International Journal of Industrial Engineering & Production Research

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  In this paper, authors tackle three very important questions that need to be answered if a theory of design is to be constructed. The first is what designers do, Which we attempt to illustrate with the help of case studies and theories of design practice. The second question is what guides designers. Here, authors try to present some of the proposed normative positions about design, to show the similarities and differences between positions and a framework of how they can be categorized. The main (third) question is how the design thinking process can be represented drawing upon on a review of recent studies of design practice and designer's creativity.

  One approach to design thinking is to extract the features of the designers' strategic knowledge, for which comparative studies between expert designers and novices are useful. Also, controlled experimental studies may be adopted in order to understand the nature of the idea generation process.

Finally, the methods of research and representation of design thinking in order to gain a deeper understanding of the designers' creativity are proposed .

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  Although control charts are very common to monitoring process changes, they usually do not indicate the real time of the changes. Identifying the real time of the process changes is known as change-point estimation problem. There are a number of change point models in the literature however most of the existing approaches are dedicated to normal processes. In this paper we propose a novel approach based on clustering techniques to estimate Shewhart control chart change-point when a sustained shift is occurrs in the process mean. For this purpose we devise a new clustering mechanism, a new similarity measure and a new objective function. The proposed approach is not only capable of detecting process change-points, but also automatically estimates the true values of the out-of-control parameters of the process. We also compare the performance of the proposed approach with existing methods.

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This research aims at presenting a fuzzy model to evaluate and select Six-Sigma projects.  For this purpose, a model of fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) was designed to consider the relation and mutual impact among the factors. In order to evaluate the projects, nine sub-criteria were considered which were classified into three categories of business, finance and procedural ones. Also to consider the ambiguity related to the pairwise comparisons being used in the research, the fuzzy logic was employed. The fuzzy algorithm being used is in the method of Mikhailov which has various advantages such as the presentation of consistency index and weight vector in a crisp form. At the end, in order to show the applicability, the proposed methodology was applied in an automobile part manufacturing firm.

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  This expository article shows how the maximum likelihood estimation method and the Newton-Raphson algorithm can be used to estimate the parameters of the power-law Poisson process model used to analyze data from repairable systems .

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  The unprecedented growth of competition in the banking technology has raised the importance of retaining current customers and acquires new customers so that is important analyzing Customer behavior, which is base on bank databases. Analyzing bank databases for analyzing customer behavior is difficult since bank databases are multi-dimensional, comprised of monthly account records and daily transaction records. Few works have focused on analyzing of bank databases from the viewpoint of customer behavioral analyze. This study presents a new two-stage frame-work of customer behavior analysis that integrated a K-means algorithm and Apriori association rule inducer. The K-means algorithm was used to identify groups of customers based on recency, frequency, monetary behavioral scoring predicators it also divides customers into three major profitable groups of customers. Apriori association rule inducer was used to characterize the groups of customers by creating customer profiles. Identifying customers by a customer behavior analysis model is helpful characteristics of customer and facilitates marketing strategy development .

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Discrete facility location,   Distribution center,   Logistics,   Inventory policy,   Queueing theory,   Markov processes,

The distribution center location problem is a crucial question for logistics decision makers. The optimization of these decisions needs careful attention to the fixed facility costs, inventory costs, transportation costs and customer responsiveness. In this paper we study the location selection of a distribution center which satisfies demands with a M/M/1 finite queueing system plus balking and reneging. The distribution center uses one for one inventory policy, where each arrival demand orders a unit of product to the distribution center and the distribution center refers this demand to its supplier. The matrix geometric method is applied to model the queueing system in order to obtain the steady-state probabilities and evaluate some performance measures. A cost model is developed to determine the best location for the distribution center and its optimal storage capacity and a numerical example is presented to determine the computability of the results derived in this study .

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In this study, an outsourcer evaluation and management system is developed for a manufacturing company by use of Fuzzy goal programming (FGP). A first phase of the methodology evaluation criteria for outsources and the objectives of the company are determined. Considering the fuzziness in the decision data, linguistic variables that can be expressed in generalized fuzzy number are used. The propose approach is utilized from fuzzy sets, Analytic Network Process (ANP), fuzzy TOPSIS and Preference Ranking Organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) approaches. Evaluation criteria for this problem are weighted by Fuzzy ANP approach then in the Fuzzy TOPSIS and Fuzzy PROMETHEE approaches. At the second phase the FGP model developed selects the most appropriate outsourcers suitable to be strategic partners with the company and simultaneously allocates the quantities to be ordered to them. At the end, gives the computational results .

