The spare part inventory management system (SPIMS) for the profound heritage Sdn Bhd: a case study on the EOQ technique

The inventory management is an important part of supply chain management, which protects the schedule of production or maintenance towards any type of disturbance. This research emphasized on the development of the Spare Part Inventory Management System (SPIMS) for the Profound Heritage Sdn Bhd (PHSB), which is currently adopting the manual Kadex method. This automatic software used the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) in the periodic review environment to control the inventory and the software was written using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. Therefore, this research will not only helps the PHSB but also increased literature on the actual implementation of the EOQ technique in the periodic review environment. This newly developed SPIMS have the ability to keep the spare parts transaction records, calculate the EOQ for each part and remind the user to purchase more spare parts at its dedicated “When to Order” date. The developed SPIMS performance was then evaluated by comparing it to the current Kadex or manual method. The method, which produced the lowest average inventories, is considered as the best method. Comparison across the overall average inventory indicated that the EOQ with zero opening balance (which represented a system that start with zero opening inventories) performs better than the Kadex method. However, the Kadex method is found to perform better than the EOQ when current opening balance is considered. The deterioration in the EOQ performance, when current opening balance is considered, is due to the fact that more data and longer time for observation is required before the EOQ reached its steady state. However, it is expected that the result similar to the EOQ with zero opening balance will be observed when the EOQ (with opening balance) reached it steady state. In addition, the EOQ also produces some shortages on the stock, which is nonexistent in the Kadex method. This problem is caused by the EOQ inability in detecting any shortages as the inventory will only be checked on a specific time interval called the “when to order” date. Due to this, an improvement on the SPIMS is needed. Rather than reviewing the inventories periodically during the “when to order” date, it is suggested that the SPIMS should adopt the continuous review/monitoring environment to optimize its performance

Forecasting of Palm Oil Fruit Delivery Quantities using the Trend Adjusted Exponential Smoothing: A case study

Palm oil industry has increasingly become the important industry for Malaysia. However, only a limited number of researches have been conducted on improving the palm oil industries. This research attempted to contribute by improving forecast activity along the palm oil industry. Specifically, this research centred on the development of forecast software for a Malaysian based palm oil estate. The developed forecasting software can be used to assist the estate manager in predicting accurately their monthly delivery quantity to the palm oil mill. The forecast technique selected for this research was the trend adjusted exponential smoothing technique. The performance of the trend adjusted exponential smoothing technique based software was then compared to the naïve method. Comparison in the performance indicated that the trend adjusted exponential smoothing produces lower root mean square error, which is equivalent to 14.6% of error produced by the naïve method. This finding emphasises the efficiency of the trend adjusted exponential smoothing in predicting the monthly delivery quantity by the palm oil estate

Reciprocating wear behavior of mild steel carburized using Na₂CO₃-NaCl

The surface of the mild steel carburized using Na2CO3–NaCl was dominated by retained austenite. Towards the core, the amount of austenite reduced while the amount of martensite increased. Increasing the duration of the carburization resulted in higher peak hardness and case depth. It also increased the amount of cementite in the grain boundaries and the austenite grains size, rendering the steel more susceptible to cracking. The superior wear resistance of the martensite, as compared to the austenite, could be attributed to its high cracking and adhesive wear resistance owing to its high hardness and tendency to form oxides. The friction was governed by the wear mechanism and the type of microstructure at the worn scar sliding on the carbide ball

Preliminary data of evaporation characteristics for an open pond in East Malaysia

Evaporation is being considered as an alternative dewateringprocess of an increasing number of wastewater treatment applications and algae harvesting for biodiesel production. For simplicity, this paper presents work on modeling the performance of solar evaporation ponds. It will provide useful new technology towards commercial production of algal biodiesel. Evaporation is the combination of two phenomena involving the change of the phase from liquid into vapor, and the transfer of vapor. In open ponds, passive solar energy is used to the change of the phase from liquid to vapor. The ability to transfer vapor particles of open ponds in the air is a function of the relative humidity, wind speed, air temperature, water concentration, vapor pressure of air on water surface, pond size, water depth, among other things. The evaporation rate of an open pond of similar dimensions to modified class-A evaporation pan was measured over 15 days under typical East Malaysia climactic conditions.The experimental result is compared to the Penman evaporation method

