Quality assurance in dynamic testing

An agency concerned with the quality assurance of dynamic testing has recently been established. The following paper describes the nature and structure of this agency which is known as the DTA (Dynamic Testing Agency). The aims and philosophy of the DTA are discussed and the importance of the use of reliable experimental data in structural assessment and for the verification of theoretical predictions is emphasised.     

On the usefulness of guidelines and instructions for environmental assessment – a qualitative study of the helpfulness perceived by Polish practitioners

Guidelines and instructions for Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment (together referred to as EA here) are developed to improve the quality of legal requirements’ implementation and to support EA procedure accomplishment. However, to date, it has not been checked whether they are useful for practitioners. Therefore, the aim of the study underlying this paper was to verify, based on the experience of Polish EA experts, whether guidelines and instructions are useful in their everyday work. A qualitative study comprising of a questionnaire survey and interviews tested whether (1) EA practitioners know and use the Polish and EU guidelines, (2) how EA practitioners evaluate the validity and usefulness of such instructions, and (3) in which areas there is a lack of instructions and guidelines. The results show a low level of knowledge of national and EU handbooks. Those guidelines focusing on legal procedures, road investments and designing animal passageways are considered to be the most useful. Moreover, practitioners indicate that EU guidelines should be translated into Polish. Most important for practitioners is the linking of guidelines with the EA procedure, so that they can become a platform for dialogue of all stakeholders.     

面向重组的质量保证计划建模环境

本文提出了解决了质量计划建模工具的关键技术。讨论了敏捷企业根据质量保证计划快速重组的方法和工作流技术在质量保证系统中的应用,并对质量计划建模工具如何根据质量管理流程的设计和实现特点做了阐述。     

Mapping quality assurance systems: A methodology

This paper reports on a method (quality management activity planning—Q-MAP) for mapping quality assurance procedures, information flows and responsibilities. A comparison is made of the ICAM definition (IDEF) method and Q-MAP as to their suitability for mapping quality assurance systems and fostering the advancement of the quality improvement process. The achievements arising from the use of Q-MAP at Garrett Automotive Limited are examined. It is pointed out that the involvement of employees in the preparation of Q-MAP diagrams has led to improvements in processes and procedures by eliminating differences between actual and documented work practices and that a wider cross-section of employees are now familiar with the company's quality assurance system.     

Quality control results of the drift tubes for the ATLAS MDT-BIS chambers

ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) is a general purpose experiment, which will start its operation at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in 2007. The ATLAS detector is designed to study the products of proton–proton collisions at c.m.s. energies of up to 14 TeV. Three Greek Universities have taken the responsibility to construct 112 BIS-MDT (Barrel Inner Small) chambers using 29 000 drift tubes of 170 cm length and 3 cm diameter that have been quality tested before assembly. This work describes the Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA_QC) procedures for the drift tubes, followed at the High Energy Physics Laboratory of the National Technical University of Athens, while emphasis is given on the obtained results for the above mentioned number of tubes.     

我省伴有辐射建设项目环境影响评价工作浅谈

本文着重介绍了辐射环境影响评价的重要性、我省伴有辐射建设项目进行环境影响评价的实施步骤及相关法律法规。并结合本人的实际工作,提出此项工作中现存在的问题及有关思路。     

Quality assurance of welds in ship structures

This paper describes procedures for predicting the growth rate of fatigue cracks in ship structure welds under sea-wave loading as well as the stress corrosion cracking behaviour of steel in marine structures. A computer program which can be applied to assess the residual life-time and to estimate the probability of failure of marine structures under wave action is presented. The main objective of applying this program is the development of an optimal inspection and maintenance policy for marine structures. Moreover, the presented computer program is of value to insurance companies in order to assess the safety level of a marine structure and consequently to estimate their financial risk.     

Stakeholder’s opinion of public participation in Thai environmental and health impact assessment

This paper evaluates the efficacy of public participation in the EHIA (environmental and health impact assessment) process of Thailand based on the opinions of 53 interviewees from various stakeholder groups in relation to certain public participation criteria. The evaluation revealed that public participation in Thai EHIA was partially effective. The project proponents provide an opportunity to anybody interested in the project to get involved from the scoping stage onwards. However, the important decisions are already made before the public can get involved. In addition, government officers and non-governmental organizations appear to be able to influence outcomes of public hearings more concretely than the project-affected people due to the highly technical nature of the discussions. The stakeholders were questioned whether their concerns were taken seriously during the decision-making process. In our conclusions, we make three major recommendations to enhance the public participation process and practice in Thai EHIA, based upon: (1) stakeholder analysis, (2) public participation in EHIA guideline revision, and (3) validation the authenticity of the concerns raised by stakeholders.     

A Method for Determining Equivalence in Industrial Applications

This article considers the problem of determining whether the results of measurements at two different measurement times are equivalent. Quite often in an industrial quality assurance experiment, the goal is to provide evidence of equivalence, rather than difference. Although determining equivalence has long been a staple in biological and chemical applications, it is often useful in industrial situations, such as comparing the characteristics of products measured at different points in time, or produced using different formulations. Methods for assessing equivalence, however, are rarely taught to engineers and other scientists. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a procedure for assessing equivalence, as well as to demonstrate the inappropriateness of a method commonly used in these situations. The authors suggest that equivalence testing methodology should be among the statistical tools at the disposal of quality and process control engineers.     

