In this paper, a case study is introduced on the development on a production planning system for the efficient control of work-in-process material flows. A special attention has been given to the prevention of the shortage of the automobile-components at the auto-assembly lines and the dynamic adaptation of the production plan to the continuously changing environment. The expertise of the production planner is analyzed and transformed into the logic of the software developed.

A distribution system is composed of multiple levels from a producer to customers, and it's objective is to supply customers with goods timely with a prescribed level of quality at a minimum cost. For the installation and operation of multi-echelon distribution system, DRP(Distribution Resource Planning) is widely used. However, because of the characteristic difference of material flow dynamic of each distribution center, it is almost impossible to get the optimal distribution scheduling. In this paper, an improved DRP method to schedule multi-echelon distribution network is proposed so that the lot-size and order point is dynamically obtained to meet the change of demand rate and timing. The experiment is done with various demand pattern, forecast errors of demand and lead times of central distribution center. The proposed method is compared with traditional statistical approach.

In this paper, a simulation model is proposed to evaluate the system effectiveness of underwater battery propulsion systems which consist of motors, main switchboard, generators and batteries. The various operating environments such as emergency situations, equipment's failure and repair, and system performance degradation due to equipment's failures affect the system effectiveness and the environment elements are considered as the input parameters in the simulation model. Some simulation results with estimated data are studied.

It is strongly believed that Video on Demand(VOD) will become one of the most promising services for Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network(B-ISDN). VOD service can be classified into two types of services: Near VOD(NVOD) and Interactive VOD(IVOD). Although VOD network requires many kinds of resources, we only consider video servers, programs. and storages. In the network. some video servers should be installed at some nodes(especially, at the root node for NVOD service). so that each node with video server stores video programs and distributes stored programs to customers. We take into account three kinds of costs related with the above resources: a program transmission cost, a program storage cost, and a video server installation cost. There exists a trade-off relationship among those three costs according to the locations of video servers and the kinds of programs stored at each video server. Given a multi-level VOD network and the total number of programs being served in the network. the resource. optimization problem for providing both IVOD and NVOD services is to determine where to install video servers, and which and how many programs should be stored at each video server, in order to minimize the total cost. In this paper we develop an efficient dynamic programming algorithm to solve the problem. We also implement the algorithm based on two different service policies assumed in this paper.

최근 제품데이타관리 시스템 내에서 관리되는 데이터들은 보다 복잡한 구조와 다양한 형태를 가지게 되었으며, 이들 데이터들을 효율적으로 관리하기 위한 새로운 기법으로 객체지향기법이 대두되었다. 객체지향 기법 및 기술은 시스템의 생산성과 재사용성을 향상시키고 보다 실세계에 근접한 개념으로 프로그램의 설계와 구현을 가능하게 하였다. 본 연구에서는 객체지향적 패러다임을 이용하여 기술정보관리 시스템 내에서 제품개발의 전반에 걸쳐 생성되는 도면무서, 부품 및 BOM 등의 데이터 관리 요소들을 객체지향으로 분석 및 설계하였으며, 프로토타입을 개발하였다. 객체지향 분석 및 설계를 위해서는 Rumbaugh의 OMT(Object Modeling Technique) 방법을 이용하였으며, 개발된 프로토타입은 크게 도면 및 부품관리 모듈과 BOM모듈로 구분된다. 부품 및 도면관리모듈은 PowerBuilder로, BOM모듈은 Visual C++로 개발되어 서로 독립적으로 수행되도록 구성하였으며, 이들간에 데이터교환이 가능하게 하였다. 또한, 구현된 객체지향 BOM관리모듈은 BOM구조복사 및 관계형 데이터베이스와 연결, OPTION관리 등의 기능을 포함하고 있다.

