Search results

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

System design methodologies can greatly help the understanding of complex manufacturing situations. The IDEF0 structured analysis method is one of the favoured tools for industry.

After current trends towards establishing standards for information systems have been explored a de facto standard for production control is discussed. The article then goes on to consider a potential quality information system standard based on the widely accepted requirements of BS 5750. Next it is shown that production control software can be modified to alleviate the present lack of information systems support for quality systems. The article concludes with a functional specification for an integrated production and quality information system.

International competition is driving manufacturing executives to place an ever‐growing importance on the formulation of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) strategies as part of their corporate plans. Structured analysis and design techniques, in particular IDEF (Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing definition method), are becoming a vital tool in the analysis and implementation of such CIM strategies. This article positively demonstrates the technique and its ability to model the link between design and manufacture in a CIM environment. The approach relates interdependencies of planning for manufacture, design and process planning within a CIM strategy. In particular it establishes the position of computer aided process planning (CAPP) in CIM architecture and evaluates a CAPP package as a potential element of a CIM strategy. The application to which IDEFo, in particular, has been used clearly demonstrates its usefulness to manufacturers as a powerful aid to the development of detailed CIM strategies.

This paper is intended to be the first in a series addressing food safety in the fresh produce chain, with particular emphasis on the contributing factors that lead to farm‐based safety breakdowns.

A desktop study of recent outbreaks and recalls that have occurred in the USA and EU was undertaken with a view to determining the produce items implicated and factors causing the emergence of outbreaks. The question “A call for HACCP on farms?” is explored.

Minimally processed fresh‐cut produce represents a particular challenge to food safety. The research has highlighted the need to mitigate risk at all stages but with specific emphasis at the pre‐farm gate stage. A more comprehensive and integrated approach to risk management is arguably needed. A call for HACCP on the farm or farm food safety management system may be warranted in future if fresh produce outbreaks continue to rise. However, further research is needed to establish the guidelines of HACCP adoption at the farm level. At present, the rigorous adoption of GAP as a pre‐requisite and the practice of HACCP‐based plans is a good indicator of the importance of pre‐harvest safety.

This paper is of government (policy), industrial (application) and academic concerns value.

This study aims to propose a tree‐based analytic tool that may be used in analyzing a large‐scale and complex service process. The tenet of this tool is based on the Boolean logic and named service tree analysis (STA). The proposed STA aims to reflect the customer participation perspective and to propose how to analyze the service process and deduce useful information.

Fault tree analysis is used as an underlying methodology since it has a Boolean logic to describe the customer's selection of each element and identifies critical events. Taking these advantages of the fault tree, the proposed STA consists of three main parts; service tree construction, qualitative analysis, and quantitative analysis. First, a service tree is constructed depending on how the service elements are selected by the customer; If the subordinate events are always selected by customers, they are linked with an AND gate, otherwise, with an OR gate. Next, in the qualitative analysis, service elements are characterized as core services, supporting services, and optional services by deducing a minimal service cut set. Last, qualitative analysis deals with deriving the impact of each service element based on the Kano model.

The suggested STA has advantages which help strategic operation and management of the service process.

This study is unique and even exploratory in that it first adopts the notion of tree analysis in structuring a large‐scale, complex service system. Further, the proposed service tree provides a systematic approach from customer participation perspective, which makes the service process to be managed efficiently.

This paper is contributed to find the minimal mass prismatic tensegrity structures.

In the stable state of the structure with any given external force, the internal forces of the structure members are taken as the critical force to calculate the cross-sectional area, and the total mass of the structure can be obtained. Firstly, the mathematical model of prismatic tensegrity was built. Secondly, the stability of the tensegrity was analyzed based on the force equilibrium of one node, the force density relationship of elements was obtained. The deformation of p-bar tensegrity prism unit was studied with the same mass. The force of the structure under external force was analyzed.

