Product Lifecycle Engineering and Management a Life Line for SMEs in Nigeria: An Appraisal

In this 21st century and beyond characterized with rapid development change in technology and innovations, organizations must relentlessly improve their product processes and systems, if they hope to outperform their competitors and maintain relevancy. Invariably, every product has 'life', starting with the design/development, followed by resource extraction, production, use/consumption, and end-of-life activities. However,, Product Lifecycle Engineering and Management (PLM), represents a very important approach for achieving a more sustainable paradigm of work and life, a more sustainable product development, manufacturing, use and dismissal. It is remarkable to note that SMEs account for 97% of all businesses in Nigeria, employs 50% of Nigeria's workforce, and produce 50% of Nigeria's industrial output, but most of these companies (SMEs) are short-lived. The sustainability of these companies and their products' lifecycle has become imperative in order to increase their contributions towards economic, social, political, environmental, and technological development of the Nigeria nation. This paper therefore, shows that effective and efficient PLM will inevitably play a vital and unprecedented role in creating sustainable product environment for SMEs in Africa and most especially fast growing economy like Nigeria. Keywords: Lifecycle, Management, Sustainability, SMEs, ICT Solution, Product Life, Developmen

Evaluation of Optimum Asphalt Yield of a Process

This study is on evaluation of optimum asphalt yield of a process. The data used is a secondary data collected from the records department of Consolidated Contractors Company Nigeria Ltd (C.C.C) between years 2008-2010. A fitted trend equation was obtained which enables prediction of the production yield at any point in time. The  trend line estimated from a 12 point centered moving average showed a sharp fall in the production yield of asphalt and a slight rise in the month of August for the three years period. The seasonal analysis showed from the result of the seasonal indices that the month of July has the least production of asphalt and this can be attributed to the presence of heavy rain fall which primarily affects the production of asphalt. Also, regression analysis was used to develop two models that expresses the nature of relationship between the production yield and factors such as Temperature, Humidity, Rainfall, Efficiency(environmental factors), Stone-dust/sand mixture, chippings of various sizes C5, C10, and Bitumen(material factors). Finally, it was established from analysis that the best regression model for predicting the production yield of asphalt is the material factor fitted equation. Key words: Trend, Seasonal index, Environmental factors, Time serie

Method Of Weighted Residual For Periodic Boundary Value Problem: Galerkin’s Method Approach

Method of weighted residual has been one of the foremost approximation solution to partial differential equation problems. In this paper a time dependent and boundary-valued strain model obtained from a PPC/CaCO3 composite experimental data was analyzed using the method of weighted residual. The Galerkin’s approach of this approximate method was applied to the model at a constant stress of 17.33 MPa. The discretization of the composite material was therefore, designed to take the form of a linear and one dimensional problem setting. Keywords: Method of Weighted Residual, PPC/CaCO3 Composite, Galerkin’s Method, Time Dependent, Boundary-Value

Modeling of Production Plan and Scheduling of Manufacturing Process for a Plastic Industry in Nigeria

In this work, production plan was developed for a plastic company with two products that are made up of five parts.  The production inputs for each part were analyzed and established. The production constraints in terms of materials available, machine capacities, time and labour were used to develop an integer linear programming model to achieve the objective function. The integer linear program was then used to find the optimum quantities of each part that will yield maximum profit. The developed model was analyzed with TORA optimization solver to obtain results for different constraints. The optimum solution for the LP model gave a monthly production profit of N3,751,922. Further sensitivity analyses performed for different production conditions gave results that are not feasible and the ones that were feasible were not optimal. A decision support system was developed for production planning to help the manager in scheduling decision process. The model is now been used at EagleHeights Plastic Industries Limited for their production planning. Keywords: Production Plan, Optimum, Linear Program, Constraints, Sensitivity Analysis, TOR