Advances in Production Management Systems: Innovative Production Management Towards Sustainable Growth

Studies on interorganizational networks tend to be dense in their different aspects such as structural characteristics, nature of the links and transactional content, but light on power in networks. The purpose of this paper is to study a possible correlation between power and trust in an interorganizational network. Using quantitative methodology based on a survey sample made in 29 food companies that belong to a Brazilian food association, it was possible to statistically correlate power and trust in this network. The findings can be of importance to present what aspects the companies in this network pay more attention to: power, trust and their relationship, and to present a methodology that can be reproduced for the studies of power in networks. As a characteristic of empirical studies in networks, the temporal transversality of the nature of the sample does not allow generalizations.

The objective of this research is to evaluate the relationships of the network formed by the important milk cluster in the city of Umuarama, State of Parana (PR)/BRAZIL, using the Social Network Analysis (SNA) focusing on the collective gains and competitive advantages of this cluster. The methodology used was qualitative and quantitative. Questionnaires were applied to the network for the characterization of the existing relationships between them, and also to present the analysis of network measures using the UCINET software and the graphics schemes of networks. It was found that this milk production network appears to be diffuse, and that there are few solid relationships, which have no central coordination; the network did not present governance relationships nor a defined empowerment with significant transaction costs relationships. The relevance of this paper is to present a procedure of study in networks that can be reproduced in future researches.

In a difficult economic context, the control of public efficiency and the steering of public investment in the private sector are of paramount importance. Here we focus on the evaluation of public-private partnerships efficiency regarding key performance indicators relating to quality of service and financial cost. Computational results on a case study validate the potential of discrete-event simulation for the clothing function in the French army. Initial and final steps are simulated, but also transition steps.

Many traditional data acquisition (DAQ) systems are expensive and inadaptable – most rely on traditional closed-source platforms – thus limiting their usefulness for machine tool diagnostics, process control and optimization. In this study, three different intelligent data flow architectures are designed and demonstrated based on consumer grade off-the-shelf hardware and software. These architectures allow data flow between both open- and closed-source platforms through multiple wired and wireless communication protocols. The proposed architectures are also evaluated for machine tool diagnostics and monitoring of multiple machine tools in manufacturing systems. To realize cloud-based manufacturing, real time sensor data are collected and displayed on remote interfaces, smart devices and a cloud/global data platform via the Internet. Findings reveal that such cyber physical system (CPS)-based manufacturing systems can effectively be used for real time process control and optimization.

This article provides study of the 2012/2013 grain harvest of federal units of Brazil in relation to the following factors: planted areas, productivity, and production, which assist producers in agricultural planning. The research method used for data collection was the documentary and exploratory data analysis using the software Ucinet® for social networks. The findings indicate that the Midwest has the largest area planted in soybean per thousand/ha, demonstrating the opportunity for producers to develop new crops. In production in thousand/ton, the Midwest region also excelled in soybeans, showing the possibility for producers to seek new techniques for planting. The southern has the highest productivity of the rice grain per kg/ha, contributing to the producer having the best land use and resource optimization.

This study presents an overview of the business and production strategies with a focus on innovation and differentiation strategies as main factors for competitiveness in companies networks (NetC), developed through a qualitative and exploratory approach with data from multiple sources in interviews with the automotive industry business managers from suppliers in Stamping, Forged and Machined segment of São Paulo, in which the participation of governance of corporation as a key element for the success of NetC was highlighted, bringing competitive advantages by acquired know-how, promoting the strengthening and consolidation among partners, developing productive sets as many focuses of action, as well as providing shorter delivery times and order fulfilment, enabling the standardisation of programs and growth of social capital among the involved companies.

Platforms as a means for applying modular thinking in product development is relatively well studied, but platforms in the production system has until now not been given much attention. With the emerging concept of platform-based co-development the importance of production platforms is though indisputable. This paper presents state-of-the-art literature on platform research related to production platforms and investigates gaps in the literature. The paper concludes on findings by proposing future research directions.

Companies, their suppliers and networks of partners need to be aligned to fulfill the strategy to deliver the value and adapt rapidly whatever challenge arises. To be resilient, companies and their networks have to build ecosystems in a systemic thinking. To help firms achieving this, we propose a methodology based on “value drivers” that allows the mapping, the analysis and the management of intangible assets, and the way they are activated through a multi perspective and a multi stakeholder framework.

Based on current research and industrial experience, it is found to be a challenge with “silos” where an asset with several disciplines have poor collaboration and result in sub-optimised outcome in production. A structured approach to tackle this situation is through the concept of Integrated Planning (IPL). The purpose of this article is through literature study to identify relevant KPIs within both of the disciplines Manufacturing, Planning & Control (MP&C) and Maintenance Management. As a result, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is used in both of the disciplines and throughput time is an essential KPI in MP&C. Finally, a KPI structure which integrates MP&C and Maintenance Management is developed in this article.

With the evolution of the Internet many services before running on a local network, they moved to the cloud environment. As an example, the ERP Local migrating to the Cloud environment. This concept provides a new way of using IT resources. This research aims to evaluate the use of ERP in the Cloud Computing environment observing its advantages and disadvantages, as well as to identify its real applicability in the market, using as references the global survey by Gartner and an applied survey with IT experts on Internet services in Brazil. Based on these two studies it is possible to mitigate risks in the Local ERP migration to the ERP Cloud.

This case study describes the manufacturing of advanced, high-value maritime vessel equipment as an opportunistic, dynamic, knowledge-needy and collaborative process, in which planning and construction is closely integrated, rather than as a repeatable physical assembly that takes place in phases, for each of which planning is pre-hoc and pre-emptive. We assert that this is one reason that the anachronistic perspective of “documents as documentation”, contributes to actors’ conflicting views of their project. This paper examines these difficulties, offers a theoretical examination and design implications for next generation industries to consider.

Materials and inventories management is becoming a more and more important subject in the health care sector, because of its impact on efficiency, and quality of services provided. This study is focused on the inventory management and the service of surgical instruments reprocessing related to the operating room. The aim is to analyse which benefits may produce the combination of two different factors: the implementation of the RFId technology along the supply chain and the cooperation thorough a long-term collaborative-networked organization of the supplying companies. The first factor, named ‘RFId effect’, allows implementing a Continuous Review policy, instead of the Periodic Review policy normally utilized. The second factor, named ‘Network effect’, gives to supplying companies the possibility to share transportation costs. The model is inspired by a real case study of a long-term collaborative network of supplying companies in the health care sector that operates in central Italy. A numerical experiment shows that combining the RFId and Network effects may bring to a relevant reduction of expected costs.

