How Switching Costs with Process Monitoring and Operational Integration Affect Sustainable Supplier Relationship

Building on sustainable supply chain management and operations strategy literature, our study seeks to identify structural relationships between switching cost and sustainable supplier relationships from a demand-side perspective. More specifically, this study looks at the impact of the switching cost on process monitoring, operation integration, and sustainable supplier relationships. To test the structural relationships in our research model, we used Manufacturing Productivity Survey data from Korea to conduct an empirical analysis based on 351 data that fit our study’s purpose. The results show that the indirect effect of switching cost on sustainable supplier relationships through process monitoring and operational integration is positively valid. Additionally, the results emphasize that the social exchange theory can be explained in the perspective of the switching cost.

A New Perspective for Solving Manufacturing Scheduling Based Problems Respecting New Data Considerations

In order to attain high manufacturing productivity, industry 4.0 merges all the available system and environment data that can empower the enabled-intelligent techniques. The use of data provokes the manufacturing self-awareness, reconfiguring the traditional manufacturing challenges. The current piece of research renders attention to new consideration in the Job Shop Scheduling (JSSP) based problems as a case study. In that field, a great number of previous research papers provided optimization solutions for JSSP, relying on heuristics based algorithms. The current study investigates the main elements of such algorithms to provide a concise anatomy and a review on the previous research papers. Going through the study, a new optimization scope is introduced relying on additional available data of a machine, by which the Flexible Job-Shop Scheduling Problem (FJSP) is converted to a dynamic machine state assignation problem. Deploying two-stages, the study utilizes a combination of discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and a selection based algorithm followed by a modified local search algorithm to attain an optimized case solution. The selection based algorithm is imported to beat the ever-growing randomness combined with the increasing number of data-types.

Humans are not Machines - Anthropocentric Human-Machine Symbiosis for Ultra-Flexible Smart Manufacturing

<p>Smart manufacturing is characterized by self-organizing manufacturing systems and processes that can respond to dynamic changes. We envision the rapid advancement of smart machines with empathy skills will enable anthropocentric human-machine teams that can maximize human flexibility and wellness at work while maintaining the required manufacturing productivity and stability. In this paper, we present a future-proofing human-machine symbiosis framework that features human centrality, social wellness, and adaptability. The essential technical challenges and methods are discussed in detail.</p>

Data Augmentation Methods Applying Grayscale Images for Convolutional Neural Networks in Machine Vision

In increasing manufacturing productivity with automated surface inspection in smart factories, the demand for machine vision is rising. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated outstanding performance and solved many problems in the field of computer vision. With that, many machine vision systems adopt CNNs to surface defect inspection. In this study, we developed an effective data augmentation method for grayscale images in CNN-based machine vision with mono cameras. Our method can apply to grayscale industrial images, and we demonstrated outstanding performance in the image classification and the object detection tasks. The main contributions of this study are as follows: (1) We propose a data augmentation method that can be performed when training CNNs with industrial images taken with mono cameras. (2) We demonstrate that image classification or object detection performance is better when training with the industrial image data augmented by the proposed method. Through the proposed method, many machine-vision-related problems using mono cameras can be effectively solved by using CNNs.

The Impact of Service Liberalization on Manufacturing Productivity in Indonesia

This study examined the impact of service liberalization on manufacturing productivity firms in Indonesia through mode three (commercial presence) during 2006–2014. It used firm-level data sourced from the manufacturing census published by the Indonesian Bureau of Statistic (BPS). To address the problem of endogeneity in service reform, this research uses an Instrumental Variables (IV) estimation of the fixed-effect model variety and utilized two types of data (FDI and STRI OECD) to compare the result. The findings show that service liberalization in Indonesia has a positive impact on manufacturing productivity at the firm level. Furthermore, this study estimates each service sector (e.g., electricity, gas, and water; construction; transportation, warehouse, and telecommunication), the results indicated that each service had a significant impact on improving firm performance. This research suggests that reducing restrictions on the service market will improve manufacturing productivity.

The Impact of Lean Manufacturing on Enviromental Performance in Moroccan Automotive Industry

Due to an increase in energy price and pollution plus environmental regulations, companies start to adopt green policies. In fact, companies are encouraged by governments to develop strategies to achieve more sustainable operations. Based on this literature review the contribution of Lean Manufacturing on environmental performances will be discussed, a survey of 50 different automotive companies based in Morocco, shows how they are carrying out manufacturing and environmental practices. The result of this study shows a positive impact of advanced Lean Manufacturing’s tools on the environmental performance and contribute to the present literature on environmentally friendly Manufacturing. The findings and proposals of this paper can be a beginning step for Moroccan companies to completely use their capability of environmental practices and improve their manufacturing productivity performance while identifying trends in organizational development.

Study on structural design and analysis of 18 ft CFRP leisure boat

The purpose of this study is to develop a lightweight design model for an 18ft leisure boat. The existing leisure boat is manufactured using glass fiber-reinforced plastics (GFRP) material and the hand lay-up process. Carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) was applied to the new design to reduce the boat’s weight, while an automated tape laying machine was applied to the lightweight boat’s manufacturing process to increase boat manufacturing productivity. The newly designed CFRP model is 25% lighter than the existing GFRP model. It was confirmed that the newly designed lightweight hull has sufficient structural integrity compared to the existing hull through the structural integrity evaluation by the FEA.