Made-to-order Research Articles

Innovation opportunities from made-to-order gypsum boards in renovation projects: a case study in Denmark

To reduce embodied emissions and waste in renovation projects, new resource efficient and low waste construction processes are needed. One possible solution to reduce waste at the construction can be made-to-order (MTO) customisation of standard products that are delivered in the right size and quantity. A key construction process in renovation projects is the installation of gypsum for partition wall construction. Today, gypsum boards are cut to the right size at the construction site, resulting in 15-30% of waste. In several countries, pilots for delivering MTO gypsum boards in the right length for the building dimension have shown significant potential to reduce waste and increase productivity. This study aims to help the material manufacturer Saint-Gobain Denmark explore innovation opportunities from MTO gypsum boards for the Danish market. Work sampling at a renovation project is conducted to identify the activities of the current installation process and potential time savings from MTO. Interviews are used to identify actors and their roles in the current value chain for partition wall construction in Denmark and possible scenarios to offer MTO. Results show that a rise in the production time from 31% to 36% could be achieved by avoiding measuring and cutting of boards at the construction side. Two value chain scenarios for delivering MTO in the Danish market are presented. Based on the results, potential drivers and barriers for MTO in the Danish market are discussed.

Improving campus dining operations using capacity and queue management: A simulation-based case study

With growing consumer demand, dining facilities athigher education institutions have started to provide a wide assortment of food products catering to the needs of every individual. In developed countries like the United States, labor is an expensive asset, and campus dining facilities are struggling to utilize their employees efficiently and achieve service excellence. This research is motivated by a real-life case study of a campus dining service (CDS), which is an all-you-can-eat establishment with an annual influx of 500,000 students. The CDS has eight food stations but experiences long queues only at individual stations that prepare made-to-order (MTO) meals, thereby leading to excessive wait at the facility. Given the characteristics of the CDS, the objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of capacity reallocation and queue management on customer waiting time. The methodology integrates the six sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) framework with a discrete event simulation modeling approach to understand, analyze, and improve the service responsiveness at CDS. Five different alternatives pertaining to capacity reallocation and queue management are proposed. The experimental analyses indicate that reallocating underutilized workers to high demand MTO stations can reduce the average waiting time by 29%. Besides, when adopting a combination of server reallocation and queue management, the CDS can curtail wait times by up to 45%. Finally, the alternatives are evaluated with respect to multiple criteria (cost and ease of implementation, responsiveness, and sustainability) to provide managerial insights to the CDS.

Product Segmentation and Sustainability in Customized Assembly with Respect to the Basic Elements of Industry 4.0

Sustainable manufacturing is not just about manufacturing, but also products and services. In the area of custom production processes, there may also be circumstances of organizational management where compliance with labor productivity and the due-date principle is problematic. Similar products with different operating times cause the throughput of assembly lines to slow down, increase number of works in progress (WIP), and increase productivity waste. It is possible to reduce this impact through various productivity-enhancing methods and innovations. This paper presents an innovative approach to product segmentation in the assembly phase of custom manufacturing, and a proposal for a new segmentation procedure that will allow significantly better integration of products into existing assembly processes without negatively impacting the company’s production indicators. The scientific problem was defined on the basis that extending existing segmentation by the third dimension of operating times allows products in MTO (made to order) environments to be divided into families with approximately equal operating times. This will increase assembly efficiency in existing medium to large companies without large investments in the development and adaptation of assembly process products. The contributions of this work relate mainly to simple adaptations to existing processes in medium-sized businesses. The proposed solution respects the basic elements of Industry 4.0.

