Master production scheduling,customer service and manufacturing flexibility in an assemble-to-order environment

A key element of manufacturing planning and control involves the inter-functional coordination of various manufacturing requirements. This paper reports the results of a simulation experiment that compares alternative master production scheduling (MPS) procedures in an assemble-to-order environment. The MPS procedures are superbills and covering sets. For a given investment in safety stocks the managerial problem is how to construct the MPS in order to minimize the firm's delivery time pressures. The results of the simulation experiment strongly support the use of the superbill techniques over the covering set technique. Moreover, of the experimental factors that influence delivery time performance, the choice of master production scheduling technique has the largest effect. Demand variability has the next greatest effect on delivery time performance. The safely stock level has the third greatest effect and product commonality was fourth. Finally, the managerial implications of the results are discussed in detail.     

Time- and cost-based priorities for job shop scheduling

Competitively, cost- and time-based scheduling should provide a firm with a powerful market advantage. The cost- and time-based priority scheduling concept is driven by profit maximization and quick response in a competitive market. The literature on shop scheduling contains numerous studies reporting on the use of dispatching rules that are based only on the time criterion. Alternatively there have been only a few published articles that specifically consider a composite of cost and time. Aggarwal and McCarl and Scudder and Hoffmann have investigated the use of cost and time information for determining the job priority in random job shops. One result of this study is a reconciliation of the differences between the Aggarwal and McCarl and the Scudder and Hoffmann study. Moreover, a simplistic priority rule based on profit margin and due dates is introduced and tested. The results reported in this research are an attempt to reconcile the issue of time-based versus cost-based priority rule performance.     

Quantity discount decisions under conditions of multiple items,multiple suppliers and resource limitations

This research considers quantity discount procedures under conditions of multiple items, resource limitations and multiple suppliers. This is a very complex problem that has not yet been addressed in the literature. In this paper we offer an efficient heuristic programming procedure for evaluating alternative discount schedules. Moreover we use an example problem to test the suggested procedure. The results offer several encouraging findings for managers facing this impressive problem.     

Theory poorly practised: the garden suburb in New Zealand

This article explores the limited development of the garden suburb in New Zealand. It attempts to move from the more generalized discussion of the garden suburb in New Zealand, to examine in detail the three examples that might be regarded as attempting to put the concept into practice, that is The Spur, Durie Hill, and Orakei. Using three conditions which, from overseas development, appeared to be important conditions for successful establishment of a garden suburb, the development of each of these examples is analysed. What emerges from the analysis is evidence that the concept was unsuccessful in moving from the theoretical to the practical. This failure can be attributed to a number of factors including the small size of the country, the lack of committed, well‐resourced developers and the nature of the sites chosen. Moreover, New Zealand only rarely developed the degraded urban conditions that made the garden suburb seem an attractive alternative. Ultimately, the concept probably had more success as an advertising ploy for developers than in establishing viable garden suburbs that justified the name.     

Light‐induced protein and lipid oxidation in low‐fat cheeses: Effect on degree of enzymatic hydrolysis

The effect of proteolysis on oxidation in low‐fat cheese was investigated. The accumulation of dityrosine during storage increased significantly in the cheese with a high degree of proteolysis, while hexanal and heptanal were lower in the cheese with high proteolytic activity, indicating that the peptides/free amino acids acted as antioxidants on the propagating step in lipid oxidation. Dimethyl disulphide concentration was also lower in the cheese with a higher level of peptides. Therefore, oxidation of tyrosine residues seemed to function as antioxidants both regarding secondary lipid oxidation products and protein‐derived oxidation products through formation of dityrosine, being a termination reaction.     

Back to Basics: Maisons Jaoul and the Art of the mal foutu

Although Le Corbusier's debt to vernacular architecture has been frequently discussed, the particular effects that the architect searched for in his postwar buildings have been insufficiently studied. The Maisons Jaoul (1951–1955) are a case in point. Le Corbusier's search for a direct, expressive, and tactile quality of building is here also related to his interest in the ideas and practice of Jean Dubuffet. Le Corbusier was not a regionalist but he particularly admired craftsmen from the Mediterranean basin, who, he believed, retained a vigorous and comprehensive sympathy for materials. This article, using firsthand interviews with Le Corbusier's craftsmen, explores the complex and subtle ways that Le Corbusier and his assistants negotiated the textural effects they desired, which Le Corbusier described ironically as mal foutu (messed up).     

Information extraction from legal texts: the potential of discourse analysis

There is an urgent need to automatically identify information in legal texts. In this paper, we argue that discourse analysis yields valuable knowledge to be incorporated in text processing systems. Knowledge about discourse patterns has already been applied in legal text generation systems. But, it is equally important to incorporate this kind of knowledge in legal information extraction systems. This knowledge is helpful for locating information in texts. Also, we demonstrate the need for adequate, maintainable, and possibly sharable knowledge representations of discourse patterns. The findings are illustrated by explicating the role discourse analysis played when building the SALOMON system, a system that automatically abstracts Belgian criminal cases.     

EVALUATION OF MALONALDEHYDE AS A MARKER OF OXIDATIVE RANCIDITY IN MEAT PRODUCTS

Quantification of malonaldehyde as a marker of lipid oxidation in comminuted meat systems, with or without additives, by a distillation and an extraction procedure was investigated. Each method had its own benefits and drawbacks. The extraction procedure generally afforded more realistic results. However, presence of colored additives such as the cooked cured-meat pigment, as well as dispersed lipids in the extracts, interfered with accurate determination of the colored chromogen between malonaldehyde and the 2-thiobarbituric acid (TBA) reagent. On the other hand, the distillation procedure afforded higher TBA values as compared to the extraction method since decomposition of labile hydroperoxides occurred. Addition of antioxidants to the mixtures prior to distillation proved beneficial in some cases. In the presence of residual nitrite, addition of sulfanilamide to the mixture prior to distillation prevented underestimation of malonaldehyde presumably by inhibiting its nitrosation.