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Bangladesh's ready-made garment (RMG) industry plays a vital role in the economic growth of this country. As the global trend in the fashion market has introduced a high-mix, low-volume ordering style, manufacturers are facing an increased number of changeovers in their production systems. However, most of the Bangladeshi RMG manufacturers are not yet ready to respond to such small orders and to improve the flexibility of their production systems. Consequently, the industry is falling behind in global market competition. Thus, this study aims to advance the current performance of RMG manufacturing operations to respond to the fast-fashion industry's challenges effectively using quick changeover.

In this study, a Single-Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) is applied to attain quick changeover following the best practices of lean manufacturing.

This study examined the performance of the SMED technique to reduce changeover time in two case organisations. The changeover time was reduced by 70.76% from 434.56 min to 127.08 min and 42.12% from 2,664 min to 1,542 min for the case organisations, respectively. The results of this study show that companies require improved changeover times to address the demand for high-mix, low-volume orders.

This study will certainly guide practitioners of the RMG industry to adopt SMED to reduce changeover time to meet small batch production.

This paper aims at discovering the traditional techniques of Persian architecture for covering large-span spaces with a kind of ribbed vault titled “Karbandi”. This structure is generated by intersecting several arches with a harmonic stellar geometry. Preliminary studies show that span factor affects the structural form of karbandi and large-span cases, despite similar architectural forms, have different structural systems and specific construction methods. The main focus of this paper is how karbandi has been designed and built on large-spans. To answer this question, the configuration and construction of a large-span karbandi in Tabriz Bazaar were recognized.

Data collection of the research was initially done in three parallel directions through the archival study of restoration documents, direct observation of the corpus of the vaultings and interviews with the master mason of the Haj-Mohammad-Qoli Timche restoration team. Then by cross-referencing the gathered data, the construction process of the karbandi was simulated in Rhino 6 and Grasshoppers software and its BIM-M models were created in three levels of development: LOD300, LOD350 and LOD400. In the next step, the preliminary BIM-M models of the karbandi were presented to the interviewed mason and revised and completed based on his comments.

Analyzing the BIM models by reverse engineering, resulted in (1) Discovering a unique self-supporting masonry construction method applied for the erection of karbandi vaulting on large-spans. (2) Finding the effect of scale factor on the architectural and structural form of the karbandi vault. (3) Discovering the connection types of the karbandi vault based on the construction details.

Despite the wide applications of karbandi vaults throughout history, very little information of their construction techniques is available. The techniques have mostly been experientially and orally passed down from masters to apprentices and rarely been documented. The quest to design and construct a karbandi vault is therefore like solving a puzzle whose most important guide is historical cases. Due to the geometric complexity of karbandi and its ability to cover large-span spaces, solving the puzzle can lead to achieving some technical ideas for masonry cross-ribbed vaulting. A great riddle of the karbandi vaults is how to design and build them on a large span.

This study aims to offer a hybrid stand-alone system for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations (CS), an emerging power scheme due to the availability of renewable and environment-friendly energy sources. This paper presents the analysis of a photovoltaic (PV) with an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) algorithm, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and a battery storage scheme incorporated for EV CS in a stand-alone mode. In previous studies, either the hydrogen fuel of SOFC or the irradiance is controlled using artificial neural network. These parameters are not controlled simultaneously using an ANFIS-based approach. The ANFIS-based stand-alone hybrid system controlling both the fuel flow of SOFC and the irradiance of PV is discussed in this paper.

The ANFIS algorithm provides an efficient estimation of maximum power (MP) to the nonlinear voltage–current characteristics of a PV, integrated with a direct current–direct current (DC–DC) converter to boost output voltage up to 400 V. The issue of fuel starvation in SOFC due to load transients is also mitigated using an ANFIS-based fuel flow regulator, which robustly provides fuel, i.e. hydrogen per necessity. Furthermore, to ensure uninterrupted power to the CS, PV is integrated with a SOFC array, and a battery storage bank is used as a backup in the current scenario. A power management system efficiently shares power among the aforesaid sources.

A comprehensive simulation test bed for a stand-alone power system (PV cells and SOFC) is developed in MATLAB/Simulink. The adaptability and robustness of the proposed control paradigm are investigated through simulation results in a stand-alone hybrid power system test bed.

The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the ANFIS algorithm in a stand-alone hybrid power system scheme.