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There can be activities that cannot reduce times by conventional single minute exchange of die (SMED) tools. In this case more advanced tools are needed. The purpose of this paper is to integrate the fuzzy Taguchi method into the SMED method in order to improve the setup time. The reason for using fuzzy logic is the subjective evaluation of factor’s levels assessment by experts. Subjective assessment contains a certain degree of uncertainty and is vagueness. The fuzzy Taguchi method provides to determining optimal setup time parameters in an activity of SMED. So it is possible to reduce time more than the conventional SMED method.

In this study, the SMED method and the fuzzy Taguchi method are used.

In this study, it has been shown that the setup time is reduced (from 196 to 75 min) and the optimum value can be given at the intermediate value by the fuzzy Taguchi method.

In this limited literature research, the authors have not found a study using the fuzzy Taguchi method in the SMED method.

This article aims to introduce a guide to improving hospital bed setup by combining lean technical practices (LTPs), such as kaizen and value stream mapping (VSM) and lean social practices (LSPs), such as employee empowerment.

Action research approach was employed to analyze the process of reconfiguration of bed setup management in a Brazilian public hospital.

The study introduces three contributions: (1) presents the use of VSM focused specifically on bed setup, while the current literature presents studies mainly focused on patient flow management, (2) combines the use of LSPs and LTPs in the context of bed management, expanding current studies that are focused either on mathematical models or on social and human aspects of work, (3) introduces a practical guide based on six steps that combine LSPs and LSPs to improve bed setup management.

The research focused on the analysis of patient beds. Surgical beds, delivery, emergency care and intensive care unit (ICU) were not considered in this study. In addition, the process indicators analyzed after the implementation of the improvements did not contemplate the moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, this research focused on the implementation of the improvement in the context of only one Brazilian public hospital.

The combined use of LSPs and LTPs can generate considerable gains in bed setup efficiency and consequently increase the capacity of a hospital to admit new patients, without the ampliation of the physical space and workforce.

The improvement of bed setup has an important social character, whereas it can generate important social benefits such as the improvement of the admission service to patients, reducing the waiting time, reducing hospitalization costs and improving the hospital capacity without additional physical resources. All these results are crucial for populations, their countries and regions.

While the current literature on bed management is more focused on formal models or pure human and social perspectives, this article brings these two perspectives together in a single, holistic framework. As a result, this article points out that the complex bed management problem can be efficiently solved by combining LSPs and LTPs to present theoretical and practical contributions to the important social problem of hospital bed management.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of supply management coordination among a prominent contact lens company (customer), its carton supplier (first tier), and paperboard supplier (second tier). Adopting concepts within the theory of swift and even flow, the authors integrate the physical (material) and information flow among these supply partners to ensure higher productivity through timely production and distribution of the cartons, which reduced the lead-times and inventory levels at the three companies in this supply chain.

This study uses a longitudinal case study (action research (AR)), which combines qualitative and quantitative analyses. Observations over time, documents such as contracts, joint agreements, meeting agendas and minutes, personal conversations, and in-depth interviews were mainly used, with quantitative measurement of operational performance.

The complete solution to eliminate waste and improve the existing system is provided, as well as the ordering process solution in the form of service level models. The results of the study proved supply management coordination to be a pioneering approach in reducing inventory, reducing the safety stock at the buyer’s facility, improving the forecasts, lowering the product delivery lead-times, and establishing an information system throughout the three tiers of the supply chain.

The paper draws upon real-life data from a three echelon supply chain in the manufacturing industry. Combining this triadic focus with action-based research makes it a unique opportunity to reveal insights into the issue of coordination among supply chain members and consequent performance outcomes.

Glass material is largely used for load-bearing components in buildings. For this reason, standardized calculation methods can be used in support of safe structural design in common loading and boundary conditions. Differing from earlier literature efforts, the present study elaborates on the load-bearing capacity, failure time and fire endurance of ordinary glass elements under fire exposure and sustained mechanical loads, with evidence of major trends in terms of loading condition and cross-sectional layout. Traditional verification approaches for glass in cold conditions (i.e. stress peak check) and fire endurance of load-bearing members (i.e. deflection and deflection rate limits) are assessed based on parametric numerical simulations.