The letters of the automobile tire are usually engraved on the side-wall. The shape of the side-wall is a sculptured surface generated by the rotational sweeping of a profile curve. The letters laid on the side-wall are usually designed by a 2-dimensional CAD. It is impossible to machine the letters on the surface accurately by 3-axis NC machining, because the axis of cutter should be tilted to align with the normal vector of the surface. In this case. the degree of freedom for the machine is at least four. This paper describes an idea for tool path generation of a 4-axis machine by using the 2-dimensional CAD data of the letters and the surface of the side-wall. This study includes the following procedures; (1) measuring the profile of the side-wall surface and curve-fitting of the measured points. (2) the 'non-parallel projection' of the letters on the side-wall, and (3) an inverse kinematics of the 4-axis lettering machine. Procedures in this paper are programmed in C-language on Windows95 environment. With a PC based CNC controller and a 4-axis lettering machine. these are tested sucessfully for the practical use.

For the PCB inspection by computer vision, in some cases, the MRLC file should prepared. The MRLC file contains a RLC(Run Length Code) and a direction flag. In this paper, a generating method of MRLC is described. It is composed of two procedure as followings; (i) rasterizing Gerber file which is a vectorized image of PCB panel, and (ii) calculating a MRLC that is useful for the inspection as a template image. The suggested procedures are written in C-language and executable on Windows 95 and Windows NT.

This paper suggests a stereo vision-based algorithm for the 3-dimensional inspection of a crimped terminal. The crimped terminal is one of wire harness assemblies which transmit current or signals between a pair of electrical or electronic assemblies. Four types of nonconformities considered includes terminal rolling, band up/down, twist, and crimp height. To obtain stereo image correspondence, an algorithm using Hough transform is proposed. Coordinate transform is then applied to evaluate the degree of 3-dimensional nonconformities. The algorithm has been successfully tested on a number of real specimens collected from a wire harness factory. The test results show the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.

This paper presents a useful method of registration in manufacturing of shadow color mask for cathode ray tubes of the FTM (Flat Tension Mask) type, wherein the shadow mask and front panel are interchangeable when mask-panels are assembled, which is called ICM system. Theoretical analysis and alignment process are presented. The pattern of mask aperture is registered with a screen pattern of corresponding geometry of the panel in flat tension mask tube. Registration accuracy of panel and mask affects the purity of color cathode ray tube concerned with mislanding. It tries to minimize the misregistration caused by variances, which are mechanical error, mask stretching position error, restrictive number of fiducial point, etc.

This paper proposes a new part family classification system (IPFACS: Image Processing and Fuzzy ART based Clustering System), which incorporates image processing techniques and a modified fuzzy ART neural network algorithm. IPFACS can classify parts based on geometrical shape and manufacturing attributes, simultaneously. With a proper reduction and normalization of an image data through the image processing methods and adding method in the modified Fuzzy ART, different types of geometrical shape data and manufacturing attribute data can be simultaneously classified in the same system. IPFACS has been tested for an example set of hypothetical parts. The results show that IPFACS provides a good feasible approach to form families based on both geometrical shape and manufacturing attributes.

A new vehicle design approach coupled with an ergonomic human model was proposed in the study. The seating package layout of a vehicle is very important to the driving comfort, and it has been one of the primary ergonomic research areas since the past 30 years. The diverse and interrelated design factors of seating package layout in the limited workspace make designers often neglect many parameters related with drivers which differ in their anthropometric characteristics. It is due to the lack of the proper tools by which the designer can easily apply several ergonomic design guidelines to the vehicle design. In this study. an iterative package layout procedure was developed, and the effectiveness of an ergonomic human model was examined in this procedure. A discomfort function was developed for the quantitative evaluation of the driving posture. This study clearly demonstrates that the package layout using an ergonomic human model is very helpful to improve the usability and driving comfort of the drivers or passengers.

The purpose of this study is to survey colors of background, marker, and pointer being used in passenger car's combination meter, and to suggest ergonomic design guidelines of combination meter to enhance driver's readability. An experiment was conducted, in which colors of background, marker, and pointer were selected as independent variables, and reading time, reading error, and preference for combination meter were measured as dependent variables. Most of passenger cars sold in Korea were found to have combination meter with black background, while marker. The experimental results showed that reading time of combination meter with white background, black marker and point was shortest, reading error was lowest in combination meter with black background, yellow marker pointer, and preference for combination meter with white background, black marker and black or red pointer was highest. The results implied that combination meter with white background, black marker and black pointer should be used for comprehensively optimizing reading time, reading error, and preference for it. It was expected that these results could be used as valuable design guidelines when designing combination meter of passenger car.