Factors Influencing Consumers' Purchase Intentions Towards Made-to-Order Tea Drinks in China

This article aims to identify and assess the factors influencing consumers' purchase intentions towards made-to-order (MTO) tea drinks. The made-to-order milk tea drink industry in China has generated over USD 14bn in revenue in 2018. The size of the market, the nature of the preparation and delivery to consumers, combine to create opportunities for individuals, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. Relatively little is known about the drivers of purchase intentions for MTO milk tea drink consumers. For the purposes of this research, the various options that influence purchasing of tea drinks among Chinese consumers were classified into 10 factors, and data was collected through online surveys. The results indicate the extent to which Chinese consumers' purchase intentions are influenced by consumers' age, price of the drink, pursuit of a pleasant state of mind, quest for social network interaction, search for novel experiences, and concern for health.

Optimal Policies for Selling New and Remanufactured Products

Because of environmental and economic reasons, an increasing number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) nowadays sell both new and remanufactured products. When both products are available, customers will buy the one that gives them a higher (and non‐negative) utility. Thus, if the firm does not price the products properly, then product cannibalization may arise and its revenue may be adversely impacted. In this paper, we study the pricing problem of a firm that sells both new and remanufactured products over a finite planning horizon. Customer demand processes for both new and remanufactured products are random and price‐sensitive, and product returns (also called cores) are random and remanufactured upon receipt. We characterize the optimal pricing and manufacturing policies that maximize the expected total discounted profit. If new products are made‐to‐order (MTO), we show that when the inventory level of remanufactured product increases, the optimal price of remanufactured product decreases while the price difference between new and remanufactured products increases; however, the optimal selling price of new product may increase or decrease. If new products are made to stock (MTS), then the optimal manufacturing policy is of a base‐stock policy with the base‐stock level decreasing in the remanufactured product inventory level. To understand the potential benefit in implementing an MTO system, we study the difference between the value functions of the MTO and MTS systems, and develop lower and upper bounds for it. Finally, we study several extensions of the base model and show that most of our results extend to those more general settings.

Book Review: American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global. By John T. McGreevy

Book Review: American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global. By John T. McGreevy

American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global. By John T. McGreevy.

American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global. By John T. McGreevy.

Learning and Bayesian updating in long cycle made-to-order (MTO) production

We model production planning for made-to-order (MTO) manufacturing by choosing production rate to minimize expected discounted cost incurred up to a promised delivery date. Products that are MTO are often unique and customized. The associated learning curve slope and other production parameters cannot be precisely estimated before production starts. In this paper, a dynamic and adaptive approach to estimate the effects of learning and to optimize next period production is developed. This approach offers a closed-loop solution through stochastic dynamic programming. Monthly production data are used to update the joint probability distributions of production parameters via Bayesian methods. Our approach is illustrated using historical earned-value data from the Black Hawk Helicopter Program. Managerial insights are obtained and discussed.

American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global by John T. McGreevy

American Jesuits and the World: How an Embattled Religious Order Made Modern Catholicism Global by John T. McGreevy

Discrete-order admission ATP model with joint effect of margin and order size in a MTO environment

Swarming demands and seasonality periodically induce a stringent capacity problem in the made-to-order (MTO) B2B environment. Desirable order admission is a tactic with minimal application cost for handling this problem. A real-time order admission problem with limited major-customer population and batch-size demand with heterogeneous distributions is modeled as a dynamic and stochastic knapsack problem. The optimality of the Markovian deterministic reward-threshold policy is verified. Optimal policy, basic policy, and the capacity rationing method are compared in the designed experiment. The numerical results suggest great potential for increasing profit using the optimal order admission policy for MTO businesses.

Energy Production on Order Made from Using Unused Biomass

Energy Production on Order Made from Using Unused Biomass

A real-time hybrid information-sharing and decision support system for the mould industry

The mould is an indispensible element that affects the quality of the final product in the manufacturing industry. Therefore, manufacturers outsource the mould manufacturing processes to professional subcontractors. Mould manufacturing is operated in a Made-to-Order (MTO) manner, which involves the collaboration of various internal and external functions. It is important for every party to obtain different information to facilitate their work. In addition, production schedule and decisions have to be made within a limited time based on the information gathered. Thus, the short production lead time makes gathering information and making decision difficult. This paper proposes a real-time hybrid information-sharing and decision support system (RISDS) that allows sharing of information among different parties and provides scheduling and decision support for the MTO mode manufacturing, especially the mould manufacturing. The system helps different stakeholders in the mould manufacturing to obtain information effectively and mould manufacturing planners make decision within a limited time schedule. In this regard, the case provides an example of making use of emerging technologies to enhance planning and scheduling processes in MTO mode production.