The integrated inventory management with forecast system

Inventory Management System is very important for driving a company into better achievement. The main objective of inventory management is to keep the inventory level as low as possible and meet customers’ demand. This project centers on development of the computerized integrated inventory management and forecast system for the Guan Lee Sdn Bhd. In this project, the exponential smoothing is selected to predict demands as inputs to control the computerised inventory management system. The integrated system was written using the Visual Basic 2008. This integrated inventory management and forecast system has the ability to forecast while effectively control on inventory level with six specific features of alert, creation, inventory, transfer, search and reports. Performance of the system was analyzed with three types of forecast value (actual and adjusted forecast values). From the results, the actual forecast values tend to move toward the ideal one. Thus, the forecast system is proved to be reliable and accurate. The suggested improvements are auto recording of historical data, attachment of picture to each item, and sending notification through text message

An EOQ based multi-storage location of spare part inventories: a case study

Spare parts inventory management is very important to ensure smooth operation of maintenance department. The main objectives of inventory management of spare parts are to ensure the availability of spares and materials for the maintenance tasks and increase the productivity of the maintenance department. This research centred on the development of the Computerised Inventory Management System (CIMS) for the maintenance team at Weida Integrated Industries Sdn. Bhd. The inventory management technique used to control the spare parts inventory in this research was the basic Economic Order Quantity models (EOQ). However, the CIMS developed is unique as it has the ability in handling inventories in multiple-storage locations. The CIMS was written using the Visual Basic 2010 software. This CIMS has the abilities to keep records and process the spare parts information effectively and faster besides helping the user to perform spare parts ordering tasks compared to the current manual recording. In addition, the ordering quantity and frequency for the CIMS is determined through the EOQ technique. However, observation indicates that the overall average inventory level currently at the factory is lower than the expected overall average inventory level produced by the CIMS. This is due to the fact that the CIMS was unable to consider the opening stock in ordering the inventories. Therefore, further improvements are needed to optimize the performance of the system such as using the EOQ with the reorder point technique, the periodic or continuous review system

EFFECT OF COST INCREMENT DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF JIT SUPPLY CHAIN

Cost is an important consideration in supply chain (SC) optimisation. This is due to emphasis placed on cost reduction in order to optimise profit. Some researchers use cost as one of their performance measures and others propose ways of accurately calculating cost. As product moves across SC, the product cost also increases. This paper studied the effect of cost increment distribution patterns on the performance of a JIT Supply Chain. In particular, it is necessary to know if inventory allocation across SC needs to be modified to accommodate different cost increment distribution patterns. It was found that funnel is still the best card distribution pattern for JIT-SC regardless the cost increment distribution patterns used

SMAW: the effects of currents and welding rod diameters on welded joint ultimate tensile strength using the full factorial DOE

This research was significant as it extensively studies the effects of current and rod diameter on SMAW welded join. The Mild Steel (AISI 1018) was used as the base material to be welded using the E-6013 welding rod. The experiment was constructed according to the full factorial design of experiment (DOE). This project found that the current and rod diameter are the significant factors in affecting the ultimate tensile strength (UTS). New contribution from this research was that the rod diameter is more significant than the current in affecting the UTS of a welded joint. In addition, this research also contributed new finding by showing that the interaction between current and rod diameter as significant in affecting the UTS. This interaction was also found to be more significant that current but less significant than rod diameter in affecting the UTS of welded joint. In addition, this research showed that the tensile strength increases when the current is increased from 80A to 100A. However, the tensile strength decreased as the current is set between 110A to 130A. At the same time, the welding rod diameter of 2.5mm produced the highest tensile strength compared to 3.2mm and 4.0mm rod diameter. This research also optimised the experiment and found that the highest tensile strength obtained is 342.39 MPa, which is produced using 80A of welding current with 2.5mm rod diameter

Case study on designing a comprehensive fire protection system for KY Power Station

The KY Power Station relies on two gas turbines to generate electrical energy. In addition, fuel storage is also required to ensure uninterrupted power supplies. As a power generation plant and the existence of fuel storage, an efficient fire protection system is essential. This paper presented a comprehensive review of the existing research on fire protection systems. Utilising the reviewed as basis, this paper also described the five types of KY Power Station fire protection systems as the case study. Specifically, the five fire protection systems are; Water Spray Fixed System, Foam Protection System, Automatic Carbon Dioxide Extinguishing System, Pressurized Fire Hydrant and lastly Automatic Fire Detection and Alarm System. Even though a station may require more than one fire protection systems as illustrated by the case study, this paper observed that the existing researches focused mainly on designing the individual system of different fire protection system according to standard. This paper found that there is lacked of research on optimising these individual fire protection systems. The optimisation usually requires development of mathematical model. Therefore, there is a need for development of mathematical model for the individual fire protection system. These different types of fire protection systems are independent but they are equally important. Thus, there is also a need to look into global optimisation in designing the fire protection system