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By providing after-sale services, manufacturing companies can gain more chances to interact with customers, improve brand preference and loyalty, occupy new bases in the value chain, and create more cross-selling opportunities. Considering after-sale service, we propose a new method for product family configuration optimisation in this study. Mathematical models for product family configuration optimisation are established with the objective of maximising the overall profit of the family of products and after-sale services. An adaptive quantum evolutionary algorithm (AQEA) is developed to solve the established optimisation models. An example of an e-book reader product is used to illustrate the proposed method in a case study. An industry case study shows that: (1) the proposed method outperforms the traditional method; (2) the proposed AQEA has better performance when compared with the other three meta-heuristic algorithms; and (3) the proposed method is more useful for industrial cases where the proportion of service profit is relatively large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seldom has research regarding manufacturing process modelling considered the two common types of uncertainties which are caused by randomness as in material properties and by fuzziness as in the inexact knowledge in manufacturing processes. Accuracies of process models can be downgraded if these uncertainties are ignored in the development of process models. In this paper, a hybrid swarm intelligence algorithm for developing process models which intends to achieve significant accuracies for manufacturing process modelling by addressing these two uncertainties is proposed. The hybrid swarm intelligence algorithm first applies the mechanism of particle swarm optimisation to generate structures of process models in polynomial forms, and then it applies the mechanism of fuzzy least square regression algorithm to determine fuzzy coefficients on polynomials so as to address the two uncertainties, fuzziness and randomness. Apart from addressing the two uncertainties, the common feature in manufacturing processes, nonlinearities between process parameters, which are not inevitable in manufacturing processes, can also be addressed. The effectiveness of the hybrid swarm algorithm is demonstrated by modelling of the solder paste dispensing process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fluid dispensing is a popular process in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, commonly being used in die-bonding as well as microchip encapsulation of electronic packaging. Modelling the fluid dispensing process is important to understanding the process behaviour as well as determining the optimum operating conditions of the process for a high-yield, low-cost and robust operation. In this paper, an approach to integrating neural networks with a modified genetic algorithm is presented to model the fluid dispensing process for electronic packaging. The modified genetic algorithm is proposed by incorporating the crossover operator with an orthogonal array. We compare the modified genetic algorithm with the standard genetic algorithm. The results indicate that a better quality encapsulation can be obtained based on the modified genetic algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In apparel manufacturing, accurate upstream fabric-cutting planning is crucial for the smoothness of downstream sewing operations. Effective and reliable fabric-cutting schedules are difficult to obtain because the apparel manufacturing environment is fuzzy and dynamic. In this paper, genetic algorithms and fuzzy-set theory are used to generate fault-tolerant fabric-cutting schedules in a just-in-time production environment. The proposed method is demonstrated by two cases with production data collected from a Hong Kong-owned garment production plant in China. Results of the two cases preliminarily show that the genetically improved fault-tolerant schedules effectively satisfy the demand for downstream production units, guarantee consistent and reliable system performance, and also reduce production costs through reduced operator idle time. More cases will be conducted in order to further validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epoxy dispensing is one of the popular processes to perform microchip encapsulation for chip-on-board (COB) packages. However, determination of proper process parameters setting for optimal quality of the encapsulation is difficult due to the complex behaviour of the encapsulant during dispensing and the uncertainties caused by fuzziness of epoxy dispensing systems. In conventional regression models, deviations between the observed values and the estimated values are supposed to be in probability distribution. However, when data is irregular, the obtained regression model has an unnaturally wide possibility range. In fact, these deviations in some processes such as epoxy dispensing can be regarded as system fuzziness that can be dealt with properly using fuzzy regression method. In this paper, a fuzzy regression approach with fuzzy intervals to process modelling of epoxy dispensing for microchip encapsulation is described. Two fuzzy regression models relating three process parameters and two quality characteristics respectively for epoxy dispensing were developed. They were then introduced to formulate a fuzzy multi-objective optimization problem. A fuzzy linear programming technique was employed to formulate the optimization model. By solving the model, an optimal setting of process parameters can be obtained. Validation experiments