and education, employee empowerment, team culture and company policies and goals for change management. Autonomous maintenance and planned maintenance factors were used to measure TPM. The findings of the study provide empirical evidence that change management factors significantly enhances the extent of TPM implementatio

Development and implementation of preventive-maintenance practices in Nigerian industries.

A methodology for the development of PM using the modern approaches of FMEA, root-cause analysis, and fault-tree analysis is presented. Applying PM leads to a cost reduction in maintenance and less overall energy expenditure. Implementation of PM is preferable to the present reactive maintenance procedures (still prevalent in Nigeria

Kesedaran terhadap amalan pemakanan seimbang dalam kalangan pelajar Politeknik Merlimau, Melaka: satu tinjauan

Pemakanan yang baik mula mempengaruhi kesihatan tubuh badan sejak daripada kecil lagi. Pemakanan memainkan peranan penting dalam mengekalkan kesihatan dan mencegah penyakit. Oleh itu, kajian ini dilakukan adalah bertujuan untuk meninjau sejauhmanakah kesedaran pelajar politeknik terhadap amalan pemakanan seimbang. Skop yang dikaji dalam kajian ini ialah menentukan tahap pengetahuan pelajar terhadap pemakanan seimbang, meninjau faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi pemilihan pemakanan pelajar, menentukan tahap kesedaran pelajar terhadap amalan pemakanan seimbang serta mengenalpasti hubungan yang signifikan di antara tahap pengetahuan dengan amalan pemakanan seimbang. Reka bentuk kajian yang digunakan penyelidik adalah kajian deskriptif berbentuk tinjauan. Saiz sampel seramai 297 orang responden telah terlibat dalam kajian ini melibatkan Politeknik Merlimau, Melaka dari semua jabatan. Instrumen yang digunakan dalam kajian ini adalah borang soal selidik. Data dalam kajian ini dianalisis dengan menggunakan perisian Statistical Package For Social Science (SPSS) versi 21.0 bagi mendapatkan nilai skor min, kekerapan, sisihan piawai, peratusan (%) serta Ujian Korelasi Pearson kerana data bertaburan normal. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahawa tahap pengetahuan pelajar terhadap pemakanan seimbang masih di peringkat sederhana. Selain itu, melalui kajian ini dapat dibuktikan bahawa harga makanan dan keluarga merupakan faktor utama yang mempengaruhi pemilihan makanan pelajar. Walaupun tahap pengetahuan mereka sederhana, akan tetapi kesedaran mereka terhadap amalan pemakanan seimbang tinggi. Melalui analisis ujian korelasi Pearson mendapati bahawa terdapat hubungan yang signifikan di antara tahap pengetahuan pelajar dengan amalan pemakanan mereka. Walaupun sedemikian, perhubungan yang wujud adalah pada tahap sederhana dan positif. Kata kunci : Pemakanan seimbang, pengetahuan, amalan pemakanan seimbang, kesedaran

Towards an integrated perspective on fleet asset management: engineering and governance considerations

The traditional engineering perspective on asset management concentrates on the operational performance the assets. This perspective aims at managing assets through their life-cycle, from technical specification, to acquisition, operation including maintenance, and disposal. However, the engineering perspective often takes for granted organizational-level factors. For example, a focus on performance at the asset level may lead to ignore performance measures at the business unit level. The governance perspective on asset management usually concentrates on organizational factors, and measures performance in financial terms. In doing so, the governance perspective tends to ignore the engineering considerations required for optimal asset performance. These two perspectives often take each other for granted. However experience demonstrates that an exclusive focus on one or the other may lead to sub-optimal performance. For example, the two perspectives have different time frames: engineering considers the long term asset life-cycle whereas the organizational time frame is based on a yearly financial calendar. Asset fleets provide a relevant and important context to investigate the interaction between engineering and governance views on asset management as fleets have distributed system characteristics. In this project we investigate how engineering and governance perspectives can be reconciled and integrated to enable optimal asset and organizational performance in the context of asset fleets

Vintage-Differentiated Environmental Regulation

Vintage-differentiated regulation (VDR) is a common feature of many environmental and other regulatory policies in the United States. Under VDR, standards for regulated units are fixed in terms of the units’ respective dates of entry, or “vintage,” with later entrants facing more stringent regulation. In the most common application, often referred to as “grandfathering,” units produced prior to a specific date are exempted from new regulation or face less stringent requirements. The vintage-differentiated approach has long appealed to many participants in the policy community, for reasons associated with efficiency, equity, and simple politics. First, it is frequently more cost-effective—in the short-term—to introduce new pollutionabatement technologies at the time that new plants are constructed than to retrofit older facilities with such technologies. Second, it seems more fair to avoid changing the rules of the game in mid-stream, and hence to apply new standards only to new plants. Third, political pressures tend to favor easily-identified existing facilities rather than undefined potential facilities. On the other hand, VDRs can be expected—on the basis of standard investment theory—to retard turnover in the capital stock (of durable plants and equipment), and thereby to reduce the cost-effectiveness of regulation in the long-term, compared with equivalent undifferentiated regulations.1 A further irony is that, when this slower turnover results in delayed adoption of new, cleaner technology, VDR can result in higher levels of pollutant emissions than would occur in the absence of regulation. In this Article, I survey previous applications and synthesize current thinking regarding VDRs in the environmental realm, and develop lessons for public policy and for future research. In Part 2, I describe the ubiquitous nature of VDRs in U.S. regulatory policy, and examine the reasons why VDRs are so common. In Part 3, I establish a theoretical framework for analysis of the cost-effectiveness of alternative types of environmental policy instruments to provide a context for the analysis of VDRs. In Part 4, I focus on the effects of VDRs, and describe a general theory of the impacts of these instruments in terms of their effects on technology adoption, capital turnover, pollution abatement costs, and environmental performance. In Parts 5 and 6, I examine empirical analyses of the impacts of VDRs in two significant sectors: Part 5 focuses on the effects of VDRs in the U.S. auto industry, and Part 6 on the effects of new source review, which is a form of VDR, in power generation and other sectors. In Part 7, I examine implications for policy and research, and recommend avenues for improvements in both.