Although regularly introducing new products or services is the lifeblood of most industries, bringing them to market can be fraught with peril. Timing, cost, and quality all play important roles in a successful product launch and avoiding expensive - often in more than just dollars - recalls and redesigns. Quality Assurance: Applying Methodologies for Launching New Products, Services, and Customer Satisfaction details continual improvement (CI), a proven process for avoiding common problems and creating customer satisfaction. The book explores the three fundamental approaches required to create a truly CI culture in any organization: a) consistent philosophy of improvement by management, b) receptive organizational culture, and c) the entire culture of the organization must be willing to make decisions based on measurement and data. It outlines the seven principles: research/plan, assure, explain, prioritize, demonstrate, confirm, and show. However, as with CI itself, this attitude must be incorporated into the processes of any organization and create products or services for the market place that will delight customers rather than just satisfying them. Time and cost constraints are the biggest culprits here, not any one person's lack of due diligence. When this happens, organizations must look at the bigger picture internally and identify it as a system problem. Based on the author's 35 years of experience, this book covers the essential items for doing the right thing the first time especially during launching a good product and/or service to the customer. It identifies key indicators and methodologies that will help you attain excellent performance, delivery, and cost with both the customer and supplier. In other words, by following these methodologies and indicators, the job will get done right the first time.

Developing and maintaining a disciplined management system provides any organization with a blueprint for exceptional performance and success. Indeed, for larger multinational corporations, a management system is a critical component for sustainable growth and performance management. In this book, the authors discuss a series of fundamentals for creating an operationally excellent management system (OEMS). The book also examines the business performance impact of an OEMS across leading gas and oil organizations, such as Exxon Mobil, BP, Suncor, and Chevron. In 7 Fundamentals of an Operationally Excellent Management System, the authors discuss each fundamental in detail and provide the supporting training and workshop materials that are essential for integrating these fundamentals into the business processes of the organization. The seven fundamentals identified by the authors provide a sequential approach for developing and executing an OEMS across any organization. Integrating sound organizational and business practices with personnel and process safety management principles, the book is an invaluable resource for organizations seeking operational discipline and excellence. Well-supported with graphics and practical examples, the book provides a simple pathway for an organization to evolve its management system into an OEMS designed to reduce workplace incidents and improve business performance on a sustainable basis. The management system principles discussed in the book are intended for the business leader who is motivated to transition his or her organization from ordinary, through best in class, to an organization of world-class stature and performance.

This book presents an integrated systems approach to manufacturing and business enterprise. Traditionally, these topics are treated as separate and independent subjects, but the practical fact is that the manufacturing and the business enterprises are intertwined. Currently, there is no book on the market that addresses both subjects from an integrated systems engineering approach with a manufacturing engineering foundation. Topics covered include engineering process, systems modeling, business enterprise, forecasting, inventory management, product design, and project management. Features Provides in-depth treatment of modern manufacturing processes, systems, and tools Uses an integrated systems life-cycle approach to manufacturing and business Includes business proposals Discusses prototype manufacturing and/or business development processes Presents concepts, steps, and procedures for achieving an integrated enterprise of manufacturing and business

This book provides the latest research advances in the field of system reliability assurance and engineering. It contains reference material for applications of reliability in system engineering, offering a theoretical sound background with adequate numerical illustrations. Included are concepts pertaining to reliability analysis, assurance techniques and methodologies, tools, and practical applications of system reliability modeling and allocation. The collection discusses various soft computing techniques like artificial intelligence and particle swarm optimization approach for reliability assessment. Importance of differentiating between the optimal release time and testing stop time of the software has been explicitly discussed and presented in the book. Features: Creates understanding of the costs associated with complex systems Covers reliability measurement of engineering systems Incorporates an efficient effort-based expenditure policy incorporating cost and reliability criteria Provides information for optimal testing stop and release time of software system Presents software performance and security layout Addresses reliability prediction and its maintenance through advanced analytics techniques Overall, System Reliability Management: Solutions and Techniques is a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach for better communication of problems and solutions to increase the performance of the system for better utilization and resource management.