were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach to process modelling and optimization of epoxy dispensing for microchip encapsulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, mould design and the setting of the process parameters of transfer moulding for electronic packages are done manually in a trial-and-error manner. The effectiveness of the setting of parameters is largely dependent on the experience of engineers. The paper describes an intelligent process design system for transfer moulding of electronic packages that is used to determine optimal mould design parameters and the setting of the process parameters mainly based on case-based reasoning, artificial neural networks and a multiobjective optimization scheme. The system consists of two modules: a case-based reasoning module and a process optimization module. The former module is used to determine initial mould design parameters and the setting of the process parameters while the latter module is used to determine optimal mould design parameters and the setting of the process parameters. Implementation of the intelligent system has demonstrated that the time for the determination of optimal mould design parameters and the setting of the process parameters can be greatly reduced, and the setting of parameters recommended by the system can contribute to the good quality of moulded packages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a static machine layout is simply optimized to a fixed quantitative demand, it may not be able to cope with demand fluctuations. The development of a heuristic approach called the MAIN (Machines Allocation INter-relationship) algorithm for intracellular machine layout design is introduced. It begins by analysing a single period with a fixed quantitative demand and machine assignment is based on a set of proposed objective functions together with merging techniques. To simulate the demand fluctuations in a multiple periods planning horizon, layouts are generated to fit different demand profiles. Each layout is then processed further. First, at every periodic transition, there is re-layout to minimize the material-handling cost. Second, we will examine the condition of using a layout right through all the periods to keep away from the machine rearrangement cost with some scarifications of the material-handling cost. Comparisons will be done to seek out good machine layout(s). In terms of a single-period layout, the experimental results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm can achieve an average deviation of 4.8% in contrast with optimal solutions. However, to opt for re-layout or not depends very much on the relations between the machine rearrangement and material-handling costs. Moreover, the variations in the qualitative aspects in material handling will also be considered as it has significant influence on the design of the machine layout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Quality Function Deployment, determination of the target values for engineering requirements is the most difficult process. A fuzzy optimization model is presented for the determination of target values for engineering requirements in Quality Function Deployment. An inexact genetic algorithm approach was introduced to solve the model that takes the mutation along the weighted gradient direction as a genetic operator. Instead of obtaining one set of exact optimal target values, the approach can generate a family of inexact optimal target values setting within an acceptable satisfaction degree. Through an interactive approach, a design team can determine a combination of preferred solution sets from which a set of preferred target values of engineering requirements based on a specific design scenario can be obtained. An example of car door design is used to illustrate the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, determination of the initial process parameter settings for injection moulding is mainly performed by moulding personnel, and the effectiveness of the parameter setting is largely dependent on the experience of these personnel. In this paper, an intelligent hybrid system, called HSIM, is described, which is used to determine a set of initial process parameters for injection moulding based on the artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, case-based reasoning (CBR), and hybrid neural network (NN) and genetic algorithm (GA). HSIM can determine a set of initial process parameters for injection moulding quickly, without relying on expert moulding personnel, from which moulded parts free from major moulding defects can be produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minimizing cargo handling time and waiting time of ship are some of the most critical tasks for terminal operators during berth allocation planning. An efficient and effective berth allocation planning approach is not only significant for improving a terminal's productivity but worth even more in enhancing terminal serviceability. As berths are no longer leased by specific ship lines or ship companies in the majority of terminals, ships of various sizes and various cargo handling volume at a particular terminal of call are competing for the same berth for handling. As a result, there are always concerns from both terminal operators and ship companies regarding the service priority. This research contributes to deal with the dilemma terminal operators encountered in balancing service priority and terminal productivity maximization during berth allocation. This research deals with berth allocation problem which treats calling ships at various service priorities with physical constraints. The problem encountered is to determine how