How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

A prevalent and pervasive view of designing is that it can be modeled using variables and decisions made about what values should be taken by these variables. The activity of designing is carried out with the expectation that the designed artifact will operate in the natural world and the social world. These worlds impose constraints on the variables and their values; so, design could be described as a goal-oriented, constrained, decision- making activity. However, design distinguish- es itself from other similarly described activities not only by its domain but also by additional necessary features. Designing involves exploration, exploring what variables might be appropriate. The process of explo- ration involves both goal variables and deci- sion variables. In addition, designing involves learning: Part of the exploration activity is learning about emerging features as a design proceeds. Finally, design activity occurs within two contexts: the context within which the designer operates and the context produced by the developing design itself. The designer’s perception of what the context is affects the implication of the context on the design. The context shifts as the designer’s perceptions change. Design activity can be now characterized as a goal-oriented, con- strained, decision-making, exploration, and learning activity that operates within a con- text that depends on the designer’s percep- tion of the context.

Design Prototypes: A Knowledge Representation Schema for Design

The cement sub-sector consumes approximately 12–15% of total industrial energy use. Therefore, a state of art review on the energy use and savings is necessary to identify energy wastage so that necessary measures could be implemented to reduce energy consumption in this sub-sector. In this paper energy use at different sections of cement industries, specific energy consumption, types of energy use, details of cement manufacturing processes, various energy savings measures were reviewed and presented. Various energy savings measures were critically analyzed considering amount of energy that can be saved along with the implementation cost. Amount of CO2 reduction has been presented along with the payback period for different energy savings measures as well. This study complied a comprehensive literature on the cement industries in terms of Thesis (MS and PhD), peer reviewed journals papers, conference proceedings, books, reports, websites. It has been observed that China producing major share of global cement production. Coal contribute major share of fuel used in cement industries. However, along with conventional fuels, industries are moving towards the use of alternative fuels to reduce environmental pollution. It was reported that cement industries are moving from wet process to dry process as it consume less energy compared to wet process.

A critical review on energy use and savings in the cement industries

Agricultural products such as coffee, tobacco, tea, fruit, cocoa beans, rice, nuts, and timber generally require drying through a consistent application of relatively low heat. Traditionally, crop drying has been accomplished by burning wood and fossil fuels in ovens or open air drying under screened sunlight. These methods, however, have their shortcomings. The former is expensive and damages the environment and the latter is susceptible to the variety and unpredictability of the weather. Solar crop drying is a happy medium between these two methods and it dries crops with more efficiency, uniformity, and less expense. A solar crop drying system does not solely depend on solar energy to function; it combines fuel burning with the energy of the sun, thus reducing fossil fuel consumption. In this paper, the status of solar drying technologies in developing countries is presented. The various designs of solar dryers, its types and performance analysis are reviewed. Special attention is given to the solar drying technologies that facilitate drying of crops in off-sunshine hours. The solar dryers specifically designed or tested using specific crops like the vegetable dryer, fruit dryer, grain dryer, grape dryer, and so on are also reviewed with details about the specifications and the results. In short, the state of art technologies and development of solar dryers are presented in this paper.

A review of solar drying technologies

Building envelope is a key element in providing adequate energy and thermal comfort performance to buildings. In this regard, improvement solutions are implemented in recent studies that focus on new techniques and methods. The main techniques adopted in this context are discussed to identify modern and effective methods with a particular focus on phase change materials (PCMs). Incorporating PCMs with building construction materials is a booming technology, owing to their enhancement potential of storing and releasing heat during phase transition. This work highlights the importance of PCMs in building envelope, focusing on roof and external wall applications. PCM types, general and desired properties and application area are presented and discussed. Influential parameters, incorporation techniques and methods, main numerical tools, and modelling equations are used to describe the thermal behaviour of PCM. A comprehensive assessment on the basis of recent studies has been conducted to point out the potential of PCM with the most appropriate techniques under different locations. The main findings of PCM thermal performance have been described, considering the cooling/heating load reduction, energy-saving and thermal comfort gained along with several research hiatuses for future studies.

Incorporation of phase change materials into building envelope for thermal comfort and energy saving: A comprehensive analysis

To improve the performance of a helicopter turboshaft engine requires optimising the energy yield of the different components, and more particularly controlling clearance between the tips of the high pressure turbine blades and the stator. Dimension-chain tools take into account the manufacturing dispersion of the parts and assembly defects. This ensures the interchangeability of the different components and guarantees that a turbine can carry out different service functions, as the turbine is modelled in infinitely rigid solids. However, this approach does not take thermomechanical effects into account. And yet, the different operating regimes of a helicopter engine make it indispensable that the effects caused by the thermodynamic cycle should be integrated. The aim of this article is to show how using dimension chain and thermomechanical tools can contribute to controlling clearances at the tip of a high pressure turbine blade.

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Integration of thermomechanical strains into tolerancing analysis

Comparison of two non-equilibrium models for static grain deep-bed drying by numerical simulations

Early stages of the design process are often based on designers' experience; assumptions and irreversible decisions restricting the solution space are taken. It is difficult to take into account simultaneously every requirement imposed by the different phases of the product life-cycle. In this paper, a method is proposed to perform the analysis of the embodiment design problem. It facilitates the search of the indispensable elements, suitable for structuring the preliminary design phase. Our approach is performed for the relevant life-cycle situations of the product. A four level analysis (need, functions, organic structure and physical behaviours) is proposed. The set of structuring elements allow the design problem definition as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP).

/pdf/structuring-of-embodiment-design-problem-based-on-the-3bki1drh1s.pdf

Jean-Pierre Nadeau

Papers

Integration of thermomechanical strains into tolerancing analysis

Comparison of two non-equilibrium models for static grain deep-bed drying by numerical simulations

Structuring of embodiment design problem based on the product lifecycle

Identification of sensory variables towards the integration of user requirements into preliminary design

Stationary deep-bed drying: A comparative study between a logarithmic model and a non-equilibrium model