Institute for Systems Research Technical Reports
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/4376
This archive contains a collection of reports generated by the faculty and students of the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), a permanent, interdisciplinary research unit in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. ISR-based projects are conducted through partnerships with industry and government, bringing together faculty and students from multiple academic departments and colleges across the university.
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Item An Internet-Based Work Instructions System(1998) Herrmann, Jeffrey W.; Lin, Edward; Minis, Ioannis; ISRThe Black & Decker factory in Easton, Maryland, uses parallel, off-line assembly lines to produce multiple models in small, infrequent production runs. The University of Maryland and Black & Decker have implemented an Internet-based work instructions system that supports parallel, off-line assembly. Black & Decker personnel create and update easy-to-read paperless work instructions, and each assembly station automatically retrieves the correct paperless work instructions and displays them.Item A Generative Approach for Design Evaluation and Partner Selection for Agile Manufacturing(1996) Minis, Ioannis; Herrmann, Jeffrey W.; Lam, Giang; ISRAn agile manufacturing firm forms partnerships with other manufacturers as necessary to design and manufacture a product quickly in response to a market opportunity. In order to form a successful partnership, the firm needs to create a superior design and select the partners that best fit the partnership's scope. In this paper we consider the intrinsic relationship between design evaluation and partner selection. The paper presents a generative approach that a design team can use to obtain feedback about a new product embodiment based on high- level process plans and on the manufacturing capabilities and performance of potential partners. Using this information, the design team can improve their design and identify the potential partners that best fit its manufacturing requirements. The primary application of this work is to certain types of mechanical and electronic products.Item Integrating Tradeoff Analysis and Plan-Based Evaluation of Designs for Microwave Modules(1996) Trichur, Vinai S.; Ball, Michael O.; Baras, John S.; Hebbar, Kiran; Minis, Ioannis; Nau, Dana S.; Smith, Stephen J.J.; ISRPreviously, we have described two systems, EDAPS and EXTRA, which support design and process planning for the manufacture of microwave modules, complex devices with both electrical and mechanical attributes. EDAPS integrates electrical design, mechanical design, and process planning for both mechanical and electrical domains. EXTRA accesses various component and process databases to help the user define design and process options. It then supports the user in choosing among these options with an optimization bases tradeoff analysis module.In this paper, we describe our current work towards the integration and enhancement of the capabilities of EDAPS and EXTRA. We integrate EXTRA's functionality with the initial design step of EDAPS. in the resultant system, the user, supported by an enhanced tradeoff analysis capability, can select and describe a promising preliminary design and process plan based on the analysis of a variety of alternatives from both an electrical and mechanical perspective. This preliminary design is then subjected top further analysis and refinement using existing EDAPS capabilities. In addition to the integration of these two systems, specific new functions have been developed, including tradeoff analysis over a much broader set of criteria, and the ability of the tradeoff module to query the process planner to determine costs of individual options.
