Browsing by Subject "Inventory"
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Item Applying lean methods to the automotive industry(2011-05) Mohan, Vinay; Grady, W. M.; Ambler, Tony'Lean Manufacturing' is a production practice that aims to reduce shop floor inventory in a manufacturing firm. Its origins extending deep into Japanese history, manufacturing works on tight material control policies and aims to achieve as close to 'stockless production' and 'zero inventories' as possible. The goals of Lean Manufacturing or the seven zeroes (zero defects, setup time, breakdowns, handling, lead time and surging) hence all strive to achieve zero inventory by producing what is needed when needed, thereby eliminating storage costs and capital tied up in inventory. The history of manufacturing in America is explored and compared to that of far eastern societies. This thesis then introduces the development of JIT, Lean Manufacturing and their immediate vii effects on the world. Techniques are explored for implementing lean methods in an automobile manufacturing firm – whether (and how) an automobile manufacturer can bring down his costs using the same and what changes will need to be done to their existing manufacturing processes. Advantages, disadvantages and possible setbacks one may encounter while attempting to implement lean methods are also explored.Item Climate action strategies for the University of Texas at Austin(2010-05) Hernandez, Marinoelle; Eaton, David J.; Walker, Jim H.This report analyzes the current greenhouse gas emissions inventory for The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), reviews the carbon reduction strategies being implemented at UT-Austin and other peer institutions, and offers recommendations for strategies that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions at UT-Austin in the future.Item Development of mobile platform for inventory and inspection applications in nuclear environments(2015-12) Anderson, Robert Blake; Landsberger, Sheldon; Pryor, Mitchell WayneThe efforts made towards deploying a mobile robotic system at Los Alamos National Laboratory are detailed in this thesis. The platform application is non-contact tasks related to inspection, inventory, and radiation surveying. It is intended for a Special Nuclear Material storage facility featuring a high radiation environment and a variety of storage modes. New robotic capabilities have been developed using several mobile platforms to address the requirements of this application. Many of challenges are common to any warehouse application, such as autonomous task planning, vision, navigation, and inventory data management. Others are specific to a nuclear laboratory environment, such as radiation measurement and analysis, response to radioactive contamination, criticality safety, and restrictive security measures. This thesis describes the progress made towards meeting these challenges, outstanding issues, and future work that is necessary to complete the project. Nuclear facilities are under ever-increasing demands to reduce worker radiation exposure. Since the vault is a high radiation area, it is one of the first targets at Los Alamos for the application of novel solutions. The deployment of this system promises to enhance worker safety by reducing their presence inside the vault and therefore total occupational dose. As robotic systems become more trusted in the nuclear weapons complex, it also has the potential to reduce total operator labor by performing time-consuming tasks autonomously.Item Joint optimization of location and inventory decisions for improving supply chain cost performance(2009-05-15) Keskin, Burcu BarisThis dissertation is focused on investigating the integration of inventory and facility location decisions in different supply chain settings. Facility location and inventory decisions are interdependent due to the economies of scale that are inherent in transportation and replenishment costs. The facility location decisions have an impact on the transportation and replenishment costs which, in turn, affect the optimal inventory policy. On the other hand, the inventory policy dictates the frequency of shipments to replenish inventory which, in turn, affects the number of deliveries, and, hence, the transportation costs, between the facilities. Therefore, our main research objectives are to: ? compare the optimal facility location, determined by minimizing total transportation costs, to the one determined by the models that also consider the timing and quantity of inventory replenishments and corresponding costs, ? investigate the effect of facility location decisions on optimal inventory decisions, and ? measure the impact of integrated decision-making on overall supply chain cost performance. Placing a special emphasis on the explicit modeling of transportation costs, we develop several novel models in mixed integer linear and nonlinear optimization programming. Based on how the underlying facility location problem is modeled, these models fall into two main groups: 1) continuous facility location problems, and 2) discrete facility location problems. For the stylistic models, the focus is on the development of analytical solutions. For the more general models, the focus is on the development of efficient algorithms. Our results demonstrate ? the impact of explicit transportation costs on integrated decisions, ? the impact of different transportation cost functions on integrated decisions in the context of continuous facility location problems of interest, ? the value of integrated decision-making in different supply chain settings, and ? the performance of solution methods that jointly optimize facility location and inventory decisions.Item Strategic implementation of information technology to improve retail business in India(Texas Tech University, 2005-05) Pande, Swapnil D.; Collins, Terry R.; Smith, Milton L.; Rivero, Iris V.Overall retail business efficiency in India is 2 %, even though India is considered as one of the countries, where Information Technology (IT) is booming. With the survey and statistical tests, the level of IT implementation and Inventory Control Model (ICM) used by the companies were accessed. These were compared with the level of Demand and Supply Efficiency (DSE). The results implied that the efficiency of the supply chain is the efficiency of its weakest link. Merely implementing high tech IT won’t solve the problem. Centralized Inventory Control Model (CICM) will be needed to reduce the bullwhip effect. The plan to implement the CICM, by suggesting the change in the supply chain architecture was written. This thesis work should be in the realm of consideration since only recently (September 2004), ‘Retailers Association of India’ (RAI) has been formed with the goal to improve overall retail business in India.