(1) The length of bar and the structural radius are almost invariant, and the mechanical properties of 3-bar tensegrity prism is more outstanding; (2) theoretically, the mass of the structure is minimal while the projection of bar passes the center of the circle. Under the circumstances, the force of diagonal cable is 0 N, the vertical force component of bar cancels the axial external force.

(1) By analyzing the deformation of p-bar tensegrity prism with the same mass, the length of bar and the structural radius are proved be almost invariant and the mechanical properties of 3-bar tensegrity prism is more outstanding; (2) theoretically, the mass of the structure is minimal while the projection of bar passes the center of the circle. Under the circumstances, the force of diagonal cable is 0 N, the vertical force component of bar cancels the axial external force.

In this paper, the main factors influencing the structure stiffness will be analyzed by studying the tangent stiffness matrix based on different requirement in engineering practice. The authors can obtain the deformation of three-bar tensegrity basic unit in different load, and gain the primary factor by comparing the deformation, which will provide reference to concrete structure design in the engineering.

The mathematical model of tensegrity structure was built by establishing generalized node coordinates and connective matrix. Three main factors that affect the structure deformation can be obtained by analyzing the stiffness matrix, which is preload, Young's modulus, and cross-sectional area, the thinking of deformation also be sorted out. The deformation analysis of the concrete structure is carried out, and it is concluded that increasing the cross-sectional area can quickly improve the stiffness of the structure, which provides a reference for the structural variable stiffness design in practical engineering.

(1) When the axial external force is applied to the structure, the torsion-angle deformation of the structure is the largest, and the radial deformation of the structure is the smallest. (2) The structure stiffness can be rapidly enhanced by increasing the cross-sectional area. But the cross-sectional area can't be increased indefinitely. Because the mass will be increased once increasing the cross-sectional area, which will destroy the structure of the advantages of light weight in engineering practice.

The deformation analysis of the concrete structure is carried out, and it is concluded that increasing the cross-sectional area can quickly improve the stiffness of the structure, which provides a reference for the structural variable stiffness design in practical engineering.

Accident emergency hospital (AEH) services require cohesive, collective, uninterrupted streamlined medical diagnostic and satisfactory patient care. Medical service efficiency in AEHs is difficult to quantify due to the clinical complexity involved in treatment involving various units, patient conditions, changes in contemporary medical practices and technological developments. This paper aims to show how to measure efficiency by eliminating waste in AEH system, identify service failure points, identify benchmark medical services, identify patient throughput time and measure treatment time when AEH services are nonstandard. The applications shown in this paper are distinct in particular; we the authors use nontraditional and systems engineering approach to collect data as the traditional data collection is difficult in real-time AEHs.

The authors show in this study how to measure overall patient treatment time from admission to discharge. Project evaluation and review technique (PERT) captures the inconsistencies involved in measuring treatment time, including measures of variability. The irregular treatment time and complexity involved in the emergency health-care services are usual. The research methodology illustrates how the time function map and service blueprint can improve value-added time in AEHs and benchmark services between similar AEHs.

The inconsistency in treatment time between AEH in public and private hospital is found to be in ratio of 1:20. The private hospital suggests variety of treatments and long stays for recovery. The PERT computations show that the average time a patient remains in a government AEH is about 10 days. The standard deviation of the AEH treatment time is about 0.043 per cent of the expected patient care time. The inconsistency is not significant as compared to the expected value. In 89.64 per cent of the cases, a patient may be discharged in less than 10 days’ time. The patient on average is discharged in 13 days in a private hospital.

The patient treatment time of an AEH is evaluated with PERT project management approach to account for inconsistencies in treatment time. This research makes new contributions in benchmarking AEH throughput time, identify medical service failure points with service blueprint, measure the efficiency with time function map and collect patient data with nontraditional methods. The inherent inconsistencies in a clinical process are identified by PERT analysis with the variance as a characteristic of the treatment time. Improvement of variability implies cost reduction in AEH system.