Strategic marketing, production, and distribution planning of an integrated manufacturing system

Production Scheduling;Distribution;CIM;production

Design of Closed Loop Supply Chains

Increased concern for the environment has lead to new techniques to design products and supply chains that are both economically and ecologically feasible. This paper deals with the product - and corresponding supply chain design for a refrigerator. Literature study shows that there are many models to support product design and logistics separately, but not in an integrated way. In our research we develop quantitative modelling to support an optimal design structure of a product, i.e. modularity, repairability, recyclability, as well as the optimal locations and goods flows allocation in the logistics system. Environmental impacts are measured by energy and waste. Economic costs are modelled as linear functions of volumes with a fixed set-up component for facilities. We apply this model using real life R&D data of a Japanese consumer electronics company. The model is run for different scenarios using different parameter settings such as centralised versus decentralised logistics, alternative product designs, varying return quality and quantity, and potential environmental legislation based on producer responsibility.supply chain management;reverse logistics;facility location;network design;product design

Dataset of the Refrigerator Case: design of closed loop supply chains

This paper contains the dataset for the refrigerator case concerning the design of a production and return network for refrigerators. Section 1 emphasises the major changes to the problem structure and assumptions used by Umeda et al. (1999). Section 2 contains the parameter settings. Section 3 contains the distance matrix for all locations.supply chain management;reverse logistics;facility location;network design;product design

Variation in Occurrence, Management, and Outcome of Colorectal Cancer in the Netherlands, on the Eve of Mass Screening

The large bowel can be divided into the colon, the rectosigmoid, and the rectum. The colon starts where the small bowel ends and it is 1.5-1.8 metres long when stretched. The rectum forms the final 10-15 cm of the large bowel, opening to the outside at the anus. The rectosigmoid is the transitional zone between the colon and the rectum. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most frequent cancer (14%) among males, after prostate (22%) and lung cancer (16%), and it is the second most common tumour (13%) among females, after breast cancer (31%) in the Netherlands. In 2007, 11,823 patients were diagnosed with CRC and 4,828 patients died of the disease. The incidence in the Netherlands is relatively high compared to other European countries, and ranks in the top 10.3 Worldwide, CRC accounted for about 1 million of new cancer diagnoses in 2002, representing nearly 10% of all new cancers. It occurs more frequently in the industrialized world. The disease rarely occurs before age 40, and the risk of CRC becomes highest around age 70.1 It is expected that the absolute number of patients with CRC increases with three percent per year in the Netherlands, mainly due to the aging population. Based on this estimation, the incidence of CRC in the Netherlands increases to 14,000 patients in 2015. As a percentage of total mortality, the risk of dying from CRC in the Netherlands is highest around age 60 (about 5%), which is important because it can be seen as an important cause of death. Later in life other causes of death proportionally start to occur more often

Effect of Pulp Protection Technique on the Clinical Performance of Amalgam Restorations: Three-Year Results

This study evaluated the influence of the pulp protection technique on clinical performance of amalgam restorations after three years, with particular reference to post-operative sensitivity and secondary caries. One hundred and twenty (120) Class II amalgam restorations (68 premolars, 52 molars; 78 MOD, 42 OD/MO) were placed in 30 participants (four restorations per participant).The restorations were divided into four groups according to the pulp protection technique used: copal varnish; 2% neutral sodium fluoride; adhesive resin and no pulp protection. The parameters evaluated were post-operative sensitivity, staining of the dental structure, tooth vitality, partial or total loss of the restoration and secondary caries. One hundred and eight (108)restorations were available for evaluation after three years. No partial or total loss of restorations had occurred; all teeth were vital, no tooth structure staining or secondary caries was detected in any of the restored teeth. Post-operative sensitivity was observed only in two restorations at baseline and at seven-days. The three year clinical performance of teeth restored with a high copper dispersed phase amalgam was not affected by the choice of pulp protection technique

Managing high-end ex-demonstration product returns

Some manufacturers demonstrate their products so that customers can gain experience before making a purchase. We present a novel application of a closed-loop supply chain where product returns from demonstrations of high-end IT equipment are substantial and the major delay in the system is due to the long demonstration time at the client sites. In addition, the product lifecycle is short and the value erodes rapidly over time, with steep drops in the resale revenue when new product generations are introduced. We present a finite lifecycle model that captures the key trade-offs in this environment, that is, either to reuse a collected ex-demo product for a next demonstration or to salvage its residual value in the secondary market and use a new product to satisfy the next demo request. We derive two cost/revenue signals that enable us to distinguish between fast and slow value erosion. We show that the fast/slow erosion decision is dynamic and depends on the rate of value erosion and the length of the demonstration time. We analyze the optimal demo pool strategies and show that in the case of fast erosion it may be better to postpone reuse activities until later in the lifecycle. We illustrate our model using empirical data from a large IT manufacturer and formulate several guidelines so as to better manage high value ex-demonstration product returns

A survey of algorithms for the single machine total weighted tardiness scheduling problem

AbstractThis paper surveys algorithms for the problem of scheduling jobs on a single machine to minimize total weighted tardiness. Special attention is given to two dynamic programming and four branch and bound algorithms. The dynamic programming algorithms both use the same recursion defined on sets of jobs, but they generate the sets in lexicographic order and cardinality order respectively. Two of the branch and bound algorithms use the quickly computed but possibly rather weak lower bounds obtained from linear and exponential functions of completion times problems. These algorithms rely heavily on dominance rules to restrict the search. The other two branch and bound algorithms use lower bounds obtained from the Lagrangean relaxation of machine capacity constraints and from dynamic programming state-space relaxation. They invest a substantial amount of computation time at each node of the search tree in an attempt to generate tight lower bounds and thereby generate only small search trees. A computational comparison of all these algorithms on problems with up to 50 jobs is given