THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTS. By Oscar Kempthorne. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1952. 631 pp. $8.50. This book by a teacher of statistics (as well as a consultant for \"experimenters\") is a comprehensive study of the philosophical background for the statistical design of experiment. It is necessary to have some facility with algebraic notation and manipulation to be able to use the volume intelligently. The problems are presented from the theoretical point of view, without such practical examples as would be helpful for those not acquainted with mathematics. The mathematical justification for the techniques is given. As a somewhat advanced treatment of the design and analysis of experiments, this volume will be interesting and helpful for many who approach statistics theoretically as well as practically. With emphasis on the \"why,\" and with description given broadly, the author relates the subject matter to the general theory of statistics and to the general problem of experimental inference. MARGARET J. ROBERTSON

The Design and Analysis of Experiments

: This thesis applies neural network feature selection techniques to multivariate time series data to improve prediction of a target time series. Two approaches to feature selection are used. First, a subset enumeration method is used to determine which financial indicators are most useful for aiding in prediction of the S&P 500 futures daily price. The candidate indicators evaluated include RSI, Stochastics and several moving averages. Results indicate that the Stochastics and RSI indicators result in better prediction results than the moving averages. The second approach to feature selection is calculation of individual saliency metrics. A new decision boundary-based individual saliency metric, and a classifier independent saliency metric are developed and tested. Ruck's saliency metric, the decision boundary based saliency metric, and the classifier independent saliency metric are compared for a data set consisting of the RSI and Stochastics indicators as well as delayed closing price values. The decision based metric and the Ruck metric results are similar, but the classifier independent metric agrees with neither of the other metrics. The nine most salient features, determined by the decision boundary based metric, are used to train a neural network and the results are presented and compared to other published results. (AN)

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Nonlinear Time Series Analysis.

Kaizen: The key to Japan‚s competitive success

Risk management plays a vital role in effectively operating supply chains in the presence of a variety of uncertainties. Over the years, many researchers have focused on supply chain risk management (SCRM) by contributing in the areas of defining, operationalising and mitigating risks. In this paper, we review and synthesise the extant literature in SCRM in the past decade in a comprehensive manner. The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we present and categorise SCRM research appearing between 2003 and 2013. Second, we undertake a detailed review associated with research developments in supply chain risk definitions, risk types, risk factors and risk management/mitigation strategies. Third, we analyse the SCRM literature in exploring potential gaps.

https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/bitstream/handle/11343/118650/8.pdf

Supply chain risk management: a literature review

http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:433627/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Identifying risk issues and research advancements in supply chain risk management

This work proposes and tests an algorithm for batching and dispatching lots along cleaning and diffusion operations of a wafer fab. These are characterised by: 1) time constraints (i.e., the time between the end of an operation 'n' and the start of the operation 'n + q' must be lower than a time limit, in order to guarantee the lots' quality); 2) absence of batching affinity between operations. Literature so far has been falling short in proposing scheduling algorithms suitable for this context. Therefore, we propose two heuristic algorithms to minimise the average flow time and the number of re-cleaned lots, maximise machine saturation and avoid scrapped lots. Discrete-event simulation was used to test the performance of the two algorithms using real data of STMicroelectronics. The formerly proposed model outperforms the latter. Therefore, STMicroelectronics implemented the former in its fab in Catania gaining an increase in the average Overall equipment effectiveness of 7%.

Scheduling batches with time constraints in wafer fabrication

This article introduces a meta-model to support naval logistics providers in sizing off-shore transshipment systems for dry-bulk transportation. Due to the analogy between transshipment and production systems, the model proposed here is founded on simulation, which has been successfully used to design production systems for decades. The main strengths of the proposed model versus the traditional approach lie in that: (1) it allows to take into account some dynamic features unmanageable by manual calculations; (2) the time required to test a specific configuration of the system is dramatically reduced from days of cumbersome calculations to few minutes, on behalf of the decision-making process; (3) it solves the optimisation problem the service providers face when they design transshipment systems for very different contexts where experience is helpless.

Sizing off-shore transshipment systems in dry-bulk transportation

This paper is aimed at formalising and testing a model for hybrid systems where the interactions between the continuous process parts and the manufacturing sub-systems are given by minor stoppages. The proposed approach consists in representing the effects of the continuous process dynamics on discrete manufacturing sub-systems by means of autoregressive conditional duration (ACD) models originally conceived to treat high-frequency and irregularly spaced financial transaction data. The model has been applied to a real-life furnace and spooling-bushing department system of a fibre-glass production plant. Results conclude that the ACD-based model proved useful for representing the occurrence of fibre-glass breakage on the spooling-bushing machines and, in more general terms, that the proposed methodology could be really suitable for the logical modelling of the hybrid production systems where the relationships between the continuous and the discrete parts are given by the occurrence of minor stoppages.

Linking hybrid systems to ACD models: a case study in the fibre-glass industry

This paper seeks to develop a model for developing a simulation–based approach to appraise an investment in the logistics context. This study funds the development of the proposed model on a review of literature, on the use of Petri nets, and on the performing of discrete event simulation. The model proposed is presented outlining its steps and, then, applied by means of a case study. From a general point of view, the outcomes of the proposed approach support the combination of simulation and investment appraisal methods. With reference to the case study, the proposed approach has interesting managerial implications. Performing of a unique case study could be perceived as a limitation of this paper, as the repeatability of the proposed approach is not presented. This study provides an example of the application of simulation model supporting investment decisions.

Using simulation for reliable investment appraisal: evidence from a case study

As competition continues swinging from individual 'company level' to 'supply chain (SC) level' courtesy of diverse and erratic customer behaviour in this globalisation era, survival of such SC is h...

Tommaso Rossi

Papers

Scheduling batches with time constraints in wafer fabrication

Sizing off-shore transshipment systems in dry-bulk transportation

Linking hybrid systems to ACD models: a case study in the fibre-glass industry

Using simulation for reliable investment appraisal: evidence from a case study

A dynamic literature review on 'lean and agile' supply chain integration using bibliometric tools