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The electronics industry is a key industry in South Korea. To improve efficiency and maintain a competitive edge in fast-paced technological age it is critical to synchronize production supply with market demand. This paper focuses on the strategies which make the “just in time” production system within the electronic supply chain. The presented case study of Samsung Electronics Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) Inbound Logistics provides a solid example of process integration in the areas of: packaging, transportation and information sharing. The problems faced by Samsung Electronics in the early 2000’s were a direct result of an imbalance between increased traffic/demand and existing production capacity. The most detrimental of these problems caused delays in supply, shortage of space in the hub center and the bottlenecking of supply transportation. This paper demonstrates how Samsung Electronics reexamined and systematically streamlined their existing processes and how they successfully integrated “lean thinking” strategies to all areas of TFT-LCD production. As a result of the integration of these strategies, Samsung Electronics began using a line-to-line packing system which focused on packing items in a group using a standardized, returnable packing system. Additionally, they opted to replace their paper invoice system for an improved transportation system through which a data could reflect flows of information and materials in real time. The integration of these strategies gave Samsung Electronics a new approach to TFT-LCD Inbound Logistics which allowed them to overcome their dilemmas and resulted in successful outcomes, decreased lead times, higher quality products and an reduction in total costs.

Maintaining food safety techniques in the supply chain management require special food safety labelling techniques during distribution in the retail food industry. The food products have to be of good quality and labelling inbound, manufacturing, and outbound in the supply chain contributes to this aim. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how food safety labelling is managed in Vietnam’s retail food industry with a special focus on food in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Photography was used in an observational study conducted among five separate retail market chains all located in this city. In which ways are the applications of the developed food safety labelling techniques among three separate retail food markets similar and dissimilar being accounted for? The results show that the packaging and labelling in Big C, Aeon Citimart, and Giant using the symbols of food safety build trust for their customers. The Big C indicates guidelines for VietGAP and green labelling. Aeon Citimart indicates the name of the good, expiration date and instructions for use as well as guidelines for the government factor (VietGAP) to the food safety practices in the Vietnamese food retail sector.

The paper aims to raise awareness in the industry of design automation tools, especially in early design phases, by demonstrating along a case study the seamless integration of a prototypically implemented optimization, supporting design space exploration in the early design phase and an in operational use product configurator, supporting the drafting and detailing of the solution predominantly in the later design phase.

Based on the comparison of modeled as-is and to-be processes of ascent assembly designs with and without design automation tools, an automation roadmap is developed. Using qualitative and quantitative assessments, the potentials and benefits, as well as acceptance and usage aspects, are evaluated.

Engineers tend to consider design automation for routine tasks. Yet, prototypical implementations support the communication and identification of the potential for the early stages of the design process to explore solution spaces. In this context, choosing from and interactively working with automatically generated alternative solutions emerged as a particular focus. Translators, enabling automatic downstream propagation of changes and thus ensuring consistency as to change management were also evaluated to be of major value.

A systematic validation of design automation in design practice is presented. For generalization, more case studies are needed. Further, the derivation of appropriate metrics needs to be investigated to normalize validation of design automation in future research.

Integration of design automation in early design phases has great potential for reducing costs in the market launch. Prototypical implementations are an important ingredient for potential evaluation of actual usage and acceptance before implementing a live system.

There is a lack of systematic validation of design automation tools supporting early design phases. In this context, this work contributes a systematically validated industrial case study. Early design-phases-support technology transfer is important because of high leverage potential.