Material flow

About: Material flow is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3050 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36844 citations. The topic is also known as: material stream.

Managing available-to-promise in demand management

Abstract: A system for managing available-to-promise and making promises to fulfill customer requests includes a supply chain model representing a chain of supply. The supply chain model includes site models e.g. 12 that represent sites having capacity and that manage material flow. The supply chain model also includes seller models e.g. 50 that represent sellers and that manage forecasting and purchasing. Commitments between sites are modeled by requests e.g. 52 and promises e.g. 54, and the sellers can post requests on behalf of sites in anticipation of future requests from the sites.

Recovery Planning in Closed Loop Supply Chains: An Activity Analysis Based Approach

Abstract: Due to the latest developments in European environmental legislation, supply chains in most major industrial branches have to be closed and producers will be responsible for collecting, sorting and recovery of discarded products at the end of their service life. Therefore, a close cooperation with recovery companies and their integration in producers supply chains, e.g. as suppliers of spare parts and secondary raw materials, will be necessary. A cost-efficient management of material flows between suppliers, producers, customers and recovery companies requires an integrated information management as well as advanced planning systems between all members of the supply chain. The paper focuses on the design and implementation of a decision support system for electronic scrap recovery companies in closed loop supply chains. This requires an efficient provision of relevant information, so that at the beginning of this paper a concept for the inter-organizational information management is presented. Then, based on detailed empirical analysis of disassembly and bulk recycling processes, an activity analysis based material flow model will be developed and the required capacity of the disassembly and recycling processes will be determined. Due to high uncertainties in the amount, composition and quality of the delivered electronic scrap, the long term capacity planning has to be supplemented by a detailed short term planning at regular intervals. The decision support system has been implemented in a major German electronic scrap recovery company and validated by real data.

Method and apparatus for a coriolis flowmeter having its flow calibration factor independent of material density

Abstract: A single tube Coriolis flowmeter of enhanced flow sensitivity in which material flow induces Coriolis deflections in a flow tube and Coriolis-like deflections in a balance bar vibrationally coupled to the flow tube. Both the Coriolis deflections and the Coriolis-like deflections have a phase shift determined by material flow and are used co-adjuvantly to derive material flow information. The flowmeter achieves a constant flow sensitivity over a range of changes in material density by 1) varying the flow sensitivity in a first direction under control of the ratio between the drive mode vibration amplitude of the flow tube and the balance bar and 2) varying the flow sensitivity in an opposite direction under control of the ratio between the Coriolis deflection amplitude of the flow tube and the Coriolis-like deflection of the balance bar. The drive mode vibration amplitude ratio varies with changes in drive mode frequency caused by changes in material density. The amplitude ratio of the Coriolis deflection and the Coriolis-like deflection changes with changes in the magnitude of the separation of the drive mode frequency and the second bending mode frequency to the balance bar density which, in turn, is caused by changes in material density.