A Dirichlet Process Gaussian State Machine Model for Change Detection in Transient Processes

The ability to detect incipient and critical changes in real world process—esessential for system integrity assurance—is currently impeded by the mismatch between the key assumption of stationarity underlying most change detection methods and the nonlinear and nonstationary (transient) dynamics of most real-world processes. The current approaches are slow or outright unable to detect qualitative changes in the behaviors that lead to anomalies. We present a Dirichlet process Gaussian state machine (DPGSM) model to represent dynamic intermittency, which is one of the most ubiquitous real-world transient behaviors. The DPGSM model treats a signal as a random walk among a Dirichlet process mixture of Gaussian clusters. Hypothesis tests and a numerical scheme based on this nonparametric representation were developed to detect subtle changes in the transient (intermittent) dynamics. Experimental investigations suggest that the DPGSM approach can consistently detect incipient, critical changes in intermittent signals some 50–2000 ms (20–90%) ahead of competing methods in benchmark test cases as well as a variety of real-world applications, such as in alternation patterns (e.g., ragas) in a music piece, and in the vibration signals capturing the initiation of product defects in an ultraprecision manufacturing process. A supplementary file to this article, available online, includes a Matlab implementation of the presented DPGSM.     

电子商务交易保障国际标准体系原则与框架

国际电子商务活动受到交易保障问题的困扰,影响全球电子商务产业健康发展和网购消费体验。在研究国际国内电子商务相关政策法规的基础上,提出构建电子商务交易保障国际标准体系的八大原则,包括信息安全、物流可靠、争议可解等,并根据八大原则设计电子商务交易保障标准体系的六大子体系,包括网络信息体系、物流服务体系、争议解决体系、协同管理体系等。从电子商务经营者、消费者、政府和第三方组织等6个相关方和交易前、交易中、交易后等3个交易过程构成的两个维度,提出交易保障标准需考虑的主要内容。提出并设计的"8663"体系,为国际标准化组织电子商务交易保障技术委员会(ISO/TC 321)研制高质量国际标准提供了原则与参考。     

Filter Radiometers as a Tool for Quality Assurance of Temperature Measurements with Linear Pyrometers

Measurements made with a pyrometer are vulnerable to errors if the pyrometer is misaligned, inaccurately characterized, or malfunctioning. In this work, thermodynamic temperatures between 1,373 and 1,773 K were studied by measuring a variable-temperature blackbody with a linear pyrometer and four absolutely characterized filter radiometers. The filter radiometer measurements were done in the irradiance mode. In the first set of measurements, there was a 3–5 K difference between the pyrometer and the filter radiometer data. The cause was tracked to malfunctioning of the pyrometer, which was afterwards sent for repair on the basis of these results. In the second set of measurements, with the repaired pyrometer, the agreement of the temperature results was good, the mean difference being −0.41 K with a standard deviation of 0.52 K. The differences between the pyrometer and the filter radiometer temperature measurement results showed no temperature dependence. It was concluded that the filter radiometers used in the irradiance mode provided a straightforward method for the quality assurance of pyrometers.     

An optimal batch size for an imperfect production system with quality assurance and rework

We consider a manufacturing system which receives raw material from a supplier, processes it, and delivers it to the customer periodically. The system considered is imperfect and produces defectives at a constant rate. The finished product can only be delivered if the whole lot is quality-certified. Hence, defectives have to be reworked, and the whole lot quality-checked within the cycle. Three different scenarios are considered, viz. (a) a single lot of raw material for multiple lot of finished product and delivery of the product in multiple instalments, (b) a single lot of raw material for a multiple lot of finished product and delivery of the product in a single instalment, and (c) lot-for-lot and delivery of finished product in single instalment. A total cost equation is developed for each model, and the optimal ordering quantities are evaluated. The results found are encouraging and quite simple to use for practical purposes.     

Development of a co-operative distributed process mining system for quality assurance

In this paper, a co-operative distributed process mining system (CDPMS) is developed to streamline the workflow along the supply chain in order to offer shorter delivery times, more flexibility and higher customer satisfaction with learning ability. The proposed system is equipped with the ‘distributed process mining’ feature which is used to discover the hidden relationships among each working decision in distributed manner. This method incorporates the concept of data mining and knowledge refinement into decision making process for ensuring ‘doing the right things’ within the workflow. An example of implementation is given, based on the case of slider manufacturer.     

Fuzzy logic approach to ic quality assurance plan selection

The problem of selection of a proper quality assurance and control programme for manufacturing of microelectronics devices is usually solved empirically by analogy with existing situations, or those experienced in the past. This problem is characterized by incomplete comprehension of influencing variables, unknown relationships among them, and their often vague definitions. This makes it an almost perfect candidate for application of methods from the theory of fuzzy sets and approximate reasoning. One such reasoning process is described here using familiar terms from the MIL-HDBK-217E, and is illustrated by an ASIC MOS device example.