The ongoing challenge for supply chain systems is accommodating real-time changes and unpredictable demands from system entities or customers. In a dynamic commodity delivery system, new orders enter the system while the vehicles are already on-route deliver scheduled orders. The critical problem in such cases is developing the intelligence to dynamically respond to changing demands while minimising transportation costs. In this research, an innovative Industry 4.0 approach was used to suggest a solution to 'dynamic multi-depot vehicle routing problem (DMDVRP)'. This research was designed to optimise the transportation expenses while maintaining each vehicle capacity constraint as serving customer stochastic demands from multiple depots. Industry 4.0 is a new implementation of technology utilised by companies, in this case, to bring around a transformed supply chain solution and system with a dynamic approach. Two-stage hybrid algorithms were developed for solving the DMDVRP. The experimental scenarios' results demonstrate the developed algorithms were effective.

Industry 4.0 is a concept that assists companies in developing a modern supply chain (MSC) system when they are faced with a dynamic process.Because Industry 4.0 focuses on mobility and real-time integration, it is a good framework for a dynamic vehicle routing problem (DVRP).This research works on DVRP.The aim of this research is to minimize transportation cost without exceeding the capacity constraint of each vehicle while serving customer demands from a common depot.Meanwhile, new orders arrive at a specific time into the system while the vehicles are executing the delivery of existing orders.This paper presents a two-stage hybrid algorithm for solving the DVRP.In the first stage, construction algorithms are applied to develop the initial route.In the second stage, improvement algorithms are applied.Experimental results were designed for different sizes of problems.Analysis results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Motivated by the practical scheduling problem of job shops, this study evaluates unrelated parallel machine scheduling models. The researchers proposed a new mixed integer linear programming model considering effects of maximum limit on the allowable tardiness. An efficient solution technique was developed in MATLAB to minimise computational time. The model was validated using real-life data from local aircraft industry. It was shown that the proposed model leads to lower cost compared to the current models (i.e., without any limit on tardiness) in the literature. In addition, reduction in computational time enables corporate scheduling staff to use the model efficiently.

This paper presents an automated model for improving job shop scheduling by incorporating Industry 4.0 and project management. The proposed model develops dynamic and adaptive schedules to incorporate real-time information about processing times (including random unexpected events) and due dates, reflecting the impact of industry 4.0 on rescheduling decisions. The model minimizes the earliness and tardiness costs while considering the rescheduling costs and is motivated by the real-life case study from a local company. This study applied Earned Value (EV) and Forecasted Total Cost at Completion (EACf) concepts and integrated it with mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model to design an adaptive automated scheduling system. The paper presents a new application of project management concept in MILP job shop scheduling. Also, this research proposes new rescheduling concept to minimize unnecessary schedule changes while providing the best possible schedule to process all the jobs.

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Software Development for Team Projects in Manufacturing Abstract A software package has been developed to introduce students to the integration of design criteria, material properties, mechanical properties and product cost. The software has been used in the two credit manufacturing processes course for four years and modifications have been made based upon the responses and comments of the students on the assessment questionnaires they completed. The course is required by all mechanical engineering and industrial engineering programs and is scheduled at the junior level. The overview of the typical project, results of the student questionnaires, project changes and software changes are presented. Introduction The basic manufacturing processes course attempts to integrate multiple design criteria, mechanical properties, material properties and manufacturing costs for a specific product. Students need interdisciplinary team projects as part of the ABET requirements and this course is one of only a few that has students from multiple engineering disciplines. The project design criteria are the load requirements and deflection limit for a simple beam structure. The manufacturing processes for the beam such as rolling and extrusion are presented in the discussions in the lectures on bulk deformation processes. The students have had the formulas for the centroid and moment of inertia in their statics and strength of materials courses for the various cross-sectional shapes such as square, rectangle, circular, triangular, I-beam and hollow box. The students must find the moment and inertia equations for an additional shape and have the model evaluate those shapes or create their own program to give the results. The additional shapes typically selected by the students are the hollow circle, T-section, C-channel or U- channel. Previous papers have been prepared on the program and this is an extension of the previous works1-5. The loading types available in the model are single point center load, single point end load and uniform load. The types of end supports for the beam are simply supported ends, fixed ends, and cantilever support (single fixed end). The program contains 12 materials in the data base and two materials are added to the data base during the model demonstration session. The model is e-mailed to all students in the course for their use. The students must select at least one additional material, obtain the material property, mechanical property and cost data required for the model. The various reports were required so the students would do work throughout the 10 weeks rather than only at the last two weeks. The first three reports were 10 points each and the

