Subramaniam Arunachalam

ANALYSIS AND SELECTION OF GREEN SUPPLIERS USING INTERPRETATIVE STRUCTURAL MODELLING AND ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

Due to recent changing environmental requirements, increasing attention is given to developing Environmental Management (EM) strategies for the supply chain. A number of organisations are contemplating the integration of environmental practices into their strategic plans. The daily operations are continuously increasing and numerous initiatives have provided incentives for organisations to become more environmental friendly. Some of these regulation-driven programmes are mandatory, but increasingly, numerous voluntary environmental programmes are also introduced by organisations. This study analyses the interaction of criteria that is used to select the green suppliers who address the environmental performance using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The effectiveness of the ISM and AHP model is illustrated using a automobile company in the southern part of India.

International collaboration in science: Participation by the Asian giants

Science in the last few years has become increasingly global and collaborative. The number of internationally coauthored papers has been increasing steadily. We have counted internationally jointly authored papers involving authors from the advanced countries and the Third World countries, usingSCI 1991. We have looked at the number of papers resulting from collaboration among authors residing in the countries of the North (e.g. EC and OECD countries), authors residing in the South (e.g. India and Bangladesh, Mexico and Brazil, China and Pakistan) and papers resulting from collaboration between authors residing in the countries of the South and the North (e.g. India and UK, China and USA). Despite its late start, China has published many more collaborative papers with most Asian countries and the advanced countries of the West except the UK than India — confirming the effectiveness of the open door policy of post-Mao China. Both India and China collaborate with USA much more often in physics than in other areas, followed by clinical medicine. However, India collaborates more with USA in chemistry than China. In Indo-US and Sino-US collaborations, collaborating institutions are mostly universities and institutes of higher learning in India and USA, whereas in China several institutions under the Academies also take part. The percentage of collaborative papers involving authors from India is even smaller than the percentage of journal articles originating from India. In general, papers resulting from international collaboration appear in better journals and are cited more often than papers that are the outcome of local research.

Logical approach for evaluation of supply chain alternatives

The supply chain of manufacturing industry has been under constant pressure to improve competitiveness, and supply chain network design is generally seen as one of the important means of resolution. The design or redesign of supply chain network entails taking decisions on a range of strategic issues, including the selection of suppliers, choosing the transportation link/node, location and selection of warehouses, etc. Total cost to serve is often used as the major factor in evaluation of supply chain network design, whereas enough attention in including the importance of customers for the evaluation of network remains challenging. The purpose of this study is to propose a logical approach by which the importance of customer weightage can be included in the evaluation of supply chain network design. The logical approach uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique for evaluation. The logical approach is demonstrated with a numerical example.

Design optimisation of bevel gear pair

In this paper, an attempt has been made to optimise bevel gear pair design using a non-linear programming optimising software LINGO and meta-heuristics such as real coded genetic algorithm, ant colony optimisation and particle swarm optimisation algorithms. A combined objective function which maximises the power, efficiency and minimises the overall weight, centre distance has been considered in this model. The efficiency of the proposed algorithms is validated through gear design problems and the comparative results are studied.

Concurrent tolerance allocation using an artificial neural network and continuous ant colony optimisation

The allocation of tolerances for the components of a mechanical assembly strongly influences manufacturing cost and functional performance. In order to get a reliable tolerances and costs, it is necessary to obtain manufacturing cost-tolerance models. Traditionally, these models are established by various curve-fitting techniques using empirical experimental data. Existing empirical models, however, have considerably large model fitting error, inconsistent modelling accuracy over the tolerance range of typical manufacturing processes. Using these mathematical models will introduce a considerably large error in optimal design of component tolerances. This work presented in this paper uses an artificial neural network (ANN), to overcome above limitations, for establishing manufacturing cost-tolerance models for various manufacturing processes. Having built the ANN cost-tolerance models, continuous ant colony optimisation (CACO) algorithm is used to obtain optimum combination of tolerances for minimum manufacturing cost. A typical tolerance design example is used to illustrate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed approach.