Productivity Improvement is one of the most important strategies for every enterprise. Head cold forging is a widely common production process which can achieve economical processes and less energy consumption. Die is the major key of the forging process but how to perform an effective design, needs several years of experiences or using engineering tools for assistance. This paper proposes the collaborative die design and analysis by combining engineering methods and industrial experts to correct problems and to validate a new and complex design. DEFORM is used to investigate suitable parameters by guidance from the expert. One of the classical problem in the head cold forging is to make a small long complex stud. It is found from simulation that a five step of punch with suitable taper angle is the most effectiveness.

Leagility is a strategic concept that represents a combination of lean and agile. Lean is assumed to be a cost-based strategy that is appropriate in a forecast-driven context upstream of the customer order decoupling point (CODP). Agile is the corresponding flexibility-based strategy in a customer-order-driven context downstream of the CODP. Competitive advantage is based on that the position of the CODP is aligned with the market requirements. In a dyad setting this alignment can be realized with relative ease but in a triad setting it becomes more complicated if both supply actors pursue a leagile strategy. If lean based purchasing faces an agile based delivery strategy or the opposite, where agile based purchasing faces a lean based delivery strategy, the interface is misaligned. In this paper, four interface configurations are identified and empirical examples of each are given based on a case study.

In economy, the amount of money due to an error of a measuring instrument used in trade is described as the economic distortion and this asymmetry is higher as the error involved. Repaired measuring instruments are responsible for a significant part of instruments used in the market. In Brazil, they are responsible for 64.8 % of fuel dispensers and 21.1 % of non-automatic weighing instruments used in trade, and they are subject to greater distortion once issues as impartiality and independence are involved in metrological control of these measuring instruments. In this study, an information system strategically aligned to legal control of measuring instruments was developed to map and identify repaired measuring instruments. Since the system implementation in 2012, an increase of 27.6 % is observed in after repair verifications of fuel dispensers and 104.8 % for non-automatic weighing instruments, contributing to decrease economic distortion in trade.

Recently, cross-cultural products are distributed to various countries. In Thailand, Japanese products are popular, especially food. Most of Thai people normally consume Japanese food in restaurants and street markets. On the other hand, Japanese food in convenience stores is not sold well comparing to Japan. In order to increase the sales of cross-cultural products, a case study of Japanese food has been conducted in order to understand consumer culture and behavior. Therefore, this research has investigated the attitudes and factors affected on decision making towards consuming Japanese food. Firstly, one-to-one interview is conducted to reveal consumer perception and behavior. Secondly, conjoint analysis is used to figure out importance values from consumer point of view.

Inadequate thermal characteristics inside a truck during livestock transport might lead to an important decrease meat quality and increase swine mortality. This study aims to assess the microenvironment characteristics of the pig transportation truck in tropical regions. These characteristics involve air temperature, relative humidity, wind and vehicle speed, and noise level. The present study compares two pig transportation schedules by assessing the ambient and pig surface temperature, and calculating the environmental temperature and humidity index (THI). The surface temperature was recorded using a thermal camera. Results showed that thermal characteristics inside the truck varied between the farm and the slaughterhouse plant

$$(p < 0.0489)$$

(

p

<

0.0489

)

. The unloading process at the slaughterhouse plant impacted the pigs surface temperature

$$(p < 0.027)$$

(

p

<

0.027

)

more than the loading management at the farm.

In recent years supply chain participants are increasingly suffering the effects of disturbances in transportation supply chains. Both, dynamics in consumer demands and global supply chains lead to a growth in unplanned supply chain events. These can cause from rather manageable disturbances through to complete break-downs of transportation chains, resulting in high follow-up and penalty costs. Consequently, concepts for an efficient supply chain disturbance management are needed, preferably with a real-time identification and reaction to disturbance events. Therefore in the following paper the research results of the German research project Smart Logistic Grids with the focus on designing an integrated model for the real-time disturbance management in transportation supply networks are presented. This includes the introduction of elaborated classification models for disturbances and action patterns as well as an associated costs and performance measurement system. Finally, a procedure model for the disturbance management is presented.

This paper describes a case study which highlights responsiveness in a Norwegian retail supply chain. The dynamics in the conventional food market is increasing which is seen in online and multichannel shopping concepts, a wide range of campaigns and promotions, and demographic changes. While the conventional food supply chains are designed to handle large product volumes efficiently, this might impact on the responsiveness. This study explores the relation between the responsiveness and demand pattern in Norwegian food retail supply chains, and identifies key principles for the associated planning and control models.

This paper is based on the assumption of that Danish companies in the construction industry can benefit from the advantages inherent in the use of Mass Customization.

Mass Customization is a production strategy that focuses on offering customized products, at a low cost. Exploiting of principles in Mass Customization, like standardization of modules, configuration and flexible production, makes it possible using a variety of tools to composing and producing customized products for commercializing at similar conditions as serial produced standard products.

The research contribution of the project is to clarify the situation of “where we are today” and to determine the development potential for the companies, and since it is early days in the project, the statistical material will improve when involving more companies in the workshops.

Designing viable and integrative production systems is challenging for big companies. Researchers often fail to holistically consider the production system. Thus, the aim of this paper is to propose a holistic approach how the supply chain, the production and shop floor planning intermesh. Hereby a Viable System Model was applied. Standardized communication channels were able to be defined among three entities. In conclusion this newly proposed approach enables companies to reduce necessary stocks, production lead times and manpower allocation. This proposed approach boosts the efficiency of all production planning processes. This in turn translates to decreased stocks, shorter lead times and to more efficient manpower allocation. This holistic approach is a key to success for companies, in particular, in high-wage countries.

Advent of additive manufacturing (AM) as a final-parts production method has the capacity to impact the supply chains radically (The Economist, 2012). This effect extends from raw material procurement to production management and further towards distribution and the final customers. Digitalization of production as for the other industries such as automotive and aerospace reduces the operational complexity, while embedding the complexity in the digital components of the system. For instance, the production planning and control for an AM-enabled manufacturing may be distinctly different compared to conventional production methods. Production routing, loading and scheduling can become simplified as steps of production are combined through AM utilization. Moreover, production dispatching, reporting, inspection and corrective actions require development of novel effective practices. In this paper we investigate the in-depth impact of digital production technologies (e.g. additive manufacturing) on the production management practices. Our methodology is based on conceptual modelling intertwined with case data.

