Resource Efficient Configuration of an Aircraft Assembly Line

The design of efficient assembly systems can significantly contribute to the profitability of products and the competitiveness of manufacturing industries. The configuration of a an efficient assembly line can be supported by suitable methodologies and techniques, such as design for manufacture and assembly, assembly sequence planning, assembly line balancing, lean manufacturing and optimization techniques. In this paper, these methods are applied with reference to the industrial case study of the assembly line of a Skycar light aircraft. The assembly process sequence is identified taking into account the analysis of the assembly structure and the required precedence constraints, and diverse techniques are applied to optimize the assembly line performance. Different line configurations are verified through discrete event simulation to assess the potential increase of efficiency and throughput in a digital environment and propose the most suitable configuration of the assembly line.

Identification of tone duration, line length and letter position: An experimental approach to timing and working memory deficits in schizophrenia.

Patients with schizophrenia display numerous cognitive deficits, including problems in working memory, time estimation, and absolute identification of stimuli. Research in these fields has traditionally been conducted independently. We examined these cognitive processes using tasks that are structurally similar and that yield rich error data. Relative to healthy control participants (n = 20), patients with schizophrenia (n = 20) were impaired on a duration identification task and a probed-recall memory task but not on a line-length identification task. These findings do not support the notion of a global impairment in absolute identification in schizophrenia. However, the authors suggest that some aspect of temporal information processing is indeed disturbed in schizophrenia.