The mechanical performance of structural glass elements in fire still represents an open challenge for design and vulnerability assessment. Often, special fire-resisting glass solutions are used for limited practical applications only, and ordinary soda-lime silica glass prevails in design applications for load-bearing members. Moreover, conventional recommendations and testing protocols in use for load-bearing members composed of traditional constructional materials are not already addressed for glass members. This paper elaborates on the fire endurance and failure detection methods for structural glass beams that are subjected to standard ISO time–temperature for fire exposure and in-plane bending mechanical loads. Fire endurance assessment methods are discussed with the support of Finite Element (FE) numerical analyses.

Based on extended parametric FE analyses, multiple loading, geometrical and thermo-mechanical configurations are taken into account for the analysis of simple glass elements under in-plane bending setup and fire exposure. The comparative results show that – in most of cases – thermal effects due to fire exposure have major effects on the actual load-bearing capacity of these members. Moreover, the conventional stress peak verification approach needs specific elaborations, compared to traditional calculations carried out in cold conditions.

The presented numerical results confirm that the fire endurance analysis of ordinary structural glass elements is a rather complex issue, due to combination of multiple aspects and influencing parameters. Besides, FE simulations can provide useful support for a local and global analysis of major degradation and damage phenomena, and thus support the definition of simple and realistic verification procedures for fire exposed glass members.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how consumers choose among three different options offered by a firm in a monopolistic setting, namely, to buy a standard product with a non-customizable design, to ask the firm to customize a product using the consumer’s ideal design or to do the entire design task by themselves. The authors also investigate how social preference intensity and the possibility of reselling a product influence a consumer’s decision.

The authors develop an analytical (game theoretical) consumer choice framework and incorporate a psychological factor into the model. The authors also empirically validate the analytical findings using simulations.

The authors find that as social preference intensity increases, the number of co-producers can either decrease or increase. The authors offer a closed-form solution and interval graphs showing that when the setup price is large (small), the proportion of the market that chooses to do-it-yourself (DIY) is large (small) and an increase in social preference intensity leads to a decrease (increase) in co-production.

This is the first paper to incorporate a social factor into an economic model in a consumer behavior setting. It is also the first paper to explain how customers’ preferences among possible options, such as DIY (without the firm’s help), co-production (with the firm’s help) and a standard product might change while considering other people’s preferences, as well as given associated costs.

Solar energy applications are limited because of its intermittent and discontinuous availability with respect to time. Hence, solar energy thermal conversion systems need integration with thermal storage units (TSUs) to use solar energy in off sunshine hours. This paper aims to perform thermal analysis of a solar air heater (SAH) integrated with a phase change material (PCM)-based TSU to supply hot air during night period.

An experimental setup with TSU as main component was prepared with SAH at its upward side, food chamber at its downward side as subcomponents. In TSU, paraffin wax was used as thermal energy storage material. Mass flow rate of air considered as an input parameter in the experiment. Two different absorber plates, namely, plane and ribbed absorber plates were used for the experimentation. Each day for a fixed mass flow of air, observations were made during charging and discharging of PCM.

Nusselt number and convection heat transfer coefficients were analytically calculated by considering flow through TSU as external flow over bank of tubes in a rectangular duct. A temperature drop of around 7-8°C during charging of PCM and temperature rise of around 4-5°C during discharging of PCM was observed from the experimental results. The average practical efficiency of TSU with ribbed absorber plate SAH during charging and discharging of PCM was 22 and 6 per cent, respectively, higher than that of TSU with plane absorber plate SAH.

There are no limitations for research on SAH integrated with TSU. Different PCM including paraffin wax, Glauber’s salt, salt hydrates and water are used for thermal storage. Only limitation is lower efficiency of SAH integrated with TSU because of lower heat transfer coefficients with air as working medium. If it can improve heat transfer coefficients of air then heat transfer rates with these units will be higher.

