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Manufacturing Technology (manufacturing + technology)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Polymers and Materials Science	28%
Engineering	28%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	21%

Selected Abstracts

Acrylic Nanocomposite Resins for Use in Stereolithography and Structural Light Modulation Based Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Manufacturing Technologies,

ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS, Issue 16 2008
Matthias Gurr
Abstract A novel family of optically transparent acrylic nanocomposites containing up to 30,wt,% silica nanoparticles with an average diameter of 20,nm was developed for application in structural light modulation (SLM) and stereolithography (SL) technologies. The uniform dispersion of nanoparticles affords a significantly improved toughness/stiffness-balance of the photopolymerized and postcured nanocomposites. It is possible to increase stiffness, as expressed by Young's modulus, from 1290 to 1700,MPa without encountering the embrittlement typical for many other conventional filled polymers. Fracture behaviour is examined by means of fracture mechanics investigation and SEM analyses of fracture surfaces. According to TEM analyses and measurement of optical transmittance remarkable uniform dispersion of silica nanoparticles was achieved. The silica nanoparticle concentrations up to 17,wt,% give only marginally higher viscosities and do not affect transmittance, while slightly increasing the exposure times needed in photopolymerization. Moreover, the silica nanoparticles afford materials with reduced shrinkage and improved properties. The green effective ankle splay out (EASO) measured on H-shaped diagnostic specimens, is significantly reduced for the nanocomposite materials from 1.38,mm for the unfilled material to 0.82,mm for nanocomposites containing 30,wt,% nanosilica. The building accuracy is increased significantly with increasing content of silica nanofillers. [source]

Skills, Flexible Manufacturing Technology, and Work Organization

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 1 2002
H. Frederick Gale
This study employs a national survey of over 3000 U.S. manufacturing establishments to explore associations between worker skill requirements and use of production and telecommunications technologies, work organization, and other management practices. Ordered probit equations show an empirical link between increases in each of six types of skill requirements, as reported by plant managers, and the use of flexible technologies and work organization practices. Technology use is most strongly linked to computer skill requirements. Work organization practices were strongly associated with problem-solving and interpersonal skill increases, suggesting that new work organization practices are broadening the set of skills sought by manufacturers. Traditional academic skills (e.g., math and reading) also were linked to the use of flexible technologies and work organization practices, but increases in these skill requirements were reported less frequently than were requirements for computer, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills. [source]

Manufacturing technology for terrestrial PV systems: high efficiency crystalline Si through amorphous Si

PROGRESS IN PHOTOVOLTAICS: RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS, Issue 2 2002
Minoru Kaneiwa
In order to meet the rapidly growing demands for solar power photovoltaic systems, grounded on public consciousness of global environmental issues, Sharp has increased the production of solar cells and modules 50-fold in last 7 years. Efforts to establish manufacturing technologies of solar cells for terrestial use and approaches toward high light-to-electricity conversion efficiency using silicon material (crystalline to amorphous ) are described. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

The Determinants of Organizational Change and Structural Inertia: Technological and Organizational Factors

JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 4 2002
Massimo G. Colombo
There are a growing body of theoretical work, wide anecdotal evidence, and a few large-scale empirical studies supporting the view that business firms quite rarely change their organizational structure, a phenomenon usually referred to in the literature as structural inertia. The present paper aims to analyze empirically the determinants of structural inertia and organizational change. As far as we know, this work constitutes the first attempt to directly address such issues through econometric estimates based on a large, longitudinal dataset at plant level. For this purpose, we consider changes of the organizational structure within a sample composed of 438 Italian manufacturing plants observed from 1975 to 1996. More precisely, we specify and test a duration model of the likelihood of an individual plant changing the number of hierarchical tiers after a spell r, provided that no change has occurred up to T. We also analyze the direction of change, distinguishing increases from decreases of the number of managerial layers. We consider a set of plant- and industry-specific explanatory variables that are expected to induce or oppose organizational change. The findings show that the adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies and new human-resources management practices favors organizational change. On the contrary, the presence of sunk costs and the extent of influence activities figure prominently in explaining structural inertia of business organizations. [source]