to cope with various ships with various attributes in the system, and the objective is to minimize the total service time of a set of given calling ships through proper berth allocation. This research adopts a chaotic genetic algorithm-based method to deal with the problem. The new formulation and method have been proposed and results obtained have been compared with the existing one in literature. The results show the improved feasibility of the proposed formulation and improved convergence speed of the proposed method over the existing one. Also, higher terminal serviceability is indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affective design is an important aspect of new product development that can enhance customer satisfaction of new products. Previous studies generally conducted customer surveys based on questionnaires and interviews to collect customers’ views and preferences of affective design of products. However, the process could be time-consuming and the survey data does not contain much sentiment expression. Presently, a large number of online customer reviews on products can be found on various websites that contain rich information of customer opinions and expectations. However, the generation of useful information based on online customer reviews for affective design has not been addressed in previous studies. In this paper, a methodology for generating association rules for supporting affective design based on online customer reviews is proposed which mainly involves opinion mining of affective dimensions from online customer reviews and association rule mining based on multi-objective particle swarm optimisation (PSO). Opinion mining is adopted to analyze online reviews and conduct sentiment analysis for affective dimensions. Based on the mined information and morphological analysis of products, a multi-objective PSO approach is proposed to generate association rules that depict the relationships between affective dimensions and design attributes. A case study was conducted to illustrate the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue which include the use of particle swarm optimization in customer reviews, the use of machine learning framework to collect product information, and the affective properties of a new product.

Previous studies conducted customer surveys based on questionnaires and interviews, and the survey data were then utilized to analyze product features. In recent years, online customer reviews on products became extremely popular, which contain rich information on customer opinions and expectations. However, previous studies failed to properly address the determination of the importance of product features and prediction of their future importance based on online reviews. Accordingly, a methodology for predicting future importance weights of product features based on online customer reviews is proposed in this paper which mainly involves opinion mining, a fuzzy inference method, and a fuzzy time series method. Opinion mining is adopted to analyze the online reviews and extract product features. A fuzzy inference method is used to determine the importance weights of product features using both frequencies and sentiment scores obtained from opinion mining. A fuzzy time series method is adopted to predict the future importance of product features. A case study on electric irons was conducted to illustrate the proposed methodology. To evaluate the effectiveness of the fuzzy time series method in predicting the future importance, the results obtained by the fuzzy time series method are compared with those obtained by the three common forecasting methods. The results of the comparison show that the prediction results based on fuzzy time series method are better than those based on exponential smoothing, simple moving average, and fuzzy moving average methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely adopted customer-oriented methodology to assist in product design and development. In a traditional QFD-based product planning process, the importance weights of customer requirements (CRs) in house of quality are obtained by analyzing and generalizing the requirements of various customers, and the purpose of the subsequent optimal setting of engineering characteristics (ECs) and process parameters is to achieve a higher level of overall customer satisfaction (OCS). However, nowadays customers’ requirements are increasingly diversified and customers usually have heterogeneous preferences. Consequently, customers in a product market may have different purchasing choice behaviors and satisfaction criteria toward a new product. Therefore, heterogeneity of CRs should be considered in QFD-based optimization models to describe the relationship between CRs and ECs and to model the OCS. In this paper, a novel QFD-based product planning approach is proposed for a product market with diversified CRs by integrating consumer choice behavior analysis. The contributions of this paper include: 1) customers’ purchase choice rules are introduced into QFD-based product planning process to simulate the purchase behavior of a customer toward a product; 2) two new QFD-based optimization models under deterministic and multinomial logit consumer choice rules are proposed to help firms improve the product quality under environment of diversified CRs; 3) the established model under deterministic consumer choice rule is transformed into an equivalent linear model to facilitate the solving process; and 4) the established optimization models are further extended for products with both continuous and discrete target values of ECs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Market demand