This study focuses on the detailed explanation of the strategic allocation algorithm which can be used as an ATP(Available To Promise) from the perspective of customers, and as a sales plan for sales organizations. A strategic allocation algorithm includes three methods depending on FIXED RATIO, RANK and DEMAND BASIS. In addition, further topics would be discussed regarding the method of system implementation utilizing strategic allocation algorithms and information flow with an aim to integrate such a sales plan into the e-Biz. This study aims to provide a new solution in order to secure emerging competitive factors in today's enterprise world; that is, an achievement of faster business processes. It is suggested that this new solution be implemented in order to achieve an efficient business environment by systemizing the decision making process which in the past was manually conducted.

This paper reports an empirical study on assessment of R&D best practices. The principles of quality management and their tools such as best practices or benchmarking have been so prevailing in the operational process that the R&D management recently consider extensive use of them for their innovation process. However, characteristics of the two processes may be different each other. Are the principles or the tools that were effective in the operational field still going to be effective in the innovative field? In order to answer the question, we statistically examine how R&D best practices contribute to the innovative performance. Upon literature review on technological innovation, we present a R&D process model whereby we set forth research hypotheses. Using data from 66 successful R&D efforts carried out among Korean firms mostly between 1999-2001, regression analyses reveal that best practices used in most stages throughout the R&D process are found not to significantly contribute to the innovative performance. Only those in technology strategy and prototyping stages are proven effective for technical and commercial performance respectively. Interestingly, efforts in a problem solving and improvement stage are counterproductive in the case of the innovation process. Discussions on our empirical observations are presented followed by some managerial implications.

This study was performed to measure the various dimensions of the hand for Korean adults. Three hundred and eighteen males and two hundred and sixty females, age ranged 18 to 60, participated in this study. Thirty-five dimensions were selected to measure. Subjects were divided into three age groups, 18 to 29, 30 to 39, and 40 to 60, for each sex. The data were analyzed to see the differences between the age groups and sex by using SAS program. The results showed that the measurements related to breadth and thickness tended to increase as the age increased. Wrist breadth, index finger breadth(distal), index finger breadth(proximal), thumb breadth, and index finger thickness(proximal) increased as the age increased for both males and females (p<0.05). However, the measurements related to length tended to increase as the age decreased. The relationship between the parts that are length related showed high correlation. Hand length showed high correlation with palm length, middle finger length and index finger length. Males' were significantly greater than females' in every dimension (p<0.05). Also, the results of this study were compared with the data of Japanese and U.S. army. The results of this study can be used to design the hand related products.

The focus of this study is to investigate how personal display systems - a VDU (Visual Display Unit) and an HMD (Head Mounted Display) physiologically affect the body in virtual environments, and to evaluate differential effects of using the VDU and the HMD on physiological responses to mental stressful tasks (virtual reality flight simulation). As physiological variables, autonomic measures (heart rate, blood pressure), immune cells (leukocyte, neutrophil, lymphocyte), and hormones (catecholamine) were measured before and after experiments. Physiological data were measured in order to compare a level of mental stress on the VDU and the HMD. Increments in blood pressure (systolic (p<0.05), diastolic (p<0.1)), norepinephrin (catecholamine) (p<0.005), and neutrophils (p<0.2) of the group using the HMD showed a significant difference with the group using the VDU. Although, the heart rate was not statistically significant between two environments, differences of them quietly increased on the HMD more than on the VDU.

Proposed in this paper is a standard-compliant business process modeling tool which is based on the UML(Unified Modeling Language) activity diagram and produces an XPDL(XML Process Definition Language) file as an output. The XPDL is a standard process definition exchange format by WfMC (Workflow Management Coalition). To develop an UML/XPDL-based modeling tool, the mapping of modeling elements between activity diagram and XPDL format is conducted after the detailed analysis of each modeling specification. As a result of this mapping, it is revealed that modeling elements of each activity diagram and XPDL must be expanded. So new modeling elements are identified and added to each specification. Based on this mapping, the prototype system is developed, and the usefulness of the developed system is shown through the case study.

We attempted to empirically analyze the supply chain performance of Korean companies. We utilized the supply chain performance metric of SCOR(Supply-Chain Operations Reference-Model) which has been developed by the Supply Chain Council. We especially focused on the supply chain asset performance using the currently available accounting database of Korean companies. Cash-to-cash cycle time, inventory days of supply, and asset turns were analyzed for 621 Korean companies during the last 5 year period 1997-2001. We compared the performance by industry type and company size. In addition, we compared the cash-to-cash cycle time of Korean companies with global companies.

This paper addresses a fleet operation planning problem for a static freight container transportation system in which all the transportation requirements are predetermined at the beginning of a planning horizon. In the transportation system under consideration, a number of loaded containers are to be moved between container storage yards. An optimal fleet planning model is used to determine the minimum number of vehicles required. Based on the results from the optimal model, a tabu-search based algorithm is presented to perform a given transportation requirements with the least number of vehicles. The performance of the new procedure is evaluated through some experiments in comparison with two existing methods, and the it is found that our procedure produces good-quality solutions.

