Conventional discounted cash flow techniques fail to capture the risk associated with investments. This paper proposes an annual cash flow model that considers risk, cost structure and inventory liquidation in the evaluation of investment alternatives. The risk differential of investments is included using the capital asset pricing model while the stochastic version of the cost-volume-profit approach is used to consider inventory liquidation and cost structure. Tradeoffs between fixed and variable costs have been investigated, and portrayed using iso-cash flow curves. The proposed cash flow model has been developed, in particular, to enable an accurate evaluation of advanced manufacturing systems.

This paper deals with ordering policies for a multi-echelon distribution system. The system we are concerned consists of one Central Distribution Center(CDC) and N nonidentical Regional Distribution Centers(RDCs) which have different demand rates, minimum filtrates, leadtimes, etc. We develop an algorithm for determining the optimal ordering policies of the CDC and the RDCs under the constraints of minimum filtrates of RDCs and maximum allowable delay of CDC.

Traditionally, machining process sequence was influenced and constrained by the design information obtained from CAD data base, i.e., class of operations, geometric shape, tooling, geometric tolerance, etc. However, even though all the constraints from design information are considered, there may exist more than one way to feasibly machine parts. This research is focused on the integrated problem of operations sequencing and machine tools selection in the presence of the product mix and their production volumes. With the transitional costs among machining operations, the operation sequencing problem can be formulated as a well-known Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). The transitional cost between two operations is expressed as the sum of total machining time of the parts on a machine for the first operation and transportation time of the parts from the first machine to a machine for the second operation. Therefore, the operation sequencing problem formulated as TSP cannot be solved without transitional costs for all operation pairs. When solved separately or serially, their mutual optima cannot be guaranteed. Machining operations sequencing and machine tool selection problems are two core problems in process planning for discretely machined parts. In this paper, the interrelated two problems are integrated and analyzed, zero-one integer programming model for the integrated problem is formulated, and the solution methods are developed using a Tabu Search technique.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the batch service queueing model M/M(a, b ; ${\mu}_k/1$) under general bulk service rule with mean service rate ${\mu}_k$ for a batch of k units, where $a{\leq}k{\leq}b$. This queueing model consists of the two-dimensional state space so that it is characterized by two-dimensional state Markov process. The steady-state solution and performane measure of this process are derived by using Matrix Geometric method. Meanwhile, a new approach is suggested to calculate the two-dimensional traffic density R which is used to obtain the steady-state solution. In addition, to determine the optimal service initiation threshold a, a decision model of this queueing system is developed evaluating cost of service per batch and cost of waiting per customer. In a job order production system, the decision-making procedure presented in this paper can be applicable to determining when production should be started.

Wafer fabrication process is the most important and critical process in semiconductor manufacturing. The process is very complicated and hard to establish an efficient schedule due to its complexity. Furthermore, several performance indices such as due dates, throughput, cycle time and workstation utilizations are to be considered simultaneously for an efficient schedule, and some of these indices have negative correlations in performances each other. We develop an efficient heuristic scheduling algorithm; Hybrid Input Control Policy and Hybrid Dispatching Rule. Through numerical experiments, it is shown that the proposed Hybrid Scheduling Algorithm gives better performance compared with existing algorithms.

The yield of semiconductor chips is dependent not only on the average defect density but also on the distribution of defects over a wafer. The distribution of defects leads to consider a cluster index. This paper briefly reviews the existing yield prediction models ad proposes a new cluster index, which utilizes the information about the defect location on a wafer in terms of the coefficient of variation. An extensive simulation is performed under a variety of defect distributions and a yield prediction model is derived through the regression analysis to relate the yield with the proposed cluster index and the average number of defects per chip. The performance of the proposed simulation-based yield prediction model is compared with that of the well-known negative binomial model.

For situations where there are several markets with different profit/cost structures, an economic two-sided screening procedure using a correlated variable is developed. It is assumed that the performance variable and the screening variable are jointly normally distributed. A profit model is constructed which involves selling price, cost incurred by imperfect quality, and screening inspection cost. Methods of finding the optimal screening procedure are presented and numerical examples are given.

Use of a hypertext is growing as multimedia and hypermedia systems become popular. The major difference between hypertext-based and ordinary user interfaces is navigation. Typically, there are two major navigation problems in a hypertext compared to the ordinary user interface: "Disorientation" and "Cognitive Overload". To reduce or eliminate these problems of the hypertext system, a variety of aiding tools have been proposed. Among them, a local map is a good tool for helping users navigate through screens, especially for a large and complex system. This study examined three major design variables of a local map in a hypertext: breadth, depth, and functionality of a map. A human factors experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of these variables. Based upon the results of the experiment, design guidelines are suggested.

Job shop scheduling with m different machines and n different jobs is a NP-hard problem of combinatorial optimization. The purpose of the paper is to develop the heuristic method using tabu search for job shop scheduling to minimize makespan or mean flowtime. To apply tabu search to job shop scheduling problem, in this paper we propose the several move methods that employ insert moves in order to generate the neighbor solutions, and present the efficient rescheduling procedure that yields active schedule for a changed operation sequence by a move of operations. We also discuss the tabu search techniques of diversifying the search of solution space as well as the simple tabu search. By experiments, we find the appropriate tabu list size and tabu attributes, and analyze the proposed tabu search techniques with respect to the quality of solutions and the efforts of computation. The experimental results show that the proposed tabu search techniques using long-term memory function have the ability to search a good solution, and are more efficient in the mean flowtime minimization problem than in the makespan minimization.

The Interior point method in linear programming is classified into two categories the affine-scaling method and the logarithmic barrier method. In this paper, we integrate those methods and implement them in one shared module. First, we analyze the procedures of two interior point methods and then find a unified formula in finding directions to improve the current solution and conditions to terminate the procedure. Second, we build the shared modules which can be used in each interior point method. Then these modules are experimented in NETLIB problems.

This research proposes an Integrated Product Information Model (IPIM) using STEP (Standard for the Exchange of product model data) for Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) of Concurrent Engineering (CE). IPIM is based on Geometry and Topology (STEP Part 42), Form Feature (STEP Part 48), and Tolerance (STEP Part 48) for representing the integrated information of mechanical parts. For the IPIM, 1) new entities are developed for integration of existing entities, and 2) the existing entities are restructured and modified for a special application protocol. In CIM or CE, the advantages of using IPIM having integrated form of geometry, feature and tolerance are 1) integration of product design, process design and manufacturing sequentially or concurrently. 2) keep the product data consistency, modified by different domain, and 3) automatic data exchange between different application software and different hardware. The prototype system is composed of CAD, Data Probe, DBMS and SDAI (Standard Data Access Interface), and the generated STEP data is stored in a step file of DBMS for other applications.