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Combined Individual-Team Based Project Abstract The basic manufacturing processes course was selected for an interdisciplinary team project for ABET requirements by the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering (IMSE) Department. The project is an integration of design criteria, material properties, mechanical properties and product cost. A software package is used to assist the students in the evaluation of various materials and structural shapes. To improve the student learning, assessments are made to evaluate student progress during the project and to determine improvements to be made in the software, in the project problem and in the evaluation of team performance. Introduction One problem in the project is that some team members have minimal participation in the project. One or two students will do most of the work, and the other team members expect the same grade for their being a “member” of the team. The first approach to correct this problem was to have each team member evaluate all team members, including themselves. The performance factor was multiplied by the project score to give the individual team member score. This has helped a little, but students are hesitant to give fellow classmates a low grade even though the evaluations are considered confidential. The team based course project1-6 has been used for several years and the problem has been changed each semester so the students do not copy previous projects. In the first years of the project, teams were formed and the project was graded at the end of the semester. These reports were often poor as the students had difficulty in writing reports, in interpreting the results they obtained, and in presenting their recommendations for the best material and shape. A suggested report format was given to the students and the reports were better, but some reports were rushed at the last minute and others decided to uses their own format. Since there was only one report, the questionnaire to evaluate students’ learning was administered on the day the report was submitted. The next step6 was to change the grading from a single report to have three preliminary reports, each of 10 points, and then the final report of 70 points. The purposes of the multiple reports were three fold. First, the students would need to start the project earlier to as the preliminary reports were due earlier in the semester and thus some work would be required before the final project. Secondly, this was an opportunity to use multiple assessments to evaluate progress during the semester. The assessments asked some specific questions about what progress they had made and indicated specific items that would be expected in the final report. Many of the assessment questions were milestones which the students should have completed or should be considered for the next report. Finally, these reports provided an opportunity to provide feedback so the final report would be more complete as well as be written in better form. One of the problems is that many students do not know the basics of writing reports, such as that the titles of tables should be above the table whereas the title of figures

In real world production systems, uncertain events such as random machine breakdown and processing time can occur anytime. These events lead to disruption of normal activities and consequently invalidate the initial schedule. Considering uncertainty in the scheduling process enables organisations to resume their activities effectively after uncertain events occur. The focus of this paper is proactive scheduling approach with an objective of minimising the total cost (lateness/earliness penalty and tooling cost). Robust optimisation is used to solve the scheduling problem considering processing time, setup times and tooling cost as uncertain parameters. Numerous scenarios are solved using data from local job shop. Multiple performance measurement criteria are evaluated to assess the significance of results obtained using robust and deterministic models. Design of experiment (DOE) has been implemented to evaluate the effects of different factors on the total cost and computational times.

In a supply chain system, products get damaged during shipping due to transportation hazards and poor packaging. The most common hazards in transportation include shocks, vibrations, accident, handling, etc. Damage from accidents and handling issues are not completely within the control of packaging. However, proper packaging can prevent most of the damage from shocks and vibration. The loss due to damage at each stage of the supply chain network can be reduced by selecting the appropriate packaging, transportation method and by shipping under assembled or unassembled condition. There is not much literature available in the area of goods damaged during shipping as applied to supply chain systems. A mathematical model which minimises the total costs (damage costs, shipping costs, and packaging costs) has been developed to address the issue of damage costs. The model is implemented in MATLAB. The mathematical models were verified by using total enumeration strategy. Case studies to illustrate and validate the procedure were developed and implemented in MATLAB.

