Cloud manufacturing system for sheet metal processing

Abstract

Cloud computing is changing the way industries and enterprises run their businesses. Cloud manufacturing is emerging as an approach to transform the traditional manufacturing business model, while helping the manufacturer to align production efficiency with its business strategy, and creating intelligent factory networks that enable collaboration across the whole enterprise. Many production planning and control (PPC) problems are essentially optimisation problems, where the objective is to develop a plan that meets the demand at minimum cost or maximum profit. Because the underlying optimisation problem will vary in the different business and operation phases, it is important to think about optimisation in a dynamic mechanism and in a number of interlinked sub-problems at the same time. Cloud manufacturing has the potential to offer decision support as a service and medium of communication in PPC. To solve these problems and produce collaboration across the supply chain, this paper provides an overview of the state of the art in cloud manufacturing and presents a model of cloud-based production planning and production system for sheet metal processing.     

Development of sustainable platform for modular product family: a case study

Abstract

Defining product platform architecture is a critical issue to design and develop product variants. Different factors are highly dependent on the architecture type, such as number of variants, to measure modularity level, component commonality, market demand, etc. It is directly related to manage product portfolios and setting up business plan of a company. Before defining a product platform, whether it is modular or integral product designers need to follow specific design guidelines and checklists. This research mainly focuses on to define the platform architecture as well as provides necessary design guidelines and checklists for the product designers. It also highlights an example product of a case company with the objective to clarify/validate the proposed product design approach. In conclusion, this paper outlines the findings from this research and proposed some critical questions need to be answered within the scope of future research potentials.     

Transition to Work: Effects of Preparedness and Goal Construction on Employment and Depressive Symptoms

This study examines the mediating role of employment preparedness in improving employment, mental health, and construction of work‐life goals among young vocational school graduates who participated in the School‐to‐Work effectiveness trial. The trial included a 1‐week intervention program that focused on enhancing employment preparedness. In this trial, 416 graduates of secondary vocational institutes were randomized into a control and experimental group. All the study participants were assessed at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 10 months later. The results showed that the School‐to‐Work intervention increased employment preparedness, which in turn increased employment at the 10‐month follow‐up. Furthermore, employment predicted work‐life‐related personal goals and lower financial strain, which in turn was associated with lower depressive symptoms. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

In a Nervous Voice: Acoustic Analysis and Perception of Anxiety in Social Phobics’ Speech

This study investigated the effects of anxiety on nonverbal aspects of speech using data collected in the framework of a large study of social phobia treatment. The speech of social phobics (N = 71) was recorded during an anxiogenic public speaking task both before and after treatment. The speech samples were analyzed with respect to various acoustic parameters related to pitch, loudness, voice quality, and temporal aspects of speech. The samples were further content-masked by low-pass filtering (which obscures the linguistic content of the speech but preserves nonverbal affective cues) and subjected to listening tests. Results showed that a decrease in experienced state anxiety after treatment was accompanied by corresponding decreases in (a) several acoustic parameters (i.e., mean and maximum voice pitch, high-frequency components in the energy spectrum, and proportion of silent pauses), and (b) listeners’ perceived level of nervousness. Both speakers’ self-ratings of state anxiety and listeners’ ratings of perceived nervousness were further correlated with similar acoustic parameters. The results complement earlier studies on vocal affect expression which have been conducted on posed, rather than authentic, emotional speech.     

Understanding performance measurement dynamism: a case study

This paper elaborates on the notion of performance measurement (PM) dynamism. The paper’s argument is based on a literature review and an interventionist case study. The analysis of the structure of PM dynamism is deepened by using New Institutional Sociology theory as a tool. PM dynamism was found to occur at four different levels: in setting the role of performance measures for decision making in general, in the use of measures, in the selection of measures and within the components of single measures. PM dynamism allows, for instance, measures used only for specific and topical purposes (ad hoc), in contrast to the views presented in the extant literature, which reject measures that are not institutionalized. The use of up-to-date measures, a major implication of understanding PM dynamism more thoroughly, could lead to more efficient strategy implementation and enactment at different levels. The originality of the article consists of identifying the rationale and the levels of PM dynamism and of the consideration that the use of ad hoc measures may have a positive impact on managing performance.     