Financial management is concerned with the financial evaluation of activities performed in the supply chain. Each activity has implications on the financial situation but the actual cause-effect relation involved in this context is not always obvious. From a return on investment (ROI) perspective the financial measures revenue, cost, and assets, i.e. investment, are identified. Strategic lead-times have been highlighted in the literature as key components for flow design. Strategic lead-times are thereafter further analyzed and the relations between financial measures and strategic lead-times are outlined. Based on these relations, it is possible to establish a relation between financial measures, and decoupling points and decoupling zones. Subsequently this is shown to also provide a reference to supply chain management strategies as they are defined in the literature.

This work aims to show the scale of the use of tools and concepts for quality management and knowledge. In addition, it seeks the improvement of industrial processes and products, which we also need the conscious and motivated employee participation. Moreover, it seeking their commitment with the changes to be implemented. An illustrative case of application is performed on company of aluminum smelter, with significant results.

Nowadays multi-agents has established as one of the most important areas of research and development in information technology. Agents are normally involved in cooperative distributed problem and they face frequently with incomplete and/or conflicting information or task. Since more and more concern is attached to agents’ teamwork and agents’ dialogue, conflicts naturally arise as a key issue to be dealt with, not only with application dedicated techniques, but also with more formal and generic tools. In this semi-expository paper we show that a formal treatment for multi-agent knowledge representation that can represent conflicts and incomplete information is possible through new logical system, namely the paraconsistente logics. We discuss one of such system adding suitable modal operators for knowledge.

Competitiveness among enterprises, acting within global sustainability, has resorted to several types of administration in order to keep companies in the vanguard of the market. One of the most efficient types of administration is effective Planning, in such a way as to perform a task at the minimum time required and the lowest possible cost. Planning has become ever so complex, due to the innumerable demands from technology and market. A relevant aspect of Planning is that the sectors that influence it, whether productive or not, compound a chain of influences that will determine either success or failure of such Planning. One manner to tackle a network matrix analysis is by Para-consistent Logic, a mathematical model that does not follow Classic Logic. It was then possible to verify the efficacy of this model of Planning analysis, as a method to be used and studied and subsequently adopted and used.

The goal of this report is to analyse how the mass customization manufacturing strategy is being incorporated by a metal-mechanic company that deals with steel drawing. To sustain the research basis regarding the evaluate data, a case study based on research-action methodology was applied. Customisable goods go through the same production processes as regular products, given the fact that the raw material allows flexibility. Nevertheless, customisable goods are made regarding specific mechanical properties and unique profiles, as rounded with specific diameters, or specials, these coming from laminated bars. This entrepreneur vision seeks to integrate the manufacturing process alterations to as down the line as possible. Customers require products that are not always ready to buy in the necessary quantities and different patterns in steel distribution centres, which have regulations to obey before despatch.

In recent years, sustainable and agile manufacturing is aimed at in many manufacturing industries. Reducing the waste of raw materials and managing the production schedule are important factors for such manufacturing. Nesting is an activity designing a cutting layout while scheduling is one managing operational procedures. Noting such nesting and scheduling in sheet metal processing, we need to consider those simultaneously for increasing the entire efficiency. This is because there often occurs a trade-off between them. To resolve such problem, we previously proposed an integrated method of nesting and scheduling. In order to enhance the scheduling ability that was insufficient in our method, this study extends the idea through a heuristic approach. Actually, we apply a local search to update the initial schedule which is decided by EDD based dispatching rule and manage it in terms of the criteria referring to the bottleneck process. Computational experiment is provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Todays competitive environment in industry creates a need for companies to enhance their ability to introduce new products faster. To increase ramp-up speed reconfigurable manufacturing systems is a promising concept, however to implement this production platforms and modular manufacturing is required. This paper presents an analysis whether and which module drivers from general product development can be applied to the development process of a modular manufacturing system. The result is a compiled list of modular drivers for manufacturing and examples of their use.

The beginning of the manufacturing of the flex fuel vehicles in 2003, gave a new dynamic to fuel demand in Brazil. As the flex-fuel vehicles can be supplied with gasoline, hydrated ethanol or the mixture of the both in any proportion, the decision on which fuel to use occurs at the moment of supply, according to the most advantageous price and the consumer’s preference. Considering this scenario, the objective of the present study was to obtain a calculation method to determine the fuel volume used by the flex-fuel vehicle fleet. For this purpose, the fuel conversion in energy units of oil barrels was used. The fuel demand by type of vehicle was obtained through the proportion of the number of vehicles and the distance traveled in the period. The results indicate that there was a behavioral change on fuel consumption by the users of the flex fuel fleet.

The public transportation in urban centers involve many challenges related to environment. One of these challenges is reduce air and noise pollution in big cities. In São Paulo, for instance, it is estimated that 98 % of the transport are made using buses with combustion engine, which are responsible for greatest part of air and noise pollution. Therefore, it is necessary to develop studies that help change the public transport policies in major cities, favoring the use of electric and hybrid buses. Thus, this paper aims to simulate the use of hybrid bus with fuzzy logic applied to improve the efficiency of this type of system. We made six simulations with MATLAB© software and Fuzzy Logic Toolbox, considering velocity, topography and battery status as input variables. The results showed an effective control of the fuzzy system, with the feasibility of combining this with others experts systems.

From the beginning, knowledge is a preoccupation of human human preoccupation. A lot of questions are still discussed: what is knowledge? How knowledge is built? How is it represented in mind? How can it be kept? How can it be learned? Our challenge is how to capture design project knowledge related to work episodes and how to extract and represent the deep knowledge belonging to the type of projects and design activities. In this paper, we present an approach that helps to capture knowledge from daily design project environment and to aggregate this knowledge as classifications.

Reconfigurable manufacturing has been widely labelled the manufacturing paradigm of the future, due to its ability to rapidly and cost-efficiently respond to changing market conditions. Manufacturing reconfigurability can be dealt with at various levels of the factory, and includes multiple design and operational issues related to both physical and logical reconfigurations. The purpose of this paper is to review state-of-the-art literature on reconfigurable manufacturing and provide an overview of the current body of research, by assessing which structuring levels of the factory and corresponding research issues that are dealt with. Conclusively, currently unexplored areas and interesting issues that could be addressed in future research are identified.