A New Chemosensitivity Test Using a Thermo-Reversible Gelation Polymer for Recurrent Gynecologic Cancer Patients and a Preliminary Study of Mechanisms of Anticancer Drug Resistance

TGP (thermo-reversible gelation polymer) is a high molecular compound that has so-gel transmitting temperature of 221C Since solid cancer tissue grows in this polymer three-dimensionally, and fibroblasts scarcely grow in it, TGP is suitable for chemosensitivity assays for solid tumors. In this study, a chemosensitivity test using TGP was applied to recurrent gynecologic cancer patients in order to evaluate its utility and efficacy. In some ovarian cancer cases, expression of anticancer drug resistance-related proteins was also analyzed. Recurrent tumor tissues were surgically obtained with informed consent. After these tissues were minced and incubated for 4 days with CDDP, mitomycin C, 5-fluorouracil, paclitaxel, and CPT-11, the sensitivity against these drugs was estimated. Western blotting was performed in 8 recurrent ovarian cancer tissues in order to analyze the expression of Bcl-2, MRP2, BCRP, and GST-pi. The total evaluability rate of this assay was 90.6% (29/32). Sensitive drugs could be determined in 5 of 7 ascites samples (71.4%) and in 2 of 3 intra-tumoral fluid samples (66.7%). The overall clinical response rate of chemotherapy determined by these results was 50.0%. There were significant correlations between the IC50 of CDDP and Bcl-2, BCRP, GST-pi, and between that of 5-FU and MRP 2. Although this was a preliminary study, the chemosensitivity test using this new material appears to be useful for designing 'made-to order' salvage chemotherapy for pretreated recurrent gynecologic patients. In order to overcome multidrug resistance, the mechanisms of multidrug resistance should be further investigated.

Investigating factors affecting ERP selection in made‐to‐order SME sector

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the findings of research carried out as part of an industrial project for selection of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in a made‐to‐order (MTO) small‐to‐medium enterprise (SME) scenario. It develops a framework or methodology for selection. It also highlights the areas pertaining to the unique needs of, first, the SME sector and, second, the MTO sector, to be considered while selecting a solution. A work book is developed to provide a structured ERP software selection process for SMEs using a comprehensive literature review plus practical experience. This research is potentially aimed at being useful to other SMEs as a guide for a structured selection process.Design/methodology/approachA combination of comprehensive literature review and experience of managing the selection process for an ERP system in an SME was employed for the study.FindingsOver the past few years, the number of large companies buying new ERP systems has reached saturation point. This has led to the ERP developers seeking instead other potential markets among SMEs. The MTO scenario within the SME sector is one which is very capricious in terms of demand forecasting, lead times, routings, etc. When selecting a system, an organisation in such a segment needs a tailored methodology and a list of key target areas to consider.Practical implicationsThe paper represents a very useful source of practical information for the SME sector to consider when selecting an ERP system.Originality/valueThe paper provides valuable insight into the details of ERP selection, focusing on the peculiarities of the SME MTO sector.

