Integrating Ergonomic Factors with Waste Identification Diagram to Enhance Operator Performance and Productivity in the Textile Industry

Industries have introduced lean manufacturing systems to outperform their competitors and sustain their growth. The implementation of lean tools results in satisfying the customer needs. Industries focus primarily on technical assistance when implementing lean strategies, but the success and sustainability of a lean strategy largely depend on the skill and cooperation of the workers. Research findings show that most industries have not attached importance to human factors while implementing lean logic. The negligence of human factors affects the quality of life of workers. Hence, this study intends to improve the quality of life and efficiency of workers by integrating ergonomic factors with the implementation of lean strategies in apparel industry. To accomplish this, the waste identification diagram was improved by adding a component to determine operators’ performance and analyse human factors. The ergonomic-waste identification diagram has been created to identify tasks related to ergonomic investigations and analyse human factors with lean metrics. The results point to the fact that an egalitarian approach increases the performance of operators and productivity of the organization

An update on prodrugs from natural products

AbstractA natural prodrug is a chemical compound or substance obtained from plants, microorganism, animal and marine sources. Natural products are small molecule source for Food and Drug Administration approved drugs and major sources for drug discovery. Most of the drugs for different ailment diseases undergo first pass metabolism, resulting in drug inactivation and the generation of toxic metabolites in body. Enormous numbers of prodrugs naturally present in plants, microorganism, animal and marine sources and those prodrugs undergoes chemical reaction to form non-toxic compounds. This review summarizes the list of prodrugs naturally present in the natural product

A Time-Performance Improvement Model with Optimal Ergonomic Risk Level Using Genetic Algorithm

The optimization of productivity has received significant attention in the manufacturing field. The majority of operations in the manufacturing business are still performed by workers. The analysis of work efficiency and the avoidance of ergonomic risk levels in the production line of clothing industry is critical. The correlation between a task in production and a reduction in ergonomic risks has been rarely considered in previous studies. This study proposes a time-performance improvement model with an optimal ergonomic risk level using a genetic algorithm; the model is intended to be used in the garment industry and reduce the gap for real-world applications. The results show that by distributing management training and limiting ergonomic risk factors, operator performance of selected operations can be improved, resulting in an optimum solution. The proposed model was implemented through case studies, and the operator performance improved from 73.68% to 92.76%. The significant element of this study is to use ergonomic improvement to increase operator performance through a time-performance improvement model

Experimental studies on thermal protective coating for low pressure gas turbine blades

Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.The thermal barrier coatings have many potential applications in the protection of gas turbine engine components, essentially the turbine blades. In this study micro analysis was carried out on Yitria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) coated turbine blades and the results are compared with the uncoated blades. We have used the atmosphere plasma sprayed thermal barrier coating with a thickness of 0.25 mm to withstand the high temperature of about 2000° C. A significant conclusion of the present study is that an increase in thermal coating thickness of 0.25 mm can ensure 50 % increase in the surface temperature of the turbine blades leading to a better thrust performance.dc201

Sustainable Diels–Alder syntheses in imidazolium ionic liquids

<p>An effective and simple protocol for the Diels–Alder reactions catalyzed and mediated by ionic liquid in conjunction with Lewis acid was studied. Diels–Alder adduct of the reaction of 1,4-benzoquinone with isoprene and 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene was obtained in good to excellent yields within the time span of 5.00–4.00 min under microwave irradiation. Due to the excellent activity of 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene as a diene, its efficiency was further analyzed by performing against four different dienophiles under various reaction conditions. The ionic liquid, 3-methyl-1-octyl-imidazolium tetrachloroaluminate mixed with Lewis acids, could be recycled and reused for consecutive cycles. The recovered ionic liquid in conjunction with Lewis acid displayed almost similar activity without any significant loss. This system is an essential upgrade and related to the reactions consuming common organic solvents at high temperatures and longer duration. Diels–Alder reactions under solventless conditions have also been investigated for the aforesaid reactions.</p