Extraction of simple and concatenated features from a wire frame model using IGES data

The manufacturing information for a part is required for automated process planning, the link between CAD and CAM. Extraction of manufacturing features for a part from its CAD model is the first step in automated process planning. Most of the CAD models are transferred from one system to another through the neutral file format IGES. The software developed in C++ extracts both simple and concatenated features for prismatic parts from IGES files. The final results obtained are a set of manufacturing features along with their dimensions and positions, which can be used directly for downstream applications such as process planning, NC part programming and cutter path generation. The working of the system and algorithms used for feature extraction are explained with examples.

Implications of QS-9000 in the implementation of a new technology: a case study

One of the principal concerns with ISO 9000 is its inability to document and monitor continuous improvement. QS-9000 has recognised this weakness and incorporates and demands a comprehensive philosophy of continuous improvement in all areas related to quality. As QS-9000 is relatively new for all companies, whether auditing or implementing, little experience is available for individuals to be confident that any new method of working is acceptable. Given that QS-9000 does not accept minor noncompliance as ISO 9000 does, there is a risk that major changes to the detail of its manufacturing processes may have far reaching implications for gaining or maintaining QS-9000. This paper addresses some of the major concerns, when implementing new technologies within the QS-9000 framework, and how the detail of a new technology, superabrasive reaming, may relate to individual aspects of the standard.

A Heuristic for Heterogeneous Capacitated Pick-up and Delivery Logistics Problems with Time Windows in Agile Manufacturing and the Distribution Supply Chain

One type of decision of major importance that directly affects the performance of an agile manufacturing and distribution supply chain is the routing and scheduling of delivery trucks. Routing of vehicles leads to optimisation of logistics operations in enterprise networks. The present study addresses multiple-vehicle pick-up and delivery problems with time windows and heterogeneous capacitated vehicles (m-PDPTWH) for the application of blood bank logistics. The focus is to develop a heuristic to solve m-PDPTWH with the objective to maximise the number of requests assigned to vehicles routes and to minimise the total travel cost. Such a description scheme seems to be useful in the context of dynamic routing problems. The objective of this research is to provide a simple and fast meta-heuristic approach designed for the static case, before entrenching it in a dynamic context in future work. We choose simulated annealing (SA) as a search procedure to solve m-PDPTWH due to the reason that there is very limited literature on solving m-PDPTW using SA. Trials on a large number of test-problems have yielded encouraging results. The key contribution of the work is the development of a unified meta-heuristic to solve m-PDPTW and m-PDPTWH for large sized networks.

Reengineering the supply chain in the internet age: ABB Turkey Inc

This case aims to survey the effect on logistic and supply chain management of the internet age and current technologic opportunities and to report the benefits which the companies can gain after reengineering by electronic business. And, the supply chain management of ABB Turkey Inc. is examined and then the pros and cons of the existing system are analysed and finally necessary improvements are suggested at the end of paper. The simulation of the suggested system is executed and the results are compared with the existing system. In this paper, the present situation of the supply chain of ABB-Turkey is investigated and modelled by using Vensim Simulation Software This case study or this model can finally customise for the other companies, which needs web-based reengineering.

Mathematical model and genetic algorithm for distribution logistics problem with maximum route length

Logistics is no longer seen as tactical and cost-driven – it is strategic. Considering the driver-on-time rules and with the perishable nature of the products, the travel length/time is one of the critical constraints in distribution logistics. We consider a typical logistics problem with maximum route length constraint. The variant is termed as simultaneous delivery and pick-up with maximum route length (SDPM). We developed a unified mixed-integer-linear programming (MILP) model and genetic algorithm to solve SDPM and the standard variant, vehicle routing problem with simultaneous delivery and pick-up (VRPSDP). Benchmark datasets for VRPSDP and randomly generated datasets for SDPM are solved using MILP model and genetic algorithm and the results are compared with best-known solution. The results of genetic algorithm are encouraging.