Configuration-oriented product modelling and knowledge management for made-to-order manufacturing enterprises

In made-to-order (MTO) manufacturing enterprises (ME), product architectures are usually modularised and components standardised. Product configuration is a key technology for order realisation in MTO–ME and is a typical knowledge-based application. Through a configuration process, product modules or components are selected and assembled according to customer requirements. Product configuration relates to a great deal of knowledge that represents complexity relations among components or modules, such as configuration rules and assembly constraints. Traditional product modelling techniques are focused mainly on physical product modelling and geometric representation, which makes them insufficient to help in the product configuration process. This paper discusses configuration-oriented product modelling and knowledge management for MTO–ME. A general process of product configuration modelling is proposed. The configuration model represents a product family from which a specific configuration solution or product variant can be derived. Actually, configuration modelling is a process which captures and represents product knowledge. In this paper, product knowledge is organised and managed through a knowledge component (KCOM) that includes configuration rules and constraints. A KCOM-based product knowledge representation model is presented. Finally, a PDM system is extended to support product modelling and knowledge management for MTO configurable products .

Eating out

With growing consumer demand, dining facilities athigher education institutions have started to provide a wide assortment of food products catering to the needs of every individual. In developed countries like the United States, labor is an expensive asset, and campus dining facilities are struggling to utilize their employees efficiently and achieve service excellence. This research is motivated by a real-life case study of a campus dining service (CDS), which is an all-you-can-eat establishment with an annual influx of 500,000 students. The CDS has eight food stations but experiences long queues only at individual stations that prepare made-to-order (MTO) meals, thereby leading to excessive wait at the facility. Given the characteristics of the CDS, the objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of capacity reallocation and queue management on customer waiting time. The methodology integrates the six sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) framework with a discrete event simulation modeling approach to understand, analyze, and improve the service responsiveness at CDS. Five different alternatives pertaining to capacity reallocation and queue management are proposed. The experimental analyses indicate that reallocating underutilized workers to high demand MTO stations can reduce the average waiting time by 29%. Besides, when adopting a combination of server reallocation and queue management, the CDS can curtail wait times by up to 45%. Finally, the alternatives are evaluated with respect to multiple criteria (cost and ease of implementation, responsiveness, and sustainability) to provide managerial insights to the CDS.

Generic research for design of made-to-order engineering products

The paper identifies those design research issues which, while being of particular interest to the made-to-order (MTO) sector, have a wide applicability. An overview of the Newcastle EDC research programme is provided and the research topics are set in the context of two themes— design strategies and design integrity. The process of adapting the results of research aimed at producing generic results in a form suitable for application to specific product types is illustrated by describing two projects in detail. Finally, the hetrogenous nature of the Newcastle EDC environment is described and particular references are made to industrial collaboration, technology transfer, training and education.

A Perspective of the Conceptual Design Process for a Large, Complex Made-to-Order Engineering Artefact

The research programme of the Engineering Design Centre (EDC) at Newcastle University is oriented towards the study of the design of marine and other made-to-order (MTO) products. Part of the work undertaken at the EDC has involved studying the conceptual design process for the topsides of an offshore production platform. A prerequisite of this study was an examination of current formalisms and paradigms in engineering design. This paper will describe a typical approach to the conceptual design of the topsides of an offshore production platform and highlight the differences between prescriptive design theory and actual design practice. This discussion will relate both how design activities are typically organized and information flows between them, and how extensive use is made of heuristics within the concept stage to progress the design. A number of conclusions will be drawn regarding the applicability of available prescriptive conceptual design methodologies to marine and other MTO products.

Maintenance for Children of Divorce - No Order Made in Decree Nisi - Can Maintenance be Awarded Under Provincial Legislation?: McCutcheon v. McCutcheon

Maintenance for Children of Divorce - No Order Made in Decree Nisi - Can Maintenance be Awarded Under Provincial Legislation?: McCutcheon v. McCutcheon

Equity. Attachment, Sequestration, and Ne Exeat in Equity Suit. Nature of Relief under Sherman Anti-Trust Act and Wilson Tariff Act. Certiorari as Available for Review of Order Made without Judicial Power

Equity. Attachment, Sequestration, and Ne Exeat in Equity Suit. Nature of Relief under Sherman Anti-Trust Act and Wilson Tariff Act. Certiorari as Available for Review of Order Made without Judicial Power