There are no practical limitations for research on SAH integrated with TSU. Sophisticated instrumentation is needed to measure flow rates, temperatures and pressure variations of air.

In poultry farms during night, chicks cannot survive at cold climatic conditions. Hence, hot air should be supplied to poultry farms whenever the atmospheric temperature drops. It is proposed that, in combination with TSUs, heat produced by SAH is stored in day time in the form of either sensible or latent heat and is retrieved to provide hot air in the night times. This will reduce total operating costs in poultry farms.

Conventionally, people are producing hot air by combusting coal in poultry forms. This cost around Rs. 75,000 per month for a batch of 225 to 250 chicks in a poultry form. Hot air could be produced economically during off sunshine hours from SAH integrated with TSU compared to the conventional method of coal burning. Present experimental investigations conducted to fill the literature gap in this area of research and to design a SAH integrated with TSU to produce hot air for poultry forms.

To compare the performance of a new hybrid manufacturing system (HMS) with a conventional cellular manufacturing system (CMS). The hybrid system is a combination of the cellular manufacturing and job shop.

A hypothetical manufacturing facility with eight machines and 20 parts is used as a case. Simulation models are developed for two manufacturing systems. A multi‐factor comparison is carried out to test the performance of the systems under different scenarios.

It was found that group scheduling rules (GSR) and the manufacturing system design factors have significant impact on the performance of the system. In particular, the hybrid system shows its best performance when the MSSPT GSR is applied, whereas the cellular system is superior when DDSI is implemented. The results also demonstrate that, by adding non‐family parts to the production schedule of the HMS, significant benefits in the performance measures can be attained.

The conclusion cannot be generalized, as the result is dependent upon the input data and the size of the problem.

The application may be limited to certain industry sectors. Further studies may be needed to identify the appropriate industry.

While the majority of the literature focuses on either a job shop or a pure CMS, this paper has a distinctive approach that allows the combined use of both systems. This could be a useful transitional approach from one system to the other.

To rescue at-risk historical scientific data stored at the McGill Observatory, the objectives of the Data Rescue Archive Weather (DRAW) project are: to build a repository; to develop a protocol to preserve the data in weather registers; and to make the data available to research communities and the public. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The DRAW project adopts an open archive information system compliant model as a conceptual framework for building a digital repository. The model consists of data collection, conversion, data capture, transcription, arrangement, description, data extraction, database design and repository setup.

A climate data repository, as the final product, is set up for digital images of registers and a database is designed for data storage. The repository provides dissemination of and access to the data for researchers, information professionals and the public.

Doing a quality check is the most important aspect of rescuing historical scientific data to ensure the accuracy, reliability and consistency of data.

The DRAW project shows how the use of historical scientific data has become a key element in research analysis on scientific fields, such as climatology and environmental protection.

The historical climate data set of the McGill Observatory is by nature unique and complex for preservation and research purposes. The management of historical scientific data is a challenge to rescue and describe as a result of its heterogeneous and non-standardized form.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss methodological issues concerning the use of video observation of a single lesson as a supplement to interviews when studying teachers’ practice and competencies.

Using a Danish follow-up study focused on teachers’ practice as a jumping-off point, the authors address both opportunities and challenges when triangulating interviews with video observations of a single lesson. The discussion is structured around the four challenges when using video observations presented by Derry et al. (2010), namely selection, technology, analysis and ethics.

Based on experiences from the follow-up study, the use of video observations for triangulation has the potential to nuance the meanings ascribed to teachers’ practice. This approach entails productive challenges that can support the more nuanced and diverse perspectives on teachers’ practice if used proactively.

Although there is a wide body of literature on conducting interviews and observations when studying teachers’ practice, the use of a combination of interviews and video observations is seldom addressed. This paper presents concrete experience of how to capture different aspects of teachers’ practice by triangulating data generated from interviews and from video observations in a research design with limited resources. The authors discuss what to consider when planning and conducting video observations of a single lesson as part of an interview-based study.