The Application of Six Sigma Approach in Construction : A Case Study for Improving Precast Production Management

Six Sigma has been developed in the 1980s at Motorola; this approach is now extensively ap-plied in the manufacturing and other industries for improving productivity and profitability. In Taiwan, after 921 earthquake in 1999 and huge floods in 2009, the construction industry have realized that the importance of construction quality and harmony with the environment. The Six Sigma takes attention to the quality that customers concerned and also contribute to achieving efficiency and reduce costs. By the way, the thinking of Six Sigma approach should also be applied in the construction industry. Therefore, this paper will take the Six Sigma approach into the practice of precast construction management

STEEL BRIDGE RUST IDENTIFICATION USING MULTI-RESOLUTION PATTERN CLASSIFICATION

Abstract: Multi-resolution pattern classification (MPC) is an image segmentation technique that extracts features from an image and segments the image into several featured areas. Two resolution levels are contained in the MPC approach, the fine resolution level and the coarse resolution level. Pre-selected features, such as means and variances, will be computed, and then clustered using a linear or nonlinear classifier. This paper introduces the MPC approach to process steel bridge painting images with the hope of obtaining better segmentation results on rust identification

Trend in local area network utilization

[[abstract]]This paper begins with a brief review of the conceptual background of local area network (LAN). LAN technologies are classified by topology, access method (protocol), signalling method, and medium. This paper also presents the results from a survey designed to investigate the current utilization of LANs in the construction environment. The results indicate that a number of LAN's possible applications already exist for contractors to introduce and use. The extent of LAN usage in construction engineering management is relatively low, especially for contractors with medium to small work volume. The networks used are of varying size; however, they are generally small. The more advanced or complex technologies are less employed by the construction companies. In spite of the relatively slow assimilation of LAN technology that most responding construction companies take in adopting office automation, a few leading construction companies have shown their sophistication in using LAN to meet the communication requirements in their organization as well as their ability to develop communication?intensive applications. Read More: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%299742-597X%281992%298%3A1%2827%29?journalCode=jmene

Design and Implementation of Integral Backstepping Sliding Mode Control for Quadrotor Trajectory Tracking

A robust trajectory tracking control scheme for quadrotor unmanned aircraft vehicles under uncertainties is proposed herein. A tracking controller combined with the sliding mode and integral backstepping is performed for position and attitude tracking. The stability of the trajectory tracking controller of the quadrotor is investigated via Lyapunov stability analysis. By incorporating force and torque disturbances into numerical simulations, the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed quadrotor trajectory controller. Finally, the experiments validate the feasibility of the proposed controller

Mitigation of Electro Magnetic Interference by Using C-Shaped Composite Cylindrical Device

The extremely low-frequency (ELF) and its corresponding electromagnetic field influences the yield of CMOS processes in the foundry, especially for high-end equipment such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) systems, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) systems, focused ion beam (FIB) systems, and electron beam lithography (E-Beam) systems. There are several techniques to mitigate electromagnetic interference (EMI), among which active shielding systems and passive shielding methods are widely used. An active shielding system is used to generate an internal electromagnetic field to reduce the detected external electromagnetic field in electric coils with the help of the current. Although the active shielding system reduces the EMI impact, it induces an internal electromagnetic field that could affect the function of nearby tools and/or high-performance probes. Therefore, in this study, we have used a C-shaped cylindrical device combined with an active shielding system and passive shielding techniques to reduce EMI for online monitoring and to overcome the aforementioned issues. In this study, the active shielding system was wrapped with a permalloy composite material (i.e., a composite of nickel and iron alloy) as a tubular device. A C-shaped opening was made on the tubular structure vertically or horizontally to guide the propagation of the electromagnetic field. This C-shaped cylindrical device further reduced electromagnetic noise up to −5.06 dB and redirected the electromagnetic field toward the opening direction on the cylindrical device. The results demonstrated a practical reduction of the electromagnetic field

Control of EMI in High-Technology Nano Fab by Exploitation Power Transmission Method with Ideal Permutation

There are many high-power electrical cables around and within semiconductor foundries. These cables are the source of extremely low-frequency (ELF < 300 Hz) magnetic fields that affect the tools which operate by the function of electronic beams. Miss operation (MO) happens because the ELF magnetic fields induce beam shift during the measurement or process for cutting-edge chips below 40 nm. We present the optimal permutation of power transmission lines to reduce electromagnetic influence in high-technology nano fabs. In this study, the magnetic field was reduced using a mirror array power cable system, and simulation results predicted the best permutations to decrease the electromagnetic interference (EMI) value to below 0.4 mG in a working space without any shielding. Furthermore, this innovative method will lower the cost of high-technology nano fabs, especially for the 28 nm process. The motivation behind this paper is to find the ideal permutation of power transmission lines with a three-phase, four-cable framework to decrease the EMI in high-technology nano fabs. In this study, the electromagnetic interference was diminished using the ideal-permutation methodology without investing or using additional energy, labor, or apparatus. Moreover, this advanced methodology will help increase the effectiveness and reduce the costs of nano fabs. The mathematical and experimental results of the study are presented with analysis

Mitigation of Electro Magnetic Interference by Using C-Shaped Composite Cylindrical Device

The extremely low-frequency (ELF) and its corresponding electromagnetic field influences the yield of CMOS processes in the foundry, especially for high-end equipment such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) systems, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) systems, focused ion beam (FIB) systems, and electron beam lithography (E-Beam) systems. There are several techniques to mitigate electromagnetic interference (EMI), among which active shielding systems and passive shielding methods are widely used. An active shielding system is used to generate an internal electromagnetic field to reduce the detected external electromagnetic field in electric coils with the help of the current. Although the active shielding system reduces the EMI impact, it induces an internal electromagnetic field that could affect the function of nearby tools and/or high-performance probes. Therefore, in this study, we have used a C-shaped cylindrical device combined with an active shielding system and passive shielding techniques to reduce EMI for online monitoring and to overcome the aforementioned issues. In this study, the active shielding system was wrapped with a permalloy composite material (i.e., a composite of nickel and iron alloy) as a tubular device. A C-shaped opening was made on the tubular structure vertically or horizontally to guide the propagation of the electromagnetic field. This C-shaped cylindrical device further reduced electromagnetic noise up to −5.06 dB and redirected the electromagnetic field toward the opening direction on the cylindrical device. The results demonstrated a practical reduction of the electromagnetic field