There is often a deep disconnect between the project team's goals and those of the organization. Senior management wants "profitable" projects, but is only able to quantify its wishes in terms of the traditional project management elements: schedule and cost. To operate smoothly, the entire organization must be driven by the single goal of project profitability. Total Project Control presents valuable enhancements to the traditional project management approach, introducing new metrics and techniques for assessing the performance and profitability of projects. Demonstrating how to maximize the business value of a project, this book discusses new profitability-based data metrics, such as expected monetary value (EMV), expected project profit (EPP), Devaux's Index of Project Performance (DIPP), critical path drag, drag cost, and the cost of leveling with unresolved bottlenecks (CLUB). The impact of implementing these metrics can be far reaching. Not only will good management decisions, at both the project and executive levels, be supported by quantitative data, but bad decisions will become harder to justify. This book shows how to compute and use the new metrics to rightsize staffing levels for projects, programs, and organizations. It also explains what every project manager needs to know about earned value tracking: its uses, abuses, value, distortions, and potential fixes. The book then extends these metrics into techniques for indexing, tracking, progressing, and improving the business value of projects. See What's New in the Second Edition: Includes new diagrams and new ways of computing critical path drag in complex networks Introduces DIPP Performance Index tracking Offers new exercises in how to compute critical path drag and drag cost and use them to maximize project value Focuses on topics senior management needs to be assured the project team is using to maximize project profitability

Global Logistics Management focuses on the evolution of logistics in the last two decades, and highlights recent developments from a worldwide perspective. The book details a wide range of application-oriented studies, from metropolitan bus routing problems to relief logistics, and introduces the state of the art on some classical applications. The book addresses typical logistic problems, most specifically the vehicle routing problem (VRP), followed by a series of analyses and discussions on various logistics problems plaguing airline and marine systems. The text addresses problems encountered in continuous space, and discusses the issue of consolidation, scheduling, and replenishment decisions together with routing. It proposes a methodology that supports decision making at a tactical and operational level associated with daily inventory management, and also examines the three-echelon logistic network. This material provides numerous examples and additional topics that include: An analysis for the airline industry and a novel approach for airline logistics including fare pricing and seat inventory control The berth-crane allocation problem in container terminals A marine system logistics application Ice navigation problems and factors that affect ice navigation Pharmaceutical warehouse route design problems An application in healthcare logistics in which medical suppliers are evaluated through a fuzzy linguistic representation model A real data-driven simulation model that outputs a new shuttle system A model that integrates routing and batching problems Joint replenishment and transportation problems Global Logistics Management clearly illustrates logistic problems encountered in many different application areas, and provides you with the latest advances in classical applications.

Inventory Planning with Innovation: A Cost Focus discusses inventory planning concepts with major emphasis on innovation to reduce cost in a single volume. Provides an understanding of innovation efforts and linking it with inventory planning in reducing cost. Offers various factors influencing innovation efforts, knowledge of investment or expenditure that might be estimated before starting the innovation efforts, purchase inventory, and the manufacturing inventory. Covers important concepts including innovation efforts, strategic period, procurement inventory, total cost estimation, production inventory, related total cost planning, multiple products, multiple items procurements, and multiple items manufacture. This reference is primarily written for senior undergraduate, graduate students, and professionals in the field of industrial engineering, production engineering, and manufacturing science.

The book contains the latest developments in the field of life cycle assessment (LCA) and its application. It contains numerous research articles from leading German research institutes working towards the further development of the methodology. The book provides important insights for professionals working in the field of sustainability assessment, for researchers interested in the current state of the research of the methodology and its application as well as for advanced university students in different science and engineering fields.

This book covers recent research and trends in Manufacturing Engineering. The chapters emphasize different aspects of the transformation from materials to products. It provides the reader with fundamental materials treatments and the integration of processes. Concepts such as green and lean manufacturing are also covered in this book.

The book presents an integrated planning concept for heat flows in production systems comprising various short term and long term related models. Detailed explanations about the modeling and implementation of all relevant system elements such as generic and specific machines types, technical building services (TBS), production planning and control aspects, heat storage units and (waste) heat designs follow. Due to resulting amounts of data, the concept foresees system level appropriate indicators and visualizations for a facilitatedevaluation of the model results. An application procedure embeds and describes all models as well.Three exemplary application cases demonstrate the applicability, including the manufacturing of shafts for automotive transmissions, a cooling water system and an academic learning environment.

This book, from the perspective of reliability science construction, proposes a new theory called BELIEF RELIABILITY theory on the basis of probability theory, uncertainty theory and chance theory. The main topics include the philosophical basis of reliability science, the principles of reliability science, the criteria of reasonable reliability metrics and the basic theoretical framework and methodology of belief reliability theory. In this book, the belief reliability metric, analysis, design and evaluation methods will provide readers with a brand-new perspective on reliability applications and uncertainty quantification.