The profitability-risk tradeoff of just-in-time manufacturing technologies

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 5 2003
Jeffrey L. Callen
Qualitative survey studies and a recent quantitative study by Callen et al. (2000) indicate that JIT manufacturing is more profitable than conventional non-JIT manufacturing. This study tests the hypothesis that the excess profitability of JIT manufacturing just compensates for the additional operational risks of JIT technology relative to conventional manufacturing. An often-suggested alternative hypothesis is that JIT manufacturing dominates conventional manufacturing in reducing costs and increasing revenues and that risk is not an issue. The multivariate results unambiguously reject the hypothesis that excess JIT profits are compensation for additional risk. We find that profitability is inversely related to risk, especially for JIT plants. We also find that the JIT plants in our sample are more profitable than non-JIT plants even after adjusting for risk, consistent with the dominance argument. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

EFFECTS OF OPERATIONAL EMPLOYEE SKILLS ON ADVANCED MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY PERFORMANCE

PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2000
MARK PAGELL
This study employs structured interviews in a field setting to develop an in-depth understanding of how a specific human resource decision affected manufacturing performance at 30 plants using advanced manufacturing technologies. Initial results suggested that there is no relationship between the skill level of operational employees and the level of performance of the installations. When a measure of "fit" between environmental characteristics and skills was employed, however, there was a significant relationship between the fit measure and performance. [source]

Manufacturing technology for terrestrial PV systems: high efficiency crystalline Si through amorphous Si

Recent Advances in White Organic Light-Emitting Materials and Devices (WOLEDs)

ADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 5 2010
Kiran T. Kamtekar
Abstract WOLEDs offer new design opportunities in practical solid-state lighting and could play a significant role in reducing global energy consumption. Obtaining white light from organic LEDs is a considerable challenge. Alongside the development of new materials with improved color stability and balanced charge transport properties, major issues involve the fabrication of large-area devices and the development of low-cost manufacturing technology. This Review will describe the types of materials (small molecules and polymers) that have been used to fabricate WOLEDs. A range of device architectures are presented and appraised. [source]

SOFCo Planar Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED CERAMIC TECHNOLOGY, Issue 1 2004
Liang A. Xue
SOFCo-EFS Holdings LLC has developed a multi-layer, planar solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stack that has the potential to provide superior performance and reliability at reduced costs. Our approach combines state-of-the-art SOFC materials with the manufacturing technology and infrastructure established for multi-layer ceramic (MLC) packages for the microelectronics industry. With the proper selection of SOFC materials, implementation of MLC fabrication methods offers unique designs for stacks. Over the past two years, substantial progress has been made in the design and manufacturing development of our second-generation stack. Effective stack and manifold seals have been developed. Cell performance has been improved and relatively low non-cell contributions to stack resistance have been achieved. Stack development has been facilitated through the implementation of two key test methods: (1) a 10-cm single-cell test to bridge the gap in performance data obtained from button cell tests (used for cell R&D) and stack tests; and (2) a novel instrumented short stack (<5 cells) that allows for effective isolation of individual contributions to stack resistance. As a result of progress made to date, a clear pathway for improving stack performance has been established, thereby building confidence that commercial stack performance targets will be reached. [source]

Cover Picture: Multilayer Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes: White-Light Emission with High Efficiency (Adv. Mater.

ADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 17 2005
17/2005)
Abstract White-light-emitting polymer diodes can be fabricated by solution processing using a blend of luminescent semiconducting polymers and organometallic complexes as the emission layer, and water-soluble (or ethanol-soluble) polymers and/or small molecules as the hole-injection/transport layer (HIL/HTL) and the electron injection/transport layer (EIL/ETL), as reported on p.,2053 by Gong, Bazan, Heeger and co-workers. Illumination-quality light is obtained from these multilayer, high-performance devices, with stable CIE coordinates, color temperatures, and high color-rendering indices all close to those of "pure" white light. The cover illustration envisages the incorporation of the fabrication technique with low-cost manufacturing technology in order to produce large areas of high-quality white light. [source]

