Cordwainers College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 40/96 and 95/99)

Comprises two Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) inspection reports for the periods 1995-96 and 1998-99

Tracking Chart 2006 PVH Corp, China 100015452E

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.FLA_2006_PVH_Corp_TC_China_100015452E.pdf: 7 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Walsall College of Arts and Technology: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 96/97 and 22/01)

Comprises two Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) inspection reports for the periods 1996-97 and 2000-0

Tracking Chart 2006 Nike, Pakistan 360257357E

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.FLA_2006_Nike_TC_Pakistan_360257357E.pdf: 42 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Tracking Chart 2004 Reebok, Thailand 12007461C

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.FLA_2004_Reebok_TC_Thailand_12007461C.pdf: 19 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Development of a mechatronic sorting system for removing contaminants from wool

Automated visual inspection (AVI) systems have been extended to many fields, such as agriculture and the food, plastic and textile industries. Generally, most visual systems only inspect product defects, and then analyze and grade them due to the lack of any sorting function. This main reason rests with the difficulty of using the image data in real time. However, it is increasingly important to either sort good products from bad or grade products into separate groups usingAVI systems. This article describes the development of a mechatronic sorting system and its integration with a vision system for automatically removing contaminants from wool in real time. The integration is implemented by a personal computer, which continuously processes live images under the Windows 2000 operating system. The developed real-time sorting approach is also applicable to many other AVI systems

Survival of Newly Founded Businesses: A Log-Logistic Model Approach

Based on a longitudinal data base we test the "liability of adolescence" hypothesis which states that new firm hazard rates follow an inverted U-shaped pattern. That is, the hazard rate is low for the initial period; the end of adolescence is marked by a hazard maximum, from which then rate declines monotonically. We use a log-logistic model which shows that the "liability of adolescence" argument describes the hazard rates of new establishments for all two and three-digit industries fairly well. Further, the rate shows that the desegregation of industries matters, and considerable differences are found within and across two and three-digit low-, moderate- and high-tech industries. In assessing the effect of market environment conditions on risk we find that risk tends to be elevated in a relatively large number of two-digit low- and high-tech industries in the presence of scale economies, but it is substantially reduced in moderate-tech industries. By contrast, the hazard rate tends to be reduced for quite a large number of three-digit low-, moderate- and high-tech industries in comparison with the two-digit industries, indicating a longer adolescence. The influence of start-up size in reducing the hazard rate is apparently similar between two and three digit low-, moderate- and high-tech industries. The impact of market growth on the risk of failure is not much different for both two and three-digit low-, moderate- and high-tech industries. That is, market growth tends not to reduce the risk exposure. R&D intensity exerts influence interchangeably on the risk of failure confronting new establishments within the two and three-digit low-, moderate- and high-tech industries. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG - (Überleben von Neugründungen: Ein log-logistisches Modell) Basierend auf Längsschnittdaten testen wir die Hypothese der "Liability of Adolescene". Diese besagt, daß die Risikorate einem umgekehrten U-förmigen Verlauf folgt. Das bedeutet, daß die Risikorate in der Anfangsphase niedrig ist; das Ende der "Adolescence" durch ein Maximum der Risikorate bestimmt wird, welche danach monoton abfällt. Das log-logistische Modell stellt die Ergebnisse für alle zwei- und dreistelligen Industrien am besten dar. Ferner zeigen die Ergebnisse, daß das Niveau der Aggregation eine große Rolle spielt und bemerkenswerte Unterschiede zwischen und innerhalb zweistelliger und dreistelliger low-, moderate- und high-tech Industrien zu finden sind. Bei der Einschätzung des Effekts von Charakteristiken der Marktumgebung auf das Risiko finden wir, daß das Risiko dazu tendiert, in einer relativ großen Anzahl von zweistelligen low- und high-tech Industrien erhöht zu werden, wenn Skalenerträge vorliegen, sich jedoch substantiell in moderate-tech Industrien verringert. Im Gegensatz dazu tendiert die Hazard Rate zu einer Verringerung für eine recht große Zahl von dreistelligen low-, moderate- und higt-tech Industrien im Vergleich mit zweistelligen Industrien, was auf eine längere "Adolescence" hindeutet. Der Einfluß der Anfangsgröße auf die Verringerung der Hazard Rate ist offensichtlich ähnlich in zwei- und dreistelligen low-, moderate- und high-tech Industrien. Der Einfluß des Marktwachstums auf das Risiko ist nicht zu unterschiedlich für zwei- und dreistellige Industrien. Das bedeutet, arktwachstum tendiert nicht zu einer Verringerung des Risikos. Die FuE-Intensität übt einen Einfluß auf das Risiko sowohl in zwei- und dreistelligen low-, moderate- und hightech Industrien durch Neugründungen aus.airlines; market structure and pricing; econometric and statistical methods; special topics

A Multi-Level Colour Thresholding Based Segmentation Approach for Improved Identification of the Defective Region in Leather Surfaces

Vision systems are recently adopted for defect detection in leather surface to overcome difficulties of labour intensive, time consuming manual inspection process. Suitable image processing techniques needs to be developed for accurate detection of leather defects. Existing research works have focused for gray scale based image processing techniques which requires conversion of colour images using an averaging method and it lacks sensitivity for detecting the leather defects due to the random and texture surface of the leather.  This work presents a colour processing approach for improved identification of leather defects using a multi-level thresholding function. In this work, the colour leather images are processed in ‘Lab’ colour domain for improving the human perception of discriminating the leather defects.  In the present work, the specific range of values for the colour attributes of different leather defect in colour leather samples are identified using the colour histogram.  MATLAB software routine is developed for identifying defects in specific ranges of colour attributes and the results are presented.  From the results, it is found that proposed provides a simpler approach for identifying the defective regions based on the colour attributes of the surface with improved human perception. The proposed methodology can be implemented in graphical processing units for efficiently detecting several types of defects using specific thresholds for the automated real-time inspection of leather defects

Implementation of lean principles for performance improvement: Use of VSM+WID for waste identification

This article demonstrates the implementation of lean principles for performance improvement in a manufacturing firm. Value stream mapping and waste identification diagrams (VSM+WID) are integrated to assess the level of currently existing waste and the overall current status of the manufacturing flow. The VSM+WID enables an increase in the awareness of relative waste distribution among different processes in the selected case study manufacturing unit. This manuscript demonstrates how to use VSM+WID to understand the current status of the manufacturing flow related challenges such as: overproduction, work-in-process, inefficient use of man-hours (e.g. unbalanced work distribution), etc. It also demonstrates the effectiveness of visualization of the performance gap between the current and future state. The aforementioned type of performance assessment enables effective identification of waste present in a manufacturing flow in order for future improvement initiatives to be taken.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013