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Folding cartons are used in myriad consumer products. For some products, such as hair dye kits, a very high-resolution printing is required. This is typically done using a technology known as Gravure printing. Gravure printing utilizes engraved cylinders which are very expensive. As a result, the printer often combines multiple products on one set of cylinders to minimize the total number of cylinders used. Since the demand between products varies, this can result in overproduction of the low demand products. This chapter presents an integer programming formulation that assigns products across multiple sets of cylinders in order to minimize this overproduction. Sample problems, their solutions and solution times are presented.

At one time, reference librarians considered a good illustrated reference book to be one in which the plates were bound near the text they illustrated, rather than all together at the back of the volume. Now there is an increasing number of reference books with high quality illustrations on almost every page, including works that have been designed around their graphic content. This article explores technological, intellectual, and economic developments that have contributed to this situation. Using recently published reference works as examples, the article argues that these developments have produced dramatic changes in the relationship between the text and illustrations in reference books, as well as important changes in the relationships between the informational content of reference works and the functions of book authorship and publishing. Criteria currently used for the evaluation of reference books, based as they are on characteristics of verbal or text material and on the assumption of traditional relationships among authors, publishers, and the content of reference volumes, are not sufficient for the selection and use of today's heavily illustrated works. Some suggestions toward the development of more appropriate criteria are made.

The paper gives design guidelines for polymer thick‐film technology (PTF). After an introduction reviewing the main PTF properties, materials and processes, detailed PTF design rules are presented. They are conservative, to achieve high production yield. The design rules are based on the considerable experience in the companies of the authors and of the persons mentioned in the acknowledgements, as well as on information from the open literature and from materials suppliers. The design guidelines are intended primarily for designers, but they are also important for production personnel, to facilitate a close coupling between design and production, and thus provide optimum use of PTF and obtain high production yield.

A PROGRESSIVE increase in the standard of living is now widely accepted as both possible and desirable, even if the notion that it can be doubled within the next 25 years is dismissed as an optimistic flight of Butlerian fancy. The prerequisite is a substantial upsurge in the country's production. This was expressed succinctly by Mr. Victor Feather four years ago when, as Assistant Secretary to the Trades Union Congress, he told the Institute of Directors that ‘what can be done by any Government by way of social improvement depends on what Industry can produce and sell. About half the strikes that take place have nothing to do with hours or wages or conditions, but have a great deal to do with human relations. That field is one in which there must be patience, tolerance, concentration and great endeavour, but the rate of progress can and should be accelerated.’

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the lessons learned from two kaizen events for productivity improvement in a printing company. The paper suggests how to organize lean tools to improve productivity through the use of organized kaizen events in the printing industry to meet defined targets.

This paper is based on a field study involving participant observations. The relationships among the three specific tools, line balancing, standardized work and standardized layout that are used in a kaizen event of a printing factory, are examined.

Application of a mix of lean tools resulted in significant productivity improvements of 10-30 percent in the assembly area of the printing company. Based on the outcomes of the lean tools that are applied in various work areas, the best combinations of lean tools are identified and several key considerations are discussed.

This paper shows that a combined set of lean tools such as line balancing, standardized work and standardized layout can be applied to improve productivity in the printing operations, which is identifiable with a mix of processes that are both labor intensive and equipment flexible.

The paper fills the literature gap on the use of specific lean tools: line balancing, standardized work and standardized layout in the printing industry. The findings from this research can be applied to other assembly systems that are similar to the printing industry.

THE object of industry is to supply the goods and services needed by the community, with the minimum consumption of real resources. The goods and services constitute our standard of living, which we can only improve if we minimise the use of our real resources and reduce the wastage in them. Productivity is thus the ratio between what you take out in the way of goods and services and what you put in as real resources. Higher productivity is getting the same or more goods and services from less resources. That is the problem which faces us both in relation to the immediate needs of the population and in respect to the drive to increase exports and so pay for the important imports which the country so badly needs.

In the past, legibility research has been mainly concerned with the conventionally typeset and printed word. ‘Printed’ materials are now produced by a variety of other methods, however, and other media such as microforms and cathode ray tubes (CRTs) are commonly used for information display. The effects of these new methods and media on legibility are often given scant consideration, but because of their visual limitations, it is all the more important that the legibility and ease of use of the information should be taken into account. The scope of legibility research must therefore be extended to cover the products of modern information technology. The aim of this paper is to summarize some of the research which has already been carried out and which is of relevance to present‐day problems, and to suggest where further research is most needed.

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is booming as a manufacturing technique in several industrial fields because of its ease of use, the simple-to-meet requirements for its machinery and the possibility to manufacture individual specimens cost-effectively. However, there are still large variations in the mechanical properties of the prints dependent on the process parameters, and there are many discrepancies in the literature as to which are the optimal parameters.

In this paper, thermal evolution of the printed specimens is set as the main focus and some phenomena that affect this evolution are explored to differentiate their effects on the mechanical properties in FDM. Interlayer waiting times, the thermal effects of the position of the extruder relative to the specimens and the printing layout are assessed. Thermal measurements are acquired during deposition and tensile tests are performed on the specimens, correlating the mechanical behavior with the thermal evolution during printing.

Additional waiting times do not present significant differences in the prints. Thermal stabilization of the material is observed to be faster than whole layer deposition. The layout is seen to affect the thermal gradients in the printed specimens and increase the fragility. Strain at breakage variations up to 64% are found depending on the layout.

This study opens new research and technological discussions on the optimal settings for the manufacturing of high-performance mechanical components with FDM through the study of the thermal gradients generated in the printed specimens.

Regardless of the materials used, additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the most popular emerging fabrication processes used for creating complex and intricate structural components. This study aims to investigate the effects of process parameters – namely, nozzle diameter, layer thickness and infill density on microstructure as well as the mechanical properties of 17–4 PH stainless steel specimens fabricated via material extrusion AM.

The experimental approach investigates the effects of printing parameters, including nozzle diameter, layer thickness and infill density, on surface roughness, physical and mechanical properties of the printed specimens. The tests were triplicated to ensure reproducibility of the experimental results.

The highest ultimate tensile strength, 795.26 MPa, was obtained on specimen that was fabricated with a 0.4 mm nozzle diameter, 0.14 mm layer thickness and 30% infill density. Furthermore, a 0.4 mm nozzle diameter also provided slightly better ductility. This came at the expense of surface finishing, as a 0.25 mm nozzle diameter exhibited better surface finishing over a 0.4 mm nozzle diameter. Infill density was shown to slightly influence the tensile properties, whereas layer thickness showed a significant effect on surface roughness. By contrast, hardness and ductility were independent of nozzle diameter, layer thickness and infill density.

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis relating to various input printing parameters on microstructural, physical and mechanical properties of additively manufactured 17–4 PH stainless steel to improve the printability and processability via AM.