In today’s global manufacturing environment, manufactures must respond to the challenges of quickly adopting new technologies and provide an increasing number of product varieties, while continuously increasing cost-efficiency. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems meet these challenges through rapid and efficient changes in functionality and capacity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a practical approach for evaluating the potential of reconfigurability in manufacturing companies, through a case-study in Danish industry. In this approach, historical production data is analyzed and focus is explicitly on capacity savings, which makes it applicable for decision support in companies that are in a transition towards becoming reconfigurable.

Present challenges of small batch production are represented by the need to improve time-to-market and the reduction of costs. A promising approach to take up these challenges is the use of highly iterative development processes such as Scrum known from software development. A transfer of these principles to process planning enables the prediction of producibility of customer orders by iteratively learning from manufacturing data of similar jobs from the past. Based on the required data structures described in this paper, work plans for new orders can be generated automatically. The potential of the approach is validated by an industrial example.

Building Information Modeling – BIM – tools are gaining, nowadays, great visibility by the possibility of integrated project development. The implementation of BIM tools is gaining space worldwide, including Brazilian scenery. Besides, the degree of tool implementation can vary depending the country, and can show how is the level of projects that are being developed. This paper evaluates the degree of BIM maturity implementation in Brazil´s context, to find the differences of BIM software utilization under different projects. The strategy adopted was a technical review focused on periodical papers as well as a case study developed with 16 BIM expert´s projects in Brazil. The results shown that Brazil presents an advanced BIM implementation considering BIS - Department of Business Innovations and Skills requirements, with great application in modeling, building installations, infrastructure, and low applicability on development of integrated projects.

The software utilization in civil construction Brazilian industry has been suffering since the 90’s a continuous implementation considering small, medium and large companies. In this scenery, emerged CAD –

Computer Aided Design

–and BIM –

Building Information Modeling

– tools, that have different concepts and operation. The objective is analyze BIM tools potential in Brazilian scenery, stablishing a comparison between the performance of CAD and BIM tools. In order to understand the variables of the subject, was done a technical review focused on most cited authors of the area, as well as a survey, applied to experts of project development in Brazil. The results have shown that BIM tools are more effective than CAD tools considering both basic projects until final projects, and for future challenges, BIM solutions can optimize project process in Brazil´s civil construction enterprises.

Currently the control of constantly increasing market dynamics and the simultaneously increasing individualization of process chains represent the central challenges for manufacturing companies. These challenges are caused by a lack of transparency in production planning, non-real-time processing of data as well as poor communication between the planning and control level. The research project ProSense addresses this problem and intends to eliminate the current problems in production by developing a high-resolution, adaptive production control based on cybernetic support systems and intelligent sensors. Through the development of a cyber-physical production control as one part of the project, which forms the basis for an innovative self-optimizing advanced planning system, ProSense provides a contribution to accomplish the goals of industry 4.0.

Having an efficient construction site layout can significantly impact the productivity, cost and safety of a construction project. Construction site layout planning is therefore recognized as a critical step in construction planning by researchers. In literature this is often described as an optimization process where some objectives (e.g. safety, cost savings) are pursued within the constraints of the site and facilities requirements. Such models are usually complex and difficult for practitioners to apply, and usually result in each project having its unique site layout plan. The authors challenge this by proposing a standard layout template that can easily be utilized in planning of multiple construction sites. It is argued that each site should be treated as a factory and that similarity between sites should be pursued due to the nature of the construction industry. The template has been developed in collaboration with a Norwegian contractor, utilizing the action research approach.

Choosing modes of transport for agricultural production involves uncertainties and decisions that affect logistics costs in the transportation of grains. This article intends to explain the use of the Paraconsistent Decision Method based on the Evidential Annotated Paraconsistent Logic Eτ in the decision-making process involving experts in priority modes of transport in Agribusiness logistics. It deals specifically with the distribution and export of soybeans, the main Brazilian commodity, to the major Brazilian ports, considering the aspects and features of each mode of transport. Exploratory research was used and data were collected from questionnaires about the modes of transport. Results indicate that experts have chosen modes of transport with numeric outputs, where free costs and payable costs were considered, thereby pointing out the features that should be taken into account in each mode.

In this paper, we analyzed the structure of the South Korean automotive industry using social network analysis (SNA) metrics. Based on the data collected from 275 companies, a social network model of the supply network was constructed. Centrality measures in the SNA field were used to interpret the result and identify key companies. The results show that SNA metrics can be useful to understand the structure of a supply network. The most significant contribution of this research is that this is the first trial on applying SNA methods to large scale supply networks for an entire automotive industry of a country.

In an electronics fabrication line, processing devices are arranged as a network of

inline cells

. Recently, the use of simulation has evolved into

online simulation

, which is used in simulation-based operational management, from the traditional

offline

analysis of facility layout and dispatching rules. An online simulation starts with the

current state

of the manufacturing facilities at any point of time. This paper presents a systematic procedure for building activity cycle diagram (ACD) models of homogeneous job shops having inline cells. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an ACD model was developed for a simple homogeneous job shop having bi-inline cells and a dedicated simulator was also developed.

Process planning plays an important role as a bridge between product design and manufacturing. Computer-aided process planning (CAPP) has been actively discussed in this half century, and numerous works have been conducted. To meet recent strong requirements for realizing agile manufacturing, a set of flexible process planning methods have been developed. Those methods dealt with process planning only for one product and generate the optimal plan which achieves the shortest total machining time. However, in real manufacturing, multiple workpieces are machined with multiple machine tools in the same period, and pursuing the shortest machining time for each workpiece may result in poor productivity. This research aims to enhance those methods from the point of view of total productivity. Selection of the optimal process plan in the conventional methods and production scheduling were merged and then formulated as a 0-1 integer programming problem. This method was applied to a simple example and its potential was shown.

Human decisions play an essential role in Operations and Supply Chain Management. However, these decisions are rarely integrated in simulation models of Production and Logistic Systems. One main reason for this fact is the strong dispersion of human decisions among a population, as well as the variability of a single individual’s decision over time. This work presents an experimental study of a human decision consisting in the dynamic selection of suppliers in a well-controlled laboratory environment. The analysis of the results obtained on a large population shows that individual decision behaviors can be grouped into representative clusters typifying different decision behaviors. The results obtained from this study opens up the prospect to significantly reduce the number of decision models required to simulate Production and Logistic Systems including human decisions and could also allow categorizing human decision behavior based on a set of known criteria.

