Traditional concepts for manufacturing process optimization, e.g., Lean Production and Total Quality Management, represent management-driven and experience-based approaches. The increasing use of cyber-physical systems as well as the digitalization of manufacturing operations management by manufacturing execution systems (MES) lead to enormous amounts of structured and unstructured manufacturin...

A future adaptive and reconfigurable manufacturing system has to address, beside the requirements for agile and fast reaction to sudden and unpredictable changes in production demands, also the problem of user acceptance and understanding of such highly intelligent reconfigurable systems. Thus, the usability is a major criterion for the design of future manufacturing systems. The design and dev...

This paper introduces a new surface measurement method for potential online surface measurement application. It features high stability due to using near common-path configuration combined with active stabilisation. The active stabilisation is supplied by the use of a multiplexed reference interferometer and piezo-electric translator mounted mirror. The active compensation makes the system resi...

In a perfect category every object has a minimal projective resolution. We give a sufficient condition for the category of modules over a category-graded algebra to be perfect. AMS Subject Classification (2000): 18E15, 16W50. In [6] the second author explored homological properties of algebras graded over a small category. Our interest in these algebras arose from our research on the homologica...

Received November 2002; revised June 2003. Supported by Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research through the Netherlands Mathematical Research Foundation and by the Heisenberg program of the DFG. Supported in part by POCTI/FCT/FEDER. AMS 2000 subject classifications. Primary 62G32; secondary 62G20.

Manufacturing products with multiple quality characteristics is always one of the main concerns for an advanced manufacturing system. To assure product quality, finite automatic inspection systems should be available and employed. Inspection planning to allocate inspection stations should then be performed to manage limited inspection resources. Since product variety in batch production or job ...

Networked manufacturing is an advanced manufacturing pattern, born out of Internet technology and catering to an increasingly strong trend toward economic globalisation. In this paper the definition and basic features of networked manufacturing are presented, based on a review of state-of-the-art technology and an analysis of the requirements for enterprise collaboration. This paper will also g...

Mobile systems become more and more important in the area of modern manufacturing. In order to handle an object with a manipulator mounted on an autonomous mobile system (AMS) within a changing environment, the object has to be identiied and its 3D pose relative to the manipulator has to be determined with suucient accuracy, because in general its exact position is not known a priori. The objec...

The reported study was conducted to compare and contrast current manufacturing practices between two countries, Australia and Malaysia, and identify the practices that significantly influence their manufacturing performances. The results are based on data collected from surveys using a standard questionnaire in both countries. Evidence indicates that product quality and reliability is the main ...

Receptors for advanced glycation end-products (RAGE) are multiligand cell surface receptors of the immunoglobin family expressed by epithelium and macrophages, and expression increases following exposure to cigarette smoke extract (CSE). The present study sought to characterize the proinflammatory contributions of RAGE expressed by alveolar macrophages (AMs) following CSE exposure. Acute exposu...