Even though simulation has been used so far in manufacturing facilities for modelling supply chain management, production management, and business processes, its applications in managing the energy consumption within manufacturing companies represent a new and innovative research domain. This prompted the research undertaken for the work present in this paper. The main focus of this research is to analyse production management in a manufacturing facility and correlate it with the energy consumption. The research initially concentrates on different simulation methodologies and their application in the current manufacturing domain. Literature relating to the correlation of energy consumption with production management has also been reviewed. This review identified very few previous instances where simulation tools were used to predict the energy consumption in a manufacturing facility. This research brings a novel approach to investigating the adaptability of industrial simulation processes and tools for modelling the energy consumption with respect to a variable production output. The end result of this investigation consists of a better understanding of the production system and the energy losses that were captured by the simulation model.

Cristina Maria Luminea

John Donovan

David Tormey

Application of Systems Simulation for Predicting and Optimising Energy Requirements for HDF Production

The industrial training program is part of the academic curriculum at the tertiary level. It plays an important role in providing students with the exposure to a real working environment in the industry. Through this program, the higher education institutions (HEI) could identify the gaps in the curriculum based on the requirements from the industry. In addition, the feedback from the industry will help the HEI to equip students with relevant skills according to the demands from the industry. Indirectly, it can help to address the issue of unemployed graduates of which the number seems to increase from time to time. Therefore, this study aims to obtain the feedback from the employers out there in order to determine the most preferred criteria in selecting students for the industrial training placement by using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) approach. The findings, through the development of house of quality based on the QFD approach, show that communication skills and students&#x2019; participation in sports and cocurricular activities at their university are the most preferred selection criteria. Therefore, the QFD approach can be used to translate the employers&#x2019; feedback in improving the marketability of the students in the industry.

Nora Muda

Noor Sulawati Mat Roji

A Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Approach in Determining the Employer&#x2019;s Selection Criteria

Infrastructures are considered as important facilities required for every country and society to be able to work properly. Aging and deterioration of such structures during their lifetime are a major concern both for maintenance researchers in the academic world and for the practitioners. This concern is mainly because the deterioration increases the maintenance costs dramatically and lowers the reliability, availability, and safety of the structural system. Preventive maintenance and inspection activities are the most usual means for keeping the structure in a good condition. This paper utilizes the concept of delay-time for developing the optimal inspection policy for deteriorating structures. In the proposed stochastic model, discrete times of inspection activities are taken as the decision variables of an optimization problem, in a way that the obtained aperiodic (nonuniform) inspection schedule minimizes the total downtime ratio of the structure. To illustrate the model capabilities, various numerical examples are solved and results are compared with the traditional periodic (uniform) inspection policies. The results indicate the substantial reduction in system downtime due to the wisely planned inspection schedule and the appropriate utilization of delay-time concept, which is indeed a powerful framework for inspection optimization problems.

Ehsan Nazemi

Kamran Shahanaghi

Developing an Inspection Optimization Model Based on the Delay-Time Concept

This paper proposes a redundantly actuated parallel manipulator 4-UPS-S that is applicable for orientation adjustment in the gathering process of solar power. A thorough analysis involving the kinematic issues is performed. Inverse kinematic problems are solved in the close-loop. The Jacobian matrix and some performance indexes are analytically derived. The multiobjective optimization model is established, and the determinacy optimization is completed on the basis of previous research works. Six-Sigma robust analysis is performed on the basis of the determinacy optimal solution. Results show that 4-UPS-S does not satisfy the quality requirement. Therefore, it is necessary to implement Six-Sigma robust optimization, and select optimial solution of robustness to complete the nondeterminacy optimization. The research results show that the proposed methodology has a simple operation and high optimization efficiency. The methodology commodiously obtains robustness parallel manipulator that satisfies the quality requirement.

Guohua Cui

Haidong Zhou

Haiqiang Zhang

Dan Zhang

Yanwei Zhang

Robust Design Optimization of a 4-UPS-S Parallel Manipulator for Orientation-Regulating Control System of Solar Gather Panels

We propose a Standard Time (ST) Estimate Model based on energy demand to attain  more equal work distribution in manual assembly lines. The proposal was developed estimating the energy consumption by monitoring the heart rate (HR) of 84 people between 18 and 48 years old while performing repetitive activities under moderate workload (2.5&#x2013;5.0 kilocalories/minute (Kcal/min)). Variables on one model were determined, which were based on energy consumption (EC) using the 13-variable Best-Subset function. Subsequently, a general equation for the Standard Time (ST) Estimate Model was calculated through lineal regression. Two significant variables were obtained: total kilocalories (Kcal tot.)/pieces and total Kcal/operation time (OT) for each station, which are included in a Standard Time Estimate Model. ST can be represented with a regression model measuring the total number of kilocalories consumed by workers and the OT, which can help companies to balance the cycle time in their assembly lines.

Abdul Ayabar

Jorge De la Riva

Jaime Sanchez

Cesar Balderrama

Regression Model to Estimate Standard Time through Energy Consumption of Workers in Manual Assembly Lines under Moderate Workload

This paper presents ergonomic study and design of the pulpit in a wire rod mill at an integrated steel plant. The mill was facing problem of less productivity of workers due to lack of proper work posture and working conditions. The study data were collected from the interview of seven operators involved with the pulpit. Relevant ergonomic tools were used for assessing the survey data for identifying the risk factors involved with these operators. Ergonomically improved pulpit was proposed for reducing the musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) thereby increasing the productivity of the plant.

Chandra P. Dewangan

Arun K. Singh

Ergonomic Study and Design of the Pulpit of a Wire Rod Mill at an Integrated Steel Plant

This paper presents a decision framework that highlights the integration of manufacturing strategy (MS) and sustainability along with strategic responses as a significant component. This integration raises  complexity and uncertainty in decision-making following the number of subjective components with their inherent relationships that must be brought into context and the huge amount of required information in eliciting judgments. Thus, a proposed hybrid multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) approach in the form of an integrated probabilistic fuzzy analytic network process (PROFUZANP) is adopted in this work. In this method, analytic network process (ANP) serves as the main framework in identifying policy options of manufacturing strategy. Fuzzy set theory (FST) is used to describe vagueness in decision-making which is carried out by eliciting judgments in pairwise comparisons using linguistic variables with corresponding triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs). Probability theory is used to handle randomness in aggregating judgments of multiple decision-makers. Results show that a stakeholder-oriented approach is considered the most relevant strategic response in developing a sustainable manufacturing strategy. The contribution of this work lies in identifying the policies which constitute a sustainable manufacturing strategy using an integrated MCDM approach under uncertainty.

Lanndon Ocampo

Eppie Clark

Kae Vines Tanudtanud

A Sustainable Manufacturing Strategy from Different Strategic Responses under Uncertainty

About this journal

Journal profile

Meet the editorial board

Editor spotlight

Find out more

This journal's articles appear in a wide range of abstracting and indexing databases, and are covered by numerous other services that aid discovery and access. Find out more about where and how the content of this journal is available.

Journal of Industrial Engineering