Assessing the financial impact of 6-Sigma in an automotive company

This paper reports on an assessment of an ongoing 6-Sigma program conducted within a UK based (US owned) automotive company. It gives an overview of the management of the 6-sigma programme and the 23 in-house methodology used. The analysis given in the paper pays particular focus to the financial impacts that individual projects have had. Three projects are chosen from the hundreds that have been completed and are discussed in detail, including which specific techniques have been used and how financially successful the projects were. Commentary is also given on the effectiveness of the overall program along with a critique of how the implementation of 6-Sigma could be more effectively managed in the future. This discussion particularly focuses upon issues such as: project selection and scoping, financial evaluation and data availability, organisational awareness, commitment and involvement, middle management support, functional variation, and maintaining momentum during the rollout of a lengthy program.

Summary of the 10th International workshop on Models@run.time

The 10th anniversary of the workshop Models@run.time was held at the 18th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems. The workshop took place in the city of Ottawa, Canada, on the 29th of September 2015. The workshop was organized by Sebastian Gtz, Nelly Bencomo, Gordon Blair and Hui Song. Here, we present a summary of the discussions at the workshop and a synopsis of the topics discussed and highlighted during the workshop. The workshop received the award for the best workshop at the MODELS 2015 conference out of 18 workshops in total. The award was based upon the organization, program, web site timing and the feedback provided by the workshop participants.

The effective use of implicit parallelism through the use of an object-oriented programming language

This thesis explores translating well-written sequential programs in a subset of the Eiffel programming language - without syntactic or semantic extensions - into parallelised programs for execution on a distributed architecture. The main focus is on constructing two object-oriented models: a theoretical self-contained model of concurrency which enables a simplified second model for implementing the compiling process. There is a further presentation of principles that, if followed, maximise the potential levels of parallelism. Model of Concurrency. The concurrency model is designed to be a straightforward target for mapping sequential programs onto, thus making them parallel. It aids the compilation process by providing a high level of abstraction, including a useful model of parallel behaviour which enables easy incorporation of message interchange, locking, and synchronization of objects. Further, the model is sufficient such that a compiler can and has been practically built. Model of Compilation. The compilation-model's structure is based upon an object-oriented view of grammar descriptions and capitalises on both a recursive-descent style of processing and abstract syntax trees to perform the parsing. A composite-object view with an attribute grammar style of processing is used to extract sufficient semantic information for the parallelisation (i.e. code-generation) phase. Programming Principles. The set of principles presented are based upon information hiding, sharing and containment of objects and the dividing up of methods on the basis of a command/query division. When followed, the level of potential parallelism within the presented concurrency model is maximised. Further, these principles naturally arise from good programming practice. Summary. In summary this thesis shows that it is possible to compile well-written programs, written in a subset of Eiffel, into parallel programs without any syntactic additions or semantic alterations to Eiffel: i.e. no parallel primitives are added, and the parallel program is modelled to execute with equivalent semantics to the sequential version. If the programming principles are followed, a parallelised program achieves the maximum level of potential parallelisation within the concurrency model.

An investigation into the use of knowledge representation in computer-integrated manufacturing

In a certain automobile factory, batch-painting of the body types in colours is controlled by an allocation system. This tries to balance production with orders, whilst making optimally-sized batches of colours. Sequences of cars entering painting cannot be optimised for easy selection of colour and batch size. `Over-production' is not allowed, in order to reduce buffer stocks of unsold vehicles. Paint quality is degraded by random effects. This thesis describes a toolkit which supports IKBS in an object-centred formalism. The intended domain of use for the toolkit is flexible manufacturing. A sizeable application program was developed, using the toolkit, to test the validity of the IKBS approach in solving the real manufacturing problem above, for which an existing conventional program was already being used. A detailed statistical analysis of the operating circumstances of the program was made to evaluate the likely need for the more flexible type of program for which the toolkit was intended. The IKBS program captures the many disparate and conflicting constraints in the scheduling knowledge and emulates the behaviour of the program installed in the factory. In the factory system, many possible, newly-discovered, heuristics would be awkward to represent and it would be impossible to make many new extensions. The representation scheme is capable of admitting changes to the knowledge, relying on the inherent encapsulating properties of object-centres programming to protect and isolate data. The object-centred scheme is supported by an enhancement of the `C' programming language and runs under BSD 4.2 UNIX. The structuring technique, using objects, provides a mechanism for separating control of expression of rule-based knowledge from the knowledge itself and allowing explicit `contexts', within which appropriate expression of knowledge can be done. Facilities are provided for acquisition of knowledge in a consistent manner.

Developing a decision framework for the strategic sourcing of biomass

The deployment of bioenergy technologies is a key part of UK and European renewable energy policy. A key barrier to the deployment of bioenergy technologies is the management of biomass supply chains including the evaluation of suppliers and the contracting of biomass. In the undeveloped biomass for energy market buyers of biomass are faced with three major challenges during the development of new bioenergy projects. What characteristics will a certain supply of biomass have, how to evaluate biomass suppliers and which suppliers to contract with in order to provide a portfolio of suppliers that best satisfies the needs of the project and its stakeholder group whilst also satisfying crisp and non-crisp technological constraints. The problem description is taken from the situation faced by the industrial partner in this research, Express Energy Ltd. This research tackles these three areas separately then combines them to form a decision framework to assist biomass buyers with the strategic sourcing of biomass. The BioSS framework. The BioSS framework consists of three modes which mirror the development stages of bioenergy projects. BioSS.2 mode for early stage development, BioSS.3 mode for financial close stage and BioSS.Op for the operational phase of the project. BioSS is formed of a fuels library, a supplier evaluation module and an order allocation module, a Monte-Carlo analysis module is also included to evaluate the accuracy of the recommended portfolios. In each mode BioSS can recommend which suppliers should be contracted with and how much material should be purchased from each. The recommended blend should have chemical characteristics within the technological constraints of the conversion technology and also best satisfy the stakeholder group. The fuels library is made up from a wide variety of sources and contains around 100 unique descriptions of potential biomass sources that a developer may encounter. The library takes a wide data collection approach and has the aim of allowing for estimates to be made of biomass characteristics without expensive and time consuming testing. The supplier evaluation part of BioSS uses a QFD-AHP method to give importance weightings to 27 different evaluating criteria. The evaluating criteria have been compiled from interviews with stakeholders and policy and position documents and the weightings have been assigned using a mixture of workshops and expert interview. The weighted importance scores allow potential suppliers to better tailor their business offering and provides a robust framework for decision makers to better understand the requirements of the bioenergy project stakeholder groups. The order allocation part of BioSS uses a chance-constrained programming approach to assign orders of material between potential suppliers based on the chemical characteristics of those suppliers and the preference score of those suppliers. The optimisation program finds the portfolio of orders to allocate to suppliers to give the highest performance portfolio in the eyes of the stakeholder group whilst also complying with technological constraints. The technological constraints can be breached if the decision maker requires by setting the constraint as a chance-constraint. This allows a wider range of biomass sources to be procured and allows a greater overall performance to be realised than considering crisp constraints or using deterministic programming approaches. BioSS is demonstrated against two scenarios faced by UK bioenergy developers. The first is a large scale combustion power project, the second a small scale gasification project. The Bioss is applied in each mode for both scenarios and is shown to adapt the solution to the stakeholder group importance and the different constraints of the different conversion technologies whilst finding a globally optimal portfolio for stakeholder satisfaction.

The preimplantation embryo:handle with care

The past decade has seen considerable advances in our understanding of intrinsic developmental mechanisms associated with gametogenesis and embryogenesis and accompanying applications in the fields of reproductive medicine, embryonic stem cell biology, and nuclear reprogramming. However, a new focus has recently emerged concerning the homeostatic regulation of embryonic cells, how this is set, and how it may influence the longitudinal progression and optimization of the developmental program and indeed the phenotype of the offspring. Attention has been drawn to the preimplantation stage of development as a sensitive "window" when in vitro and in vivo manipulations, such as culture conditions or maternal diet, may have critical consequences. In this article, we review how changes in environmental conditions, mediated via a range of epigenetic, cellular, and metabolic mechanisms in the preimplantation embryo, may alter the pattern of cell division, gene expression, morphology, and potential. We consider how fetal and postnatal phenotype may become susceptible to the plasticity of the preimplantation embryo and the risks for adult health and physiology. Copyright © 2008 by Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc.

Operational Methods in the Environment of a Computer Algebra System

This article presents the principal results of the doctoral thesis “Direct Operational Methods in the Environment of a Computer Algebra System” by Margarita Spiridonova (Institute of mathematics and Informatics, BAS), successfully defended before the Specialised Academic Council for Informatics and Mathematical Modelling on 23 March, 2009.

