Amir Azizi

Virtual reality applications in manufacturing system

Virtual reality (VR) is a high-end human computer interface that strives to immerse the designers and users completely in a virtual interactive environment for a simulation of real world. In order to meet the requirements of market competition, VR technologies can not only reduce effectively the time and cost, but also optimize complex products in the design process. Virtual reality is a rapidly developing computer interface that strives to immerse the user completely within an experimental simulation, thereby enhancing the overall impact and providing a much more intuitive link between the computer and the human participants. Virtual reality has been applied successfully to hundreds of scenarios in diverse areas including prototyping, manufacturing, scientific visualisation, engineering, and education. This paper discusses the applications of virtual reality in the manufacturing industry.

Relationships between total quality management critical techniques in automotive industry

The concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) was introduced in Japan and United States. Most of researchers have focused on soft TQM (principles and concepts) while some of them have concentrated on hard TQM (tools and techniques). More attention to TQM techniques has recently been applied in the manufacturing sector especially in automotive industry. This study proposes nine critical techniques as hard TQM for automotive industry. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships between nine critical techniques of TQM. The relationships have been identified using opinions evaluation of 30 quality experts at 10 automotive factories in Malaysia through questionnaires and statistical analyses. Among the TQM critical techniques, SPC with FMEA, QFD with APQP, and QFD with FMEA have highest relationship degree. This study strongly recommends implementing the soft TQM along with the hard TQM using the results of this paper based on the importance and relationship level of nine critical techniques in order to have a more effective and efficient quality system.

An integrated model of Kano and quality function deployment for evaluation of lean production tools in assembly environment

The idea of introducing decision support system in manufacturing is to enable companies work more economically by using their manufacturing skills, time, space, money, and other manufacturing influencing factors more efficiently and effectively. The challenges associated with decision-making in manufacturing are numerous and sometimes complicated, most especially when faced with large number of factors and criteria to choose from. Many of the decisions in practice are usually made without a formal method or discussion and in most cases often leads to conflicts and waste of resources. In this study, a decision making model was developed for the evaluation and selection of lean production tools for the implementation of lean technique in a product assembly environment using a combined Kano model and Quality Function Deployment (QFD). The combined Kano model and QFD method was tested and applied in a simulated multiple decision-making problems with numerical examples. The proposed model in this study was found to be helpful and effective in dealing with multi-criteria problems.

An integrated framework of critical techniques in implementation of Total Quality Management

In order to survive in a competitive market, organizations have to continuously improve the quality and productivity of the products and processes. An integrated framework is the valuable approach for achieving this goal. In this study, the critical techniques in hard Total Quality Management (TQM) are highlighted first. Then the possibility of designing an integrated framework was investigated, which enables to present the interrelationship between the critical techniques and the priority of effectiveness degree of each technique in successful implementation of TQM in automotive industry as a benchmarking model. The modern quality paradigms emphasize the importance of customer satisfaction as a driver to the improvement process. This study also focused on customer satisfaction approach by six critical factors. In this paper, we carried out an empirical study in order to verify the importance of effectiveness of the critical techniques for TQM implementation improvement and their effect upon TQM results. The integrated framework is proposed using extracting knowledge and experience from industrial and academic who were in charge of quality in 120 ISO-certified Malaysian automotive firms. The results show the arrangement sequence of the TQM critical techniques to achieve a better overall performance of the Automotive manufacturing industry using the analytical hierarchy process pair-wise comparison.

An Economic Order Quantity Model with Completely Backordering and Nondecreasing Demand under Two-Level Trade Credit

In the traditional inventory system, it was implicitly assumed that the buyer pays to the seller as soon as he receives the items. In today’s competitive industry, however, the seller usually offers the buyer a delay period to settle the account of the goods. Not only the seller but also the buyer may apply trade credit as a strategic tool to stimulate his customers’ demands. This paper investigates the effects of the latter policy, two-level trade credit, on a retailer’s optimal ordering decisions within the economic order quantity framework and allowable shortages. Unlike most of the previous studies, the demand function of the customers is considered to increase with time. The objective of the retailer’s inventory model is to maximize the profit. The replenishment decisions optimally are obtained using genetic algorithm. Two special cases of the proposed model are discussed and the impacts of parameters on the decision variables are finally investigated. Numerical examples demonstrate the profitability of the developed two-level supply chain with backorder.

Supplier Selection Problem: A Multi-Objective Model Considering both All-Unit and Incremental Discounts with Multiple-Item

In supply chain management, supplier selection has a special importance. In this paper, a multi-objective model is developed based on decisions on quality, service level and cost of purchased goods. The difference of this research is to consider discount parameter into the model. A numerical example for three proposed suppliers is interpreted. The model has been solved in two steps: 1-single-objective, 2-multi-objective approach. According to Lpmetric solution, results can predict optimum selection of suppliers as well as the purchased goods amount. The results show that the single objective problem has better result than multi-objective function. This paper is organized by six sections: in next section, some previous studies and researches on supplier selection problem considering discount and non-considering discount have been discussed. In section 3, mathematical formulation of the supplier selection model considering all-unit and incremental with multiple-item is presented. In section 4, aLP metrics solution is dedicated. In section 5, a numerical example is given and the results are presented. Finally in section 6, conclusions of this research are discussed.