Business implications of manufacturing innovation : the experience of increasing automation in smaller to medium sized companies.

Despite the considerable potential of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) for improving the economic performance of many firms, a growing body of literature highlights many instances where realising this potential has proven to be a more difficult task than initially envisaged. Focussing upon the implementation of new manufacturing technologies in several smaller to medium sized enterprises (SME), the research examines the proposition that many of these problems can be attributed in part to inadequate consideration of the integrated nature of such technologies, where the effects of their implementation are not localised, but are felt throughout a business. The criteria for the economic evaluation of such technologies are seen as needing to reflect this, and the research develops an innovative methodology employing micro-computer based spreadsheets, to demonstrate how a series of financial models can be used to quantify the effects of new investments upon overall company performance. Case studies include: the development of a prototype machine based absorption costing system to assist in the evaluation of CNC machine tool purchases in a press making company; the economics and strategy of introducing a flexible manufacturing system for the production of ballscrews; and analysing the progressive introduction of computer based printing presses in a packaging and general print company. Complementary insights are also provided from discussion with the management of several other companies which have experienced technological change. The research was conducted as a collaborative CASE project in the Interdisciplinary Higher Degrees Scheme and was jointly funded by the SERC and Gaydon Technology Limited and later assisted by PE-Inbucon. The findings of the research shows that the introduction of new manufacturing technologies usually requires a fundamental rethink of the existing practices of a business. In particular, its implementation is seen as ideally needing to take place as part of a longer term business and manufacturing strategy, but that short term commercial pressures and limited resources often mean that firms experience difficulty in realising this. The use of a spreadsheet based methodology is shown to be of considerable assistance in evaluating new investments, and is seen as being the limit of sophistication that a smaller business is willing to employ. Several points for effective modelling practice are also given, together with an outline of the context in which a modelling approach is most applicable

The Impact of Transit Corridors on Residential Property Values

Most of the literature on transit corridors, such as superhighways and tunnels, focuses on the positive externality of transit access (e.g., interstate access, transit station) and fails to isolate the negative externality of the corridor itself. This empirical study examines two situations: one with both access benefits and negatives, and another without the access benefit. The findings reveal that proximity to the transit corridor alone without direct access conveys a negative impact on nearby housing values.

Maintenance Implications for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Remote Locations

Maintenance in the aviation industry has evolved considerably since commercial and general aviation became a modern mode of transportation. ICAO has made maintenance a top priority by directing local National Aviation Authorities, NAA, to have implemented, robust and standardized training and qualifications for all maintenance personnel that work on any safety critical structure or component. There are rules, law and standards that are audited and the aviation industry is, perhaps, the most successful industry in maintaining standards and reliability. With the advent of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAV, the role of maintenance is now needing to be reviewed to determine how and what is needed. This research paper reviews the concepts and importance of maintenance in this new and expanding industry and the complexity of having international standards for engineers to support continuous airworthiness

Twin-Wing Design Options Used for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to Achieve High Altitudes at Low Speeds

The paper addresses the aerodynamic performance of twin‐wing aircraft (biplanes) that are remotely piloted. While twin wing aircraft are acknowledged as to having greater maneuverability than monoplanes, they have inherent disadvantages based on the set position of the upper wing to meet piloting needs which induces significant levels of drag from the struts that link the upper and lower wings together. In this research, the aerodynamics of the wing position in relationship to the lower wing are analyzed with Computational Fluid Mechanics/Dynamics and simulation models. It will show that modern material can eliminate the strut drag and allow for greater lift at lower speeds. This proposed design is capable of achieving much higher altitudes with low speeds to offer advanced applications for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAVs

Jas H. Duke and the Chronicle of Avant-Garde Poetics

The critical study of Australian poetics has often been unable to account for those more difficult limit-cases in neo-avant-garde and contemporary experimental poetry. This article examines the heterogeneous works of Jas H.Duke (1939-1992) as both resolving and opening up further contradictions around questions of "derivation" in antipodal experimental writing. Duke's poetics, performances and writing practices are informed by Dadaism, Expressionism, Suprematism and Concrete Poetry, but also rework these histories; sometimes sarcastically, but always with close attention to their aesthetics. I put a special focus on those works of Duke's that critique notions of Australian nationhood, public policy and cultural assumptions, poems which call for a localised yet transcultural avant-garde poetics. Implicit here is that critical study of Australian poetry must begin to make sense of its languages of invention, and to find ways of reading those poetries that call for a more total emancipation of disjunction

Timing of the first vancomycin maintenance dose in an acute hospital setting - room for improvement?

