Production Systems

This paper investigates, on the basis of work by Jean Baudrillard and David Harvey, what we can define as neo-liberal global culture. Harvey's ideas on time-space compression and management of such within production systems are in the paper combined with Baudrillards thoughts on the symbolic culture and consumerism. The paper concludes that the neo-liberal global culture is a of constructing cultural demand and controlling class determined production.

Simulation games have been utilized as an educational tool in order to complement the traditional teaching methods. They have been widely applied in the teaching of different subjects such as business management, nursing, and medicine. This paper proposes a new simulation game which simulates a production system that consists of a set of machines, conveyors, and other components.

The performance concept originated from the concept of firm management. The performance management of the firm involves improving its value-cost relationship, which means that the firm will be able to build a product or service, in terms of achieving cost and profitability targets, and compare the results with strategic forecasts. In addition, performance management also requires the firm's ability to develop a dynamic and continuous progress. In such conditions, its performance evaluation is not an objective in itself, but a means used by the organization to achieve progress. The paper will address issues which relate to improving performance and all the instruments used for this purpose.

In facing the problem of building a complex yet fast and resource efficient Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Extended Resource Planning (XRP) system the first obstacle is the creation of a Bill of Materials (BoM) algorithm, which is used to calculate material needs according to the production plan. Taking into consideration different possibilities of BoM implementation, we compared linked lists, tree structure and matrix implementation in relation to algorithm complexity. As we came to the conclusion that none of them suits the needs of modern systems, we proposed a new BoM algorithm called multiple linked list implementation. It combines the advantages of other implementations with a new approach based on two complex data structures used to represent both the data and relationships between products, parts or components used in production.

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the production systems of the various integrated iron and steel companies in East Asia based on a generation model of production systems. Japanese companies are the leaders in the field of evolution of steel production systems. However, POSCO has established a generation 2.5 system; it is rapidly catching up to its Japanese rivals. Baosteel also has a generation 2.5 system with imported
technology; it has also begun to develop its own R&D activity so that it will then have the capability to evolve. All of the Chinese integrated companies (other than Bao), and the Taiwanese company CSC are trying to improve their production systems from the second generation. CSC has adopted a unique approach to
upgrading by alliances with non-automobile industries. The major finding of this research is that investment for construction and upgrading of production systems is a driving force that improves the competitiveness of integrated companies in East Asia. Additionally, we can draw some suggestions about the challenges that integrated companies in East Asia face from the perspective of international competition and system evolution.

This paper presents an assessment of the electricity generated by photovoltaic (PV) grid-connected systems in Kuwait. Three years of meteorological data are provided for two main sites in Kuwait, namely, Al-Wafra and Mutla. These data and a PV grid-connected system mathematical model are used to assist a 100 kWp grid-connected PV system proposed for both sites. The proposed systems show high energy productivity whereas the annual capacity factors for Mutla and Al-Wafra are 22.25% and 21.6%, respectively. Meanwhile ...

This paper presents the extension to an ontology-based data model supporting the design and performance evaluation of production systems. This extension aims to link the modeling of the spatial representation of physical objects with the characterization of their states and behavior. Furthermore, the formalization of the performance history of a production system and its components is addressed to capture both the spatial and state evolution of the objects. Such history can be provided by simulation runs or gathered from a monitoring system. A test case is described and then used to show how different software tools can be integrated to support the integrated design and evaluation of a production system.

The study objective was to characterize and classify buffalo dairy production systems in Egypt. Ten governorates having high buffalo population density were selected as the study area. The data were collected from 1811 dairy buffalo farms using survey. Buffalo holders were face to face interviewed by constructed questionnaire. The survey was applied in two years (2010 and 2011). Two-Step Cluster procedure (CA) was used and analysis was repeated several times until the cluster quality came good (average silhouette ≥0.5). The algorithm selected the number of clusters, after calculating the Akaike's information criterion (AIC). Statistics of CA showed that the numbers of farm in each cluster were 43 (2.4%) in cluster1 (CL1), 1364 (75.3%) in cluster2 (CL2) and 404 (22.3%) in cluster3 (CL3). CL1 farms had a good availability of facilities. The management practices were the higher in comparison with the farms in the other clusters. Management and feeding systems practices in CL1 ranged from medium to high. CL2 was the largest, with 1364 farms located in all the ten governorates. The availability of facilities and equipment were low or lacking. The management practices were the lowest in comparison with farms in other clusters. CL3 facilities availability were low to medium. The management practices were medium when compared with the farms in the other clusters. The results of the current study demonstrate the existence of a large variability among buffalo dairy production systems in Egypt. These systems variability should be taken into consideration for sustainable system development.

The production planning and scheduling system used in refinery CIMS is discussed, where the production process, basic production characteristics, refinery production and administration, its activity types are introduced. An integrated refinery production plan and schedule system is put forward; its problem solving process is discussed in detail. A kind of integration framework used in the refinery CIMS and its computing environment are put forward and analysed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn out