Early involvement in the design chain—a case study from the computer industry

This work presents a case study of how a design chain, with more than three tiers of organisations (customer, manufacturer, and supplier), can involve its members in the early stages of the design and development process to meet their needs more effectively. A vertical design chain model, consisting of strategy, process and information levels, is adopted to elucidate how a computer company can provide for different customers and use various suppliers to create synergy within the design chain. The results of this study demonstrate that the re-engineering of cross organisation product design flow, product data management software applications and the integration of information from various parties are critical to the early involvement in a vertical design chain. Based on this case study, the proposed early involvement model can shorten the time taken to develop new products and considerably reduce the number of engineering changes for various manufacturers.     

设计部门如何控制工程造价

当前我国的基本建设和建筑业的预算超概算 .概算超估算的现象十分严重 ,要避免这一现象的发生 ,必须加强设计控制     

EXTERNAL AIDS FOR SOCIAL MEMORY

Collective or social memories are not just a way for accumulating and preserving but also for sharing and developing knowledge. Indeed, as knowledge is made explicit and elaborated by a community, it enriches the local culture and the current practices, becoming a basis for communication and learning. This paper addresses the concept of 'social memory' in a specific 'community of practice': teachers and students of primary schools. The work is developed within HIPS1 (Hyper Interaction within Physical Space), a three-year (1997-2000) research project funded by the European Commission within the I 3 (I-Cube) Programme. HIPS is a hand-held location-aware tourist guide that delivers information related to the surrounding space mainly reacting to the physical movements of visitors (Benelli et al . 1999). The guide is designed to minimize the boundary between the physical space and the related information through a number of situated and contextual-aware interaction mechanisms. In the paper we present a specific application of HIPS as tool to support the creation of a social memory. First, we illustrate the theoretical framework, the cultural psychology (Vygotsky 1978), which we adopted to design the tool as an external aid for social memory. Afterwards we describe the user study and the design process that resulted in the development of an early prototype. The conclusions are a reflection about the use of new technology to open new learning opportunities for students.     

《蒙古语谚语数据库》的建立与实现

谚语是人们对自然现象,社会现象长期观察的艺术总结;是用有节奏的语言,完整地表达广大劳动人民的斗争经验和思想感情,富有教育意义的民间语言。目前在谚语数据库中收录了1800个蒙古语谚语,并设计了一套管理系统。谚语供人们学习母语中的丰富词语和典范的表达形式。本文主要介绍了该系统所涉及的工作及意义,设计宗旨及其具体实践的过程。     

The industrial engineer- caught between two revolutions?

The industrial engineer is caught between the Industrial Revolution and the Information Revolution. He is confronted with choosing between pragmatic improvements in productivity and efficiency of a single operation and the opportunistic modelling and reshaping of the networked 'virtual enterprise' and 'extended enterprise' to become more competitive in a global marketplace. The different extreme of the industrial engineering timeline is depicted in Diagram 1. It implies that the two societies industrial and information might have conflicting characteristics which require careful repositioning of the industrial engineer to ensure that the benefits that can be obtained from the two societies are maximized. The development of industrial engineering is presented. An evaluation of the nature of the much publicized information revolution and its impact on society is made. The trend of industrial engineering research based on publications in four journals and the Internet is reported. From these results the similarities and differences of the two revolutions and the characteristics of the two societies are compared. The authors identify some opportunities and some threats for the industrial engineer and conclude that a combined approach is applicable and necessary. The industrial engineer cannot afford to ignore the key concepts of either of the two societies.     

Design requirements for health care production control systems

This paper addresses the issue of determining design requirements for production control in health care organizations, with a restriction to the internal production control of hospitals. Hospital management has limited possibilities to control hospital production, as hospital production processes are driven by medical specialists who, however, do not manage that process. We consider therefore the hospital as a virtual organization, consisting of a number of relatively independent businesses in a common framework. Each business unit functions as a focused factory for a range of more or less homogeneous products. Production control principles can be applied to each of these businesses, but not to the system as a whole. A number of elements from classical production control theory can be also applied to health care, i.e. the use of decoupling points, the bottleneck-oriented approach, and the operational control between production and market. However, important factors that need to be considered in health production control are that often specifications on quality are not available at the start of the process, and that there is strong interaction between the patient and the process. Our conclusion is that a dedicated framework for approaching hospital production control is necessary. The specific characteristics of hospital care and its state of production control development are the main arguments for this dedicated framework.     

Probabilistic-Based Structural Specifications

The construction industry is both the largest civilian industry and the most unique in terms of fragmentation and its approach to controlling risk. Structural specifications establish nominal safety factors and design criteria for engineered structures such as buildings, bridges, dams, and power facilities. The goal is satisfactory strength capacity to safely and economically meet the demands of structural performance. Structures must resist the highly uncertain effects of combined gravity, earthquakes, wind, and snow loads supported by natural and human-made materials. The public's expectation is that structures should last a long time and have low lifetime risk of structural failure. Historically, specifications have contained safety factors which evolved from past experiences and provided adequate safety or low risk. Due to pressures of economy and the need to optimize structural performance, structural specifications have recently been developed and accepted by industry based on structural reliability and risk-assessment principles. This paper reviews developments of probabilistic applications in structural specifications including specification format, database, implementation examples, target risk levels, present research activities, and future goals for establishing optimal risk-design procedures.     

彝族学生英语学习需求分析

本研究分析了彝族学生英语学习的需求,还调查了他们与汉族学生不同的需求,从而为彝族学生的英语教学提供参考与帮助。调查发现彝族学生与汉族学生在许多方面都存在差异,其中性格差异显著。彝族学生生性开朗,喜欢与他人交流合作,从而在语言学习中,也喜欢与他人合作学习,喜欢课堂分组活动。本文根据调查所收集的信息,就彝族学生的英语教学,对现在的高中英语教学大纲提出了几条建议。     

红木家具改良设计的创新方法及其应用

红木家具产品的创新设计研发工作是我国红木家具产业健康可持续发展面临的极为紧迫而务实的课题。文章分析了红木家具改良产品设计的现状,提出针对红木家具改良设计的主要创意思路和设计方法,并介绍了运用创新思维理论和创新设计方法进行操作的红木家具改良设计实际案例。