estimation is an important process to assess the financial feasibility of new product development (NPD) projects. The development of models for market demand estimation involves market potential estimation and choice modeling. Previous studies commonly used conjoint analysis to develop utility functions which were then used in discrete choice models to generate market share models. The jury of executive opinion method is commonly used in industries wherein a number of experts and/or consultants are always involved in the market potential estimation. However, a high degree of fuzziness always exists in the data obtained from conjoint surveys and the market potential estimation because of the subjective judgments of respondents and experts. However, ignorance of the fuzziness would lead to the over-estimation of market demands. This research aims to tackle the fuzziness associated with market potential estimation and survey data in the development of market demand models. In this paper, a new methodology of developing fuzzy market demand models for NPD is proposed to address the fuzziness by which market demands can be estimated for the worst, normal, and best scenarios. The proposed methodology involves fuzzy choice modeling based on fuzzy regression and discrete choice analysis, and fuzzy estimate generation of market potential. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, a case study of market demand estimation of a new tablet PC is conducted based on the proposed methodology. The results of the implementation are compared with those based on a popular multinominal logit (MNL) based demand model. From the comparison, it can be noted that the estimated market demand based on the MNL model is very close to that for the normal scenario based on the proposed fuzzy demand model. However, the MNL model cannot provide estimates for other scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with fierce competition in marketplaces, manufacturers need to determine the appropriate settings of engineering characteristics of the new products so that the best customer preferences of the products can be obtained. To achieve this, functional models relating customer preferences to engineering characteristics need to be developed. As information regarding functional relationships between customer preferences are generally subjective or heuristic in nature, development of the customer preference models involve two uncertainties, namely fuzziness and randomness. Existing approaches use only fuzzy-based technologies to address the uncertainty caused by fuzziness. They are not designed to address the randomness of the observed data which is caused by a limited knowledge of the variability of influences between customer preferences and engineering characteristics. In this article, a fuzzy ordinary regression method is proposed to develop the customer preference models which are capable of addressing the two uncertainties of crispness and fuzziness of the customer preferences. A case study of a tea maker design which involves both uncertainties is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of a new product is very much related to the customer satisfaction level of the product. Therefore, it is important to estimate the customer satisfaction level of a new product in its design stage. Quality function deployment is commonly used to develop customer satisfaction models for product design. Relationships between customer satisfaction and design attributes are highly fuzzy and nonlinear, but these relationship characteristics cannot be captured by existing customer satisfaction models. In this paper, we propose a novel chaos-based fuzzy regression (FR) approach with which fuzzy customer satisfaction models with second- and/or higher order terms, and interaction terms can be developed. The proposed approach uses a chaos optimization algorithm to generate the polynomial structures of customer satisfaction models. Thereafter, it employs an FR method to determine the fuzzy coefficients of the individual terms of models. To illustrate and validate the proposed approach, it is applied in the development of a customer satisfaction model for a mobile phone design. Five validation tests are conducted to compare modeling results from the chaos-based FR with those from statistical regression, FR, and fuzzy least-squares regression. Results of the validation tests show that the proposed approach outperforms the other three approaches in terms of mean relative errors and variance of errors and customer satisfaction models with second- and/or higher order terms, and interaction terms can be developed effectively using the proposed chaos-based FR approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional product development process, supplier selection is performed in the production stage when the product design stage has finished. Recently, some scholars found that decoupling the supplier selection and product design may lead to infeasible or suboptimal solutions, and a number of research papers proposed methods integrating supplier selection into product family design. In this research, a one-step product family optimization model integrating supplier selection decision is established based on multinomial logit consumer choice rule. As a kind of widely used discrete choice model, multinomial logit consumer choice rule is regarded to be more flexible and suitable to formulate consumer choice behavior. Genetic algorithm is developed to solve the established nonlinear optimization model. The optimization result under multinomial logit rule is compared with that under the deterministic choice rule in the case study and sensitivity analysis of the