This book contains selected papers from International Symposium for Production Research 2021, held on October 7-9, 2021, online, Turkey. The book reports recent advances in production engineering and operations. It explores topics including production research; production management; operations management; industry 4.0; industrial engineering; mechanical engineering; engineering management; and operational research. Presenting real-life applications, case studies, and mathematical models, this book is of interest to researchers, academics, and practitioners in the field of production and operation engineering. It provides both the results of recent research and practical solutions to real-world problems.

This book gathers selected peer-reviewed papers presented at the 6th European Lean Educator Conference (ELEC), held in Milan, Italy, on November 11-13, 2019. The conference topics include the following: lean trainings in university and industry collaborations; lean product and process development; lean and people empowerment; emerging contexts for lean applications; measuring lean performance; lean, green and circular; continuous improvement initiatives; lean thinking in practice; organizational culture in lean journeys; and innovative training approaches to teaching lean management. The contributions explore the latest academic and industrial findings on and advances in lean education, and identify innovative methods that allow lean thinking benefits to be achieved in practice. As such, the book presents the outcomes of a fruitful exchange between academia and industry designed to help train the next generation of lean educators.

This book covers some of the most popular methods in design space sampling, ensembling surrogate models, multi-fidelity surrogate model construction, surrogate model selection and validation, surrogate-based robust design optimization, and surrogate-based evolutionary optimization. Surrogate or metamodels are now frequently used in complex engineering product design to replace expensive simulations or physical experiments. They are constructed from available input parameter values and the corresponding output performance or quantities of interest (QOIs) to provide predictions based on the fitted or interpolated mathematical relationships. The book highlights a range of methods for ensembling surrogate and multi-fidelity models, which offer a good balance between surrogate modeling accuracy and building cost. A number of real-world engineering design problems, such as three-dimensional aircraft design, are also provided to illustrate the ability of surrogates for supporting complex engineering design. Lastly, illustrative examples are included throughout to help explain the approaches in a more "hands-on" manner.

The Internet of Services and the Internet of Things are major building blocks of the Future Internet. The digital enterprise of the future is based not only on mobile, social, and cloud technologies, but also on semantic technologies and the future Internet of Everything. Semantic technologies now enable mass customization for the delivery of goods and services that meet individual customer needs and tastes with near mass production efficiency and reliability. This is creating a competitive advantage in the industrial economy, the service economy, and the emerging data economy, leading to smart products, smart services, and smart data, all adaptable to specific tasks, locations, situations, and contexts of smart spaces. Such technologies allow us to describe, revise, and adapt the characteristics, functions, processes, and usage patterns of customization targets on the basis of machine-understandable content representation that enables automated processing and information sharing between human and software agents.

This book explains the principal achievements of the Theseus research program, one of the central programs in the German government's Digital 2015 initiative and its High-Tech Strategy 2020. The methods, toolsets, and standards for semantic technologies developed during this program form a solid basis for the fourth industrial revolution (Industrie 4.0), the hybrid service economy, and the transformation of big data into useful smart data for the emerging data economy.

The contributing authors are leading scientists and engineers, representing world-class academic and industrial research teams, and the ideas, technologies, and representative use cases they describe in the book derive from results in multidisciplinary fields, such as the Internet of Services; the Semantic Web, and semantic technologies, knowledge management, and search; user interfaces, multimodal interaction, and visualization; machine learning and data mining; and business process support, manufacturing, automation, medical systems, and integrated service engineering.

The book will be of value to both researchers and practitioners in these domains."

Addresses the key aspects of modern soldering technology and the methods used in the manufacturing process of microelectronic chips and electronic circuit boards. Demonstrates how to control contamination during cleaning procedures. Covers material dynamics of heat soldering incurred during the assembly of diverse substances. Features techniques to assure reliability and quality control during the manufacturing process and emphasizes the importance of rework in the soldering industry.

This book covers an interdisciplinary approach for understanding mathematical modeling by offering a collection of models, solved problems related to the models, the methodologies employed, and the results using projects and case studies with insight into the operation of substantial real-time systems. The book covers a broad scope in the areas of statistical science, probability, stochastic processes, fluid dynamics, supply chain, optimization, and applications. It discusses advanced topics and the latest research findings, uses an interdisciplinary approach for real-time systems, offers a platform for integrated research, and identifies the gaps in the field for further research. The book is for researchers, students, and teachers that share a goal of learning advanced topics and the latest research in mathematical modeling.

