Khamamah

ALHAMDULILLAH IT IS PROJECT ENGINEERING IN BEKASI WEST JAVA 22-24 JANUARI 2009 Line Balancing in the Real World Emanuel Falkenauer Optimal Design Av. Jeanne 19A boîte 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium+32 (0)2 646 10 74 E.Falkenauer@optimaldesign.comAbstract: Line Balancing (LB) is a classic, well-researched OperationsResearch (OR) optimization problem of significant industrial importance. It is one of those problems where domain expertise does not help very much: whatever the number of years spent solving it, one is each time facing an intractable problem with an astronomic number of possible solutions and no real guidance on how to solve it in the best way, unless one postulates that the old way is the best way. Here we explain an apparent paradox: although manyalgorithms have been proposed in the past, and despite the problem’s practical importance, just one commercially available LB software currently appears to be available for application in industries such as automotive. We speculate t...

While Micropump, which manufactures small-volume, precision-flow, sealed pumps, has been in business for 46 years and has been owned by IDEX Corporation for 11 years, it is in the last several years that innovations in its product line have accelerated rapidly. The reason is because now there is more cash to finance research and development efforts. Interestingly, the cash is not from the benevolence of the parent company, but from the results of the Operational Excellence initiative that IDEX management began five years ago. In 2001, Micropump was in need of revitalization. Market growth was lagging and operations were not improving rapidly. IDEX turned to Six Sigma and Lean (calling the program Operational Excellence) to provide the framework and philosophy to move Micropump forward. The IDEX guideline was to choose the best and brightest and dedicate them to full-time Black Belt roles. Micropump did just that. With less than 75 salaried employees on staff in Vancouver, the company c...