This paper deals with the problem of simultaneous standardization of a set of modules and of multiple sets of components that may be combined in these modules. The aim is to minimize future costs. The components and modules, whether already existing or yet to be created are not related to predetermined BOMs. The problem takes into account coupling constraints between components because not all components included in a module may be coupled (coupling restriction), although some of the restrictions can be lifted through “junction components”. Our approach is readily implemented and significantly improves decisional consistency when compared to the standardization approaches that deal with the problem in isolation as opposed to globally. It also matches the level of detail used in large organizations for forecasting purposes. This approach is illustrated with a real case study of great dimension.

Information Systems, used to share information, lead to the growth of heterogeneous data and then the dependencies between them. Thus, the links and dependencies among heterogeneous and distributed data are more and more complex during daily activities of users (engineers, etc.). Ontology is currently used to enhance the knowledge sharing and the data integration in many information systems. Our contribution is to propose a methodology to facilitate the exploitation (interrogation and sharing) of data in an organization.

The performance of the production scheduling activities is highly influenced by the organizational factors in a particular manufacturing environment. Based on the analysis of the relevant literature, this paper proposes a capability maturity model for organizational capability in production scheduling. The paper contributes to theory by building upon the results of the field-based studies on human and organizational factors in scheduling, and developing a framework for assessing the organizational maturity in production scheduling. The model can be utilized by the practitioners to map and evaluate the organizational capability in their scheduling practice.

This paper creates an overview of previous research which has been conducted related to how information exchange can improve planning and control decisions in order to establish directions for future research. By synthetizing literature reviews, more than 130 unique papers are considered in the analysis. It is identified that most research only examines a dyad relation, and there exist a strong focus on how to improve the order replenishment by using demand and inventory level information. Case studies, simulation models, and inclusion of more complex network structures is suggested for future research.

The development of a company towards high-quality products and services demands higher skills among employees. Furthermore, companies providing extensive training are more likely to be productive and innovative. The question explored in this paper is how the demand for flexibility and high innovation rates in high-tech companies affects the choice of “making or buying” necessary skills. In order to study this, we have made use of organizational theory supported by empirical findings in two Norwegian companies experiencing the need for being flexible and facing challenges regarding increasing innovation pressure. Through our industry insights and specifically the case studies presented, we are led to conclude that in-house training programs contribute to build important prerequisites for flexible organizations with capability to innovate and change.

The production ramp-up process is critical to stay competitive and to capture market share but there are some common problems encountered during ramp-up. Among others one problem is related to the maturity of the production processes, including unforeseen bottlenecks. This paper contributes to the production planning part of the ramp-up process by showing how to predict the process time for new parts that is to be introduced in an existing manufacturing environment. A statistical model based on historical product-data is applied and the potential advantages of the model are outlined.

The information economy is characterized by an excessive supply of data and information, which makes it difficult to establish an optimal information management. Therefore, this paper deals with the challenge of how an efficient information logistics can be established. An approach using the lean philosophy for identification and categorization of information is presented. The paper concludes with the importance of Information logistics and how lean information flows support a flexible production.

Production plants are currently facing an increase in volatility and uncertainty of demand volumes. This environmental condition comes with highly fixed costs and capacity structures, which are mostly planned on the basis of forecasts and demand projections. Thereby, changing demand causes variances in manufacturing unit costs, endangering production plants’ profitability, competitiveness and liquidity. Hence, synchronizing capacities and costs with demand volumes becomes an essential target for plant managers in the face of demand volatility and uncertainty. Approaching this target in practice entails various obstacles due to dynamic and interdependent target conflicts as well as a lack of a dedicated and applicable strategizing approach. In this paper, these obstacles are disclosed and evaluated based on action research cases.

Volume-oriented Changeability (VoC) contributes to a production plant’s profitability and competitiveness in the face of increasing demand volatility and uncertainty, which is characterized by more frequent and severely affecting extreme events. Strategizing VoC in practice entails overcoming obstacles due to dynamic and interdependent target conflicts. Currently, a dedicated and applicable approach is lacking. Based on identified obstacles, requirements are derived for providing plant’s general managers conceptual and methodical support within strategizing VoC. The requirements constitute the result of this paper and should be taken into account by subsequent research on academically sound and practical relevant approaches for the defined purpose.

This paper deals with an efficient scheduling method for job shop scheduling with alternative machines with the objective to minimize mean tardiness. The method uses a genetic algorithm incorporating heuristic rules for job sequencing and machine selection. Effective heuristic rules for this method have been proposed so far. However due-date related information has not been included in the heuristic rule for machine selection even though the objective is to minimize mean tardiness. This paper examines the effectiveness of due-date related information for machine selection in this method through numerical experiments.

Due to a growing complexity within value chains the susceptibility to failures in production processes increases. The research project BigPro explores the applicability of Big Data to realize a pro-active failure management in production systems. The BigPro-platform complements structured production data and unstructured human data to improve failure management. In a novel approach, the aggregated data is analyzed for reoccurring patterns that indicate possible failures of the production system, known from historic failure events. These patterns are linked to failures and respective countermeasures and documented in a catalog. The project results are validated in three industrial use cases.

The carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) is now drawing attention in the automotive industry and has also recently been adopted for manufacturing bodies of mass produced electric vehicles. The CFRP molding method for automobile body can be largely categorized into the injection and compression methods. The essential difference between the two lies in whether or not the process involves an intermediary material and it became evident that this had a significant impact on quality and productivity. An evaluation was performed to determine which of these methods the valid method for basic molding, is by comparing the nature of such intermediary material with main components of automobile body, which led to the discovery of fundamental issues. A review on how technical developments thus far were considered with regards to such issues, it became evident that while significant progress was being made there was still a divergence from the expected target.