Characterization of pottery from the Republic of Macedonia I: Raman analyses of Byzantine glazed pottery excavated from Prilep and Skopje (12th,14th century)

JOURNAL OF RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY, Issue 9 2009
Vinka Tanevska
Abstract In order to gain some understanding of and to characterize the materials used in Byzantine glazed ceramic finds in the Republic of Macedonia, as well as to obtain information on their manufacturing technology, micro-Raman spectra of 15 representative glazed shards, all dated from 12th to 14th century, were recorded. The elemental composition of the body and glaze of selected shards was obtained by scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDXS). At least 17 different minerals in the ceramic body were identified from the Raman spectra, among which were a variety of feldspars (microcline, albite and sanidine) as well as andradite, apatite and forsterite. According to the identified minerals, locations of the used raw materials in the vicinity of the archaeological sites are proposed. There is a good correlation between the polymerization index derived from the Raman spectra and the lead content obtained from the SEM-EDXS analyses, therefore the firing temperature of the analyzed glazes could be assessed. The SEM-EDXS analyses showed the presence of different coloring agents (Cu, Co, Cr, Sb) as well as opacifying (Sb) and fluxing (Pb) agents in the glaze matrix. The content of P2O5 in the glaze of one of the shards is also discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

COMPETITIVE PRIORITIES: INVESTIGATING THE NEED FOR TRADE-OFFS IN OPERATIONS STRATEGY

PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2002
KENNETH K. BOYER
A heated debate continues over the need for trade-offs in operations strategy. Some researchers call for plants to focus on a single manufacturing capability and devote their limited resources accordingly, while others claim that advanced manufacturing technology (amt) enables concurrent improvements in quality, cost, flexibility, and delivery. Yet there is little empirical evidence for or against the trade-off model. In response, this study addresses the question: "To what extent do manufacturing plants view competitive priorities as trade-offs?" We employ survey data collected from managers and operators in 110 plants that have recently implemented AMT. Our findings suggest that trade-offs remain. However, perceived differences in competitive priorities are subtle and may vary across levels of the plant hierarchy. [source]

ROMAN WINDOW GLASS: A COMPARISON OF FINDINGS FROM THREE DIFFERENT ITALIAN SITES

ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 2 2010
R. ARLETTI
Thirty-three samples of window glass and five glass lumps coming from three Italian archaeological sites,the Suasa excavations (Ancona, settled from the third century bc to the fifth to sixth centuries ad), the Roman town of Mevaniola (Forlì-Cesena, settled from the Imperial Age up to the fourth century ad) and Theodoric's Villa of Galeata (Forlì-Cesena, settled from the sixth century ad onwards),were analysed to track the changes in the chemical composition and manufacturing technology of window glass through the centuries. The aims of this study were: (1) to establish the origin of the raw materials; (2) to verify the chemical homogeneity among samples coming from different sites and/or produced using different techniques; and (3) to sort the samples into the compositional groups of ancient glass. The analysis of all the chemical variables allowed two groups to be distinguished: (a) finds from Mevaniola and Suasa; and (b) finds from Galeata. All the samples had a silica,soda,lime composition, but the analysis of minor elements,in particular, of Fe, Mn, and Ti,made it possible to split the samples into two groups, with the higher levels of these elements always found in the Galeata samples (HIMT glass). In conclusion, it can be asserted that the main differences between the samples are related to their chronology. [source]

USING OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY TO EXAMINE THE SUBSURFACE MORPHOLOGY OF CHINESE GLAZES

ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 5 2009
M.-L. YANG
Optical coherence tomography (OCT), a new method for ceramics research, is a nondestructive, three-dimensional tomography system, which provides subsurface morphology visualization of samples based on the refractive index or dielectric constant differences in the target specimen. In this study, seven shards from different Chinese kilns of Song and Yuan dynasties (10,14th centuries) were scanned to visualize the subsurface morphology of their glazes. The images revealed unique phase assemblage modes in different samples. The results suggest OCT may be used to identify ceramics and provide information about their manufacturing technology. [source]