Manufacturing Systems Engineering Series – serie

Rapid prototyping techniques have been increasingly used by industry to reduce product development cycles.  A large number of processes have been developed allowing the use of various materials ranging from plastics to metal for the development of prototypes.Rapid Prototyping:  Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive collection of the latest research and technical work in the field with an emphasis on both rapid tooling and rapid manufacturing.Drawing upon the collective knowledge of renowned experts in the industrial engineering field, Ali Kamrani and Emad Abouel Nasr have assembled a wide ranging treatise on rapid prototyping that includes:Up to date documentation on the current scope of research on rapid prototyping, tooling and manufacturing.Methodologies and technologies to support a customer-focussed and mass customization approach to production.Detailed analysis and case studies of the application of rapid prototyping, rapid tooling and rapid manufacturing in fields such as medical and biomedical manufacturing, aerospace industry and automotive industry.

In today's computer-integrated manufacturing environment, decision-makers typically require access to a vast amount of data to support and analyze their complex decision problems at the strategic and tactical levels. Increasingly, there is a need for decision support systems that allow decision-makers to communicate and solve their problems interactively. This text provides a forum for research and applications dealing with the design, development and implementation of decision support systems in manufacturing. It should appeal to all those concerned with decision support for manufacturing.

This book is intended to be used as a textbook on senior/graduate level courses in human factors engineering and ergonomics. It will provide students with a background in physiological, biomechanical and anthropometric bases of ergonomics, and then focus on the applications of ergonomic principles in designing work systems for efficient human-machine interfaces.

This text details approaches that should significantly improve design/manufacturing technology development and deployment capabilities for civilian as well as defence applications. The proposed approach is an integrated product, process and system design (IPPSD) initiative that should enhance the manufacturing competitiveness of an economy. These approaches involve the use of simulation and modelling tools and computerized virtual workstations in conjunction with a design environment which allows a diverse group of researchers, manufacturers, and suppliers, to work within a comprehensive network of shared knowledge. This IPPSD infrastructure consists of virtual workstations and servers and a suite of simulations, quantitative, computational, analytical, experimental and qualitative tools. Such an IPPSD infrastructure should permit complete product design, manufacturing process design, and customer satisfaction predictions, effectively and efficiently.

In today's business environment, reliability and maintenance drastically affect the three key elements of competitiveness - quality, cost, and product lead time. Well-maintained machines hold tolerances better, help reduce scrap and rework, and raise consistency and quality of the part in addition to cutting total production costs. Today, many factories are still performing maintenance on equipment in a reactive manner due to a lack of understanding about machine performance behaviour. To improve production efficiency, computer-aided maintenance and diagnostic methodology must be applied effectively in manufacturing. This book focuses on the fundamental principles of predictive maintenance and diagnostic engineering. In addition to covering the relevant theory, techniques and methodologies in maintenance engineering, the book also provides numerous case studies and examples illustrating the successful application of the principles and techniques outlined.

In today's globally competitive manufacturing arena, increasing customers' demands for the timely delivery of high quality products have forced companies to update their designs and make design changes more frequently than ever before. Rapid response manufacutering (RRM) has to become a goal pursued by many to shorten time-to-market, improve quality-to-cost, and enhance product reliability. Recently, many new technologies have been developed for engineers to reduce the time required to design and manufacture products in response to rapidly fluctuating market demands. This work addresses a variety of contemporary methodologies, technologies and tools for rapid response manufacturing. The contributions to this volume focus on two major RRM areas, desktop manufacturing, and computer and information technologies.This book should be of interest to research directors, associates and engineers; federal and military research laboratories, NIST, US airforce, US army, US navy, DOE and DOD; product design engineers,; manufacturing engineers; CAD/CAM/CAE software developers; virtual reality developers within automotive, aircraft, engine, ship building and architecture; professors; associate and assistant professors; research associates; post-doctors; graduate students in computer science, engineering, electric engineering, industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, material science, metrology, civil engineering and industrial/mechanical technology.

During the last two decades, a tremendous growth in the popularity and applications of computers in manufacturing has occurred. Computer­ aided design, computer-aided manufacturing, flexible manufacturing systems, group technology and many others are considered by many manufacturing executives as the most promising technologies and philosophies that, if successfully implemented, can reduce costs and enable the US manufacturing companies to become more competitive in the global market. In the computer-integrated manufacturing environ­ ment, the decision processes are often more involved. The decision makers are frequently required to have access to a vast amount of data to support and analyze their complex decision problems at strategic and tactical levels. Decision support systems are often referred to as computer-based information technologies that allow the decision makers to interactively communicate and solve the decision problems. Manufacturing Decision Support Systems is intended to report the latest developments and address the central issues in this area. This volume consists of 14 refereed chapters, written by leading researchers from academia and industry.

In today's business environment, reliability and maintenance drastically affect the three key elements of competitiveness - quality, cost, and product lead time. Well-maintained machines hold tolerances better, help reduce scrap and rework, and raise consistency and quality of the part in addition to cutting total production costs. Today, many factories are still performing maintenance on equipment in a reactive manner due to a lack of understanding about machine performance behaviour. To improve production efficiency, computer-aided maintenance and diagnostic methodology must be applied effectively in manufacturing. This book focuses on the fundamental principles of predictive maintenance and diagnostic engineering. In addition to covering the relevant theory, techniques and methodologies in maintenance engineering, the book also provides numerous case studies and examples illustrating the successful application of the principles and techniques outlined.

Recently, many new technologies have been developed for engineers to reduce the time required to design and manufacture products in response to rapidly fluctuating market demands. This book addresses a variety of contemporary methodologies, technologies and tools for rapid response manufacturing. The contributions to this volume focus on two major RRM areas: desktop manufacturing and computer and information technologies. Rapid Response Manufacturing is an invaluable resource for research engineers, product design and manufacturing engineers, graduate engineering students, and all those concerned with concurrent engineering.

The need exists in the private sector and government manufacturing sites to reduce product development time, production lead times, inventory, and non-value added activities. At the same time, there is increased pressure to improve manufacturing process yields, produc­ tion efficiency, and resource utilization. Much of the technology required to meet these needs already exists, but an integrated structure that can demonstrate the potential for the technology in a concurrent engineering context does not. This book provides a road map for building the integrated technology environment to evaluate existing products, manufacturing processes and system design tools. This book details innovative approaches that will significantly improve design/manufacturing technology development and deploy­ ment capabilities for civilian and defense applications. These approaches are integrated product, process, and system design (IPPSD) initiatives which will greatly enhance the manufacturing competitiveness of the economy. These approaches involve the use of simulation, modeling tools and computerized virtual workstations in conjunction with a design environment which allows a diverse group of researchers, manufacturers, and suppliers to work within a comprehensive network of shared knowledge. The IPPSD infrastructure consists of virtual workstations, servers and a suite of simulation, quantitative, computa­ tional, analytical, experimental and qualitative tools. Such an IPPSD infrastructure will permit effective and efficient predictions of complete product design, manufacturing proces design, and customer satisfac­ tion.