This volume presents a rigorous account of statistical forecasting efforts that led to the successful resolution of the Johns-Manville asbestos litigation. This case, taking 12 years to reach settlement, is expected to generate nearly 500,000 claims at a total nominal value of over $34 billion. The forecasting task, to project the number, timing, and nature of claims for asbestos-related injuries from a set of exposed persons of unknown size, is a general problem: the models in this volume can be adapted to forecast industry-wide asbestos liability. More generally, because the models are not overly dependent on the U.S. legal system and the role of asbestos as a dangerous/defective product, this volume will be of interest in other product liability cases, as well as similar forecasting situations for a range of insurable or compensable events. The volume stresses the iterative nature of model building and the uncertainty generated by lack of complete knowledge of the injury process. This uncertainty is balanced against the Court's need for a definitive settlement, and the volume addresses how these opposing principles can be reconciled. The volume is written for a broad audience of actuaries, biostatisticians, demographers, economists, epidemiologists, environmental health scientists, financial analysts, industrial-risk analysts, occumpational health analysts, product liability analysts, and statisticians. The modest prerequisites include basic concepts of statistics, calculus, and matrix algebra. Care is taken that readers without specialized knowledge in these areas can understand the rationale for specific applications of advanced methods. As a consequence, this volume will be an indispensable reference for all whose work involves these topics. Eric Stallard, A.S.A., M.A.A.A., is Research Professor and Associate Director of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University. He is a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries. He serves on the American Academy of Actuaries Committees on Long Term Care and Social Insurance. He also serves on the society of Actuaries' Long Term Care Experience Committee. His research interests include modelling and forecasting for medical demography and health actuarial practice. He was the 1996 winner of the National Institute on Aging's James A. Shannon Director's Award. Kenneth G. Manton, Ph.D., is Research Professor, Research Director, and Director of the Center for Demographic Studies at Duke University and Medical Research Professor at Duke University Medical Center's Department of Community and Family Medicine. Dr. Manton is also a Senior Fellow of the Duke University Medical Center's Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. His research interests include mathematical models of human aging, mortality, and chronic disease. He was the 1990 recipient of the Mindel C. Sheps Award in Mathematical Demography presented by the Population Association of America; and in 1991 he received the Allied-Signal Inc. Achievement Award in Aging administred by the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging. Joel E. Cohen, Ph.D., Dr. P.H., is Professor of Populations, and Head of the Laboratory of Populations, Rockefeller University. He also is Professor of Populations at Columbia University. His research interests include the demography, ecology, epidemiology, and social organization of human and non-human populations, and related mathematical concepts. In 1981, he was elected Fellow of the MacArthur and Guggenheim Foundations. He was the 1992 recipient of the Mindel C. Sheps Award in Mathematical Demography presented by the Population Association of America; and in 1994, he received the Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award at the Sixth International Congress of Ecology.

Industrial revolutions have impacted both, manufacturing and service. From the steam engine to digital automated production, the industrial revolutions have conduced significant changes in operations and supply chain management (SCM) processes. Swift changes in manufacturing and service systems have led to phenomenal improvements in productivity. The fast-paced environment brings new challenges and opportunities for the companies that are associated with the adaptation to the new concepts such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber Physical Systems, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, cyber security, data analytics, block chain and cloud technology. These emerging technologies facilitated and expedited the birth of Logistics 4.0. Industrial Revolution 4.0 initiatives in SCM has attracted stakeholders' attentions due to it is ability to empower using a set of technologies together that helps to execute more efficient production and distribution systems. This initiative has been called Logistics 4.0 of the fourth Industrial Revolution in SCM due to its high potential. Connecting entities, machines, physical items and enterprise resources to each other by using sensors, devices and the internet along the supply chains are the main attributes of Logistics 4.0. IoT enables customers to make more suitable and valuable decisions due to the data-driven structure of the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Besides that, the system's ability of gathering and analyzing information about the environment at any given time and adapting itself to the rapid changes add significant value to the SCM processes. In this peer-reviewed book, experts from all over the world, in the field present a conceptual framework for Logistics 4.0 and provide examples for usage of Industry 4.0 tools in SCM. This book is a work that will be beneficial for both practitioners and students and academicians, as it covers the theoretical framework, on the one hand, and includes examples of practice and real world.

