• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1994.06a
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• pp.45-58
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• 1994

Over the last 20 years, membrane separation processes, such as reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration and microfiltration, have been widely adopted by different industries. Commercial uses of membrane have displaced conventional separation processes, such as distillation, evaporation, precoat filter and so on. Membrane separation processes are often more capital and energy efficient when compared with conventional separation processes. Membrane devices and systems are almost always compact and modular. These are the well-known advantages of membrane separation processes. The disadvantage of the membrane process is that the process does not have scale merit and thus the membrane process is suitable for the small and middle size applications. Energy saving is, of course, the biggest advantage of the membrane process, and in many industries the membrane processes are employed because of this reason. Membrane process has other big advantage. In many applications membrane processes provide much higher quality of product than conventional processes. The example is ultrapure water production by membrane processes in semiconductor industry. Conventional technologies never offer such good quality of pure water. If you can obtain both energy saving and higher quality of product at the same time by membrane processes, this is the best application of membrane processes. One example is the concentration of orange juice by membrane, which has already been commercialized in Japan. Comparing with the conventional vacuum evaporation process, juice concentrated by the membrane process has much better taste and flavor and the energy consumption in the membrane process is much less than the evaporation process. In this paper, first membrane separation technology will be classified and then Japanese membrane manufacturers and new modules and devices under development in Japan will be introduced. Fourth energy saving in membrane process will be discussed and finally practical applications of membrane processes in Japan will be shown.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2018

US transportation agencies are dealing with shrinking budgets, limited work forces, and deteriorating infrastructure. In order to cope with funding uncertainty, state highway agencies are now looking into their own organizations and identifying programs, practices, and processes that have potential for cost saving. A quality assurance (QA) program is an integral part of highway construction and ensures a project's contracted level of quality. The cost of quality (conforming and nonconforming) can constitute a sizable part of total construction cost. As the quality assurance programs evolved, various practices and processes were developed over time and later adopted by state highway agencies. These practices and processes include different QA standards and specifications, varying testing methods, central testing lab vs. on site testing, performance based vs. prescribed quality assurance practices, implementation of innovative quality assurance practices, etc. Therefore, there is an opportunity to assess different QA strategies and recommend those practices that are effective and cost efficient. A national survey was conducted by the authors, which provided a detailed mapping of various QA practices and processes used as part of QA programs and identified areas where agencies can focus on for cost savings. The survey found that QA sampling and testing plans, optimization of sampling plans, optimization of QA standards and specifications, and implementation of innovative test methods and processes are the main areas the agencies should focus to lean the current QA programs.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.28-40
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• 1998

Background : Many patients have been frequently complaining that they have to spend couples of hours in hospital on visiting outpatient clinic. Among several steps, two major time consuming steps were waiting to see a doctor and/or waiting at pharmacy to get medicine. Therefore not only to provide the proper guidance for medication or counseling on health affairs but also to make waiting time short is very important for the better hospital services. The aim of this study is to validate several time-saving processes to reduce waiting time at outpatient pharmacy and its efficacy. Methods : We surveyed the time interval actually taken to receive medicine after issuing prescription by doctors, and analyzed the data on the bases of relevant or possible causative factors. Then following processes were given to reduce waiting time and resurveyed and compared both data to validate efficacy of those processes : 1. No work-off on Monday and Tuesday 2. Work hour shift to start 30 minutes earlier 3. Changeable work shift between outpatient pharmacy and ward pharmacy according to work load 4. Use of pre-made medicines prescribed more frequently by certain doctors at certain time 5. Cooperation with doctors to use set prescriptions. Results : Before the process, mean waiting time at pharmacy was 29.2 minutes and most time consuming period was from noon to 1 PM, 3 to 4 PM, 1 to 2 PM in order of frequency. Only 37.7 % of patients could get the medicine within 20 minutes. Three times of surveys after process showed mean waiting time at pharmacy were 18.1 minutes, 19.0 minutes, and 17.6 minutes, respectively. And 72.7 %, 81.3%, and 82.2% of patients could get the medicine within 20 minutes. Conclusion : The mean waiting time was markedly reduced with above mentioned processes which applied intradepartmently event hough with little cooperation from other department. Consequently, the complaints of patients were decreased with increasing the satisfaction degree. In conclusion, those suggestions were recommanded to improve the degree of satisfaction of patients.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1540-1547
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• 2009

