Proceedings of the Flexible Automation and Integrated Manufacturing Conference held in Limerick, Ireland, in June 1993

Understanding how to make the best of human skills and knowledge is essential in the design of technology and jobs, particularly where these involve decision-making and uncertainty. Recent developments have been made in naturalistic decision-making, distributed cognition and situational awareness, particularly with respect to aviation, transport and strategic planning, the nuclear industry and other high-risk industries. Despite the integration of computer-based support systems in production scheduling in recent years, the reality is that most enterprises consist of reactive re-scheduling, involving a high degree of human involvement. It is often with the insight, knowledge and skills of people that scheduling skills can function with any degree of success. Human Performance in Planning and Scheduling covers many industries, including clothing, steel, machine tools, paper/board, and the automobile industry. Using international case studies from various manufacturing industries, they highlight the fact that the human scheduler is a pivotal element in the scheduling process. Each section of the book includes an introduction with an overview of the material to follow, clearly identifying themes, discussion points and highlights inter-connections between the authors' work.

This volume comprises the Proceedings of the Tenth National Conference on Manufacturing Research held at the University of Technology, Loughborough, UK, in September 1994, the latest in a series of meetings first convened in 1985, and the first to be published by Taylor & Francis Ltd.; Keith Case and Steven Newman, the Conference Chairs, the book contains R. H. Weston's keynote address, "Requirements and Trends in Manufacturing Systems", and over 140 contributions, which together represent the leading edge, state-of-the-art knowledge in the area of manufacturing and production engineering and management. The contributions are organized by theme: process planning; systems integration and modelling; simulation and scheduling; concurrent engineering and design; process control; and inspection; and thus demonstrate the enormous range of topics that manufacturing research embraces and their relevance to improving current industrial practice.

Modern manufacturing systems must be engineered as any other complex systems, especially in the context of their integration. The book first presents the all-embracing concept of the Extended Enterprise as way of inter-enterprise integration. It then focusses on Enterprise Engineering methods and tools to address intra-enterprise integration using a model-based approach. Business process modelling and re-engineering isssues are particularly discussed and tools presented. Formal specification and Petri net-based analysis methods for manufacturing systems complete the set of tools for Enterprise Engineering. Coordination and integration issues of manufacturing systems and their business processes are then covered and examples of integration platforms presented. Finally, standardization and pre-standardization issues related to enterprise modelling and integration conclude the book.

Full coverage of manufacturing and management in mechanical engineering Mechanical Engineers' Handbook, Fourth Edition provides a quick guide to specialized areas that engineers may encounter in their work, providing access to the basics of each and pointing toward trusted resources for further reading, if needed. The book's accessible information offers discussions, examples, and analyses of the topics covered, rather than the straight data, formulas, and calculations found in other handbooks. No single engineer can be a specialist in all areas that they are called upon to work in. It's a discipline that covers a broad range of topics that are used as the building blocks for specialized areas, including aerospace, chemical, materials, nuclear, electrical, and general engineering. This third volume of Mechanical Engineers' Handbook covers Manufacturing & Management, and provides accessible and in-depth access to the topics encountered regularly in the discipline: environmentally benign manufacturing, production planning, production processes and equipment, manufacturing systems evaluation, coatings and surface engineering, physical vapor deposition, mechanical fasteners, seal technology, statistical quality control, nondestructive inspection, intelligent control of material handling systems, and much more. Presents the most comprehensive coverage of the entire discipline of Mechanical Engineering Focuses on the explanation and analysis of the concepts presented as opposed to a straight listing of formulas and data found in other handbooks Offers the option of being purchased as a four-book set or as single books Comes in a subscription format through the Wiley Online Library and in electronic and other custom formats Engineers at all levels of industry, government, or private consulting practice will find Mechanical Engineers' Handbook, Volume 3 an "off-the-shelf" reference they'll turn to again and again.