Introduction Intravenous vancomycin therapy typically starts with a loading dose followed by a maintenance dose 12 to 24 hours later. In the acute hospital setting, this often results in doses being administered in the middle of the night, which is impractical for both patients and staff. This audit examined current practice and developed new guidelines to support greater flexibility in the timing of the first maintenance dose. Methods Data recording forms used by pharmacists to support the therapeutic drug monitoring of vancomycin were collected from two hospital sites over six weeks. Forms containing at least two vancomycin concentrations were selected and the time of administration of the first maintenance dose was recorded. Individual vancomycin pharmacokinetic parameter estimates were obtained using MAP Bayesian analysis then used to predict vancomycin concentrations 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 hours after a banded loading dose and 20 mg/kg (capped at 3000 mg). Predicted concentrations were compared with a target range of 10 – 20 mg/L. Results Data were obtained from 49 patients with a mean (SD) age of 63.1 (16.7) years and weight 80.1 (27.6) kg. In all patients, creatinine clearance estimates were >40 mL/min and, according to current practice guidelines, all patients required 12 hourly maintenance dosing. The time recorded for the administration of the first maintenance dose was between 11 pm and 7 am in 30 (61%) of these patients. In 14 patients (29%), the first maintenance dose was administered >12 hours after loading. The target range was achieved with banded doses (20 mg/kg) in 65% (71%) of concentrations at 6 hours, 74% (84%) at 8 hours, 57% (67%) at 10 hours, 53% (55%) at 12 hours and 39% (43%) at 14 hours. Conclusions This audit has shown that current practice results in a high proportion of vancomycin maintenance doses being administered at impractical times. Allowing a more flexible time window of 6-12 hours after the loading dose for administration of the first vancomycin maintenance dose could help to alleviate this problem and reduce the risk of early subtherapeutic vancomycin trough concentrations

Metal mobility in sandstones and the potential environmental impacts of offshore geological CO2 storage

Geological carbon dioxide (CO2) storage in the United Kingdom (UK) will likely be entirely offshore, which may lead to the production and disposal into the sea of reservoir waters to increase storage capacity, or through CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2-EOR). These produced waters have the potential to contain significant concentrations of trace metals that could be of harm to the environment. Batch experiments with CO2, warm brines, and reservoir sandstones were undertaken for this thesis to determine concentrations of 8 trace metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, nickel, lead, zinc) which could be leached during CO2 storage in 4 UK North Sea hydrocarbon reservoirs. A sequential extraction procedure (SEP) was also used to determine the potential mobility of these metals under CO2 storage from mineral phases making up the reservoir samples. The results broadly showed that mobilised trace metal concentrations were low (parts per billion, ppb) in the batch experiments, with the exceptions of nickel and zinc. These metals were associated with carbonate and some feldspar dissolution, with other metals apparently desorbed from mineral surfaces, probably clays. The results of the SEP, however, were a poor predictor of actual mobility with respect to the batch experiments, although useful in determining the distribution of trace metals within the defined mineral phases (water soluble, ion exchangeable, carbonate, oxide, sulphide, silicate). In addition, fieldwork was carried out at Green River, Utah, to collect 10 CO2-driven spring water samples and 5 local aquifer rock samples. This area was used as a natural analogue for CO2-mobilised trace metals from sandstone aquifers. Trace metal concentrations in spring waters were very low (ppb) and batch experiments using Utah rock samples, spring water collected from Crystal Geyser, and CO2 confirmed very low mobility of these metals. The SEP was repeated for the Utah reservoir rocks, but again was not a reliable predictor for actual mobility, other than to confirm that overall bulk concentrations of trace metals was low. Comparison of trace metal concentrations from the batch experiments with data from UK North Sea oil and gas produced waters shows that overall, concentrations mobilised in batch experiments are within the range of concentrations across all North Sea fields reporting their data. However, on a field-by-field basis, some CO2 mobilised concentrations exceeded those currently produced by oil and gas activities. Furthermore, average batch experiment trace metal loads are higher than average oil and gas produced waters, and in some cases exceed international guidelines. Therefore, while the majority of trace metals have low mobility and therefore low environmental impact, this should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Regular monitoring of dissolved constituents in produced waters carried should also be carried out, particularly in the initial stages of CO2 storage operations, with remedial action taken as required to reduce the environmental impact of offshore carbon capture and storage

HypBO: Expert-Guided Chemist-in-the-Loop Bayesian Search for New Materials

Robotics and automation offer massive accelerations for solving intractable, multivariate scientific problems such as materials discovery, but the available search spaces can be dauntingly large. Bayesian optimization (BO) has emerged as a popular sample-efficient optimization engine, thriving in tasks where no analytic form of the target function/property is known. Here we exploit expert human knowledge in the form of hypotheses to direct Bayesian searches more quickly to promising regions of chemical space. Previous methods have used underlying distributions derived from existing experimental measurements, which is unfeasible for new, unexplored scientific tasks. Also, such distributions cannot capture intricate hypotheses. Our proposed method, which we call HypBO, uses expert human hypotheses to generate an improved seed of samples. Unpromising seeds are automatically discounted, while promising seeds are used to augment the surrogate model data, thus achieving better-informed sampling. This process continues in a global versus local search fashion, organized in a bilevel optimization framework. We validate the performance of our method on a range of synthetic functions and demonstrate its practical utility on a real chemical design task where the use of expert hypotheses accelerates the search performance significantly