In this work, a Paraconsistent Classifier for the diagnosis of breast cancer based on the attributes of mamographic images was developed. The system uses a neural network with decision making from the final results of processing each set of attributes was created. In order to mitigate the effects of false positives diagnoses and true positives. In order to analyze the performance of the Paraconsistent Classifier, the results will be compared with the results of the following classifiers: Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), a dual stage classifier (ART2LDA) based on Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) and a classifier implemented with nonlinear optimization techniques and combinatorics, associated with the classification capabilities of Radial basis Functions - (RBF-Simulated Annealing).To perform the simulations, two different databases were used. The first one, to classify calcifications, is composed of 143 samples divided into 64 benign cases and 79 malignant cases represented by form. The performances of the classifiers in discriminating benign and malignant cases are compared in terms of area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (Az). The higher the value of Az, the better the performance of the classifier.The experiments with calcifications show: Paraconsistent Classifier (Az = 0.986), MLP classifier (Az = 0.70), ART2LDA Classifier (Az = 0.696) and RBF Classifier - Simulated Annealing (Az = 0.94). For experiments with mammographic masses and tumors show: Set 1, Paraconsistent Classifier (Az = 0.939), MLP classifier (Az = 0.994), ART2LDA Classifier (Az = 0.901) and RBF Classifier - Simulated Annealing (Az = 0.912). Set 2, Paraconsistent Classifier (Az = 0.935), MLP classifier (Az = 0.994), ART2LDA Classifier (Az = 0.890) and RBF Classifier - Simulated Annealing (Az = 0.924). Set 3, Paraconsistent Classifier (Az = 0.875), MLP classifier (Az = 0.970), ART2LDA Classifier (Az = 0.850) and RBF Classifier - Simulated Annealing (Az = 0.996). Set 4, Paraconsistent Classifier (Az = 0.500), MLP classifier (Az = 0.887), ART2LDA Classifier (Az = 0.767) and RBF Classifier - Simulated Annealing (Az = 0.907). Set 5, Paraconsistent Classifier (Az = 0.929), MLP classifier (Az = 0.987), ART2LDA Classifier (Az = 0.884) and RBF Classifier - Simulated Annealing (Az = 0.998). Set 6, Paraconsistent Classifier (Az = 0.939), MLP classifier (Az = 0.982), ART2LDA Classifier (Az = 0.885) and RBF Classifier - Simulated Annealing (Az = 0.999). In the case of the Paraconsistent Classifier, the eighth experiment was composed of the total image attributes relating to mammographic masses and tumors (Az = 0.939). In the particular case of the RBF-Sort Simulated Annealing experiment with all the image attributes, it was proved its unfeasibility, due to the complexity of their algorithm, where the processing time tends to infinity for a larger number of elements. For the experiments, the Paraconsistent classifier used 20 % of the samples for the neural network training, against the total number of samples available minus one for the other classifiers.

Reducing disturbances during start of production of new products is of high importance to assure that products reach the market on-time with the intended quality and volume. Therefore, identification and elimination of sources of such disturbances is necessary. Since the literature about such disturbances in low-volume manufacturing industries are limited, this paper is aimed to identify the common sources of such disturbances and the possible solutions to mitigate them in low-volume manufacturing industries. A multiple-case study has been conducted to achieve this aim. The results show that main sources of disturbances are lack of opportunities to test and refine products, considering the production system “as is” and putting extensive focus on product functionality rather than its manufacturability. Moreover, using the knowledge and experiences from production of previous similar products is identified as a source of learning and compensation for lack of opportunities for test and refinement.

Improving the service quality in public transportation is essential for convinced users to abandon the use of private cars. However, to improve service quality, companies need to adopt a quality management system and strategic planning which is not an easy task. This paper presents a way of simplifying a Quality Management System (QMS) and developing a Simple Strategic Planning (SSP) to be adopted for bus transportation companies. A methodology is developed and showed in this paper, together with a case study that illustrate the system. A Brazilian Bus Company applied the methodology and reached an improvement of their service levels with low costs.

This study focuses on adhered dirt to a product in production process, and also considers the relationship between dirt of inspection surface and defect detection in visual inspection utilizing peripheral vision. Specifically, images of inspection surface in an actual factory are analyzed using image analysis to do modeling. Moreover, dirt of inspection model, location and characteristics of defect are designed as experimental factors, and their effect on defect detection rate are evaluated. As a result, it is clarified that the defect detection rate becomes suddenly lower getting to the inspection surface dirtier. Consequently, defect that can be detected easily becomes harder to detect according as the inspection surface is dirtier.

Despite the global scale, the wide range of courses and the high number of enrollments, some challenges have been emerging for the universe of the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), especially those related to project and management aspects. This article aims to identify the main problems faced by the managers of the MOOCs. Hence, an exploratory study was carried out through the analysis of existing publications in academic databases. The results show that after the survey it was possible to identify and analyze six problems, the main one of which was the very low completion rate of this type of course.

Energy and food are two issues of fundamental importance in the scenario of global production and consumption. This study seeks to describe, measure and analyze the interrelationship between the results of global commodity chains of corn, ethanol and broiler. We considered the interconnectivity through the chains inputs and outputs within the production of both food and biofuel. Based on the production of the three commodities in the United States and Brazil, the Social Network Analysis (SNA) metrics was used to calculate quantitative indicators of centrality (outdegree and indegree) of the products in relation to each other. The study allowed the identification of degree indices for each product at three different times over a period of twelve years. Results indicated the importance and evolution of the relationship between the outputs of each commodity chain throughout the studied period.

Recent approaches for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) aim for the efficient utilization of the available product information. A reason for this is that the amount of information is growing, due to the increasing complexity of products, and concurrent, collaborative processes along the lifecycle. Additional information flows are continuously explored by industry and academia – a recent example is the backflow of information from the usage phase. The large amount of information that has to be handled by companies nowadays and even more in the future, makes it important to separate “fitting” from “unfitting” information. A way to distinguish both is to explore the characteristics of the information, in order to find those information that are “fit for purpose” (information quality). Since the amount of information is so large and the processes along the lifecycle are diverse in terms of their expectations about the information, the problem is similar to finding a needle in a hay stack.

This paper is one of two papers aiming to address this problem by giving examples why information quality matters in PLM. It focuses on one particular lifecycle process, in this case product design. An existing approach, describing information quality by 15 dimensions, is applied to the selected design process.

For many globally dispersed organisations, the home base (HB) is a historic locus of integrative and coordinating efforts that safeguard overall performance. However, the dynamism of global operations networks is increasingly pulling the centre of gravity away from the HB and dispersing it across the network, challenging the HB’s ability to sustain its centrality over time. To counteract this tendency, this paper addresses the gap in the literature regarding the development of the network management capability of the HB within the context of its network. Data was collected through a retrospective longitudinal case study of an intra-organisational operations network of one OEM and its three foreign subsidiaries. The findings suggest a row of strategic roles and corresponding managerial capabilities, which the HB needs to develop depending on the changing subsidiaries’ competencies and HB-subsidiary relationships.

Much emphasis is now given to development of fully closed and controlled plant factories, aimed at supplying various vegetables safely and constantly. However, one of the most important issues of the plant factories is the high production costs due to the investment and equipment in the factories and the daily operations. Systematic methods are considered here increase the delivery prices of the vegetables and to reduce the running costs in the plant factories.