Incorporating preference information in interactive reference point methods for multiobjective optimization

In this paper, we introduce new ways of utilizing preference information specified by the decision maker in interactive reference point based methods. A reference point consists of desirable values for each objective function. The idea is to take the desires of the decision maker into account more closely when projecting the reference point onto the set of nondominated solutions. In this way we can support the decision maker in finding the most satisfactory solutions faster. In practice, we adjust the weights in the achievement scalarizing function that projects the reference point. We identify different cases depending on the amount of additional information available and demonstrate the cases with examples. Finally, we summarize results of extensive computational tests that give evidence of the efficiency of the ideas proposed.     

An Explorative Study of the Place of the Ethics of Care and Reflective Practice in Social Work Education and Practice

The moral development and identity of social work students have been shown to be enhanced by education in caring. Important aspects of this education are training in reflective practice and learning to have a perspective focused on professional loving care. In this study, we have explored how reflective processes can be implemented in both educational settings and working practice from an ethical point of view. Elaborating upon reflective practice from an ethical perspective focuses on reciprocity in relationships and relational capacity in institutional contexts. The study took the form of interviews with social work teachers and health care professionals. Interview and focus group data were analysed, three main topics were identified and statements were coded with relation to these topics. Use of both educators and practitioners in this study showed the importance of not neglecting the transition from education to practice. Responses also showed the value placed upon continuous education and development over the course of a health care professional's career.     

Aspects of a new world development strategy II: Factors affecting the long-term prospects of developing nations

This paper explores some quantitative dimensions of the interdependence of rich and poor regions in the context of the United Nations World Model. It extends the original work on that model in three ways: (1) by updating some of the key parameters and exogenous variables in the light of recent data; (2) by developing a “control” solution to be used as a point of reference in policy simulations; and (3) by exploring the sensitivities of each of two groups of regions— developed and developing—to changes in one another's growth rates. Goals of closing the income gap between developed and developing regions and of increasing income levels in the latter are discussed.     

How Do Efforts to Enhance Career Preparation Affect Peer Groups?

The present study investigated how efforts to enhance career preparation affect peer groups. The participants were 710 9th graders who were randomized into control and intervention groups and assessed 3 times during 1 academic year: at baseline (T1, Fall), immediately after the career preparation intervention (T2, 3 months after baseline), and 5 months after the intervention (T3, Spring). The results showed, first, that maintenance of a stable clique was more likely when most clique members participated in the intervention. Second, it was found that the members of adolescents' cliques resembled each other in respect of the strength of the intervention effect. Finally, the results showed that the similarity of the clique members in career choice preparedness first decreased as a result of the short‐term impact of the intervention but then increased after the intervention was over, suggesting that peer groups were partly responsible for weakening the effect of the intervention. These results have important implications for understanding how peer groups moderate external influences on their members and how the stability of peer groups is affected by these influences.     

The role of work-related personal projects during two burnout interventions: a longitudinal study

Burnout is nowadays a common problem among employees, and a new approach to reduce its extent is needed. This study looked at burnout interventions in terms of personal goals and/or projects. These represent what individuals are striving to achieve, and include work-related goals. Our aim was to examine the extent to which two kinds of burnout intervention, in the form of different types of psychotherapy, influence employees' personal projects. The two types of therapy were psychoanalytic and experiential, both in the form of group therapy. To determine the extent, 62 employees who had contacted the Helsinki Occupational Health Services suffering from severe burnout participated, in the course of a single year, in 16 sessions of either analytic or experiential group psychotherapy. In addition, 28 employees suffering from severe burnout served as controls. All the participants filled in Little's Personal Project Analysis and the Bergen Burnout Indicator one month before the intervention, in the middle of the intervention and one month after the intervention. The results showed that among participants in the intervention groups the level of burnout decreased. Further, the number of work-related personal projects, project-related negative emotions, and tendencies towards negative action, decreased among those in the intervention groups compared to the control group. Moreover, project-related progress, social support and managing project-related emotions increased during the intervention. Finally, the results showed that when the negative emotions related to personal projects decreased during intervention, the level of burnout also decreased.