Edgar Dörsam

An effective and efficient method to design services: empirical study for services by an investment-machine manufacturer

Knowledge in practice on how to design offerings of services and products effectively and efficiently is demanded in manufacturing industries. This article discusses some empirical results obtained from designing services at a manufacturer, who had implemented information-communication networks to their customers and adopted a structured method to design services. It demonstrates that the method worked for a real-scaled problem to generate several effective solutions with input of approximately five person-months. This is contributed largely by the technique addressing customer value through extension of quality function deployment. Simultaneously, it is pointed out that special efforts are needed to prepare the ontology used to describe the model.

Addressing Uncertainty of PSS for Value-Chain Oriented Service Development

Services are becoming increasingly important in today’s manufacturing industry. As a result, it has become common for companies to provide a combination of services and products as an integrated offering. This chapter focuses on such business and development processes. It begins with a literature review which identifies uncertainty as a critical concept to be addressed properly in such business. Then, based on interviews with nine Swedish companies interested in the PSS offering business, it uncovers findings such as how companies lack a systematized tool to support their development process. In addition, there is a wish to have a tool for companies to address uncertainty. In response to this, and as a solution, this chapter recommends that firms utilize a simple tool addressing the uncertainty of customers’ business processes based on a model for “Process Service Channel”, so that a service provider can effectively generate business processdriven service bundles. Through a case in the printing industry, this chapter demonstrates the effectiveness of the tool. This tool has potential for value-oriented optimisation of production processes and for a strategic customisation of the customer’s business.

Value-chain-oriented service development by means of a "two-channel service model"

In today’s industrial market, capital-good producers not only sell an appropriate device solution (hardware and software), but also need to customise their offers with their own or additionally pu ...

A flatbed scanner for large-area thickness determination of ultra-thin layers in printed electronics

Enabling solution-based printing techniques for sub-100 nm thin semiconductors for the application in large-area organic electronics is a challenging task. In order to optimize the process parameters, the layers have to be characterized on a large lateral scale while determining the nanometer thickness at the same time. We present a lateral and vertical resolving measurement method for large-area, semi-transparent thin films based on optical interference effects. We analyzed the RGB color images of up to 150 mm square-sized thin film samples obtained by a modified commercial flatbed scanner. Utilizing and comparing theoretical and measured color contrast values, we determined most probable thickness values of the imaged sample area pixel by pixel. Within specific boundary conditions, we found very good agreement between the presented imaging color reflectometry and reference methods. Due to its simple setup, our method is suitable to be implemented as part of a color vision inspection system in in-line printing and coating processes.

Peptide arrays with a chip.

Today, lithographic methods enable combinatorial synthesis of >50,000 oligonucleotides per cm(2), an advance that has revolutionized the whole field of genomics. A similar development is expected for the field of proteomics, provided that affordable, very high-density peptide arrays are available. However, peptide arrays lag behind oligonucleotide arrays. This is mainly due to the monomer-by-monomer repeated consecutive coupling of 20 different amino acids associated with lithography, which adds up to an excessive number of coupling cycles. A combinatorial synthesis based on electrically charged solid amino acid particles resolves this problem. A computer chip consecutively addresses the different charged particles to a solid support, where, when completed, the whole layer of solid amino acid particles is melted at once. This frees hitherto immobilized amino acids to couple all 20 different amino acids in one single coupling reaction to the support. The method should allow for the translation of entire genomes into a set of overlapping peptides to be used in proteome research.

Measuring isotropic subsurface light transport

Subsurface light transport can affect the visual appearance of materials significantly. Measuring and modeling this phenomenon is crucial for accurately reproducing colors in printing or for rendering translucent objects on displays. In this paper, we propose an apparatus to measure subsurface light transport employing a reference material to cancel out adverse signals that may bias the results. In contrast to other approaches, the setup enables improved focusing on rough surfaces (e.g. uncoated paper). We derive a measurement equation that may be used to deduce the point spread function (PSF) of subsurface light transport. Main contributions are the usage of spectrally-narrowband exchangeable LEDs allowing spectrally-resolved measurements and an approach based on quadratic programming for reconstructing PSFs in the case of isotropic light transport.

