Complexity and workload considerations in product mix decisions under the theory of constraints

The literature on the product mix decision (or master production scheduling) under the Theory of Constraints (TOC), which was developed in the past two decades, has addressed this problem as a static operational decision. Consequently, the developed solution techniques do not consider the system's dynamism and the associated challenges arising from the complexity of operations during the implementation of master production schedules. This paper aims to address this gap by developing a new heuristic approach for master production scheduling under the TOC philosophy that considers the main operational factors that influence actual throughput after implementation of the detailed schedule. We examine the validity of the proposed heuristic by comparison to Integer Linear Programming and two heuristics in a wide range of scenarios using simulation modelling. Statistical analyses indicate that the new algorithm leads to significantly enhanced performance during implementation for problems with setup times. The findings show that the bottleneck identification approach in current methods in the TOC literature is not effective and accurate for complex operations in real‐world job shop systems. This study contributes to the literature on master production scheduling and product mix decisions by enhancing the likelihood of achieving anticipated throughput during the implementation of the detailed schedule. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 357–369, 2015     

弹药生产响应能力综合评价指标权重组合方法

针对战时弹药需求的不确定性而造成对生产能力冲击的特点,为科学地确定综合评价指标权重,评价军工企业弹药生产响应能力,运用基于偏差平方和最小的综合评价指标粗糙集与网络分析法的权重组合算法,将定性与定量评价方法相结合,为客观评价企业弹药生产响应能力提供了科学的依据,对提高弹药生产决策的军事经济效益具有重要的意义。     

汽车生产厂房消防设计与规范的矛盾点论述

根据汽车生产厂房的特点,分别从厂房的火灾危险性确定、耐火等级确定、厂房的防火分区、人员疏散距离、厂房的灭火系统设置、厂房的消防给水、涂装车间消防水枪出口等方面论述了汽车生产厂房与现行《建筑设计防火规范》规定不符合的内容,并提出了建议。     

Missile systems: “Flexible modularity” and incremental technological change in military production∗

It is often stated that technological change in the military field is characterised by the introduction of radical innovations rather than by incremental processes of technological change. This article illustrates the diversity of military innovation by arguing that technological change in missiles systems is dominated by incremental change. While some large weapons platforms display the design rigidities normally associated with complex systems, missiles are characterised by “flexible modularity”. Flexible modularity facilitates the continuous introduction of upgrades, and makes missile systems amenable to gradual technological change. Besides, it has significant implications for the future role of missile systems, and poses special problems for missile disarmament and technology control initiatives.     

Country survey VIII: Federal republic of Yugoslavia

This survey article focuses on defence economics issues and provides data and analysis on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's (FRY) defence policy, defence spending, the size of its armed forces, its defence industries and the cost of the civil war. The main section is devoted to the period from 1990 to the present and deals with the following aspects: the situation after the break‐up of the former Yugoslavia, general economic data; the cost of the civil war, the defence budget; the armed forces; the manufacture of armaments and the structure of the defence industry.     

A PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS OF THE SECURITY AND DEFENCE TECHNOLOGICAL AND INDUSTRIAL BASE IN SPAIN

This study analyses the performance of the productivity of the main industrial subsectors composing the security and defence technological and industrial base (SDTIB) in Spain from 1996 to 2009. Accordingly, we have used the non-parametric data envelopment analysis and bootstrapping techniques to compute Malmquist productivity indexes that allow us to split productivity growth into efficiency change and technical progress. The results obtained show productivity improvement in the SDTIB as a whole due mainly to advances in technology and to a lesser extent to the contribution of technical efficiency. The bootstrap approach yields further evidence, as for many cases, productivity growth or decline, is not statistically significant. This is the first time a study of this kind has been carried out on the production process of this sector in Spain.     

中学文学教育现状研究

调查显示,中学文学教育所存在的问题涉及社会环境、教育理念、课程设置、教育内容、教育形式方法、评估机制、物质条件等诸多方面。要改变现状,需加强文学教育的理论研究和实践探索,转变观念,完善结构,创造灵活多样的教学形式和方法。     

利用灰色理论建立舰艇批量生产成本预测模型的探讨

探讨了应用灰色理论建立舰船批量生产成本预测模型的可行性,并针对国内外两型舰船,采用灰色理论,建立ＧＭ（１,１）模型,进行数列预测,取得了精度较高的结果．     

The economic impact of peacekeeping. Evidence from South Sudan

This paper investigates the effect of the deployment of United Nations Blue Helmets on economic activity in South Sudan with a special focus on agricultural production. Since UN troops are predicted to improve security, in particular, we expect a positive relationship between deployment of UN blue Helmets and cereal production. We test our hypothesis using an original data-set including all the 78 South Sudanese counties over the period 2009–2011. We control for the non-random assignment of UN troops through an Instrumental Variables approach. Our empirical results show that a 10% increase in the size of the troop allows the production of additional 600 tonnes.     

Optimal joint preventive maintenance and production policies

We study joint preventive maintenance (PM) and production policies for an unreliable production‐inventory system in which maintenance/repair times are non‐negligible and stochastic. A joint policy decides (a) whether or not to perform PM and (b) if PM is not performed, then how much to produce. We consider a discrete‐time system, formulating the problem as a Markov decision process (MDP) model. The focus of the work is on the structural properties of optimal joint policies, given the system state comprised of the system's age and the inventory level. Although our analysis indicates that the structure of optimal joint policies is very complex in general, we are able to characterize several properties regarding PM and production, including optimal production/maintenance actions under backlogging and high inventory levels, and conditions under which the PM portion of the joint policy has a control‐limit structure. In further special cases, such as when PM set‐up costs are negligible compared to PM times, we are able to establish some additional structural properties. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.