Decisions on reliability screening rules and burn-in policies are determined based on the estimated reliability. The variability in a semiconductor manufacturing process does not only causes quality problems but it also makes reliability estimation more complicated. This study investigates the nonuniformity characteristics of integrated circuit reliability according to defect density distribution within a wafer and between wafers then develops optimal burn-in policy based on the estimated reliability. New reliability estimation model based on yield information is developed using a spatial stochastic process. Spatial defect density variation is reflected in the reliability estimation, and the defect densities of each die location are considered as input variables of the burn-in optimization. Reliability screening and optimal burn-in policy subject to the burn-in cost minimization is examined, and numerical experiments are conducted.
The Mahalanobis-Taguchi System is a diagnosis and predictive method for analyzing patterns in multivariate cases. The goal of this study is diagnosis of the spondylolisthesis from biomedical data that is derived from the shape and orientation of the pelvis and lumbar spine. The data set has six attributes including pelvic incidence, pelvic tilt, lumbar lordosis angle, sacral slope, pelvic radius and grade of spondylolisthesis and two class including normal and abnormal. From University of California at Irvine machine learning repository, 100 normal and 150 spondylolisthesis patient’s data were used for this study. Mahalanobis Taguchi System (MTS) application process and the diagnosis results were described in this paper.
At present, the significance of a new manufacturing system that can shift from ‘mass production’ and consider life cycles of a product is pointed out and extremely expected. In such a situation, it is recognized that the modular design, often called ‘unit design,’ is the important design methodology which realizes the new production system enabling ‘cost reduction,’ ‘flexible production of a multi-functional artifact,’ ‘settlement of an environmental issue,’ and so on. A module (unit) of a product is generally defined as ‘the parts group made into the sub-system from a certain specific viewpoint.’ So far, there have been many researches related to the modular design. However, they are often limited to a certain viewpoint (objective). This paper proposes a simple but effective method for multi-objective modular design. In the proposed method, a new design metric, called similarity index, is proposed to evaluate the modular design candidates from the multiple viewpoints.
Of many approaches to reduce motion analysis errors, the compensation method of anatomical landmarks estimates the position of anatomical landmarks during motion. The method models the position of anatomical landmarks with joint angle or skin marker displacement using the data of the so-called dynamic calibration in which anatomical landmark positions are calibrated in ad hoc motions. Then the anatomical landmark positions are calibrated in target motions using the model. This study applies the compensation methods with joint angle and skin marker displacement to three lower extremity motions (walking, sit-to-stand/ stand-to-sit, and step up/down) in ten healthy males and compares their performance. To compare the performance of the methods, two sets of kinematic variables were calculated using different two marker clusters, and the difference was obtained. Results showed that the compensation method with skin marker displacement had less differences by 30~60% compared to without compensation. And, it had significantly less difference in some kinematic variables (7 of 18) by 25~40% compared to the compensa- tion method with joint angle. This study supports that compensation with skin marker displacement reduced the motion analysis STA errors more reliably than with joint angle in lower extremity motion analysis.
Dentists are known to be highly exposed to the musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). The present study investigated the prevalence of MSD among Korean dentists and association between their MSD and physical workload. In addition, detailed causes related to the physical workloads were identified in dental operation, and needs for improvement of dental instrument and environment were collected from Korean dentists. The standardized Nordic questionnaire was used to survey body troubles and three types of questionnaires were made to investigate the physical workloads, causes of the physical workloads and improvement priority of dental equipments, respectively. A total of 104 Korean dentists were participated in the survey. Neck trouble (82%) was the most prevalent in Korean dentists, and shoulder (68%) and low back trouble (56%) followed, while low back trouble was reported to be most frequent in previous studies. The body troubles were related to the physical workload of the corresponding body parts, although they were not associated with personal characteristics. Most Korean dentists selected ‘to keep direct view inside patient’s mouth’ and ‘no support of the hand with dental instruments’ as the causes of awkward and strenuous work postures. They wanted design improvement for some equipment in their operating room such as operating light and arrangement of workplace.
To adapt to a rapidly changing business environment, introduction of new management techniques and innovative activities are crucial. In the case of small and medium companies, the compensation for scarce management resources and sustainable development can be obtained from advantage of management consulting. In this study, we propose the enterprise process evaluation model for small and medium business consulting, which can deploy the process improvement activities with considering the process maturity level within an organization. The process evaluation area of proposed Small and Medium Business, Staged Maturity Model (SMB-SMM) consists of four following parts: supply management, demand management, business management, and research and development (R&D) management. For each area, we set goals and also define the practices to achieve their goals respectively. By applying the SMB-SMM model to the small and medium sized companies, the process maturity level can be defined. And then to overcome the gap between the goals and evaluation results, the customized management consulting activities can be drawn from the predefined consulting approaches from the SMB-SMM.