In this paper, various techniques considering the characteristics of computer memory management are suggested, which can be used in the implementation of simplex method. First, reduction technique of indirect addressing, redundant references of memory, and scatter/gather technique are implemented, and the effectiveness of the techniques is shown. Loop-unrolling technique, which exploits the arithmetic operation mechanism of computer, is also implemented. Second, a subroutine frequently called is written in low-level language, and the effectiveness is proved by experimental results. Third, row-column linked list and Gustavson's data structure are compared as the data structure for the large sparse matrix in LU form. Last, buffering technique and memory-mapped file which can be used in reading large data file are implemented and the effectiveness is shown.

In the motor manufacturing system with the properties of short delivery and order based production, the process plan is performed individually for each order by the expert of process plan after the completion of the detail design process to satisfy the specification to be required by customer. Also it is hard to establish the standard process plan in reality because part routings and operation times are varied for each order. Hence, the production planner has the problem that is hard to establish the production schedule releasing the job to the factory because there occurs the big difference between the real time to be completed the process plan and the time to be required by the production planner. In this paper, we study the decision supporting system for the process plan based on knowledge base concept. First, we represent the knowledge of process planner as a database model through the modified POI-Feature graph. Then we design and implement the decision supporting system imbedded in the heuristic algorithm in the client/server environment using the ORACLE relational database management system.

The work-order performs an important role in make-to-order production. The development of work-order system in this production is more complex than work-order system in planing production. To construct work-order system, load of directors for work-order must be decreased, and production management between scheduling of master plan and current workshop conditions must be considered. In this study, we grasped troubles in present work-order system and flows of information for work order. Using these results are made database schemas and data flow diagrams for effective development of work-order system. And then, for successful establishment of work-order system and actual use of directors, we considered systematic and easy user-interface. For a case study, development procedures of work-order system are presented for plant factory.

Having a reliable standard time data is very important for productivity improvement of any manufacturing company. In this study we present an estimation procedure of standard time data for companies having multi-item extremely small quantity production type and discuss a case study. Included in the discussion are the importance of setup time reduction and the roles of management supervisors, and labor.

In manufacturing industries, one of the critical issues is to synchronize the sequence of production operations with materials needed at each operation to improve productivity. In order to solve this synchronization problem. We develop a code system entitled 'Work-Order-Number' for automated storage/retrieval systems(AS/RS) in this paper. The Work-Order-Number is designed for the purpose of integrating the engineering information. material handling, production and operations scheduling, point of production, and AS/RS systems. This paper implemented the Work-Order-Number in the electric motor manufacturing. The results of the implementation showed the reduction of the number of workers in material handling and cost-loss due lo a late delivery.

As mentioned in Part I all groupware products have been categorized into three areas which include cooperation/document management systems(CMS), collaborative writing systems(CWS), and decision-making/meeting system(DMS). This study deals with a comparative analysis of the last two areas, which is added to the first. It turns out that DMS has a higher market share than CWS. However. since effective collaboration requires the functions inherent to these two systems. they should be integrated somehow. The systems' functions that have been implemented in response to design issues have been described. Each group of the functions has been divided into three parts which consist of basic function, quasi-basic function. and others. Such a decision has been made according to the frequency rate of the functions provided in the products. While the basic functions in CWS include collaboraive writing beyond restriction of time and place, group awareness. version control. and others, in DMS realtime collaboration. brainstorming. presentation. various task support. policy formation. document management, multimedia, subgroup communication. topic commenter, categorizer, screen capture and various rile transfer. The basic functions are merged into the integrated functional model which was proposed in Part I. Since the model is so flexible that it can partially include the quasi-functions in addition to the hasic functions. a large number of products may stem from the modification of the functional model.