A systems study on the production department of Philcan Industrial Corporation

Philcan Industrial Corporation has been operating since 1976. The company have been producing tin cans for two can lines known as Sanitary Can Line and General Can Line. Its vision is to be the leading source of tin can packaging products and services in the Philippines. Together with this, their mission is to continually provide quality tin can packaging products through innovative solutions and technical expertise in food and chemicals. Currently, the production system of the 4-liter and 1-liter tin cans has been experiencing additional costs due to unmet scheduled demand. It is unable to meet 5.02% and 6.12% of the monthly scheduled demand for the 4-liter and 1-liter cans respectively. This resulted to additional overhead cost amounting to Php2,516,296.02. After identifying the problem, the study was able to identify four valid causes namely break times not strictly followed, absenteeism, human error and imbalanced line. The proponents were able to prove that the seaming department is the bottleneck of the line through time study and information gathered from the company. The solutions were proposed to address the significant causes of the problem. Solution includes installation of a bell, in-kind rewards, installation of additional exhaust fans and fluorescent lights and line balancing. Using Cost-Benefit Analysis, comparison between the total cost of implementation from the total expected annual savings resulted in a total net benefit of Php3,027,768.63. The computed payback period resulted to 0.1098 years or 1.3172 months

Concordant but Varied Phenotypes among Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Patient-Specific Myoblasts Derived using a Human iPSC-Based Model.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) remains an intractable genetic disease. Althogh there are several animal models of DMD, there is no human cell model that carries patient-specific DYSTROPHIN mutations. Here, we present a human DMD model using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Our model reveals concordant disease-related phenotypes with patient-dependent variation, which are partially reversed by genetic and pharmacological approaches. Our “chemical-compound-based” strategy successfully directs hiPSCs into expandable myoblasts, which exhibit a myogenic transcriptional program, forming striated contractile myofibers and participating in muscle regeneration in vivo. DMD-hiPSC-derived myoblasts show disease-related phenotypes with patient-to-patient variability, including aberrant expression of inflammation or immune-response genes and collagens, increased BMP/TGFβ signaling, and reduced fusion competence. Furthermore, by genetic correction and pharmacological “dual-SMAD” inhibition, the DMD-hiPSC-derived myoblasts and genetically corrected isogenic myoblasts form “rescued” multi-nucleated myotubes. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate the feasibility of establishing a human “DMD-in-a-dish” model using hiPSC-based disease modeling

Évasion des prisonniers français détenus a bord du ponton la Vieille-Castille en Rade de Cadix le 15 mai 1810

Copia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Cultura. Subdirección General de Coordinación Bibliotecaria, 200

Cold comfort firm : Lean organisation and the empirical mirage of the comfort zone

This paper examines the provenance of the ‘comfort zone’ and argues that the claimed organisational and psychological benefits associated with moving outside this zone are illusory and unsupported by empirical evidence. Indeed, it will be suggested that such rhetoric, and the lean management practices it has informed, is based on a misreading of the theoretical models and findings from which it is derived. It is argued that this misreading reinforces a style of management based on the deliberate inducement of stress amongst employees in lean organisations. The paper concludes by considering if, how, and what employees might be able to recover from this double bind