Real-time production planning and control system for job-shop manufacturing: A system dynamics analysis

Much attention has been paid to production planning and control (PPC) in job-shop manufacturing systems. However, there is a remaining gap between theory and practice, in the ability of PPC systems to capture the dynamic disturbances in manufacturing process. Since most job-shop manufacturing systems operate in a stochastic environment, the need for sound PPC systems has emerged, to identify the discrepancy between planned and actual activities in real-time and also to provide corrective measures. By integrating production ordering and batch sizing control mechanisms into a dynamic model, we propose a comprehensive real-time PPC system for arbitrary capacitated job-shop manufacturing. We adopt a system dynamics (SD) approach which is proved to be appropriate for studying the dynamic behavior of complex manufacturing systems. We study the system’s response, under different arrival patterns for customer orders and the existence of various types real-time events related to customer orders and machine failures. We determine the near-optimal values of control variables, which improve the shop performance in terms of average backlogged orders, work in process inventories and tardy jobs. The results of extensive numerical investigation are statistically examined by using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The examination reveals an insensitivity of near-optimal values to real-time events and to arrival pattern and variability of customer orders. In addition, it reveals a positive impact of the proposed real-time PPC system on the shop performance. The efficiency of PPC system is further examined by implementing data from a real-world manufacturer.     

Image-based sizing of surface-breaking cracks by SH-wave array ultrasonic testing

This paper presents calibration-free crack sizing techniques based on ultrasonic imaging. The techniques are intended for 2D (line) surface-breaking cracks with the size of the incident wavelength or greater. The probing wave mode is the anti-plane shear wave (SH-wave). Two methods are employed for the ultrasonic imaging. One is a synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) and the other is a computed time-reversal focusing technique (TRFT). In this paper, those methods are modified so that crack tips are located directly from measured A-scope waveforms without any calibration experiments. The results are shown as a peak in the ultrasonic image created by the respective methods. Reasonable accuracies of the proposed techniques are demonstrated first for the sizing of slits with known depths. The techniques are applied thereafter to the sizing of fatigue cracks. Since fatigue cracks may not be open without an external load, ultrasonic measurements are taken with and without external loads. The results of the imaging show that the depths of open cracks can be estimated accurately. It is also shown that crack opening (closing) behavior can be deduced by observing appearance (disappearance) of the peak in the images indicating the crack tip.     

Simultaneous sizing and electrophoretic mobility measurement of sub-micron particles using Brownian motion

The size and surface chemistry of micron scale particles are of fundamental importance in studies of biology and air particulate pollution. However, typical electrophoretic measurements of these and other sub‐micron scale particles (300 nm–1 μm) cannot resolve size information within heterogeneous mixtures unambiguously. Using optical microscopy, we monitor electrophoretic motion together with the Brownian velocity fluctuations – using the latter to measure size by either the Green–Kubo relation or by calibration from known size standards. Particle diameters are resolved to ±12% with 95% confidence. Strikingly, the size resolution improves as the particle size decreases due to the increased Brownian motion. The sizing ability of the Brownian assessed electrophoresis method described here complements the electrophoretic mobility resolution of the traditional CE.     

Solution approaches for the soft drink integrated production lot sizing and scheduling problem

In this paper we present a mixed integer programming model that integrates production lot sizing and scheduling decisions of beverage plants with sequence-dependent setup costs and times. The model considers that the industrial process produces soft drink bottles in different flavours and sizes, and it is carried out in two production stages: liquid preparation (stage I) and bottling (stage II). The model also takes into account that the production bottleneck may alternate between stages I and II, and a synchronisation of the production between these stages is required. A relaxation approach and several strategies of the relax-and-fix heuristic are proposed to solve the model. Computational tests with instances generated based on real data from a Brazilian soft drink plant are also presented. The results show that the solution approaches are capable of producing better solutions than those used by the company.     

DESA: a new hybrid global optimization method and its application to analog integrated circuit sizing

This paper presents a new hybrid global optimization method referred to as DESA. The algorithm exploits random sampling and the metropolis criterion from simulated annealing to perform global search. The population of points and efficient search strategy of differential evolution are used to speed up the convergence. The algorithm is easy to implement and has only a few parameters. The theoretical global convergence is established for the hybrid method. Numerical experiments on 23 mathematical test functions have shown promising results. The method was also integrated into SPICE OPUS circuit simulator to evaluate its practical applicability in the area of analog integrated circuit sizing. Comparison was made with basic simulated annealing, differential evolution, and a multistart version of the constrained simplex method. The latter was already a part of SPICE OPUS and produced good results in past research.     

Thermal runaway hazards of <Emphasis Type="Italic">tert</Emphasis>-butyl hydroperoxide by calorimetric studies

Thermal runaway reactions associated with exothermic behaviors of tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) solutions and TBHP reacting with alkaline contaminants were studied. A differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to characterize these inherent behaviors of TBHP solutions with KOH, NaOH, LiOH and NH₄OH. The exothermic peak in thermal curves of TBHP solutions with different alkali were detected by DSC thermal analysis. By thermal analysis, we compared various heats of decomposition of TBHP solutions with alkaline impurities, and determined the incompatible hazards of various TBHP solutions with alkaline contaminants. Comparing with TBHP in various diluents, the adiabatic runaway reaction via vent sizing package 2 (VSP2) indicated that aqueous TBHP intrinsically possesses the phenomena of thermal explosion with dramatic self-reactive rate and pressure rise under adiabatic conditions. Many commercial organic peroxides may have different hazard behaviors. Therefore, using thermal method to classify the hazards is an important subject.     

动态光散射技术的角度依赖性

与单角度动态光散射技术相比,多角度动态光散射(MDLS)颗粒测量技术能够提高颗粒粒度分布的测量准确性。但在MDLS技术中,测量角度的选择常常与被测颗粒体系的分布有关。对100nm、500nm的单峰模拟分布和300nm与600nm混合的双峰模拟分布的颗粒体系,分别在1、3、6、9个散射角条件下进行了测量。颗粒粒度反演结果表明,随着散射角个数的增大,颗粒粒度分布更趋于真实的颗粒粒度分布。对数量比为5:1的100nm与503nm双峰分布的聚苯乙烯颗粒,分别在1、3、5、10个散射角条件下进行了测量,实测结果表明采用单角度测量只能得到单峰分布,3个及更多散射角可得到双峰分布,并且双峰的数量比随散射角数量的增加逐渐趋近真实的数量比。因此,MDLS颗粒测量技术能够改善颗粒粒度分布的测量结果,但这种改善程度会随散射角的增多逐渐降低。由于散射角个数的增多会增加散射角的校准噪声和光强相关函数的测量噪声,因而会导致在有些情况下颗粒粒度分布的测量结果反而变差。