Inkjet Printing of a 20 GHz Coplanar Waveguide Monopole Antenna Using Copper Oxide Nanoparticles on Flexible Substrates : Effect of Drop Spacing on Antenna Performance

Coplanar monopole antennas printed using copper oxide nanoparticles on flexible substrates are characterized in order to study the effect of the ink drop spacing on the antenna parameters. Polyethylene Terephthalate and Epson paper were the chosen flexible substrates, and the antennas were designed to operate at 20 GHz. A maximum conductivity of 2.8 × 107 Ω−1m−1 was obtained for the films printed on Polyethylene Terephthalate using a drop spacing of 20μm. The corresponding antenna achieved a gain and an efficiency of 1.82 dB and 97.6%, respectively. Experiments showed that smaller drop spacings lead to bulging of the printed lines while the antenna performance worsens for longer ones. At the same drop spacing, antennas printed on Epson paper substrate showed a −10 dB return loss bandwidth which extended from 17.9 GHz to 23.3 GHz, leading to a fractional bandwidth of 26.0%.

Poly(para-phenyleneethynylene)s as Emitters in Polymer LEDs

11 different dialkoxy- and dialkyl-poly(para-phenyleneethynylene)s (PPEs) featuring novel branched and literature described linear and branched side chains were prepared using a Sonogashira coupling. The side chains were of different length and branching character. The degree of polymerization of the PPEs ranged from Pn = 44–343 with polydispersities ranging from 1.5–3.1. Fairly simple OLED-stacks with up to three layers (electron injection, emitter layer, and hole injection) were produced. Depending upon the PPEs’ structure and the stack architecture but particularly the thickness of the emitting PPE-layer, a large increase in brightness up to 2.2 × 103 cd m−2 was observed, a significant improvement over earlier reported values.

Quality control of embossed hologramsby measuring gloss and color values

Embossed holograms are increasingly often used for the decorative refinement of printed products. So far, there has not been much scientific research about quality control of embossed holograms as well as research about the influence of the background color on the quality of embossed holograms. For this purpose, hologram samples with different background colors were produced in a laboratory setup, using the principle of UV embossing. At first, the quality of the samples was evaluated through a visual experiment. The conceptual design of that experiment was part of this research. Second, gloss and color values were measured with conventional hand-held measuring instruments used by the graphics industry. Color measurements were conducted with an X-Rite MA98 multi-angle spectrophotometer and measurements of gloss values with a BYK micro-TRI-gloss gloss meter. The comparison of the results of the visual experiment and the color measurement led to the conclusion that conventional color measuring instruments can evaluate the influence of the background color on the quality of embossed holograms. It was found out that calculating the color difference ΔE*ab between background color and sample can be used to recreate the results of the visual experiment, whereas the samples’ chroma C*ab is not suitable for evaluating the influence of the background color. The number of provided measuring geometries is a limitation of this approach. Moreover, the comparison of the results of the visual experiment and the gloss measurements showed that conventional gloss meters cannot evaluate the influence of the background color. However, conclusions concerning the UV embossing process can be drawn from a sample’s gloss. This suggests the usage of gloss measurement for process control.

Chapter 5 – Image Display—Printing (Desktop, Commercial)

Abstract This article starts with a historic sketch and an overview about common printing technologies used in graphic arts covering gravure printing, flexographic printing, offset printing, inkjet printing and electrophotography. We then explain the typical workflow for processing a digital color image for printing, which includes media gamut computation and mapping, separation and halftoning. The printing workflow relies on an accurate printer model that predicts reflectances or colors of the printout from control values. A detailed overview about the physical effects influencing the printed output is given and followed by the description of important printer models including the Murray-Davies model, the Neugebauer model and its extensions and the Clapper-Yule model. At the end of the article, we show research directions in the area of printing emphasizing spectral printing that is an approach that allows an illuminant-invariant match between the original and the printed reproduction.