The first objective of this paper is to map the adoption of technologies for the reduction of energy and resource consumption in production and the second is to test the relationship between the implementation of those technologies and the performance of manufacturing firms. The aim is to contribute to the identification of the characteristics of the manufacturing firms that use this kind of innovative technology in order to help policy makers promote energy and resource efficiency in a suitable manner. Our research is based on the Spanish and Slovenian subsamples of a wider European manufacturing survey. Our suggested models explain how significant energy efficiency is, and how much of the variability in economic performance and environmental performance it can explain. The results show that the use of energy and material saving technologies does not have a clear and significant relationship with economic performance. On the other hand a significant positive relationship is found between energy and material saving technologies and environmental performance.
COBISS.SI-ID: 16834070
An empirical analysis is presented for researching linkages between manufacturing strategy, benchmarking, performance measurement (PM) and business process reengineering (BPR). Although the importance of these linkages has been described in conceptual literature, it has not been widely demonstrated empirically. The survey research was carried out in 73 medium and large-sized Slovenian manufacturing companies within the mechanical, electro-mechanical and electronic industries. The resulting data were subjected to reliability and validity analyses. Canonical correlation analysis was used to test six hypotheses. The results confirmed the need for a strategically-driven BPR approach and the positive impact of performance measurement on BPR performance.
COBISS.SI-ID: 13442838
The European Disability Strategy (2010–2020) seeks to significantly raise the proportion of people with disabilities working in the open labour market. The ERGO WORK project is a collaboration of academic and industrial partners in six European countries, focused on understanding and tackling barriers to workplace inclusion for workers with disabilities. An exploratory online survey was completed by 480 participants across six countries. The analysis suggests that workplaces could be further improved to meet the needs of employees with considerable scope for training within companies to raise awareness about employees’ needs, employers’ obligations and workplace adaptation.
COBISS.SI-ID: 19827990
This paper describes the use of genetic algorithms (GA) for solving the facility layout problem (FLP) within manufacturing systems’ design. The paper considers a specific heuristic layout planning method, known as the modified triangle method. This method seeks for an optimal layout solution based on the degrees of flows between workstations. The search for an optimal solution is extremely time-consuming and not suitable for larger systems; therefore we have developed a system based on evolutionary computation. Our paper presents a system, based on GA, and the results obtained regarding several numerical cases from the literature. We propose the usage of this system by presenting numerous advantages over other methods of solving FLP for problem representation and evolutionary computation for solution search.
COBISS.SI-ID: 17379350
The aim of this book is to present some selected job shop scheduling problems, continued with a survey of algorithms and methods developed to solve these problems. This research area has been subject to a growing interest in the literature since the last twenty years. The presented scientific work lasted for more than twelve years and comprehended a lot of theoretical as well as practical research. This book describes a number of general purpose techniques that have proven useful in industrial scheduling systems. Most of these methods typically do not guarantee an optimal solution; their goal is to find a reasonably good (near-optimum) solution in a relatively short time. This is in a case of a job shop manufacturing absolutely acceptable.
COBISS.SI-ID: 76216833
Production scheduling is one of the crucial processes and has an impact on delivery deadlines and also on the production process in terms of its utilization. On the other hand, the value stream optimization is very important for lean manufacturing efforts. This paper is aimed to research the impact of job shop scheduling on value stream optimization and decreasing of cost-time investment. Value stream mapping represents a very efficient tool for visualization of activities within production flow with the purpose to eliminate non-value added activities. Cost-time profile is a powerful tool for visualization and calculation of cost accumulation during the time across the entire manufacturing flow. Software tools used in this paper are: Lekin scheduling system for constructing the schedules based on different dispatching rules and Cost-Time Profiler software for simulating the impact of different schedules on total production cost and cost-time investment (representing the time value of money), which is proposed as a new scheduling objective function.
COBISS.SI-ID: 17379094
For decades three-dimensional (3D) measurements of engineering components have been made using fixed metrology-room based coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) fitted most commonly with single point or to a much lesser extent, scanning tactile probes. Over the past decade there has been a rapid uptake in development and subsequent use of portable optical-based 3D coordinate measuring systems. These optical-based systems capture vast quantities of point data in a very short time, often permitting freeform surfaces to be digitized. Documented standards, for example ISO 10360, for the verification of fixed CMMs fitted with tactile probes are now widely available, whereas verification procedures and more specifically verification artefacts for optical-based systems are still in their infancy. Furthermore, the industry is seeking traceability in 3D measurements of high precision components. A recent requirement is the demand for highly accurate measurements of large gears with diameters up to 1000 mm as used in gear boxes of wind turbines. Up until now it has been impossible to ensure traceability of 3D measurements of big gears, since no traceable standards were available. This paper describes three different types of artefacts that were developed during the project, namely tetrahedron artefacts for testing the basic measurement capability of optical 3D devices, freeform verification artefacts for testing the capability of measuring complex geometry, and a large gear artefact for task related calibration of different types of CMMs. In addition, artefact calibration data and associated measurement uncertainties and international inter comparisons are presented. These developments will be of considerable value to end users, calibration laboratories and producers of optical and tactile CMMs.
COBISS.SI-ID: 16149270
Since 1998, national standard for length is being maintaining in the Laboratory for production measurement. The main task of the laboratory in regard to the national standard is development of calibration and metrology capabilities in accordance with the industrial needs. Up to now we have developed over 25 calibration procedures. In 2008, primary frequency standard declared by BIPM as primary standard for length, was installed in the laboratory. The laboratory is assuring metrological traceability to other laboratories of the national metrology institute, as well as to accredited laboratories, research institutions, industry and other branches. In order to be able to fulfil constantly increasing requirements of our customers, our scientific/research activities are focused primarily in developing new calibration procedures and in improving calibration and measurement capabilities (CMCs). This scientific monograph is representing selection of results and description of our most advanced research in the form of calibration procedures including evaluation of measurement uncertainty. Procedures for calibrating gauge blocks, electronic levels, gauge block comparators, three-coordinate measuring machines, outside and inside dimension, and laser frequencies are presented in detail.
COBISS.SI-ID: 69411073
The calibration procedure for the frequency determination of HeNe laser interferometers used for length metrology is described and high-level traceability at the Metrology Institute of the Republic of Slovenia (MIRS) consistent with the Mutual Recognition Arrangement drawn up by the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM MRA) is presented in the article. The analyses of radiation frequency regarding stabilization time, repeatability and reproducibility are given for a case of an industrial and of a laboratory HeNe laser interferometer. Allan-deviation calculations at different sampling periods provided information for setting the optimal sampling period and proved that 100 000 samples at one-second or 10 000 samples at ten-second long period are usually the most appropriate sets for one-day calibration measurements.
COBISS.SI-ID: 17102870
Among the answers to the new challenges of contemporary environment, cooperation between those who implement development in public administration at state, local and regional levels is increasingly highlighted. Surprisingly, the role of cooperation in developing projects and the maturity of public administrations’ project management organizations for accelerating the development of municipalities have not been researched until now. This study confirms that project cooperation between Slovenian municipalities promotes the municipalities’ orientation for achieving development through projects, and their management awareness of the importance of fundamental managerial functions and other project management concepts and techniques for the successful achievement of development goals.
COBISS.SI-ID: 12004636