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This study aims at exploring the UAE banks' Basel II preparations. It is essential for the UAE banks to make adequate preparations to ensure their compliance with international standards and practices in the field of banking.

The author developed a modified version of the Ernst & Young questionnaire to examine the UAE banks' Basel II preparations. Five hypotheses have been formulated and tested.

Based on the results of the analysis in this study, it is concluded that the UAE banks are ready for the implementation of Basel II. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the UAE banks have sufficient resources for the implementation of Basel II, which represents a prerequisite for the implementation. The readiness of the UAE banks for implementing Basel II is also supported by the common understanding of Basel II by the employees of the UAE banks and the satisfactory level of education on Basel II. The results also indicate that there is no difference between UAE national and foreign banks in their readiness for the implementation of Basel II, which gives a positive impression about the competitive advantage of the national banks. Finally, the results support the importance of training and education on Basel II as one of the requirements of the implementation.

Improving the level of education on Basel II is still needed and this can be achieved because of the availability of the required resources and the awareness of the UAE banks of the benefits, the positive impact, and the challenges of the implementation of Basel II, as indicated by the results. The results also support the importance of training and education on Basel II as one of the requirements of the implementation.

The paper is important for the decision makers of the UAE banks and the regulators as the main objective of the study is to increase their awareness of the implementation of Basel II. The results would help the UAE banks to know the level of their Basel II preparations and what are the necessary steps that should be taken in this regard. The results would also help the regulators regarding the required steps that should be taken by the UAE Central Bank in order to motivate or encourage the UAE banks in implementing Basel II properly.

The Basel Committee has proposed a new capital framework to respond to the deficiencies of the 1988 Capital Accord (Basel I). The 1988 Accord has been criticised for its crude assessment of risk and for creating opportunities for regulatory arbitrage. In principle, the new approach, often referred to as Basel II, is not intended to raise or lower the overall level of regulatory capital currently held by banks, but to make it more risk sensitive. The spirit of the new Accord is to encourage the use of internal systems for measuring risks and allocating capital (the Accord extends the use of internal models from market risk to credit risk). A number of issues have been raised, however, with regard to its complexity, its cost, its impact on procyclicality, the possibility that it can lead to competitive distortions if some countries do not apply it (some big emerging economies) or apply it differently to small and big institutions (the USA) and others. Banks in Europe will also be obliged to comply with the new Capital Directive, often referred to as CAD III, which is the means by which the EU will implement the new Basel Capital Accord. CAD III will apply to all credit institutions and investment firms and not only to internationally active banks, as Basel does. This paper presents a critical approach to these developments and examines their impact upon the banking industry.

The purpose of this paper is to report a research which is conducted to examine the power of computer aided design (CAD) in achieving agility in traditional organizations.

The CAD model of the knob of an electronic switch was developed. This model was shown to the team of executives. The theoretical and practical knowledge provided by them were utilized to design new ten CAD models of the knob. The reactions of the executives about these new models were gathered and analyzed.

The creation of a CAD model of an existing product is found to be a useful input for evolving new models in an agile manner. It is found to be an easy task to gather the theoretical and practical knowledge for achieving design agility through the visualisation of CAD models.

This paper is conducted on only one component manufactured by an electronic switches manufacturing organization. Although it appears to be a limitation of this paper, the nature of the design process carried out in this traditional organization mimics that of any other design practices carried out in the world. Hence, the contributions of this paper are applicable in traditional manufacturing environment.

Throughout the conduct of this research, the practitioners' views are gathered. Their views are favorable towards the successful usage of CAD model in achieving design agility.

For many years, CAD has been used for carrying out complex design projects. However, it appears that it has not been used in its simplest form to visualise and bring out new models electronically for achieving design agility. This simple approach is presented in this paper which may be used by both theorists and practitioners.

This study examines the determinants of CAD/CAM adoption in American textile and apparel industries. Theories of innovation were used to develop hypotheses relating market factors to manufacturers' decisions to adopt CAD/CAM technologies. A variety of sources were used to develop the survey which was mailed to a national random sample of 500 textile and apparel manufacturers. The responses of 103 manufacturers from 30 different states were analyzed. Factor analysis was used to identify the dimensions of reasons for CAD/CAM adoption. Hypotheses were tested with logistic regression analysis procedures. The CAD/CAM adoption was found to be driven primarily by the market and affected by the business‐unit size. In addition, labor considerations affected recent CAD/CAM adoption.

