Kaj Asbjørn Jørgensen

Sustainability Evaluation of Mass Customization

This paper addresses the issue whether the concepts mass customization and sustainability are fundamentally compatible by asking the question: can a mass customized product be sustainable? Some factors indicate that mass customized products are less sustainable than standardized products; however other factors suggest the opposite. This paper explores these factors during three life cycle phases for a product: Production, Use and End of Life. It is concluded that there is not an unambiguous causal relationship between mass customization and sustainability; however several factors unique to mass customized products are essential to consider during product development.

Information modelling: foundation, abstraction mechanisms and approach

This paper briefly presents a new information modelling methodology useful as an information systems development approach. The methodology is based on a set of fundamental abstraction mechanisms which provide the means for modelling on a number of abstraction levels and, on the highest levels, the most invariant components and structures of the information model can be identified and defined. It is also based on the object-oriented paradigm which is applied in harmony with the abstraction mechanisms. The methodology introduces an alternative to the traditional entity relationship technique with respect to modelling of information and on this basis it can support efforts to construct reusable, extensible and reliable information systems.

Product Modeling on Multiple Abstraction Levels

Typically, Mass Customization (MC) is most often described in relationship with mass production companies. However, in more and more cases, it is shown what MC means for manufacturing-to-order companies and even for engineer-to-order companies. This paper is initiated by some of the challenges associated with modeling of products and product families in such companies. For some of them, the situation is made extreme by market conditions, which imply long order horizons and many changes of the orders both before and after order acceptance.

n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and adiponectin in patients with end-stage renal disease

BACKGROUND AND AIM In subjects without kidney disease, adiponectin appears to have anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and anti-atherogenic effects. n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) from seafood have several beneficial effects in patients with endstage renal disease (ESRD) and the aim of the present study was to assess the effect of n-3 PUFA supplementation on plasma adiponectin levels in ESRD patients. METHODS In a double blinded intervention trial, 162 ESRD patients (mean age 67 years  ± 13, 56 women and 106 men) undergoing chronic hemodialysis were randomized to 1.7 g n-3 PUFA daily or placebo for 3 months. Adiponectin, plasma lipids and lipoproteins were measured at baseline and after the intervention period. RESULTS At baseline, adiponectin was positively correlated to HDL-cholesterol (r = 0.55, p < 0.001) and inversely correlated to plasma triglycerides, body mass index (BMI) and high sensitive C-reactive protein (Hs-CRP) (r = -0.32, p < 0.01, r = -0.43, p < 0.01, and r = -0.21, p < 0.01, respectively). Furthermore, adiponectin was inversely correlated to the plasma levels of the two major n-3 PUFA docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) (r = -0.19, p < 0.001, and r = -0.30, p < 0.001, respectively). Baseline plasma adiponectin levels were high in both groups but after 3 months of supplementation no significant change was observed in the groups. Thus, n-3 PUFA supplementation did not change adiponectin levels. CONCLUSION We found an elevated plasma adiponectin level, which was inversely associated with plasma levels of DHA and EPA at baseline. Supplementation with n-3 PUFAs for 3 months did not change adiponectin levels. The negative result in this study may be related to a relatively low dose and future studies with higher dose and longer duration are needed to explore this mechanism.

Product family modelling for manufacturing planning

To enable product configuration of a product family, it is important to develop a model of the selected product family. From such model, a product configurator, in which customers can specify individual products from the family, can be developed. To further utilise the product family model for planning and executing production, the model should be enriched with additional data. The idea is that, when any individual product is specified using the product configurator, a product model can be extracted with all data, necessary for manufacturing planning. In this paper, issues of creating manufacturing structures and related planning data in product family models are presented. Primarily, the more complicated multi-level manufacturing structures are considered and it is argued that the models need to specify other structures for manufacturing compared with the product structure resulting from configuration. Furthermore, the addition of attributes for planning data is addressed.

The CIM Game - A Role-Playing Game on Integration

The CIM Game is a role-playing game where individual players or small teams play the roles of different management functions in a company, constructed for the purpose. In this first part of the text, the elements of the game are presented. The background of the game and the purpose will be discussed. Moreover, the activities of the game and the situation will be indicated.

- Product family modelling — Attributes rather than modules

Abstract Mass Customisation (MC) has often been considered an important development for mass production companies. However, many promising examples appear nowadays with manufacturing-to-order companies and even engineer-to-order (ETO) companies. For some ETO companies, the situation is made extreme by market conditions, which imply long order horizons and many changes of the orders both before and after order acceptance. One possible solution to the challenges is to perform modelling of product families and to focus on decisions, which are relatively invariant throughout order processing. By this modelling approach, it is shown how the focus of product configuration can be shifted to identification and definition of attributes instead of modules and components.

Object-Oriented Modelling of Active Systems

Abstract Active systems, e.g. computer based systems for manufacturing control, require some mechanisms for synchronisation of its processes. This paper addresses the application of the object-oriented paradigm to key issues on modelling of active systems. The active components of such an object-oriented model are regarded as clients and servers which are interacting with each other concurrently. In order to prepare the components for such situations, a proposal for a simple description of the conditions for synchronisation mechanisms is presented. In line with object-orientation, the description is data-driven in contradiction to the traditional process-driven approaches. As a result, comprehensive development tools can be constructed in order to assist the designer in the modelling process and to generated the specific implementation. Furthermore, there are better opportunities for automatic control of queuing and scheduling as well as detection of deadlock problems.