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.

Trade and Productivity Growth： Evidence From Vietnam＇s Manufacturing Sector at Provincial Level

Using a panel data at provincial level from 2004 to 2007 via mixing several officially statistical publications, the paper finds that the trade reform has affected significantly to the productivity of manufacturing sector among regions. Additionally, the transparency level of local government has positive effects on manufacturing sector productivity, while state sector biased has constrained the development of manufacturing sector. Moreover, the policy on development human capital of local government does not support the expansion of manufacturing firms.

FROM YOUR CAR TO YOUR PATIO:USING RECYCLED TIRE PRODUCTS IN BUILDING PROJECTS

INTRODUCTION Canada has dealt with many of the same challenges managing scrap tires as found in other countries;however,with the world’s second largest land mass and one of the lowest population densities,the challenges of recycling tires in Canada can be even more daunting.Over 350,000 tons of tires are discarded each year in Canada.That is the equivalent of 35 million passenger car tires-or one tire per Canadian-generated as waste annually.Of this total,the province of Manitoba is responsible for generating 1.3 million scrap tires annually,requiring an in-province environmental management solution.Tire Stewardship Manitoba’s role is to ensure that every tire from every corner of the province is collected and processed,as well as finding markets for its recycled tire rubber products.The purpose of this article is to provide the practicing professional some insight into tire recycling in Canada and Tire Stewardship Manitoba’s role.It also serves as an introduction to creating more sustainable buildings and landscapes using recycled tire materials and products in new building,road,or landscape projects.

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.

Research on logistics management system based on supply chain management

Generally, supply chain logistics is the unification of logistics, information flow and capital flow, logistics runs through the whole process of the supply chain. Logistics connects the individual enterprise in the supply chain and it is the bond of mutual cooperation between enterprises. In that way, the logistics management becomes an important part of the supply chain management system naturally. However, it is not so long since the theory of supply chain management and logistics management put forward so they are still being refined. Besides, it is lack of green philosophy in the logistics management of the supply chain and effect of logistics on the environment and resource efficiency do not be considered synthetically. Yet, methods to solve the problem that customers return items and waste materials have been excluded from the enterprises and business strategy. With the awareness that people should protect the environment and conserve resources enhanced and governments increase the intensity of environmental regulations constraints, the theory and practice of green logistics management are valued by the foreign supply chain management and logistics management theory community and the business community gradually.

The Advanced Manufacture Theory and Practice Based on the Management Science

The paper points out that the science and technology, social productivity and economic form are the decisive strengths in facilitating the reformation of the production method of the manufacturing industry. This kind of strength happens through making an influence on the theory of management and science. It analyses the stage and the characteristic of the development model of manufacturing industry of human society, and on this basis does the detailed research on the several patterns of the advanced manufacturing theory and practice： the computer integrated making, concurrent engineering, lean production, agile manufacturing, planning of enterprise resources, global manufacturing. Finally, it thinks that the development model of the advanced manufacture theory and practice embodies a continuous curve of the technical innovation, which is on the basis of the theory of management science.

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.

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.

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.

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

STEP AP 242 Managed Model-based 3D Engineering:An Application Towards the Automation of Fixture Planning

Fixture design and planning is one of the most important manufacturing activities, playing a pivotal role in deciding the lead time for product development. Fixture design, which affects the part-quality in terms of geometric accuracy and surface finish, can be enhanced by using the product manufacturing information(PMI) stored in the neutral standard for the exchange of product model data(STEP) file, thereby integrating design and manufacturing. The present paper proposes a unique fixture design approach, to extract the geometry information from STEP application protocol(AP) 242 files of computer aided design(CAD) models, for providing automatic suggestions of locator positions and clamping surfaces. Automatic feature extraction software "FiXplan", developed using the programming language C#, is used to extract the part feature, dimension and geometry information. The information from the STEP AP 242 file is deduced using geometric reasoning techniques, which in turn is utilized for fixture planning. The developed software is observed to be adept in identifying the primary, secondary, and tertiary locating faces and locator position configurations of prismatic components. Structural analysis of the prismatic part under different locator positions was performed using commercial finite element method software, ABAQUS, and the optimized locator position was identified on the basis of minimum deformation of the workpiece.The area-ratio(base locator enclosed area(%)/work piece base area(%)) for the ideal locator configuration was observed as 33%. Experiments were conducted on a prismatic workpiece using a specially designed fixture, for different locator configurations. The surface roughness and waviness of the machined surfaces were analysed using an Alicona non-contact optical profilometer. The best surface characteristics were obtained for the surface machined under the ideal locator positions having an area-ratio of 33%, thus validating the predicted numerical results. The efficiency, capability and applicability of the developed software is demonstrated for the finishing operation of a sensor cover – a typical prismatic component having applications in the naval industry, under different locator configurations.The best results were obtained under the proposed ideal locator configuration of area-ratio 33%.

Concurrent Engineering Systematic Approach and Application

Concurrent engineering is a systematic approach to the integrated and concurrent design of products andtheir related processes. Using the information integration capabilities of computer integrated manufacturing system(CIMS), it shortens product leadtime, improves product quality and reduces product cost. This paper analyzes theessential features of concurrent engineering and introduces some typical methods and technologies used in concurrentengineering. The paper also describes the application methodology used in the ongoing project entitled 'concurrentengineering' of the National High-Tech Development Program of China.