A polynomial goal programming approach to a class of quality control problems

The traditional quality control approach based on statistical tools has been very useful and effective when output and input qualities can be denned in terms of a single characteristic. However, in process industries such as paper, the output quality is denned in terms of two or more distinct characteristics; hence, reducing the deviation of one output characteristic from its permissible limits could result in forcing other output and/or input characteristics to deviate from their respective limits. Compounding this phenomenon is the fact that most of these industries produce substantial amounts of pollutants whose characteristics are a function of the input and output characteristics. Thus, with increasing costs of waste treatment and stringent pollution standards, there arises a notion of a trade-off between attaining market specified output characteristics and meeting federally regulated pollution standards.In this article a general process quality control problem has been formulated that reflects the above trade-off both in terms of a linear and a polynomial goal programming problem. Major advantages and differences between the two formulations are highlighted and illustrated with a practical example drawn from the paper industry.Three separate cases each with different priorities assigned to the output, pollutant and input characteristics are developed and solved under both formulations. Based on the analysis it is observed that the different solutions that result are contingent on the assumptions concerning the priorities associated with each goal and the manner by which one chooses to incorporate tradeoffs between goals in the objective function. Additionally, it is found that the solutions obtained under polynomial goal programming formulation are more conducive for implementation in practical quality control contexts.     

Experimental designs for estimating plateau-type production functions and economically optimal input levels

Estimation of nitrogen response functions has a long history and yet there is still considerable uncertainty about how much nitrogen to apply to agricultural crops. Nitrogen recommendations are usually based on estimation of agronomic production functions that typically use data from designed experiments. Nitrogen experiments, for example, often use equally spaced levels of nitrogen. Past agronomic research is mostly supportive of plateau-type functional forms. The question addressed is if one is willing to accept a specific plateau-type functional form as the true model, what experimental design is the best to use for estimating the production function? The objective is to minimize the variance of the estimated expected profit maximizing level of input. Of particular interest is how well does the commonly used equally-spaced design perform in comparison to the optimal design. Mixed effects models for winter wheat (Triticum aestivium L.) yield are estimated for both Mitscherlich and linear plateau functions. With three design points, one should be high enough to be on the plateau and one should be at zero. The choice of the middle design point makes little difference over a wide range of values. The optimal middle design point is lower for the Mitscherlich functional form than it is for the plateau function. Equally spaced designs with more design points have a similar precision and thus the loss from using a nonoptimal experimental design is small.     

Optimal process parameters under LINEX loss function with general input quality characteristic

In this paper we generalize the quality and cost trade-off problem of Chang and Hung (Qual Quant 41: 291–301, 2007) under the LINEX loss function. We consider the general input characteristic given by the random variable X with moment generating function m _X (t) and output characteristic given by the deterministic transformation Y  =  g(X). The two cases we consider are when g(X) is an affine function of X and X follows (1) the gamma distribution, and (2) the double exponential distribution.     

基于行业分布的我国省域展览业结构分异特征及其优化路径

基于行业分布视角,通过构建定量测度模型,分析了我国省域层面展览业的部门结构特征及其区域专业化水平。研究发现:当前我国省域展览业发展呈现规模与结构"错位脱节"状态,省域展览业行业部门分布集中程度差异明显,中西部地带行业部门结构明显优于东部;全国展览业在不同行业部门的区位熵呈现"农业>服务业>重工业>专项展览>轻工业"的递减规律,省域展览业在不同行业部门的专业化程度存在明显差异;省域展览业地区相对专业化水平差异明显,全国存在三类展览业部门专业化阵容区域。最后从构筑特色展会品牌、延长展览产业发展链条、调控展览业空间布局、提升展览经济内涵质量四方面提出了我国展览业行业部门结构优化的建议。     

Bestimmung kostenoptimaler Parameter für den kontinuierlichen Stichprobenplan vonDodge

Summary Dodge's sampling plan for a continuous production process is determined by two constantsi andk. Under some assumptions about the statistical properties of the production process the average loss due to the costs for inspection and for replacing defective units by good ones is described by a loss function. It is shown that there are always constantsi andk which minimize the loss function in a special sense. Tables of these optimum parameters are computed.     

AGGREGATION VERSUS DISAGGREGATION IN INPUT–OUTPUT ANALYSIS OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Analysts carrying out input–output analyses of environmental issues are often plagued by environmental and input–output data existing in different classifications, with environmentally sensitive sectors sometimes being aggregated in the economic input–output database. In principle there are two alternatives for dealing with such misalignment: either environmental data have to be aggregated into the input–output classification, which entails an undesirable loss of information, or input–output data have to be disaggregated based on fragmentary information. In this article, I show that disaggregation of input–output data, even if based on few real data points, is superior to aggregating environmental data in determining input–output multipliers. This is especially true if the disaggregated sectors are heterogeneous with respect to their economic and environmental characteristics. The results of this work may help analysts in understanding that disaggregation based on even a small amount of proxy information can improve the accuracy of input–output multipliers significantly. Perhaps, these results will also provide encouragement for preferring model disaggregation to aggregation in future work.     