Item An Integrated Model for Manufacturing Shop Design(1995) Ioannou, George; Minis, Ioannis; ISRThis paper presents an integer programming formulation for the manufacturing shop design problem, which integrates decisions concerning the layout of the resource groups on the shop floor with the design of the material handling system. The model reflects critical practical design concerns including the capacity of the flow network and of the transporters, and the tradeoff between fixed (construction and acquisition) and variable (operational) costs. For realistic industrial cases, the size of the problem prevents the solution through explicit or implicit enumeration schemes. The paper addresses this limitation by decomposing the global model into its natural components. The resulting submodels are shown to be standard problems of operations research. The decomposition approach provides ways to solve the integrated shop design problem in an effective manner.Item Current Research on Manufacturing Shop and Material Handling System Design(1995) Ioannou, George; Minis, Ioannis; ISRThe importance of the manufacturing shop design in the successful operation of a production system is well known and as a result, significant research has been devoted to this area. This paper reviews important literature in various aspects of manufacturing shop design including layout, material flow path design, and transporter fleet sizing and routing. In addition, the paper focuses on contributions to integration issues such as the design for operation of material handling systems, and the concurrent design of the shop layout and the transportation system. Research studies in these areas are critically examined, and emerging opportunities for research are identified.Item Minimization of Acquisition and Operational Costs in Horizontal Material Handling System Design(1995) Herrmann, Jeffrey W.; Ioannou, George; Minis, Ioannis; Proth, J.M.; ISRThis paper considers the problem of minimizing the fixed cost of acquiring material handling transporters and the operational cost of material transfer in a manufacturing system. This decision problem arises during manufacturing facility design, and is modeled using an integer programming formulation. Two efficient heuristics are developed to solve it. Computational complexity, worst-case performance analysis, and extensive computational tests are provided for both heuristics. The results indicate that the proposed methods are well suited for large-scale manufacturing applications.Item Design of Material Flow Networks in Manufacturing Facilities(1994) Herrmann, Jeffrey W.; Ioannou, George; Minis, Ioannis; Nagi, R.; Proth, J.M.; ISRIn this paper we consider the design of material handling flow paths in a discrete parts manufacturing facility. A fixed-charge capacitated network design model is presented and two efficient heuristics are proposed to determine near-optimal solutions to the resulting NP- hard problem. The heuristics are tested against an implicit enumeration scheme used to obtain optimal solutions for small examples. For more realistic cases, the solutions of the heuristics are compared to lower bounds obtained by either the linear programming relaxation of the mixed integer program, or an iterative dual ascent algorithm. The results obtained indicate that the heuristics provide good solutions in reasonable time on the average. The proposed methodology is applied to design the flow paths of an existing manufacturing facility. The role of the flow path network problem in the integrated shop design is also discussed.Item Hierarchical Production Planning for Complex Manufacturing(1994) Mehra, Anshu; Minis, Ioannis; Proth, J.M.; ISRA hierarchical approach to production planning for complex manufacturing systems is presented. A single facility comprising of a number of work-centers that produce multiple part types is considered. The planning horizon includes a sequence of time periods, and the demand for all part types is assumed to be known. The production planning problem consists of minimizing the holding costs for all part types as well as the work-in- process, and the backlogging cost for the end items. We present a two- level hierarchy that is based on aggregating parts to part families, work-centers to manufacturing cells and time periods to aggregate time periods. The solution at the aggregate level is imposed as a constraint to the detailed level problem which employs a decomposition based on manufacturing cells. This architecture uses a rolling horizon strategy to perform the production management function. We have employed perturbation analysis techniques to adjust certain parameters of the optimization problems at the detailed level to reach a near- optimal detailed production plan.Item Hierarchical Production Planning with Part, Spatial and Time Aggregation(1994) Herrmann, Jeffrey W.; Mehra, Anshu; Minis, Ioannis; Proth, J.M.; ISRA hierarchical approach to planning production in complex manufacturing systems is presented. A single facility containing a number of work-centers that produce multiple part types is considered. The planning horizon includes a sequence of time periods, and the demand for all part types is assumed to be known. The production planning problem consists of minimizing the holding costs for the work-in-process and finished goods inventory and the backlogging costs for unfulfilled demand. We present a two-level hierarchy that is based on aggregating part types to part families, work-centers to manufacturing cells and time periods to aggregate time periods. The solution of the aggregate optimization problem is imposed as a target in the optimization problems at the detailed level. This architecture uses a rolling horizon strategy to manage production.Item A Dual Ascent Approach to the Fixed-Charge Capacitated Network Design Problem(1994) Herrmann, Jeffrey W.; Ioannou, George; Minis, Ioannis; Proth, J.M.; ISRIn this paper we consider the problem of constructing a network over which a number of commodities are to be transported. Fixed costs are associated to the construction of network arcs and variable costs are associated to routing of commodities. In addition, one capacity constraint is related to each arc. The problem is to determine a network design that minimizes the total cost; i.e. it balances the construction and operating costs. A dual ascent procedure for finding improved lower bounds and near- optimal solutions for the fixed-charge capacitated network design problem is proposed. The method is shown to generate tighter lower bounds than the linear programming relaxation of the problem.