During 1993 Member States of the European Union formally adopted two Directives—the Investment Services Directive and the Capital Adequacy Directive—concerned with the operation of investment business. This paper outlines the provisions contained in these Directives, which have to be enshrined in national law by the end of 1995 at the latest, explaining the role they play within the broader Single Market programme for financial services. A simple ‘cost‐benefit’ analysis of their likely impact, mainly on UK intermediaries, is also provided.

Studies the justification problems of automated manufacturing systems (AMS) by using a multiple‐criteria decision making (MCDM) approach such as analytic hierarchy process (AHP). An example from Indian manufacturing has been studied. Strategic, technological and social impacts have been considered for justifying AMS and decomposing these factors into several possible attributes.

The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative and quantitative comparison and evaluation of an open-source fused deposition modeling (FDM) additive manufacturing (AM) system with a proprietary FDM AM system based on the fabrication of a custom benchmarking model.

A custom benchmarking model was fabricated using the two AM systems and evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. The fabricated models were visually inspected and scanned using a 3D laser scanning system to examine their dimensional accuracy and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) performance with respect to the computer-aided design (CAD) model geometry.

The open-source FDM AM system (CupCake CNC) successfully fabricated most of the features on the benchmark, but the model did suffer from greater thermal warping and surface roughness, and limitations in the fabrication of overhang structures compared to the model fabricated by the proprietary AM system. Overall, the CupCake CNC provides a relatively accurate, low-cost alternative to more expensive proprietary FDM AM systems.

This work is limited in the sample size used for the evaluation.

This work will provide the public and research AM communities with an improved understanding of the performance and capabilities of an open-source AM system. It may also lead to increased use of open-source systems as research testbeds for the continued improvement of current AM processes, and the development of new AM system designs and processes.

This study is one of the first comparative evaluations of an open-source AM with a proprietary AM system.

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is epitomized by a wide range of project business lines, different project scopes, unique client requirements, and a rapidly changing automation technology. This current scenario requires a constant transfer of project data among the various professionals representing different specializations, project phases and interests. The implementation of improved computer techniques such as object‐oriented programming and CAD reduces fragmentation and enhances the efficiency of integrating project data through all stages of generation, sharing, maintaining, and updating. This reduced fragmentation will assist in bridging the gaps between and within the project phases, thereby increasing the competitiveness of the AEC industry. This paper presents different issues related to the existing fragmentation in the AEC industry and the challenges and approaches to achieve a meaningful and smooth integration. The paper describes the development of ODCSI—an object‐oriented design/construction system for integrating CAD and construction software applications. The system architecture captures design data in an object‐oriented project model and acts as an intelligent CAD interface. In the hierarchy of object‐oriented classes and subclasses, the design data are inherited; hence all functional, geometrical, structural, construction management, and construction engineering functions are shared across class boundaries. These design data are used as the input to various computer‐based construction software applications, hence providing seamless project integration.

Refurbishing may be the most practical approach under the low volume production. This effort aims to achieve robotic laser cladding with the main purpose of achieving maximum processing flexibility, predictably high quality, lower maintenance and operating costs. This study aims to focus on online measurement and cladding path generation toward automatic laser cladding.

Based on the specific requirements of automatic laser cladding, an approach was proposed toward an automatic laser cladding with powder injection for the refurbishment of components with free‐form surfaces. This study assessed the feasibility of integrating a non‐contact free‐form surface measurement system, an industrial robot, and an algorithm for generating cladding tool paths seamlessly.

3D laser scanning and laser cladding systems can be embedded into an existing robot motion control system. Online measurement based 3D surface reconstruction is a practical approach toward cladding tool path generation for on‐site refurbishment.

Robotic laser cladding may be a potential application by integrating other measurement devices, such as temperature sensor based monitoring system.

Refurbishing worn‐out components could have significant economic benefits. This study indicates that robotic laser cladding may potentially facilitate improved refurbishment of oversized components.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential application of electron beam melting, as a layered manufacturing process, to fabricate dental coping of metal‐ceramic crown restoration using Ti6Al4V powder.

This experiment was conducted in two steps: shrinkage study to determine scale up factor for shrinkage compensation and parameter selection study, based on thickness, hardness, and surface roughness, to select process parameter of electron beam melting.

A promising result of fabricating metal coping of Ti6Al4V via electron beam melting was shown. Ti6Al4V coping was successfully fabricated, with an average thickness of 0.52 mm required for dental coping. Total average hardness of 333.35 HV that is comparable to casted Ti6Al4V with considerably high roughness of RSm of 382 μm.

The paper presents a novel application of electron beam melting to fabricate metal coping for metal‐ceramic crown restoration.