Steel frame factories were surveyed in this study in order to explore the possibility of shortening the construction time and save on construction cost through overlapping at the stages of design or construction. In the survey, construction professionals were interviewed in order to collect quantitative data. Hypotheses were then formulated, and the data was thereby analyzed using the simulation technique in order to analyze the effects of the concurrent engineering method on shorter construction time and cost saving. In addition, actual cases were analyzed to determine the overlapping rates of major processes in terms of shorter construction time and cost saving and to analyze the relationship between time and cost due to overlapping.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.23-29
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• 2004

In this paper, a finite element formulation using dynamic-explicit time integration scheme is used for numerical analysis of Hydro-forming processes. The lumping scheme is employed for the diagonal mass matrix and dynamic explicit formulation. Hydro-forming process for auto-body panel forming is analyzed by using dynamic-explicit finite element method. Further, the simulated results of the Hydro-forming processes are shown and discussed. Its application is being increased especially in the automotive industrial area for the cost reduction, weight saving, and improvement of strength.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.115-126
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• 2004

In the present work a finite element formulation using dynamic-explicit time integration scheme is used for numerical analysis of auto-body panel stamping processes. The lumping scheme is employed for the diagonal mass matrix and dynamic explicit formulation. Analyzed auto-body panel stomping process correction of forming using software called Dynaform using dynamic extensive method. Further, the simulated results for the auto-body panel stamping processes are shown and discussed. Its application is being increased especially in the automotive industrial area for the cost reduction, weight saving, and improvement of strength.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.58-63
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• 2004

In the present work a finite element formulation using dynamic-explicit time integration scheme is used for numerical analysis of multi-stage stamping processes. The lumping scheme is employed for the diagonal mass matrix and dynamic explicit formulation Multi-Stage stamping is analyzed by using dynamic-explicit finite element method. Further, the simulated results for the panel stamping processes are shown and discussed. Its application is being increased especially in the stamping industrial area for the cost reduction, weight saving, and improvement of strength.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.20 no.43
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• pp.277-285
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• 1997

In this paper, the definition to flexibility is examined through the literature and re-classified to set up an evaluation model. Flexibility is classified into three categories to find the flexibility types for evaluation. The flexibility type called as manufacturing flexibility is defined and a model is developed to make the performance evaluation possible, The manufacturing flexibility has a heavy relationship to the machine flexibility; and 5 flexibility types out of 8 have relationship to the machine flexibility. This indicates that it is possible to have a pretty good evaluation measure if the machine flexibility related types could be evaluated using a model. There are four different inter-arrival times in the model. A big time saving is observed if the processing time is set equal to 72 second. This indicates that a flexibility affects the system a lot if the inter-arrival time is close to the processing time. The model used in this paper includes multi-processes in a production line with machine failure. However, development of realistic models with buffer between processes and some of the flexibility types not included in this model are remained for further research.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.63-72
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• 2004

In this paper, a finite element formulation using dynamic-explicit time integration scheme is used for numerical analysis of auto-body panel stamping processes. The lumping scheme is employed for the diagonal mass matrix and dynamic explicit formulation. Auto-body panel forming is analyzed by using dynamic-explicit finite element method. Further, the simulated results of the auto-body panel stamping processes are shown and discussed. Its application is being increased especially in the stamping industrial area for the cost reduction, weight saving, and improvement of strength.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.1163-1168
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• 2006

Manufacturing technology for the production of high value-added fine chemical products is emphasized and getting more attention as the diversified interests of customers and the demand of high quality products are getting bigger and bigger everyday. Thus, the development of advanced batch processes, which is the preferred and most appropriate way of producing these types of products, and the related technologies are becoming more important. Therefore, high-precision batch distillation is one of the important elements in the successful manufacturing of fine chemicals, and the importance of the process operation strategy with quality assurance cannot be overemphasized. Accordingly, proposing a process structure explanation and operation strategy of such processes including batch processes and batch distillation would be of great value. We investigate optimal operation strategy and production planning of multi-purpose plants consisting of batch processes and batch distillation for the manufacturing of fine chemical products. For the short-term scheduling of a sequential multi-purpose batch plant consisting of batch distillation under MPC and UIS policy, we proposed a MILP model based on a priori time slot allocation. Also, we consider that the waste product of being produced on batch distillation is recycled to the batch distillation unit for the saving of raw materials. The developed methodology will be especially useful for the design and optimal operations of multi-purpose and multiproduct plants that is suitable for fine chemical production.