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The purpose of this research paper is to identify the sources of job stress and their impact on health of employees.

A total of 650 employees of power sector in Punjab (India) responded to the survey. Exploratory factor analysis and ANOVA were performed. Further, post hoc was conducted to find out which variable differs significantly.

The findings indicates that five parameters, namely workload, working environment, concentration, positivity and future perspective are the factors that are responsible to create stress in employees. There is great impact on health as “frequency of visit to a doctor” and “numbers of diseases” they have are high and “employee's time spared for exercise” is less.

Since the survey was conducted only in power sector, it is difficult to generalize the results. However, the findings from this study will provide the factors that cause job stress and how they impact on health of employees.

The result indicates the impact of job stress on health of employees in power sector. Current research suggests that job stressors should be treated timely to minimize the impact of job stress.

While previous research has focused on the effect of stress on health, the present study provides evidence of the relationship between the sources of job stress and health, particularly in power sector in Punjab. This study would be contributing to the existing literature in Indian context.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the relationship between success parameters and implementation of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT); and second, to examine the changes required in manufacturing system as a result of AMT implementation.

The first order confirmatory factor analysis was performed to validate the presence of observed variables on their respective latent variable. Structural equation modeling is used to test the considered eight hypotheses.

The finding indicates that all five success factors are positively related to the AMT implementation. The redesign in the production system and organization strategy is directly related to the AMT implementation. The notable finding is the AMT implementation has no direct impact on the redesign of human resource, but it has mediated impact through the production system.

The originality and reliability of data collected for research purpose merely depends upon information and the accessible resources.

The outcome of the present work gives rise to meaningful implications for researchers and practitioners as well.

The purpose of this paper is to cover the significance of lean thinking using value stream mapping and six sigma methodology in managing industrial operations.

Lean manufacturing is an efficient approach for identifying and eliminating waste through a continuous improvement via flow of the product/service at the pull of customer in chase of exactness. This study has been carried out in a manufacturing unit of Northern India that was suffering from high production lead time and work in progress (WIP) inventory.

The current state and future state maps for the critical product have been prepared. On comparison of both current and future state maps, it was observed that lead time has been reduced by 14.88 percent, processing time by 14.71 percent and wastage of material movement by 37.97 percent. As proposed in model, the WIP inventories have been reduced by 17.76 percent and workforce by 17.64 percent. Further it would lead to the profit of Rs161,800 per annum. Six sigma projects have been carried out to reduce rejections of the critical product P-19 under study. The total length of the product was undersize of the critical product. Root cause analysis technique has been used through strategic DMAIC implementation. Results of investigation demonstrated net savings of rupees 145,560 annually.

The paper demonstrates the practical application of lean thinking, showing how it can bring real breakthroughs in saving cost in the manufacturing industry.

This paper aims to apply lean manufacturing using value stream mapping (VSM) in the manufacturing organization (automotive suspension and fastening components section). To validate the VSM approach, simulation has been done.

VSM approach has been used to implement lean stages in the U-bolt section. Current state map was prepared and future state map has been implemented. Further, simulation has been done to compare current state and future state maps.

It has been found that there is 87.59% reduction in cycle time (C/T), 76.47% reduction in work-in-process (WIP) inventory, 95.41% reduction in production lead time, 66.08% increase in value added (VA) ratio, 95.78% reduction in non-value added (NVA) time, 57.14% reduction in the number of operators and 70.67% reduction in change over (C/O) time for the U-bolt section. Simulated and VSM of current and future state has observed error of 5 s.

This study is based on automotive manufacturing industry situated in northern part of India. The outcome of this study is applicable only to the selected product of the manufacturing company.

This paper deals with case study part which reflects the true picture of implementation of Lean manufacturing (LM) tools in the organization.

This research work aims to make an effort to investigate the effect of fused deposition modelling (FDM) process parameters on the surface finish of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) replicas (as pre-processing stage), followed by chemical vapor smoothing (CVS) process (as a post-processing stage) as a case study.

The Taguchi L18 orthogonal array has been used for optimizing process parameters of FDM and CVS processes.

