DEVELOP SERIES PRODUCTS OF ROBOTS TO PROMOTE THE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT OF THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

As a typical representative and main technicalmeans of advanced manufacturing technology,robotic technology plays an important role in raisingan enterpse’s engineering level, improving its prod-uct quality and productivity, and realizing civilizedproduction. Currently, there are nearly one millionrobots of various kinds, which are employed widelyin different fields of manufacturing industry. Robot-ics is now one of the high technologies, which arecompetitively developed by the developed coun-

Rapid Sample Product Trial Manufacture Technique for Developing Water Meter New Products

This paper advances the viewpoints and methods of the rapid sample product trial manufacture technique for developing water meter new products by CAD and simulation, computer virtual assembling and optimizing, rapid machining process and measurement etc. as the design and sample product trial manufacture process of water meter new products are long in product development period, and low in product development efficiency in the present time.

CONCURRENT PRODUCT PORTFOLIO PLANNING AND MIXED PRODUCT ASSEMBLY LINE BALANCING

Reconfigurable products and manufacturing systems have enabled manufacturers to provide ＂cost effective＂ variety to the market. In spite of these new technologies, the expense of manufacturing makes it infeasible to supply all the possible variants to the market for some industries. Therefore, the determination of the right number of product variantsto offer in the product portfolios becomes an important consideration. The product portfolio planning problem had been independently well studied from marketing and engineering perspectives. However, advantages can be gained from using a concurrent marketing and engineering approach. Concurrent product development strategies specifically for reconfigurable products and manufacturing systems can allow manufacturers to select best product portfolios from marketing, product design and manufacturing perspectives. A methodology for the concurrent design of a product portfolio and assembly system is presented. The objective of the concurrent product portfolio planning and assembly system design problem is to obtain the product variants that will make up the product portfolio such that oversupply of optional modules is minimized and the assembly line efficiency is maximized. Explicit design of the assembly system is obtained during the solution of the problem. It is assumed that the demand for optional modules and the assembly times for these modules are known a priori. A genetic algorithm is used in the solution of the problem. The basic premise of this methodology is that the selected product portfolio has a significant impact on the solution of the assembly line balancing problem. An example is used to validate this hypothesis. The example is then further developed to demonstrate how the methodology can be used to obtain the optimal product portfolio. This approach is intended for use by manufacturers during the early design stages of product family design.

STATE SPACE MODELING OF DIMENSIONAL MACHINING ERRORS OF SERIAL-PARALLEL HYBRID MULTI-STAGE MACHINING SYSTEM

The final product quality is determined by cumulation, coupling and propagation of product quality variations from all stations in multi-stage manufacturing systems （MMSs）. Modeling and control of variation propagation is essential to improve product quality. However, the current stream of variations （SOV） theory can only solve the problem that a single SOV affects the product quality. Due to the existence of multiple variation streams, limited research has been done on the quality control in serial-parallel hybrid multi-stage manufacturing systems （SPH-MMSs）. A state space model and its modeling strategies are developed to describe the multiple variation streams stack-up in an SPH-MMS. The SOV theory is extended to SPH-MMS. The dimensions of system model are reduced to the production-reality level, and the effect and feasibility of the model is validated by a machining case.

Government Subsidies,Resource Misallocation and Manufacturing Productivity

Government subsidies for some firms will have effects on the market entry,exit and scale of firms,result in misallocation of resource between firms,and reduce manufacturing productivity.Using data of Chinese industrial enterprises from 1998 to 2007,this paper studies the effect and micro-mechanism of misallocation caused by government subsidy on manufacturing productivity.Decomposition of manufacturing productivity indicates there is resource misallocation between firms and decreasing of manufacturing productivity.Empirical study shows that government subsidies constitute an important factor inducing this resource misallocation.Subsidies change extensive and intensive margins of market,distort resource allocation between firms and reduce manufacturing productivity,and the resource misallocation is more serious in industries with higher proportion of state-owned assets.Specifically,subsidies hinder entry and exit of firms in extensive margins,with subsidized firms having lower propability of market entry and exit compared with unsubsidized firms;subsidies promote scale of subsidized firms and crowds out market share of unsubsidized firms in intensive margins.The implication of this paper is that when providing subsidies government should take into consideration their effect on the firms’dynamic and resource allocation in the frame of general equilibrium.

Production Control of a Manufacturing System with Random Machine Breakdowns

We consider a serial production system with machine breakdowns, where the machine at each station alternates between up and down states with exponential up and down time distributions. To obtain insight about the optimal production strategy, we focus on one production station. Its production process (output) and that of the previous station (input) are modeled by point processes with stochastic intensities. Our objectives is to control both input and output intensities such that expected discounted profit is maximized. We show that the optimal control policy is of a threshold type which is characterized by two threshold values.When each station in the serial system has reliable machines, the well known Kanban production strategy, which was first developed in Toyota Motor Co. of Japan, is usually used to control the production process at each station. Our result in this paper implies that, among other things, the traditional Kanban control rule has to be modified if the production environment is random.

Auto Manufacturing by Aviation Industry Civil Product Information Center of China Aviation Industry Corporation

China National Aviation Industry Corpora-tion (CAIC) has developed a complete system for production and sale of leading products mini-vehicles (including mini-cars), as well as e-conomic and luxurious coaches, tank trucks, wrecker truck, garbage trucks, motorcycles

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE HERBAL MEDICINES AND PRACTITIONERS WORKING GROUP IN THE UK: RAISING THE STANDARDS OF MANUFACTURED HERBAL PRODUCTS

The UK government set up a Herbal Medicines and Practitioners Working Group(HMPWG)to assess possibilities of:1.Setting up Statutory Regulation of Herbal Medicine Practitioners;2.Allowing continued public access to valuable herbal medicines.On 26th March 2015 the HMPWG published the key recommendations after over a year of meetings and consultation with experts.