Can everyone benefit from innovation?

This paper investigates whether there is an allocation rule for which innovation never hurts anyone. Existing studies provide possibility characterizations together with efficiency and a natural participation constraint, assuming the domain of one input good and one output good in which nobody prefers to consume more of the input good than what she has. We show that this possibility result does not survive and we lead to impossibility either when (i) somebody wants to consume the input good more than what she has; or when (ii) there are multiple input goods.     

Ultimate 100‐m world records through extreme‐value theory

We use extreme‐value theory to estimate the ultimate world records for the 100‐m running, for both men and women. For this aim we collected the fastest personal best times set between January 1991 and June 2008. Estimators of the extreme‐value index are based on a certain number of upper order statistics. To optimize this number of order statistics we minimize the asymptotic mean‐squared error of the moment estimator. Using the thus obtained estimate for the extreme‐value index, the right endpoint of the speed distribution is estimated. The corresponding time can be interpreted as the estimated ultimate world record: the best possible time that could be run in the near future. We find 9.51 seconds for the 100‐m men and 10.33 seconds for the women.     

智慧物流环境下物流专业大学生学习投入度研究——以江苏科技大学为例

以江苏科技大学物流管理专业大学生为例展开学习投入度现状研究,并从个体因素、教师与同伴、环境因素出发,利用多元回归分析方法探索物流专业大学生学习投入影响因素。结果发现:智慧物流环境下,物流专业大学生学习投入度水平整体上处于中等水平;不同性别、不同年级、不同校区的物流专业大学生学习投入度不存在显著性差异;自我效能、教师物流技术应用能力和同伴群体显著正向影响大学生行为投入;自我效能感、认知负荷和教师期望显著正向影响大学生认知投入;自我效能感、教师期望和智慧物流教学显著正向影响大学生情感投入。最后从高校、教师以及个人的层面出发,探讨了提升高校物流专业大学生学习投入度的相关策略。     

Scheduling independent jobs on nonuniform, unequal processors

The problem of scheduling n independent jobs on a single processor to minimize the total tardiness of the assignment has attracted much attention. Solution algorithms, both exact and approximate, have been reported, but no polynomial time exact algorithm has yet been found, nor has the problem been proven NP-complete.In this paper we consider the more general case of scheduling n independent jobs on m unequal processors to minimize total tardiness. Since this problem is more complex than the corresponding single-processor problem, no polynomial-time algorithm is in sight. For problems of this nature, approximate algorithms may be more valuable than exact algorithms in terms of applications. A heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the multiple-processor problem. Computational experiments show that the heuristic algorithm is efficient, fast, and easy to implement.     

Imperatives of the science of operations and supply-chain management

Although knowledge in operations and supply-chain management (O&SCM) has advanced substantially during the last six decades, our community has not fully utilized the potential for radical innovations. We identify two sets of opportunities for pursuing radical innovations. First, there is an opportunity to pursue all phases of science, including exploratory and qualitative research, developing theories, causation and internal validity, and testing models and theories for external validity (the ability to generalize knowledge to other situations). This would broaden the domain covered by each research effort, minimize the bias resulting from the choice of research paradigm and research domain, to enhance external validity, and to minimize the gap between our research efforts and the real world our community seeks to reshape. Second, there is an opportunity to pursue multiple perspectives because a scientific conclusion valid for a narrow domain may prove to be partially true or even false if one obtains multiple perspectives. Multiple perspectives can be obtained by investigating different parts of the system, by employing different methods of analysis, by using different sources of data, or by using different subsets of the same data. Developing scientific knowledge requires pursuit of all phases of science and of multiple perspectives. In a separate paper, we propose and analyze ways to accomplish it.     

Determining the optimal process means under mixture normal distributions

In this paper, we consider that the working environment has certain states, and in every state, the parameters of quality characteristics are different. Thus, if we set the characteristics parameters in a specified state, these parameters will change to another state. To describe this situation, we use a mixture of normal distributions, which comprise a flexible and powerful statistical-based modeling tool in practice. Under the step loss function and the piecewise linear loss function, we select the optimal means for the proposed manufacturing process.     