Over the last two decades, the Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at West Virginia University has worked with more than 500 small and medium sized manufacturing companies to identify energy and productivity saving opportunities. The savings, which keep adding up year after year, are appreciable but do not fully capture the potential impacts of the IAC Program. On average, the implementation rate of the recommendations has been only about 40%. This rate was expected to improve with the use of a knowledge center. Energy Efficiency Knowledge Center (EEKC) is a regional system which includes the development and deployment of technical resources to assist industrial facilities in energy assessment phases. It supports continuous improvement by incorporating the knowledge of IAC experts and the plant personnel. The EEKC provides information to clients on how to obtain baseline energy use for their specific energy systems using tools such as Quick Plant Energy Profiler (Quick PEP) by the US Department of Energy (DOE). It helps users to evaluate the energy efficiency measures during the pre-assessment and assessment phases. In this research, the IAC activities and tasks are studied and the steps to develop an online knowledge center are reviewed.

Air compressors consume energy and deliver compressed air to the header. The compressed air challenge (CAC) specifies that analyzing system dynamics is critical when trying to improve the performance of compressed air systems. [1 Fundamentals of Compressed Air Systems, Compressed Air Challenge, 2012. [Google Scholar],2 Advanced Management of Compressed Air Systems, Compressed Air Challenge, 2012. [Google Scholar]] The CAC emphasizes that the key to a high performance compressed air system is the utilization of controls, storage, and demand management to develop a system that meets peak requirements and also operates efficiently at part-load conditions. [1 Fundamentals of Compressed Air Systems, Compressed Air Challenge, 2012. [Google Scholar],2 Advanced Management of Compressed Air Systems, Compressed Air Challenge, 2012. [Google Scholar]] The CAC specifies that total storage volume can be used to control demand events, specifically being able to cater to peak demand and facilitating the control of system pressure. [1 Fundamentals of Compressed Air Systems, Compressed Air Challenge, 2012. [Google Scholar],2 Advanced Management of Compressed Air Systems, Compressed Air Challenge, 2012. [Google Scholar]] The emphasis of this article will be to analyze the effect of total storage on part-load performance of rotary screw air compressors. This will be illustrated using an example air compressor operating with varying volumes of total storage.

Industries related to automotive manufacturing and its supply chain play a key role in leaving a carbon footprint during an automobile's life cycle. Per the report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in March, 2008 [1], "motor vehicle industry in the U.S. spends about $3.6 billion on energy annually." The proposed research will focus on energy savings opportunities in automotive manufacturing and its supplier network. The US Department of Energy (DOE) funds 24 Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) throughout the U.S. that conduct energy assessments at many of these facilities. The results of these assessments are summarized in a database maintained by Rutgers University which acts as the central management body for all the IACs. This research will present key concepts summarized from this database. These concepts include:(1). top 10 energy saving recommendations,(2). top 10 energy savings implemented measures,(3). comparison of energy efficiency investment in small-and mid-sized automotive industry supply chain in pre and post economic slump,(4). impact of major federal incentives on energy efficiency investments and its correlation with the implementation of recommended measures from database, and(5). energy savings potential across the automotive industry.

The concept of 'do it right the first time' in the machining industry not only expects the best quality products but also at the best possible cost. The cost of machining depends on intelligent process planning and selection of machining parameters such as speed, feed, and depth of cut. The problem of machining parameter selection has received great attention by researchers and many techniques have been developed. A review of these techniques reveals that the selection of the machine and cutting tool is done before the process of cutting parameter selection and process sequencing, and often the selection is based on experience. The current research is an attempt to develop an integrated model (ExIMPro: Expert system based Integrated model for Machining Processes) which finds the sequence of operations with set of machines, tools, and other process parameters to minimise the cost of machining for a cylindrical part. This system consists of existing expert system Machining Parameter SELection (MPSEL) for machine and tool selection and a Microsoft Excel (R) and Visual Basic (R) based parameter selection model. The present model focuses on turning and cylindrical grinding operations but other processes can be incorporated with little modification to the software.

