A Modeling & Simulation based approach to support collaboration between SMEs operating in the furniture sector

The research study supports two SMEs, nearby located and operating in the furniture sector, whose goal is to start a collaboration with the intent of finding synergies in terms of costs reduction and development efforts related to the launch of new products into the market. The authors have been asked to support both companies in the design process of two bookcases by identifying their main technical features as well as defining common design guidelines of a new common bookcases production line. To this end, an approach based on the combination of Modeling & Simulation (M&S) tools, multiple design parameters and multiple performance measures is proposed. In particular, a simulation model has been used to assess the effect of different design parameters on several performance measure. The quantitative evaluation of the effects of the multiple design parameters on the multiple performance measures is achieved by using the Design of Experiments (DOE) being validated by means of the analysis of variance (ANOVA)

Original scientific paper

The protolytic equilibria of bromazepam, an ampholyte sparingly soluble in water, in homogeneous and heterogeneous systems were studied in the pH range 0–14 at 25 ºC and at ionic strength of 0.1 mol/dm3 (NaCl). On the basis of 13C-NMR spectra, the protonation site was predicted – in acidic media the pyridine nitrogen of bormazepam is protonated. The acidity constants of bromazepam were determined spectrophotometrically (pKa1 2.83 and pKa2 11.60) and potentiometrically (pKa1 2.99). In the heterogeneous system the following equilibrium constants were determined: Ks0 = �HA � (pKs0 3.44), Ks1 = �H2A + �/�H3O + � (pKs1 0.61), and Ks2 = �A-��H3O + � (pKs2 15.04)