建筑施工项目成本管理方法探讨

工程项目成本管理的目的是在保证工程质量、工期等方面满足合同要求的前提下,对工程项目成本形成过程中所消耗的人力资源、物质资源和费用开支进行严格管理和监督,采取一系列措施,尽可能使实际成本费用降到最低,以最小的投入实现最大的产出。本人结合造价管理和项目成本管理相关工作,从人工、材料、机械、质量、工期等角度全方位地探讨了如何实施目标的成本控制方法和措施。     

The modified Huang’s cost model for process optimization

In 2001, Huang presented the problem of determining the optimum process mean and standard deviation based on considering the trade-off relationship between the process adjustment cost and the quality loss of product. They considered the normal quality characteristic and adopted the quadratic quality loss function for measuring the product quality. In this paper, we further propose the problem of process optimization and reconsider the modified Huang’s model under the specified process capability index value for determining the optimum process parameters. The symmetric quadratic, asymmetric quadratic, and asymmetric linear quality loss functions will be adopted for evaluating the product quality. Finally, the numerical example and the sensitivity analysis of parameters will be provided for illustration.     

Incorporating ancillary measures of process and quality change into a superlative productivity index

One of the persistent problems plaguing the measurement of productivity and output is accounting for changes in product quality. A similar problem arises in attempting to explain shifts in a production function using information on changes in the characteristics of the production process itself. We consider these problems under a behavioral model in which the firm chooses a profit-maximizing bundle of input/output/process characteristics as well as the profit maximizing levels of input and output. This view of quality change is similar to the endogenous design index advocated by Triplett [1983] for industrial prices and the endogenous quality indexes analyzed by Pollak [1983] for consumer prices. We show how a price-characteristics locus can be used to adjust the Tornqvist output- and input-oriented multifactor productivity indexes of Caves, Christensen and Diewert [1982] for changes in input, output and process characteristics. To show the applicability of the methodology to services, we apply the results in the framework of the commercial banking measurement of Fixler [1988] to measure the impact of bank branching on multifactor productivity.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through R. Färe.     

An integrated structural model toward successful continuous improvement activity

This paper provides a different view from Bassent et al.'s (2001) toward a successful continuous improvement (CI) activity. Their concept encourages a business that is resting on its present accomplishments to seek greater gain. However, their behavioral model is not easy to operate for managers. In order to operate CI activity effectively and obtain company-wide involvement for management, we need a system which can meet the current CI status and lead the firm toward the correct road as described by Bessant et al. This system has to be open in the way that it can fit into any organization so that it can easily embed the necessary regenerative input into its physical structure. This system has also to be super in the way that it can successfully lead the organization structure toward the evolutionary route.Thus, we propose an open super system which places a pyramid composed by problem, models and tools, and promotion, at its core. Using Bessant et al.'s five evolutionary levels as a time map, this system can analyze a firm's improvement ability from the presentation of cases and find the proper regenerative input from the failure status. A firm can inject this input into its structure to upgrade its level of capability.Applying this open super system on our previous studies, we derived five improvement levels and the different ability types in each level. From there, we discovered some failure status in each level. We also drew some important perspectives on the injection of regenerative input from failure status, including the promotion of the technique-excellence ability, the value problem, and efficiently solving problem. To help the readers to understand this system better, we give ‘AB two stage’ system as an example to show how to inject regenerative input into the physical structure to fulfill the expectations from different perspectives.     

档案交接的重要性

档案是与每个公民关系最密切的一种档案,它关系到每个公民的切身利益。材料缺失最容易出现的环节就是档案交接的过程。档案具有全面性、现实性、动态性等的特点,但当前档案在交接过程中存在许多问题,应从人员素质、制度建设、工作程序与信息技术方面进行解决。     

LINEX Loss Functions with Applications to Determining the Optimum Process Parameters

In the classical Taguchi quality model, the symmetric quadratic loss function has been used to measure the loss of quality. However, there are a number of situations in which the symmetric quadratic loss may be inappropriate. In this paper, we proposed an asymmetric loss function, called linear exponential (LINEX) loss function, to determine optimum process parameters for the product quality. When the coefficient of LINEX loss function is small, it will be close to the quadratic loss. Moreover, the trade-off problem between quality and cost will be discussed.     

A heuristic rule for routing customers to parallel servers

A practically important problem is the assignment of stochastically arriving service requests to one of several parallel service groups so as to minimize the long-run average sojourn time per service request. An exact solution of this multi-dimensional optimization problem is computationally infeasible. A simple heuristic solution method yielding a good suboptimal rule will be given for the case of server groups with different and generally distributed service times. This solution method is based on a decomposition approach and first principles from Markov decision theory. The main idea of the heuristic method is to apply one step of policy improvement to the best Bernoulli-splitting rule.