The role of product design in designer-buyer-supplier interface

This paper advocates early supplier involvement in the early phases of product design and development in a concurrent engineering environment. A concurrent engineering environment and the benefits of such involvement are explained in detail. The paper then focuses on facilitating an interface and collaboration among designer, supplier, and buyer at three planning horizons: strategic, intermediate, and tactical with respect to product design and development. A set of propositions and corollaries for each area of interface at each level of planning are proposed. These propositions and corollaries are intended to effectively accomplish the design-based sourcing and early supplier involvement. Then, each proposition is evaluated in practice and the extent of difference from theory to practice is discussed. Finally, concluding remarks and an assessment are presented.     

Adaptive bootstrap tests and their competitors in the c -sample location problem

This paper deals with a power comparison of different types of tests, parametric, nonparametric, robustified and adaptive ones for the two-sided c -sample location problem. A robustness study on level f in the case of heteroscedasticity and non-normal distributions is included in our study, too. First of all, we consider an adaptive test based on Hogg's concept and two adaptive Bootstrap tests using Hogg's principle. It turns out that the adaptive Hogg-test is the best one in the case of homoscedasticity but for heteroscedasticity, an adaptive Bootstrap test using Hogg's principle is preferable.     

Heuristics for scheduling in a flowshop with setup,processing and removal times separated

The problem of scheduling in a flowshop, where setup, processing and removal times are separable, is considered with the objective of minimizing makespan. Heuristic algorithms are developed by the introduction of simplifying assumptions into the scheduling problem under study. An improvement method is incorporated in the heuristics to enhance the quality of their solutions. The proposed heuristics and an existing heuristic are evaluated by a large number of randomly generated problems. The results of an extensive computational investigation for various values of parameters are presented.     

Production planning and control tools

There are numerous tools available to be used for production planning and control purposes. The number of tools is ever increasing, and so are the levels of sophistication as well as complexity. For the specific manufacturing firm, the task of selecting the most appropriate set of tools is not trivial. However, in recent years, the understanding of the relationship between tools and manufacturing environments for which they are suitable has increased. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of production planning and control tools available today, as well as new trends, issues and ideas.     

A general approach to disassembly planning and control

Closing product and material cycles have emerged as a paradigm for industry in the 21st century, and are directed towards an economical and responsible use of our limited resources. Disassembly plays a key role in recycling. It enables the recovery of functioning components for re-use of pure materials for re-utilization and the separation of harmful substances. Major challenges are presented by the enormous variety of products to be disassembled, by uncertainty as to quantity and by their unknown properties. An appropriate planning and control of disassembly processes is essential for an economic disassembly. Based on an investigation of the suitability of common production planning and control (PPC) methods for disassembly, a specific disassembly planning and control concept (DPC) is outlined.     

An approach to learning from both good and poor factory performance in a Kanban-based just-in-time production system

In a JIT manufacturing environment it may be desirable to learn from an archived history of data that contains information that reflects less than optimal factory performance. The purpose of this paper is to use rule induction to predict JIT factory performance from past data that reflects both poor (saturated or starved) and good (efficient) factory performance. Inductive learning techniques have previously been applied to JIT production systems (Markham et al. , Computers and Industrial Engineering, 34 , 717-726, 1998; Markham et al. , International Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 11 (4), 239-246, 2000), but these techniques were only applied to data sets that reflected a well-performing factory. This paper presents an approach based on inductive learning in a JIT manufacturing environment that (1) accurately classifies and predicts factory performance based on shop factors, and (2) identifies the important relationships between the shop factors that determine factory performance. An example application is presented in which the classification and regression tree (CART) technique is used to predict saturated, starved or efficient factory performance based on dynamic shop floor data. This means that the relationship between the variables that cause poor factory performance can be discovered and measures to assure efficient performance can then be taken.     

A TEMPLE FOR THE NATION: REDESIGNING A COMMON SYMBOLIC SPACE OF CENTRAL EUROPEAN CONSERVATISM

In the wake of ‘1989», the redefinition of a common European identity and national identities turned the symbolic representation of these identities into a major issue of political debates. Especially the construction of conservative and right-wing-populist politics in a redefined central European region relies on a symbolic redefinition of national identities in the frame of and in conflict with the design of a common European political culture. Examples are based on an analysis of the symbolic representation of politics, as the image design of the Austrian ‘Wende»-government (2000-2002), the symbolic representation of Forza Italia and the image-construction of Berlusconi, as well as the cultural representation of the former Hungarian government (1998-2002). The contribution proposes a reconstruction of a common right-wing conservative (political) culture and its representation in the region under the notion of ‘neo-patriotism».     

NEW COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES - A conduit for social inclusion

There has an outpouring of energy and creativity into ways of using information and communications technologies (ICT) and the information society (IS) to create inclusion, as an opportunity to tackle, reduce and even prevent social exclusion. This article is based on examining over 40 projects which constitute positive examples of applications of new technologies, by public authorities, private agencies and community groups, to reduce the disadvantage experienced by the more excluded groups in our society.     

A note on interpenetrating subsamples of unequal sizes drawn with and without replacement

In this article it is shown how one can gain in efficiency in selecting K interpenetrating subsamples of unequal sizes according to Chaudhuri and Adhikary's (1987) scheme rather than selecting them with replacement and considering the estimator based on distinct units as proposed by Bedi(1987).