In this paper, quantitative and systematic procedures for establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) of R&D departments are presented. The proposed methodology is composed of 4 steps : 1) identification of critical success factors, 2) identification of potential KPI’s, 3) determination of KPI’s and 4) monitoring and execution. A Strategy Map has been presented to better align KPI’s with a company’s competitive strategies. Also, Analytical Hierarchy Planning (AHP) is used to determine weights of KPI’s and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to analyze the effectiveness of R&D departments. To demonstrate its validity of the proposed method, it has been applied to the R&D divisions of a semiconductor company.
In this study, it was observed through the ability of performing secondary tasks and baseline fetal heart rate how the supply of lavender, peppermint and highly concentrated oxygen (40%) affected distraction due to the performance of secondary tasks in the driving environment. Twelve male university students conducted secondary tasks while driving in the environments (6 in total) mixed and designed with oxygen concentration (21%, 40%) and the condition of odors (Normal, Lavender, Peppermint). The test was proceeded in order of stable state (5mins), driving (5mins), and secondary tasks (1min), and by extracting ECG data from every section by 30secs, the mean value of baseline fetal heart rate was calculated. As a result of analysis, in the ability of performing secondary tasks, a percentage of correct answers showed no difference in oxygen concentration and the condition of odors (p > 0.05). In performance completion time, a percentage of correct answers decreased showing a statistically significant difference in the condition of odors compared with the condition where odors were not provided (p < 0.05). As for baseline fetal heart rate, in the comparison between sections, while performing secondary tasks, it increased showing a significant difference compared with stable state and driving state (p < 0.05). The effect of interaction was observed in oxygen concentration and the condition of odors. When odors were not provided, baseline fetal heart rate decreased in 40% oxygen concentration compared with 21% oxygen concentration (p < 0.05), however, when peppermint was provided, it increased in 40% oxygen concentration compared with 21% oxygen concentration (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the fact that the condition of odors increased the ability of calculation, and when only the highly concentrated oxygen was provided, parasympathetic nerve system was activated, however, when highly concentrated oxygen was provided with peppermint at the same time, sympathetic nervous system (sns) was activated, which had a negative effect on the autonomic nervous system was drawn.
The purpose of this study is to verify the mediating effect of empowerment on the relation between job characteristics and creativity. This study also examines the relationship job characteristics and creativity. As a result of this study, job characteristics had positive influence on empowerment. Empowerment had positive influence on creativity. Also job characteristics had positive effect on creativity at first, but it did not have a direct effect on creativity when empowerment was considered. These mean that empowerment is complete mediation variable because job characteristics no longer affects creativity after empowerment has been considered. Several implications, limitations and directions for future research were discussed.
Currently, R&D investment of government is increased dramatically. However, the budget of the government is different depend- ing on the size of ministry and priorities, and then it is difficult to obtain consensus on the budget. They did not establish decision support systems to evaluate and execute R&D budget. In this paper, we analyze factors affecting research funds by linear regression and decision tree analysis in order to increase investment efficiency in national research project. Moreover, we suggested strategies that budget is estimated reasonably.
In this paper, we consider a single-manufacturer single-buyer supply chain problem where a single manufacturer purchases and processes raw materials into a family of items in order to deliver a family of items to a single buyer at a fixed interval of time for effective implementation of Just-In-Time Purchasing. An integrated multi-item lot-splitting model of facilitating multiple shipments in small lots between buyer and manufacturer is developed in a JIT Purchasing environment. Previous research on the integrated model assumed that the manufacturer orders raw materials m (integer) times for every production run (lot multiplier policy for the raw material). In this paper, we consider a generalized policy in the replenishment of raw materials, allowing lot multiplier policy and lot splitting policy. An iterative solution procedure is developed to find the order interval for finished goods and raw materials, and number of shipments between buyer and manufacturer. We show by numerical example that when the integrated policy is adopted by both buyer and manufacturer in a cooperative manner, both parties can benefit.
Recently, the optimisation of end-of-life (EOL) product remanufacturing processes has been highlighted. In particular, computer remanufacturing becomes important as the amount of disposed of computers is rapidly increasing. At the computer remanufacturing, depending on the selections of used computer parts, the value of remanufactured computers will be different. Hence, it is important to select appropriate computer parts at the reassembly. To this end, this study deals with a decision making problem to select the best combination of computer parts for minimising the total remanufacturing computer cost. This problem is formulated with an integer nonlinear programming model and heuristic search algorithms are proposed to resolve it.