This study highlights that orientation and part density, and the interaction between these two have a significant effect on the surface finish at the pre-processing stage of FDM. However, after post-processing with CVS, there is hardly any influence of pre-processing FDM parameters.

The study highlights that for improving the productivity of the FDM process, the parametric optimization of process may be made on the basis of production cost and time in place of surface finish of ABS replicas. The results obtained have been verified by performing the confirmation experiments.

In this study the friction and wear behavior of fused deposition modeling (FDM) parts fabricated with composite material and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) material feedstock filament were realized and compared under dry sliding conditions.

The tests were performed by applying the load of 5, 10, 15 and 20 N with sliding velocity of 0.63 m/s for the duration of 5 and 10 min at room temperature.

The results highlight various wear mechanisms such as adhesion, abrasion and fatigue during the investigation. It was observed that the wear volume, friction force, friction co-efficient and temperature were sensitive to the applied load and time duration. The composite material showed a remarkable improvement in wear properties as compared to the ABS material.

The investigations reported in the present research work is based on comparative analysis (of composite material and ABS material feedstock filament). The results may be different in practical applications because of different operating conditions.

The parts fabricated with proposed composite material feedstock filament are highly wear resistant than basic ABS filament. This may lead to the development of better wear resistance components for numerous field applications.

The potential of this research work is to fabricate FDM parts with composite material feedstock filament to cater need of wear resistant industrial components.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the significance of SMED in manufacturing environments.

The paper gives setup instructions and guidelines to prepare the standardized setup procedure without ignoring actual constraints in production environment. It uses a case study in a small-scale manufacturing unit of northern India to generate an integrated setup reduction approach, utilizing Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)-based industrial engineering tools to achieve faster setups. It describes the feasibility of quick changeovers in small enterprises based on an “SMED” approach. Finally, the paper carries out empirical analysis of the financial/non-financial benefits incurred from setup reductions.

Setup activities are a vital part of the production lead time of any product and so affect overall product cost. Industrial engineering techniques have been used to analyze the existing procedure of setups. A SMED approach can help eliminate unwanted activities, externalize the internal activities, if possible, and reduce them by simplification or standardization.

The paper demonstrates the practical application of SMED showing how it can bring real breakthroughs in reducing setup time in small-scale manufacturing.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the direct fabrication of rapid tooling (RT) with desired mechanical, tribological and thermal properties using fused deposition modelling (FDM) process. Further, the review paper demonstrated development procedure of alternative feedstock filament of low-cost composite material for FDM to extend the range of RT applications.

The alternative materials for FDM and their processing requirements for fabrication in filament form as reported by various researchers have been summarized. The literature demonstrates the role of various post-processing techniques on surface finish of FDM prints. Further, low-cost materials for feedstock filament have been investigated experimentally to check their adaptability/suitability for commercial FDM setup. The approach was to realize the requirements of FDM (melt flow rate, flexibility, stiffness, glass transition temperature and mechanical strength), necessary for the successful run of an alternative filament. The effect of constituents (additives, plasticizers, surfactants and fillers) in polymeric matrix on mechanical, tribological and thermal properties has been investigated.

It is possible to develop composite material feedstock as filament for commercial FDM setup without changing its hardware and software. Surface finish of the parts can further be improved by applying various post-processing techniques. Most of the composite parts have high mechanical strength, hardness, thermal stability, wear resistant and better bond formation than standard material parts.

Future research may be focused on improving the surface quality of parts fabricated with composite feedstock, solving issues related to the uniform distribution of filled materials during the fabrication of feedstock filament which in turns further increases mechanical strength, high dimensional stability of composite filament and transferring the technology from laboratory scale to various industrial applications.

Potential applications of direct fabrication with RT includes rapid manufacturing (RM) of metal-filled parts and ceramic-filled parts (which have complex shape and cannot be rapidly made by any other manufacturing techniques) in the field of biomedical and dentistry.

This new manufacturing methodology is based on the proper selection and processing of various materials and additives to form high-performance, low-cost composite material feedstock filament (which fulfil the necessary requirements of FDM process). Finally, newly developed feedstock filament material has both quantitative and qualitative advantage in RT and RM applications as compared to standard material filament.