IoT is empowered by various technologies used to detect, gather, store, act, process, transmit, oversee, and examine information. The combination of emergent technologies for information processing and distributed security, such as Cloud computing, Artificial intelligence, and Blockchain, brings new challenges in addressing distributed security methods that form the foundation of improved and eventually entirely new products and services. As systems interact with each other, it is essential to have an agreed interoperability standard, which is safe and valid. This book aims at providing an introduction by illustrating state-of-the-art security challenges and threats in IoT and the latest developments in IoT with Cloud, AI, and Blockchain security challenges. Various application case studies from domains such as science, engineering, and healthcare are introduced, along with their architecture and how they leverage various technologies Cloud, AI, and Blockchain. This book provides a comprehensive guide to researchers and students to design IoT integrated AI, Cloud, and Blockchain projects and to have an overview of the next generation challenges that may arise in the coming years.

This book comprises the proceedings of the conference "Future Production of Hybrid Structures 2020", which took place in Wolfsburg. The conference focused on hybrid lightweight design, which is characterized by the combination of different materials with the aim of improving properties and reducing weight. In particular, production technologies for hybrid lightweight design were discussed, new evaluation methods for the ecological assessment of hybrid components were presented and future-oriented approaches motivated by nature for the development of components, assemblies and systems were introduced. Lightweight design is a key technology for the development of sustainable and resource-efficient mobility concepts. Vehicle manufacturers operate in an area of conflict between customer requirements, competition and legislation. Material hybrid structures, which combine the advantages of different materials, have a high potential for reducing weight, while simultaneously expanding component functionality. The future, efficient use of function-integrated hybrid structures in vehicle design requires innovations and constant developments in vehicle and production technology. There is a great demand, especially with regard to new methods and technologies, for "affordable" lightweight construction in large-scale production, taking into account the increasing requirements with regard to variant diversity, safety and quality.

This book comprehensively and systematically discusses in situ aluminum matrix composites, from their system design, material development, and preparation technology, to their solidification structure, plastic processing, and properties. As a new type of metal matrix composite, it not only provides a technical framework for the low-cost, large-scale development of high-performance compliant materials, but also provides important technical support for the promotion of the aluminum industry. The book appeals to researchers and industrial practitioners in the area of materials development for in situ aluminum matrix composites.

This book covers challenges and solutions in establishing Industry 4.0 standards for Internet of Things. It proposes a clear view about the role of Internet of Things in establishing standards. The sensor design for industrial problem, challenges faced, and solutions are all addressed. The concept of digital twin and complexity in data analytics for predictive maintenance and fault prediction is also covered. The book is aimed at existing problems faced by the industry at present, with the goal of cost-efficiency and unmanned automation. It also concentrates on predictive maintenance and predictive failures. In addition, it includes design challenges and a survey of literature.

This book focuses on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), IoT (Internet of Things), and WSN (Wireless Sensor Network). It includes contributions that discuss the security and privacy issues as well as the opportunities and applications that are tightly linked to sensitive infrastructures and strategic services. This book addresses the complete functional framework and workflow in IoT-enabled RFID systems and explores basic and high-level concepts. It is based on the latest technologies and covers the major challenges, issues, and advances in the field. It presents data acquisition and case studies related to data-intensive technologies in RFID-based IoT and includes WSN-based systems and their security. It can serve as a manual for those in the industry while also helping beginners to understand both the basic and advanced aspects of IoT-based RFID-related issues. This book can be a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners, and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered, and find solutions that have been adopted in the fields of IoT and analytics.

This book offers an extensive, interdisciplinary overview of dynamic textiles. Specifically, it discusses new findings and design concepts concerning the integration of smart materials into textile substrates and their corresponding dynamic behavior. Introducing the topic of dynamic color in textiles, it presents experimental procedures to achieve color change and dynamic light transmittance in thermochromic textiles, and examines their thermoresponsive behavior and respective electrical activation. Moreover, it also addresses the topic of dynamic form and reports on the authors' original findings using shape-memory alloys and geometric morphologies based on origami techniques. Covering innovative smart textiles and important considerations in terms of design variables when developing textiles with dynamic qualities, and providing extensive, practice-oriented insights into the interaction of textiles with light, it is primarily intended for academics, researchers and practitioners developing smart, dynamic and interactive textiles. The sections describing in detail the experimental work aimed at the integration of smart materials in textile substrates also appeal to professionals in the textile industry.