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AN ancient fable tells of strong brothers destined to great things. But one lay quietly, in his youth, applying goose grease to his muscles while the others disported among themselves in contest of strength. When the day of trial came it was the lone one, Atlas, who took the weight of the world upon his shoulders. The Greeks were neither fools nor strangers to work study.

The French car component manufacturer Jaeger has set up a flexible semi‐automatic assembly line at its Chalon‐sur‐Marne factory to build column switches.

The Talydata graphical display system and modular electronics and recorders for use on all future RPI Talyrond roundness measuring instruments comprises a small, very fast, dedicated computer. Contained in just a few printed circuit boards, it will perform all the calculations needed to display the roundness graph on a cathode ray tube, and to display simultaneously either the least squares circle, or inscribed or circumscribed circles, or the minimum zone circles. During the first revolution of the measuring table signals from the measuring probe are fed into the computer store and a display obtained if required. During the second, the calculations made and applied to centre the workpiece; and a third revolution is required to obtain the centred least squares circle, or whatever measuring parameter is selected by pushbutton, displayed superimposed on the roundness graph. The graphical display means that in routine inspection applications the conventional paper disc polar graph need only be produced when something unusual is shown on the display.

The 2120 frequency analyser is a constant percentage bandwith analyser for use in the frequency range 2Hz to 20kHz with provision for the connection of external filters extending the range to 180kHz. It consists of a measuring amplifier combined with a built‐in active RC filter complex which is continuously variable and can be switched into four basic modes. It can be used as a constant relative band‐width filter having four selectable bandwidths of 1 per cent, 3 per cent, 10 per cent and 1/3 Octave; as a tunable bandstop filter which will suppress any chosen frequency more than 60dB, suppression at 0·5fo and 2fo being less than 1dB; as a tunable high pass filter, or as a tunable low pass filter.

Chester Street, Aston, Birmingham, 6. The ‘Donald’ Patent Barrel Lifter Truck and Stand, the three‐in‐one appliance. Barrels up to 7 cwts. lifted and transported by one man. ‘Donald’ Patent Barrel Lifter Stands for Oil Stores.

The purpose of this paper is to report a research in which fuzzy assessment of failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) was examined on the design of rotary switches.

In the case study reported in this paper, fuzzy FMEA of a rotary switch was analysed, starting from its individual components to subsystems. Failure modes were identified and the effect of these modes was studied, then the results before and after taking actions were compared.

The usage of fuzzy FMEA enabled the reflection of real situation for determining the interdependencies among failure modes and effects of rotary switches with the incorporation of knowledge and expertise of experts.

The assessment has been attempted on a single rotary switch assembly. In future, this method can be applied in complex systems.

The paper shows that the method enabled the decision makers to share information from various working groups.

The case study has been conducted in a rotary switches manufacturing organisation and the results before and after improvement have been compared.

‘THE most interesting years of my industrial life’ is the way the writer of this column would describe the three and a half years of office as editor of Time and Motion Study.

The dividing line between the sensible and efficient use of assembly robots and that of dedicated automatic assembly machines requires detailed planning.

THE Funk Gerat 10 equipment is the latest standardized type, and is installed in all the later bombers and reconnaissance machines of the Luftwaffe.

The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated technical and economic model to evaluate the reusability of products or components.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is applied to obtain the product’s environmental performance. Monte Carlo simulation is utilized for enabling sustainable product design.

The results show that the model is capable of assessing the potential reusability of used products, while the usage of simulation significantly increases the effectiveness of the model in addressing uncertainties.

The case study has been conducted in a single manufacturing organization. The implications derived from the study are found to be practical and useful to the organization.

The paper reports a case study carried out for an Indian rotary switches manufacturing organization. Hence, the model is practically feasible.

The article presents a study that investigates LCA and simulation as enablers of sustainable product design. Hence, the contributions of this article are original and valuable.