Multispectral retinal image analysis (MRIA) for the assessment of subretinal fibrosis in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD)

Purpose: To investigate the use of MRIA for quantitative characterisation of subretinal fibrosis secondary to nAMD. Methods: MRIA images of the posterior pole were acquired over 4 months from 20 eyes including those with inactive subretinal fibrosis and those being treated with ranibizumab for nAMD. Changes in morphology of the macula affected by nAMD were modelled and reflectance spectra at the MRIA acquisition wavelengths (507, 525, 552, 585, 596, 611 and 650nm) were computed using Monte Carlo simulation. Quantitative indicators of fibrosis were derived by matching image spectra to the model spectra of known morphological properties. Results: The model spectra were comparable to the image spectra, both normal and pathological. The key morphological changes that the model associated with nAMD were gliosis of the IS-OS junction, decrease in retinal blood and decrease in RPE melanin. However, these changes were not specific to fibrosis and none of the quantitative indicators showed a unique association with the degree of fibrosis. Moderate correlations were found with the clinical assessment, but not with the treatment program. Conclusion: MRIA can distinguish subretinal fibrosis from healthy tissue. The methods used show high sensitivity but low specificity, being unable to distinguish scarring from other abnormalities like atrophy. Quantification of scarring was not achieved with the wavelengths used due to the complex structural changes to retinal tissues in the process of nAMD. Further studies, incorporating other wavelengths, will establish whether MRIA has a role in the assessment of subretinal fibrosis in the context of retinal and choroidal pathology

On the implementation of the L-Nash bargaining solution in two-person bargaining games

The “Nash program” initiated by Nash (Econometrica 21:128–140, 1953) is a research agenda aiming at representing every axiomatically determined cooperative solution to a game as a Nash outcome of a reasonable noncooperative bargaining game. The L-Nash solution first defined by Forgó (Interactive Decisions. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, vol 229. Springer, Berlin, pp 1–15, 1983) is obtained as the limiting point of the Nash bargaining solution when the disagreement point goes to negative infinity in a fixed direction. In Forgó and Szidarovszky (Eur J Oper Res 147:108–116, 2003), the L-Nash solution was related to the solution of multiciteria decision making and two different axiomatizations of the L-Nash solution were also given in this context. In this paper, finite bounds are established for the penalty of disagreement in certain special two-person bargaining problems, making it possible to apply all the implementation models designed for Nash bargaining problems with a finite disagreement point to obtain the L-Nash solution as well. For another set of problems where this method does not work, a version of Rubinstein’s alternative offer game (Econometrica 50:97–109, 1982) is shown to asymptotically implement the L-Nash solution. If penalty is internalized as a decision variable of one of the players, then a modification of Howard’s game (J Econ Theory 56:142–159, 1992) also implements the L-Nash solution.

A multinacionális vállalatok szerepe a hazai klaszterekben (Roles of multinational enterprises in the Hungarian clusters)

A cikk azt a kérdést vizsgálja, hogy milyen szerepet töltenek be a multinacionális vállalatok leányvállalatai a hazai klaszterekben, milyen a kapcsolatuk a klasztertag kis- és középvállalatokkal többek között a közös innovációban, a tudásközvetítésben, a klaszterek reputációjának növelésében. A felderítő kutatás a témát a hazai klaszterfejlesztési program, a Pólus Program által életre hívott három, úgynevezett akkreditált klaszter menedzsereivel, a klasztertag multinacionális vállalatok (MNV-k) hazai leányvállalatainak képviselőivel és a klasztertag KKV-k vezetőivel készült interjúk alapján mutatja be. A téma relevanciáját a program által potenciálisan indukált együttműködési folyamatok adják, mivel a klaszterfejlesztési pályázati konstrukciók úgy lettek kialakítva, hogy a klasztertag KKV-knak érdemes legyen nagyvállalatot is bevonniuk a közös innovációs és kutatás-fejlesztési projektekbe. A kutatási eredmények alapján az MNV leányvállalatainak leginkább a globális trendek és standardok klaszterbeli elterjesztésében van meghatározó szerepük, illetve a KKV-k és leányvállalatok közötti üzleti kapcsolatok alakításában kiemelt szerepe van a klasztermenedzsment szervezet tevékenységének. / === / The paper focuses on the topic which deals with the role of subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNC’s) in Hungarian industrial clusters in the fields of common innovation, knowledge transfer, and increasing the cluster’s reputation. The findings of the paper are based on an explorative research. Interviews were made with cluster managers, representatives of MNC’s subsidiaries, leaders of small and medium size (SME’s) enterprises operating in three accredited clusters created by the Hungarian cluster development program, the Pole Program. The relevance of the topic is given by the Program, which has induced potential cooperation between MNC’s subsidiaries and domestic SME’s in cluster environment in a way so the members of the cluster – SME’s and subsidiaries – were driven to cooperate in common innovation and R+D projects. The author’s research results suggest that MNC’s subsidiaries in Hungarian clusters seem to play a key role in the dissemination of global industrial trends and standards between the cluster members. The national cluster management organization can also play a decisive role in shaping business relationship between MNC’s and SME’s.