The demand for facility used in producing multi-products is changed dynamically for discrete and finite time periods. The excess or the shortage for facility is occurred according to difference of the facility capacity size and demand for facility through given time periods. The shortage facility is met through the outsourcing production. The excess facility cost is considered for the periods that the facility capacity is greater than the demand for the facility, and the outsourcing production cost is considered for the periods that the demand for facility is greater than the facility capacity. This paper addresses to determine the facility capacity size, outsourcing production products and amount that minimizes the sum of the facility capacity cost, the excess facility cost and the outsourcing production cost. The characteristics of the optimal solution are analyzed, and an algorithm applying them is developed. A numerical example is shown to explain the problem.
When monitoring an instrumental process, one often collects a host of data such as characteristic signals sent by a sensor in short time intervals. Characteristic data of short time intervals tend to be autocorrelated. In the instrumental processes often the practice of adjusting the setting value simply based on the previous one, so-called ‘adjacent point operation’, becomes more critical, since in the short run the deviations are harder to detect and in the long run they have amplified consequences. Stochastic modelling using ARIMA or AR models are not readily usable here. Due to the difficulty of dealing with autocorrelated data conventional practice is resorting to choosing the time interval where autocorrelation is weak enough then to using I-MR control chart to judge the process stability. In the autocorrelated instrumental processes it appears that using the Shewhart chart and the time interval data where autocorrelation is relatively not existent turns out to be a rather convenient and very useful practice to determine the process stability. However in the autocorrelated instrumental processes we intend to show that one would presumably do better using the EWMA control chart rather than just using the Shewhart chart along with some arbitrarily intervalled data, since the former is more sensitive to shifts given appropriate weights.
This paper deals with a centralized warehouse problem with multi-item and capacity constraint. The objective of this paper is to decide the number and location of centralized warehouses and determineorder quantity (Q), reorder point (r) of each centralized warehouse to minimize holding, setup, penalty, and transportation costs. Each centralized warehouse uses continuous review in- ventory policy and its budget is limited. A SA (Simulated Annealing) approach is developed and its performance is tested by using some computational experiments.
Virtual project organization may be recognized as one of the promising business models in which many knowledge sources externalize through cross boundaries of knowledge-based organizations. This paper proposes a knowledge competence evaluation of virtual project organization based on the following perspectives: 1) Individual knowledge perspective, 2) Activity-oriented knowledge perspective, and 3) Knowledge-driven social network perspective. In the framework, individual knowledge competence having experienced or learned from knowledge-based activities and virtual networks in the project, should be evaluated according to the assumption that knowledge and collaboration competence depends on the activities and networks acquired proportionally by the past participation to projects. An illustrative SI example is given in order to validate the proposed evaluation and computing procedure.
Release planning for incremental software development is to select and assign features in sequence of releases along a specified planning horizon. It includes the technical precedence inherent in the features, the conflicting priorities as determined by the representative stakeholders, and the balance between required and available resources. The complexity of this consideration is getting more complicated when planning releases in software product lines. The problem is formulated as a precedence-constrained multiple 0-1 knapsack problem. In this research a genetic algorithm is developed for solving the release planning problems in software product lines as well as tests for the proposed solution methodology are conducted using data generated randomly.
The current environment of technological and competitive changes influences not only the business R&D environment but also government driven national R&D strategies. Open innovation has now become an important paradigm that is replacing the outdated paradigm of closed innovation. Many companies and nations have been increasing R&D investment because R&D has been considered a driving force for national and corporate competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare the performance of R&D focused on open innovation according to scientific and technological outputs which is based on paper publications, patents and etc. Comparisons should not be only based on the quantity but also on the quality of the output. This paper shows that it is possible to develop DEA models that utilize the Analytical Hierarchical Process in order to transform the qualitative index into a quantitative index. Hence, the relative efficiency for R&D organizations is obtained based on both quantity and quality outputs and subsequently provides comprehensive and realistic methods for decision makers to identify levels of project efficiency.
We propose a new priority discipline called the strict T-preemptive priority discipline, and derive the waiting time distributions of each class in the strict T-preemptive priority M/G/1 queue. Using this queueing analysis, we evaluate the performance of an opportunistic spectrum access in cognitive radio networks, where a communication channel is divided into time slots, a licensed primary user is assigned to one channel, and multiple unlicensed secondary users may opportunistically exploit time slots unused by the primary user. We also present a numerical example of the analysis of the opportunistic spectrum access where the arrival rates and service times distributions of each users are identical.
A possible heuristic to solve metropolitan area vehicle routing problems with variable vehicle speeds is suggested in this research. Delivery hours are classified into 4 different time zones to make variable vehicle speeds no change within the same time zone to make TDVRP simple to solve. The suggested heuristic consists of 2 stages such as initial solution development step and initial solution improvement step. A computer program using C++ is constructed to evaluate the suggested heuristic. Randomly generated vehicle routing problems are used for the experiments. This heuristic could be helpful to logistics companies by increasing delivery efficiencies since the 4 zone classification is taken from the observed traffic information offered by a local government.