Sustainable manufacturing and parametric analysis of mild steel grade 60 by deploying CNC milling machine and Taguchi method

Design and manufacturing are the key steps in the sustainable manufacturing of any product to be produced. Within the perspective of injection molds production, increased competitiveness and repeated changes in the design require a complete optimized manufacturing process. Local and minor improvements in the milling process do not generally lead to an optimized manufacturing process. The goal of the new geometry and parametric analysis of the mould is to reduce the quality issues in mild steel grade 60. In this explicit research, the surface roughness (smoothness) of indigenously produced injection moulds in the local market in Pakistan is investigated. The CNC milling machine (five-axis) is used for the manufacturing of an injection mould, and the Taguchi method of the design of the experiment is applied for parameters optimization. Hence, the overall process is assisted in balancing the milling machine parameters to trim down the surface roughness issue in mild steel moulds and increase their sustainability. The spindle speed (rpm), the depth of cut (mm), and the feed rate (mm/rev) are considered as input variables for process optimization, and the experiments are performed on mild steel grade 60. It is deduced that the combination of a spindle speed of 800 rpm, feed rate of 10 mm/rev and depth of cut of 0.5 mm is the best case in case of minimum surface roughness, which leads to sustainable products. It is also deduced from ANOVA, that the spindle speed is a factor that affects the surface roughness of mild steel products, while the feed rate turns out to be insignificant

An Integrated Approach of GRA Coupled with Principal Component Analysis for Multi-Optimization of Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW) Process

Welding distortion is a critical issue as it leads to severe deterioration of structural integrity of welded work piece and dimensional precision. This study aims at studying the effects of shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) parameters on the evolution of mechanical properties, including tensile strength, impact toughness, and hardness, along with angular distortion on a welded joint from SA 516 grade 70. Such parameters are analyzed and optimized by employing the Taguchi method and Grey relational analysis. SA 516 grade 70 is commercially used for fabrication of storage tanks, boilers and pressure vessels. SMAW is investigated with three levels of root gap, groove angle, electrode diameter, and pre-heat temperature, which were varied on a butt joint in flat (1 G) position to determine their effects on response variables at room temperature. Nine experiments were designed using a Taguchi L9 orthogonal array, welded according to American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) section IX, and samples were prepared and tested as per ASTM A 370. The Taguchi method and Grey relational analysis were employed to observe the most significant parameters and optimal levels that synergically yield improved responses. Results are validated by conducting confirmatory experiments that show good agreement with optimum results

Hybrid Particle Swarm Algorithm for Products’ Scheduling Problem in Cellular Manufacturing System

Industries have to produce high quality products with low cost because of the competitive environment and customer demand. To cope with the increasing demand of customized products at low cost, the concept of cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) has been introduced under the umbrella of lean manufacturing. Industries are facing three major problems in CMS; selection of product families, cell formation and products scheduling. This paper deals with the products scheduling problem in CMS. As it is a non-deterministic polynomial-time (NP) hard problem, a hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm with Nawaz, Enscore, Ham-NEH (NEPSO) embedded with local search is proposed to find optimized sequence results for two conflicting performance measures (work in process and machine cell utilization). Here, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is integrated with an NEH algorithm to quickly achieve better optimal sequence. For this purpose, the solution obtained from the NEH algorithm is used as a seed for PSO optimization. A mathematical model is presented for conflicting performance measures; minimization of work in process (WIP) and maximization of average machine cell utilization. A case study of automotive manufacturing cells was conducted. Results of the NEPSO were compared with the existing method, standard PSO, genetic algorithm (GA), and NEH algorithm, showing that the NEPSO performed better in term of problem optimization of the cellular layouts

Implementation of POLCA Integrated QRM Framework for Optimized Production Performance—A Case Study

Quick response manufacturing (QRM) is a relatively new concept that enfolds all the preceding approaches, namely, just in time (JIT), flexible manufacturing, agile manufacturing, and lean production. QRM is compatible with existing materials requirement planning (MRP) systems and can be implemented efficiently. The ideas from QRM have been highly influential in custom-made engineer-to-order and make-to-order (ETO/MTO) high-mix and low-volume production environments. This study investigates the effectiveness of the POLCA (paired cell overlapping loops of cards) integrated QRM framework for reducing lead time. The POLCA integrated QRM approach was implemented in a precise product manufacturing industry. The industry was facing high penalties due to improper planning and uncontrolled lead times. The implementation of QRM with the POLCA framework indicated optimized production scheduling and significant improvement in lead time and work in process (WIP). After implementing the new manufacturing strategy, the performance parameters showed significant improvement in terms of reducing the percentage loss of profit

Systematic reviews and mapping studies on software requirements: encyclopaedia of objectives and issues for newbies

The domain of requirements engineering (RE) is intercepted by the interest of a wider community in the software industry. The role of RE is inevitable in the success and failure of software projects. RE is a multi-dimensional area and it is comprised of stakeholder analysis, requirements elicitation, and requirements prioritization mainly. In RE, the valuable requirements are explored from a critical set of stakeholders and these requirements are prioritized in order to design a system of high assurance. Several systematic literature reviews (SLR) are written related to RE domain which deliver a comprehensive knowledge in the domain of RE. Hence, currently no SLR exists that is able to provide an aggregate knowledge about RE intricacies. In this research, the different systematic reviews were investigated in order to aggregate the generated knowledge in different sub-domains of RE. This research highlights the objectives, sub-objectives of the existing SLRs and also presents information about RE issues in different perspectives. Initially, 214 studies were identified and only 39 studies were included in this SLR for research and analysis purposes