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In many industrial and non-industrial applications the quality of a process or product is characterized by a relationship between a response variable and one or more explanatory variables. This relationship is referred to as profile. In the past decade, profile monitoring has been extensively studied under the normal response variable, but it has paid a little attention to the profile with the non-normal response variable. In this paper, the focus is especially on the binary response followed by the bernoulli distribution due to its application in many fields of science and engineering. Some methods have been suggested to monitor such profiles in phase I, the modeling phase however, no method has been proposed for monitoring them in phase II, the detecting phase. In this paper, two methods are proposed for phase II logistic profile monitoring. The first method is a combination of two exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts for mean and variance monitoring of the residuals defined in logistic regression models and the second method is a multivariate T2 chart to monitor model parameters. The simulation study is done to investigate the performance of the methods.

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Identification of a real time of a change in a process, when an out-of-control signal is present is significant. This may reduce costs of defective products as well as the time of exploring and fixing the cause of defects. Another popular topic in the Statistical Process Control (SPC) is profile monitoring, where knowing the distribution of one or more quality characteristics may not be appropriate for discussing the quality of processes or products. One, rather, uses a relationship between a response variable and one or more explanatory variable for this purpose. In this paper, the concept of Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) applied to estimate of the change point in binary profiles, when the type of change is drift. Simulation studies are provided to evaluate the effectiveness of the change point estimator.

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Monitoring the reliability of products in both the manufacturing and service processes is of main concern in today’s competitive market. To this end, statistical process control has been widely used to control the reliability-related quality variables. The so-far surveillance schemes have addressed processes with independent quality characteristics. In multistage processes, however, the cascade property must be effectively justified which entails establishing the relationship among quality variables with the purpose of optimal process monitoring. In some cases, measuring the values corresponding to specific covariates is not possible without great financial costs. Subsequently, the unmeasured covariates impose unobserved heterogeneity which decreases the detection power of a control scheme. The complicated picture arises when the presence of a censoring mechanism leads to inaccurate recording of the process response values. Hence, frailty and Cox proportional hazards models are employed and two regression-adjusted monitoring procedures are constructed to effectively account for both the observed and unobserved influential covariates in line with a censoring issue. The simulation-based study reveals that the proposed scheme based on the cumulative sum control chart outperforms its competing procedure with smaller out-of-control average run length values.

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Today’s world economy situation forces enterprise organizations toward more soft and flexible organization, management, and production processes. They need to explore the most suitable Knowledge Management (KM) tool not only to identify gaps and overlaps but also to maintain and support innovation cross organizations. In this study, a multiple-experts-multiple-criteria decision making model is developed to select the most appropriate set of KM tools to support the innovation processes in organizations. Also, the model aims to suggest conditions for the improvement of KM in different types of knowledge-based inter-organizational collaborations. The application of the model is demonstrated by an illustrative example.

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Data mining is a powerful tool for firms to extract knowledge from their customers’ transaction data. One of the useful applications of data mining is segmentation. Segmentation is an effective tool for managers to make right marketing strategies for right customer segments. In this study we have segmented retailers of a hygienic manufacture. Nowadays all manufactures do understand that for staying in the competitive market, they should set up an effective relationship with their retailers. We have proposed a LRFMP (relationship Length, Recency, Frequency, Monetary, and Potential) model for retailer segmentation. Ten retailer clusters have been obtained by applying K-means algorithm with K-optimum according Davies-Bouldin index on LRFMP variables. We have analyzed obtained clusters by weighted sum of LRFMP values, which the weight of each variable calculated by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. In addition we have analyzed each cluster in order to formulate segment-specific marketing actions for retailers. The results of this research can help marketing managers to gain deep insights about retailers.