model is performed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, a model that assists developers to evaluate and compare alternative reuse scenarios in software product line (SPL) development systematically in proposed. The model can identify basic activities (abstracted as operations) and precisely relate cost and reliability with each basic operation. A typical reuse mode is described from the perspectives of application and domain engineering. According to this scheme, six reuse modes are identified, and alternative industry reuse scenarios can be derived from these modes. A bi-objective 0-1 integer programming model is developed to help decision makers select reuse scenarios when they develop a SPL to minimize cost and maximize reliability while satisfying system requirements to a certain degree. This model is called the cost and reliability optimization under constraint satisfaction (CROS). To design the model efficiently, a three-phase algorithm for finding all efficient solutions is developed, where the first two phases can obtain an efficient solution, and the last phase can generate a nonsupported efficient solution. Two practical methods are presented to facilitate decision making on selecting from the entire range of efficient solutions in light of the decision-maker's preference for man-computer interaction. An application of the CROS model in a mail server system development is presented as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product line design is a key decision area that a product development team has to deal with in the early stages of product development. Previous studies of product line design have focused on single-objective optimization. However, several optimization objectives may be simultaneously pursued, and the solutions that can address the objectives are required in many practical scenarios. In this research, we propose a one-step multiobjective optimization approach for product line design. The proposed optimization model has three objectives: 1) maximizing the market share of a company's products; 2) minimizing the total product development cost of a product line; and 3) minimizing the total product development cycle time. A curve-fitting method is introduced into the part-worth utility models so that the optimization model can be applied to products with level-based attributes and attributes that have continuous values. A multiobjective genetic algorithm is adopted to solve the optimization model, obtaining a set of nondominated solutions. With the solutions, a new product development team can select a preferred solution interactively in a 2-D graph. An example of the optimal design of a product line of digital cameras is used to illustrate the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Modeling of manufacturing processes is important because it enables manufacturers to understand the process behavior and determine the optimum operating conditions of the process for a high yield, low cost and robust operation. However, existing techniques in modeling manufacturing processes cannot address the whole common issues in developing models for manufacturing processes: a) manufacturing processes are usually nonlinear in nature; b) a small amount of experimental data is only available for developing manufacturing process models; c) outliers often exist in experimental data; d) explicit models in a polynomial form are often preferred by manufacturing process engineers; and e) models with satisfactory prediction accuracy are required. In this paper, a modeling algorithm, namely, the particle swarm optimization-based fuzzy regression (PSO-FR) approach, is proposed to generate fuzzy nonlinear regression models, which seek to address all of the common issues in developing models for manufacturing processes. The PSO-FR first employs the operations of particle swarm optimization to generate the structures of the process models in nonlinear polynomial form, and then it employs a fuzzy coefficient generator to identify outliers in the original experimental data. Fuzzy coefficients of the process models are determined by the fuzzy coefficient generator in which the experimental data excluding the outliers is used. The effectiveness of the PSO-FR approach is evaluated by modeling the manufacturing process liquid epoxy molding process which is a commonly used technology for microchip encapsulation in electronic packaging. Results were compared with those based on the commonly used modeling methods. It was found that PSO-FR can achieve better goodness-of-fitness than other methods. Also, the prediction accuracy of the model developed based on the PSO-FR is better than the other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to incorporate the customer into the early phase of the product development cycle and to better satisfy customers' requirements, this article adopts quality function deployment (QFD) for optimal design of a scalable product platform. A five-step QFD-based method is proposed to determine the optimal values for platform engineering characteristics (ECs) and non-platform ECs of the products within a product family. First of all, the houses of quality (HoQs) for all product variants are developed and a QFD-based optimization approach is used to determine the optimal ECs for each product variant. Sensitivity analysis is performed for each EC with respect to overall customer satisfaction (OCS). Based on the obtained sensitivity indices of ECs, a mathematical model is established to simultaneously optimize the values of the platform and the non-platform ECs. Finally, by comparing and analysing the optimal solutions with different number of platform ECs, the ECs with