Manufacturing execution system (MES) is a computer application system that integrates all relevant real-time information along every step in a manufacturing process. MES is essential for manufacturers for gathering real-time production line information, supporting manufacturing decision making and increasing manufacturing efficiency. MES is a must for operation control and lot tracking in the s...

Lean manufacturing is a proven approach for success in manufacturing industry. However, several organisations failed in their attempt to implement lean manufacturing system. The transition to lean manufacturing requires radical change which involves a total reshaping of purpose, system and culture of the organisation. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that could assist a manuf...

One important part of the manufacturing process of aerospace components is making inspections using Fluorescent Penetrant Inspection (FPI). This mandatory inspection represents a non-negligible part of the manufacturing and service cost. It is therefore important to make the geometry of the components suitable for inspection i.e. practicing Design for Inspection (DFI). This has been studied at ...

Semiconductor manufacturing is one of the most complex and capital-intensive processes composed of several hundreds of operations. In today's competitive business environments, it is more important than ever before to manage manufacturing process effectively to achieve better performances in terms of customer satisfaction and productivity than those of competitors. To obtain such fruitful outco...

This study presents an environmental manufacturing system analysis for companies looking for the benefits of environmental management in achieving high productivity levels. When the relationship between environmental costs and manufacturing decisions is examined, it can be seen that the productivity of the company can be increased by adopting a methodology of an environmentally integrated manuf...

Supply chains are formed out of complex interactions amongst several enterprises whose aim is to produce and transport goods so that customer desired products are sold at various retail outlets. Computing the total average cycle time for customer orders entering such a complex network of systems is an important exercise. In this paper, we present analytical models for evaluating the average lea...

Enterprise-wide optimization (EWO) is a new emerging area that lies at the interface of chemical engineering and operations research, and has become a major goal in the process industries due to the increasing pressures for remaining competitive in the global marketplace. EWO involves optimizing the operations of supply, manufacturing and distribution activities of a company to reduce costs and...

The combined company TÜRK+TÜRK ELECTRONIC GMBH (T+T) and INTERTON HÖRGERÄTE GMBH is developing, manufacturing and selling hearing-aids. T+T does the developing and manufacturing, and the subsidiary company INTERTON HÖRGERÄTE is responsible for the selling and the marketing. The company started the AE with the aim to develop an ASIC, which replaces the mechanical trimmers in the hearing-aid. Thi...

A small printing company in Johannesburg has experienced a steady decline in profits over the past four years, and wishes to reverse this trend. The objective of this study was to assess the implementation of Lean Manufacturing in that context, and to determine the impact it had on the printing company’s profit margin. A process-mapping of the printing organization was performed; this process-m...