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Abstract Nowadays supply chain management has become one of the powerful business concepts for organizations to gain a competitive advantage in global market. This is the reason that now competition between the firms has been replaced by competitiveness among the supply chains. Moreover, the popular literature dealing with supply chain is replete with discussions of leanness and agility. Agile manufacturing is adopted where demand is volatile while lean manufacturing is used in stable demands. However, in some situations it is advisable to utilize a different paradigm, called leagility, to enable a total supply chain strategy. Although, various generic hybrids have been defined to clarify means of satisfying the conflicting requirements of low cost and fast response, little research is available to provide approaches to enhance supply chain leagility. By linking Leagile Attributes and Leagile Enablers (LAs and LEs), this paper, based upon Quality Function Deployment (QFD), strives to identify viable LEs to achieve a defined set of LAs. Due to its wide applicability, AHP is deployed to prioritize LAs. Also, fuzzy logic is used to deal with linguistics judgments expressing relationships and correlations required in QFD. To illustrate the usefulness and ease of application of the approach, the approach was exemplified with the help of a case study in chemical industry.

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In this paper an efficient three- stage algorithm is developed for software production cost and time estimation. First stage includes a hybrid model composed of COCOMO and Function Points methods to increase estimation accuracy. Second stage encompasses paired comparisons matrix of analytical hierarchy process to determine amount of any resources consumed in each step of software production by experts’ opinions. Third stage concludes cost and time tables of production scheduling by using Work break structure (WBS) and network models of project control. In whole of all stages of this paper, triangular fuzzy numbers are used to express uncertainty existed in succession and repetition of each production step, time of beginning, ending, the duration of each task and costs of them. Retrieved results examined by 30 practical projects conclude accuracy of 93 percent for time estimation and 92 percent for cost one. Also suggested algorithm is more accurate than COCOMOІІ 2000 algorithm as 50 percent based on examined problems.

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Process capability indices (PCIs) can be used as an effective tool for measuring product quality and process performance. In classic quality control there are some limitations which prevent a deep and flexible analysis because of the crisp definition of PCA‟s parameters. Fuzzy set theory can be used to add more flexibility to process capability analyses. In this study, the fuzzy X ba and MRx ba control charts are introduced to monitor continuous production process in triangular fuzzy state. Also, fuzzy PCIs are produced when SLs and measurements are triangular fuzzy numbers (TFN). For this aim, a computer program is coded in Matlab software. The fuzzy control charts is applied in Yazd fiber production plant. The results show that in continuous production processes, the better analysis will be performed by using fuzzy measurements. Also, based on the fuzzy capability indices, we can have a flexible analysis of the process performance.

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Achieving optimal production cycle time for improving manufacturing processes is one of the common problems in production planning. During recent years, different approaches have been developed for solving this problem, but most of them assume that mean quality characteristic is constant over production run length and sets it on customer’s target value. However, the process mean may drift from an in-control to an out-of-control at a random point in time. This study aims to select the production cycle time and the initial setting of mean quality characteristic, so that the expected total cost, consisting of quality loss and maintenance costs as well as ordering and holding costs, already considered in the classic models is minimized. To investigate the effect of mean process setting, a computational analysis on a real world example is performed. Results show the superiority of the proposed approach compared to the classical economic production quantity model.

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CCC-r control chart is a monitoring technique for high yield processes. It is based on the analysis of the number of inspected items until observing a specific number of defective items.  One of the assumptions in implementing CCC-r chart that has a significant effect on the design of the control chart is that the inspection is perfect. However, in reality, due to the multiple reasons, the inspection is exposed to errors. In this paper, we study the economic-statistical design of CCC-r charts when the inspection is imperfect. Minimization of the average cost per produced item is considered as the objective function. The economic objective function, modified consumer risk, and modified producer risk are simultaneously considered, and then the optimal value of r parameter is selected.

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Change point estimation is as an effective method for identifying the time of a change in production and service processes. In most of the statistical quality control literature, it is usually assumed that the quality characteristic of interest is independently and identically distributed over time. It is obvious that this assumption could be easily violated in practice. In this paper, we use maximum likelihood estimation method to estimate when a step change has occurred in a high yield process by allowing a serial correlation between observations. Monte Carlo simulation is used as a vehicle to evaluate performance of the proposed method. Results indicate satisfactory performance for the proposed method.