This is a position paper. It discusses specific educational issues encountered during the Systems Engineering Design course at the Industrial Engineering and Management master program at the University of Groningen. It explains first the concept of an integrative course, an innovation that was applied first in this master program. It explains the causes and effects of two observed educational shortcomings of this course, and it links these to the extant literature. Finally, the paper proposes two ideas to address these shortcomings.

Designing the supply chain at the same time as developing new innovative products and efficient production processes holds the potential of being a source of competitiveness for a pressured manufacturing industry. This paper studies actors that influence the practices of three dimensional concurrent engineering (3DCE). Developing product, process and supply chain in parallel requires considerable cross-functional coordination and strong supplier involvement. A single case study of a large manufacturer of security products and systems was applied to explore current practices in an ongoing new product development (NPD) project. Five key challenges were found as barriers to performing supply chain design within this complex collaborative effort. Also, five requirements are suggested as enablers to organizations that aim for reaping the benefits of integrating supply chain design in their development process. By understanding the retirements and challenges of this process, the potential of 3DCE can be released and create value for practitioners in industry.

Among the various existing methods used in teachers’ evaluation, one of the most used is the survey of the students themselves. This method may have incomplete (paracompleteness), conflicting or inaccurate results as they often deal often with subjective and contradictory opinions. This work presents a case study using a non-classical logic, to analyze these conflicting views. The Paraconsistent Annotated Evidential Eτ Logic proves to be helpful in the analysis of these data types in order to see more clearly the items that should be improved.

In recent years Agile Project Management (APM) and especially the Scrum framework have grown in popularity in order to deal with “vuca” business environments. Scrum has become more and more common practice in software development and has already been tested in a few hardware domains. But is it also applicable outside the development area? The paper aims to show potentials and limitations in the use of Scrum in a purchasing environment and describes implemented customizations.

To support the knowledge of specialists during a HAZOP brainstorming session, a support system, which is able to automatically generate a preliminary HAZOP report was developed. The support system, which is based on Coloured Petri Nets (CPNs), simulates the behaviour of the system when different abnormal scenarios occur. The research demonstrates that integration of CPNs and HAZOP is very effective to obtain a smart tool for risk assessment of complex systems, improving the HAZOP analysis procedures.

In the recent years the world has faced significant problems related to public health and the counterfeiting of medicines, which has become a critical factor for the world population. It was verified that studies on this scope are few and the concern is due to the fact that It represents many losses, reaching the value of 8 millions reais with counterfeit medicines in 2013 and lack of traceability. This study aims to present a national and global screen view of tracing systems using the bidimensional code Data Matrix by showing its importance and use in hospitals. It is an applied research with qualitative and descriptive approach, relying on bibliometric study on databases such as ScienceDirect, Portal Capes and Ebsco on the period comprehended between 2004 and 2014 and using the keywords traceability, drugs, health care and Data Matrix. The results show that the theme is not well explored on the scientific community, achieving ten papers on the previously mentioned databases. It is considered an important subject concerning to financial health on a company.

Today, in new product development projects, “NPDs”, time is the cutting edge. The time to market in new product development projects is a key factor in the competition between innovative companies. Research has shown that time can be managed, and speed too. Our concern in this paper is to study the time factor in the case of new product development projects based on a time-cost trade-off curve, which is important for the project success by delivering the product as fast as possible. We will explain the motivation behind delivering fast in NPD projects. In construction projects, a customer initially contracts for a project from a contractor based on specifications, budget and delay. Time to market is a key success factor in new product development projects. Does time to delivery have high importance in construction projects? We conclude by showing the significance of NPD projects’ speed with respect to management in construction projects.

The current paper identifies the lack of engineering concepts taught in secondary education and to this end proposes a new approach to be followed. The contents of the aforementioned approach are subject to the EU project Manuskills and the research conducted in its concept. The utilization of pedagogical scenarios is proposed as a tool for secondary school teachers towards the incorporation of engineering concepts into their teaching practice. The nature and the characteristics of pedagogical scenarios that constitute them appropriate for this purpose will be reported and analyzed.

In the industry, the Value-Stream Mapping (VSM) method has been successfully used for years to reduce inventory and lead times. With this method, process steps in a value-stream can easily be divided into value-adding and non value-adding ones. However, the VSM does not provide any information about the energy consumption and, as a consequence; it does not give any hint at how much of the energy used actually serves value-adding purposes. This paper describes how the VSM can be extended to an Energy Value-Stream Mapping method (EVSM) which allows dividing the energy input of the production process in value-adding and non value-adding.

In this study the Job-shop scheduling problem with energy considerations is considered. At each moment of the schedule an energy threshold must not be exceeded. This energy threshold is not fixed all along the schedule and can vary. The variation of energy is handled by inclusion of dummy operations. Furthermore, the operations that must be scheduled have a power profile presenting a high energy consumption (peak) at the beginning and a lower consumption after the peak’s end. A mathematical formulation of the problem is proposed. This model is experimented on a short example with the CPLEX 12.4 solver. The schedules obtained show the relevance of the model. This study shows that new approaches for scheduling are no longer avoidable and that it is possible for enterprises to schedule efficiently their tasks according to energy constraints.

Environmental sustainability is gaining more and more relevance for textile companies. However, there are often problems with application, even in the most committed companies. In this paper, an empirical typology of Italian textile firms that discern the patterns of practices used in response to environmental issues and concerns that affect such industry is proposed. The resulting typology is composed by three types: Best practice, Good practice and Bad practice. Each type is then characterised in terms of firm’s characteristics and perceived environmental competitiveness benefits. The discussion of some open issues deriving from the empirical analysis precedes the final conclusion.

A municipal solid waste landfills are complex systems, because your waste in a landfill body has a large heterogeneous mixture, high levels of different organic and inorganic matter. Environmental problems are results about intense urbanization, but different solutions offered for alternatives mitigating the environmental impacts. These solutions are the best practices in the recovery of such wastes when disposed of in landfills. But recent concepts in modern landfill management, in the São Paulo City, incorporate strategies in their life cycle, so since the beginning of the landfill, different techniques have been tested to stabilize the amount of methane gas emissions and energy recovery. This work finds the perspective, sustainability electricity generation, these uses of landfill gas are divided into electricity generation and direct use. The scenery, study sustainability indicators are Bandeirantes Landfill, with application of fuzzy logic to estimate production methane for energy generation.