The purpose of this paper is to fabricate Nylon6-Al-Al2O₃-based alternative fused deposition modeling process (FDM) feedstock filament in place of commercial acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filament (having required rheological and mechanical properties) for rapid manufacturing (RM) and rapid tooling (RT) applications. The detailed steps for fabrication of alternative FDM feedstock filament (as per field application) with relatively low manufacturing cost and tailor-made properties have been highlighted.

The rheological and mechanical suitability of nylon6-Al-Al2O₃ feedstock filament has been investigated experimentally. The approach is to predict and incorporate essential properties such as flow rate, flexibility, stiffness and mechanical strength at processing conditions and compared with commercial ABS material. The proportions of various constituents have been varied to modify and improve rheological behavior and mechanical properties of alternative FDM feedstock filament.

The alternative material of feed stock filament was successfully developed and loaded in commercial FDM setup without changing any hardware and software. The result of study suggests that the newly developed composite material filament has relatively poor mechanical properties but have highly thermal stability and wear resistant as compared to ABS filament and hence can be used for tailor-made applications.

In this work, no additive was added for improving the bond formation of metal and polymeric materials. The newly developed filament was prepared on single screw extruder. For more uniform mixing of metal and polymeric materials, further studies may be conducted on twin screw extruder. Also, for the present research work, the testing of newly developed filament has been limited up to mechanical testing, which may be extended to chemical and thermal analysis to understand thermal stability and degradation mechanism of newly developed composite material.

The proportion of filler material (Al-Al2O3) in Nylon6 matrix was set as a constraint, which was adjusted based upon melt flow index of original equipment manufacturer developed material (ABS), and temperature conditions were available at FDM nozzle (so that hardware and software system of commercial FDM setup need not to be altered).

The present approach outlined selection, processing, fabrication and testing procedure for alternate feedstock filament, which fulfills the necessary requirements of FDM process and has been customized for RT and RM applications. This work highlights mechanical strength evaluation of feedstock filament (which is necessary before the loading of material in FDM system). The potential applications of this investigation include RM of functional parts, tailor-made grinding tools for dentists and RT of metal matrix composite having complex geometry.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the process parameters of a single-screw extruder for development of Nylon6-Al-Al₂O₃-based alternative fused deposition modeling process (FDM) feedstock filament (in lieu of commercial acrylonitrile butadiene styrene filament). The effect of major screw extruder parameters on the tensile strength of fabricated filaments has also been analyzed.

The Taguchi experimental log has been designed for investigating the significance of input parameters of screw extruders (such as mean barrel temperature, die temperature, screw speed, material composition and speed of take up unit) on the tensile strength of fabricated filaments. The suitability of alternative material as an FDM filament has been verified by rheological investigations. The tensile strength of an alternative feedstock filament has been investigated experimentally according to the ASTM-638 standard. The analysis was performed by the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method with the help of MINITAB 17 software. The stiffness of the FDM printed parts with nine different feedstock filaments (prepared by selecting nine different combinations of analytical parameters) was determined by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA).

The tensile strength of the feedstock filament was significantly affected by the variation of major input parameters during the processing of alternative material on a single-screw extruder. The ANOVA shows that two process parameters (namely, material composition and die temperature) were significant at the 5 per cent level (“F” value 41 and 21.96, respectively) and remaining two (mean barrel temperature and screw speed) were insignificant at the 5 per cent level. Further, a linear regression model has been developed to predict the tensile strength of the alternative feedstock FDM filament. The results highlight that a deviation of <1 per cent was observed (in the tensile strength of nine sets of experimental runs) as compared to the predicted values of the regression model. In addition to above, the DMA result also indicates that the filament fabricated with optimum combination of parameters has highest stiffness and is more suitable for the FDM system.

During the processing of alternative material in a single-screw extruder and FDM system, the increase of filler contents adversely affects the contact surfaces.

The FDM parts with customized properties (viz., thermal and tribological) can be fabricated with alternative feedstock filament material.

The potential to consider alternative filament material for FDM system includes rapid manufacturing of functional parts, tailor-made grinding tools for dentists and rapid tooling of metal matrix composites having complex geometry.