Minimizing makespan of multimachine production system in flow shop environment by means of mixed integer programming model

To face the challenges of industrial globalization and sustain in the competitive market, the manufacturers have to gratify the customer demand by launching the products on time having variable design and volume at low price. In this regards, the necessity of adopting the epitome of flexible mass production flow shop structure along with the appropriate production planning tools and techniques like scheduling knows no bound. As a consequence, numerous approaches have already proposed for scheduling the production flow shop. However, before the adoption of any of these conventional approaches it is an utmost need for the manufacturer to realize its consequences and the appropriateness. Therefore, in this endeavour, we anticipated mixed integer linear-programming model for machine scheduling in flow shop environment based on multi-machine and multi-product scenario. Real data from industry has been collected by conducting several site visits at a local production system. The model then was analysed using What’s Best Excel Solver. The result shown by adopting the appropriate sequence, it is possible to achieve the minimum completion time compared to other possible sequence combination of products. By minimizing the makespan, the idle times of some of the machine will be reduced meanwhile the utilization of the machine will be maximized consequently

An integrated approach for facilities planning by ELECTRE method

Facility planning is concerned with the design, layout, and accommodation of people, machines and activities of a system. Most of the researchers try to investigate the production area layout and the related facilities. However, few of them try to investigate the relationship between the production space and its relationship with service departments. The aim of this research to is to integrate different approaches in order to evaluate, analyse and select the best facilities planning method that able to explain the relationship between the production area and other supporting departments and its effect on human efforts. To achieve the objective of this research two different approaches have been integrated: Apple’s layout procedure as one of the effective tools in planning factories, ELECTRE method as one of the Multi Criteria Decision Making methods (MCDM) to minimize the risk of getting poor facilities planning. Dalia industries have been selected as a case study to implement our integration the factory have been divided two main different area: the whole facility (layout A), and the manufacturing area (layout B). This article will be concerned with the manufacturing area layout (Layout B). After analyzing the data gathered, the manufacturing area was divided into 10 activities. There are five factors that the alternative were compared upon which are:Inter department satisfactory level, total distance traveled for workers, total distance traveled for the product, total time traveled for the workers, and total time traveled for the product.Three different layout alternatives have been developed in addition to the original layouts. Apple’s layout procedure was used to study and evaluate the different alternatives layouts, the study and evaluation of the layouts was done by calculating scores for each of the factors. After obtaining the scores from evaluating the layouts, ELECTRE method was used to compare the proposed alternatives with each other and with the existing layout; ELECTRE compares the alternatives based on their concordance and discordance indices. The alternatives were ranked from best to worst where regarding to the layouts concerned with the manufacturing area B.4 is the best alternative

A virtual screening approach for identifying plants with anti H5N1 neuraminidase activity

Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic and occasional drug-resistant influenza strains have highlighted the need to develop novel anti-influenza therapeutics. Here, we report computational and experimental efforts to identify influenza neuraminidase inhibitors from among the 3000 natural compounds in the Malaysian-Plants Natural-Product (NADI) database. These 3000 compounds were first docked into the neuraminidase active site. The five plants with the largest number of top predicted ligands were selected for experimental evaluation. Twelve specific compounds isolated from these five plants were shown to inhibit neuraminidase, including two compounds with IC50 values less than 92 μM. Furthermore, four of the 12 isolated compounds had also been identified in the top 100 compounds from the virtual screen. Together, these results suggest an effective new approach for identifying bioactive plant species that will further the identification of new pharmacologically active compounds from diverse natural-product resources

Productivity improvement using discrete events simulation

The increasing in complexity of the manufacturing systems has increased the cost of investment in many industries. Furthermore, the theoretical feasibility studies are not enough to take the decision in investing for that particular area. Therefore, the development of the new advanced software is protecting the manufacturer from investing money in production lines that may not be sufficient and effective with their requirement in terms of machine utilization and productivity issue. By conducting a simulation, using accurate model will reduce and eliminate the risk associated with their new investment. The aim of this research is to prove and highlight the importance of simulation in decision-making process. Delmia quest software was used as a simulation program to run a simulation for the production line. A simulation was first done for the existing production line and show that the estimated production rate is 261 units/day. The results have been analysed based on utilization percentage and idle time. Two different scenarios have been proposed based on different objectives. The first scenario is by focusing on low utilization machines and their idle time, this was resulted in minimizing the number of machines used by three with the addition of the works who maintain them without having an effect on the production rate. The second scenario is to increase the production rate by upgrading the curing machine which lead to the increase in the daily productivity by 7% from 261 units to 281unit

A Virtual Screening Approach For Identifying Plants with Anti H5N1 Neuraminidase Activity

Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic and occasional drug-resistant influenza strains have highlighted the need to develop novel anti-influenza therapeutics. Here, we report computational and experimental efforts to identify influenza neuraminidase inhibitors from among the 3000 natural compounds in the Malaysian-Plants Natural-Product (NADI) database. These 3000 compounds were first docked into the neuraminidase active site. The five plants with the largest number of top predicted ligands were selected for experimental evaluation. Twelve specific compounds isolated from these five plants were shown to inhibit neuraminidase, including two compounds with IC₅₀ values less than 92 μM. Furthermore, four of the 12 isolated compounds had also been identified in the top 100 compounds from the virtual screen. Together, these results suggest an effective new approach for identifying bioactive plant species that will further the identification of new pharmacologically active compounds from diverse natural-product resources

Abstracts of the International Halal Science Conference 2023

This book presents the extended abstracts of the selected contributions to the International Halal Science Conference, held on 22-23 August 2023 by the International Institute for Halal Research and Training (INHART), IIUM, Malaysia in collaboration with Halalan Thayyiban Research Centre, University Islam Sultan Sharif (UNISSA), Brunei Darussalam. With the increasing global interest in halal products and services, this conference is timely. Conference Title:  International Halal Science ConferenceConference Acronym: IHASC23Conference Theme: Halal Industry Sustainability Through ScienceConference Date: 22-23 August 2023Conference Venue: International Islamic University (IIUM), MalaysiaConference Organizer: International Institute for Halal Research and Training (INHART), International Islamic University (IIUM), Malaysi