Eco-efficiency is defined as the concept of doing more with less; in other words, creating goods and services while preserving natural resources and reducing waste and pollution during manufacturing. This paper presents a toolkit for eco-efficiency at factory level: the Factory Resource and Energy Efficiency (FREE) toolkit. It contains five key elements; (1) see waste, (2) find solutions, (3) set targets, (4) assess yourself, and (5) create good habits. The FREE toolkit contains a range of games, tools and methods mapped against these five elements to integrate sustainability into factory activities. This paper presents the toolkit structure and an example of the journey for eco-efficiency.

The aim of this study was to determine whether the adoption of social environmental qualification affects the environmental performance of companies operating or seeking careers in the oil and gas sector as suppliers or potential suppliers, through a survey of companies based in the ABC region in São Paulo, Brazil. The results showed strong agreement in relation to meeting social and environmental requirements for oil and gas operators. Another finding was that the certifications influence positively the environmental, economic and social performance of companies.

The contrast between large urban centers and other isolated locations where even the most basic resources are scarce, leads the development of self-sustainable solutions, a panorama in which the electrical power is an important demand to be supplied. Through Bibliographic and Experimental research, plus practical implementation and testing, it was possible to develop a solution which fits within the proposed needs. This paper presents a self-oriented solar panel based on Paraconsistent Annotated Evidential Logic Eτ, its construction and practical tests, where an average yield of 3.19 W was obtained against 2.44 W from a fixed panel, representing an increase of 31.56 % in the overall power.

The ethanol industry in Brazil is going through a period of stagnation, resulting in the reduction of ethanol supply. The ethanol for automotive purposes may be anhydrous, which is used as an anti-detonating additive to gasoline; and hydrated ethanol, which can be used in the flex-fuel vehicles, which can use the biofuel, gasoline or a mixture of both in any proportion. This study is aimed to analyze the contribution that energy from the sugarcane bagasse could bring to the production of corn ethanol in plants adapted to operate with both sugarcane and the cereal. Therefore, it was considered, the surplus energy from sugarcane biomass and maize availability in the producing region. At the end of the article, the results are discussed by providing an analysis of the application of corn as alternative raw material for the production of ethanol in Brazil.

The improvement of energy efficiency of 20 % is one of the three objectives of the EU Directive 20-20-20. To reach this goal, all production processes have to be analysed with reference to their energy consumption so as to identify actions aimed at removing or reducing energy wastes. From the Lean Production framework, the variation of the Value Stream Mapping (VSM), the Energy VSM (EVSM) is selected as a useful tool able to highlight the seven types of wastes identified by Ohno in Toyota Production System and energy wastes. This work aims at proposing a possible modification of the EVSM, which encompasses it within the Energy Audit and the Energy Balance Chart. The goal is to realize a deep energy analysis, highlighting energy wastes, in order to understand which corrective actions must be implemented or which corrections to energy reduction should be considered to reduce energy wastes.

Environmentally conscious manufacturing and product recovery are considered as an important research in the current business scenario. This is due to the associated costs for virgin materials and waste disposal treatment that have been significantly increased in a yearly basis. Currently, there is a lack of modeling into the problems of remanufacturing production planning with component obsolescence and lifecycle constraints. In practice, the planning decisions may have direct impacts on the amount of wastage and disposal along a reverse supply chain. This article proposes an integrated production planning model with component obsolescence and lifecycle considerations, which helps minimise the total associated costs of production, costs of remanufactured products and components inventory holding, ordering costs, and disposal treatment costs. Numerical examples are also presented to demonstrate this production planning problem for remanufactured products using mixed integer programming optimisation. Finally, several contributions of this study and future works are discussed.

Cradle to Cradle (C2C) is a concept which is gaining acceptance as a way to design products which as a minimum are sustainable. This paper seeks to contribute to the C2C methodology by providing guidelines for determining product architecture in the product design process, which supports the C2C concept. The paper describes the linkages between product architecture and reusability in the technosphere (as opposed to the biosphere) which is an enabler for C2C. It is concluded that modular product architecture designing product families based on product platforms rather than designing individual products can enable C2C. Furthermore, reconfigurability also has potential to increase the reusability of parts of products.

There is evidence that the environmental performances of factories operating under similar circumstances vary greatly, even within one company. This indicates that production sites are operated in different ways which suggests a potential for improvement. Previous research shows that collaboration within production networks can improve factory performance. Learning collaboratively across factories is a promising approach to reduce the environmental impact of production sites. Several companies recognised this opportunity. Processes and systems to support knowledge and know-how exchange within their production network are already in place. In this research a literature review and interviews were carried out to explore factors that influence learning between factories. Such factors are critical to develop an effective tool enabling learning across factories and thus environmental performance improvements.

In order to support energy efficiency improvement, it is essential to monitor the energy performance and to make benchmarking with similar process or related Best Available Techniques. Among different key performance indicators that compare similar processes, the most relevant for the industrial sector is the specific energy consumption (SEC). With regard to the energy demand in an industrial process, a variable and fixed portion can generally be distinguished: as a direct consequence the amount of energy used per unit of product (SEC) usually decreases while the production rate increases. It should be noted that often production processes face variable demand over their utilization. Aim of this work is to propose a novel decision model to support the identification of the more suitable investment in energy efficiency given the variable demand expected, explicitly considering that the effect of investments in energy efficiency can be categorized in two main categories: those shifting the SEC curve and those flattening the SEC curve.

This paper presents a low-cost and low-effort approach to analyze labor productivity with 3D cameras. The developed methodology tracks the movement of employees in assembly operations. The collected data is then analyzed with a methodology that is based on the primary-secondary analysis.

In this study, we have asked respondents to rank ten different waste fractions that are both common in manufacturing industry and easily recognizable. The purpose of the study has been to clarify to what extent individuals are able to identify the waste fractions that are most important to recycle from an environmental perspective. The individuals’ perception has then been correlated with a life cycle assessment of the ten materials. In addition, the respondents were also asked to rank the fractions according to cost.

The results show that metals are consistently considered most important to recycle, and plastics are commonly among the top five amongst the ten waste fractions together with glass. The cellulose based fractions, cotton, and compost are commonly rated low. In addition, there is a perceived correlation between the environmental and economic impact.

In the industrial world, since the amount of energy to consume is very large, it is required to manage and reduce energy consumption while maintaining a high productivity. In order to approach the theoretical realization the production conditions that affect a productivity or energy consumption, we investigate the formulation of the relationship between energy consumption and production throughput, and verify it by using numerical simulation.