which the worst OCS loss can be avoided are selected as platform ECs. An illustrative example is used to demonstrate the feasibility of this method. A comparison between the proposed method and a two-step approach is conducted on the example. The comparison shows that, as a kind of single-stage approach, the proposed method yields better average degree of customer satisfaction due to the simultaneous optimization of platform and non-platform ECs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty in manufacturing processes is caused both by randomness, as in material properties, and by fuzziness, as in the inexact knowledge. Previous research has seldom considered these two types of uncertainty when modeling manufacturing processes. In this paper, a hybrid fuzzy least-squares regression (HFLSR) approach to modeling manufacturing processes, which does take into consideration these two types of uncertainty, is proposed and described, and a new form of weighted fuzzy arithmetic is introduced to develop the hybrid fuzzy least-squares regression method. The proposed HFLSR approach not only features the capability of dealing with the two types of uncertainty, but also addresses the consideration of replication of responses in experiments. To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed approach to process modeling, it was applied to the modeling solder paste dispensing process. Modeling results were compared with those based on statistical regression and fuzzy linear regression. It was found that the accuracy of prediction based on the HFLSR is slightly better than that based on statistical regression and much better than that based on the Peters fuzzy regression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Process modelling refers to the development of a process model that serves to provide the input-output relationship of a process, while process optimisation provides the optimum operating conditions of a process for a high-yield, low cost and robust operation. Normally, process modelling is a starting point of process optimisation. In this paper, a method of integrating artificial neural networks with a gradient search method for process modelling and optimisation is presented. Artificial neural networks are used to develop process models while a gradient search method is used in process optimisation. Application of the method to the modelling and optimisation of epoxy dispensing for microchip encapsulation is described. Results of the validation tests indicate that good quality of encapsulation can be obtained based on the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) process, determining the importance weights for the customer requirements is an essential and crucial process. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used to determine the importance weights for product planning, but this has occurred mainly in crisp (non-fuzzy) decision applications. However, human judgment on the importance of customer requirements is always imprecise and vague. To make up for this deficiency in the AHP. a fuzzy AHP with an extent analysis approach is proposed to determine the importance weights for the customer requirements. In the method, triangular fuzzy numbers are used for the pairwise comparison of a fuzzy AHP. By using the extent analysis method and the principles for the comparison of fuzzy numbers, one can derive the weight vectors. The new approach can improve the imprecise ranking of customer requirements inherited from studies based on the conventional AHP. Furthermore, the fuzzy AHP with extent analysis is simple and easy to implement to prioritize customer requirements in the QFD process compared with the conventional AHP. This paper uses an example of a hair dryer design to illustrate the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kraus and Yano (2003) established the share-of-surplus product line optimisation model and developed a heuristic procedure for this nonlinear mixed-integer optimisation model. In their model, price of a product is defined as a continuous decision variable. However, because product line optimisation is a planning process in the early stage of product development, pricing decisions usually are not very precise. In this research, a nonlinear integer programming share-of-surplus product line optimization model that allows the selection of candidate price levels for products is established. The model is further transformed into an equivalent linear mixed-integer optimisation model by applying linearisation techniques. Experimental results in different market scenarios show that the computation time of the transformed model is much less than that of the original model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a supplier selection and order allocation (SSOA)model to solve the problemof amultiperiod supplier selection and then order allocation in the environment of short product life cycle and frequentmaterial purchasing, for example, fast fashion environment in apparel industry. At the first stage, with consideration of multiple decision criteria and the fuzziness of the data involved in deciding the preferences of multiple decision variables in supplier selection, the fuzzy extent analytic hierarchy process (FEAHP) is adopted. In the second stage, supplier ranks are inputted into an order allocation model that aims at minimizing the risk of material purchasing and minimizing the total material purchasing costs using a dynamic programming approach, subject to constraints on deterministic customer demand and deterministic supplier capacity. Numerical examples are presented, and computational results are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]