This review discusses the outlook for electric power generation in the U.S. covering both traditional fossil fuel and renewable energy sources. Environmental policy, technology and economics combine with the advantages and disadvantages of each electric power source to drive the direction of the industry. Coal, while sensitive to carbon emissions regulations, will likely continue to play a large role; natural gas use will continue to be dependent on supply and price; nuclear power has the potential to grow, but requires new plant construction for the first time in 30 years; and despite projected growth in renewable energy sources (particularly for wind), changes in policy would be required to have renewable energy become a significant contributor to the electric power generation mix.

This paper will discuss the development of a training program for area professionals and a BS degree in Sustainable Energy Systems Management at Southeast Missouri State University (Southeast). The curriculum is designed to serve as a career pathway toward developing a future workforce in green energy technologies. The process involved the assessment of needs of the region, selection of advisory board members, identification of core competencies, development of course and lab curricula, development of training modules for business and industry professionals, and purchase of necessary equipment. The green technology skills that were targeted were energy efficiency and management, planning and design of sustainable facilities, sustainable and green construction, sustainable and green manufacturing, and renewable energy sources such as biomass, solar power, and wind energy technologies.The curriculum development effort was partially funded by a grant exceeding $200,000 from the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED), a Department of Labor (DOL) agency. Per the requirements of the grant, the curriculum development also involved collaboration with two community colleges in the region. The degree program was designed in a way so that students completing a certificate and/or Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree at the two colleges could seamlessly matriculate to the BS Technology degree.The target audiences for the proposed program are students from the region who wish to pursue the 4-year BS degree, students who already completed the 2-year program at one of the community colleges identified as partners in this effort, and business and industrial personnel seeking training programs to immediately impact the regional economy.All curricula were modeled around the body of knowledge for certification programs through agencies such as US Department of Energy, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Association of Energy Engineers, National Association of Home Builder's National Green Building Program, and US Green Building Council.

This research attempts to investigate the effect of change in system curve on the energy intensity method of measurement and verification of energy savings. With recent push from US government on energy efficiency through EPACT 2007 and upturn in performance contracted energy efficiency project implementations the effective and accurate evaluation of energy savings as compared to the baseline is of paramount importance. The authors have studied different methods of Measurement and Verification (M&V) of energy savings from literature to compare and contrast and clearly bring out merits and de-merits of each. Finally, the role of production level variable plays in establishing the baseline energy usage is discussed. Though modern models proposed in the literature of determining baseline energy usage consider production level, this variable is compounded from two variables viz., time of usage of a system and fraction of total capacity usage. This study aims to find if a model considering these variables yields significantly different baseline energy usage than the traditional model.

Machining economics has been a challenging and interesting problem for decades. With the recent problems in supply of energy and increasing demand and cost, consideration of problems related to energy usage has become critical for the manufacturing industry. This paper aims to integrate the concept of machining economics and energy conservation. A geometric programming mathematical model was developed for the single pass turning operation. The model is based on an energy sensitive parameter selection process and minimises the overall cost of manufacturing. The solution methodology was developed to automate the process of parameters selection. Last but not the least; this paper is focused on increasing the energy efficiency awareness.

The pot hardware in continuous galvanising lines is prone to failure and needs to be replaced quite frequently which results in considerable loss of production time and high energy consumption. Galvanizing Energy Profiler and Decision Support Systems (GEPDSS) was developed to consider major energy consuming equipment in a typical hot dip continuous line which tracks the current production and energy consumption for up to three different processes. It can simulate a scenario to identify energy, cost, and productivity benefits obtained from energy savings measures and can evaluate the economic desirability of investment in new and improved pot hardware.