This paper deals with a realistic production scheduling under a make-to-order production environment. The practical case is studied on the transformer winding process in the 'H' company. The transformer winding is a process that rolls a coil that is coated with an electric insulation material in order to generate the required voltage using the voltage fluctuation. This process occupies an important position among the production processes in the transformer manufacturing company. And this process is composed of parallel machines with different performances according to the voltage capacity and winding type. In this paper, we propose a practical heuristic algorithm for production scheduling to satisfy the customer’s due date under a make-to-order production environment. Also, we implement the production scheduling system based on the proposed heuristic algorithm. Consequently, the proposed heuristic algorithm and the implemented production scheduling system are currently working in the transformer production factory of the ‘H’ company.

In this paper, the selective use of RTS and CTS frames is considered to analyze the capacity of IEEE 802.11 WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network). The RTS and CTS frames are used to transmit the data frames longer than dot11RTSThreshold according to IEEE 802.11 specification. The analysis of the optimal RTS-CTS threshold is derived to maximize the capacity of IEEE 802.11 WLAN. And, numerical examples are also presented for IEEE 802.11 a and b WLANs.

The purpose of this research is to develop a scheduling system for CAL (Continuous Annealing Line) in Cold Rolling Mill. Based on CSP (Constraint Satisfaction Problem) technique in artificial intelligence, appropriate algorithms to provide schedules satisfying all the constraints imposed on CAL are designed and developed. Performance tests show that the proposed scheduling system outperforms human operators in case of aggregating the same attributes and minimizing the thickness differences between two adjacent coils.

This paper introduces a simulation study regarding the design for the installation of Color Rescheduling Storage (CRS) in an automobile factory. In the painting shop the colors of vehicles are changed frequently according to the assembly schedule. When the color of a vehicle is changed from one to another, the cleaning process of painting-gun is necessary and it generates costs. Therefore many of the automobile manufacturers equip the CRS in front of the Top Coat Booth of the painting shop. The major objective of CRS is to reduce the change over cost in the painting process by grouping vehicles having same color. In this paper the configuration of CRS and the input/output algorithms are explained. The suggested system is verified using simulation models and experiments are conducted. Finally the best alternative is suggested by sensitivity analysis and evaluation of investment feasibility.

Computer-dominated jobs and industrial automation have rapidly created work-related musculoskeletal disorders(WMSDs) and WMSDs are also founded in employees of other general industries. WMSDs has been growing problems for Korean industries with higher incidence rate every year. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effects of the neck muscle workload according to postures(joint angle) and load weights. Seven male students participated in this study. Neck workload was rated on each person using a Borg's CR-10 scale. ANOVA showed that the CR-10 ratings were statistically significant according to postures and load weights. To reduce the large number and severity of WMSDs, which employees have been experiencing, we need to redesign the job in workplace so that we can control hazards that are reasonably likely to be causing or contributing to the WMSDs. The results of this study can be used to establish the safety criteria of joint angle and weight of neck workload.

The On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools access data from the data warehouse for complex data analysis, such as multidimensional data analysis, and decision support activities. Current research has lead to new developments in all aspects of data warehousing, however, there are still a number of problems that need to be solved for making data warehousing effective. View maintenance, one of them, is to maintain view in response to updates in source data. Keeping the view consistent with updates to the base relations, however, can be expensive, since it may involve querying external sources where the base relations reside. In order to reduce maintenance costs, it is possible to maintain the views using information that is strictly local to the data warehouse. This process is usually referred to as "self-maintenance of views". A number of algorithm have been proposed for self maintenance of views where they keep some additional information in data warehouse in the form of auxiliary views. But those algorithms did not consider a consistency of materialized views using view self-maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to research consistency problem when self-maintenance of views is implemented. The proposed "conveyor algorithm" will resolved a complete consistency of materialized view using self-maintenance with considering network delay. The rationale for conveyor algorithm and performance characteristics are described in detail.

Generally, the assembly system relied on conveyor lines is efficient for mass production. But it is not efficient when the product types are often varying and their lot sizes are small. Especially, it is much inefficient for the assembly lines for the electronic products whose types are varying very often. This paper suggests the design of U-shaped assembly lines to replace the existing conveyor systems. The assembly line for the mini-cassette production is dealt with as a case study. The proposed procedure was successfully applied for the design of U-shaped lines. The developed method resulted in the improvement of the productivity such as the decrease of the man power and the cycle time, and the increase of the line utility.

In a heated rolling process of a steel mill where steel plates are pressed to a sheet coil by spreading and expanding, an irregularly-shaped head portion as well as a tail portion of the sheet coil need to be cropped. Any crop which is not clearly cut and separated from the sheet coil may cause critical damages to the facilities of the following processes. As the cropping process is performed very fast, human eyes are not proper for continuous monitoring of the cropping process. To solve this problem, we have developed a machine-vision based crop-drop detection system. The system also measures lengths of major and minor axes for the crops and thereby determines the proper crop size to minimize steel sheet losses.

Recently, virtual reality technologies have been rapidly developed and realtime virtual simulation methods have been extensively employed for several application areas such as game, sports, manufacturing, military, and so on. A 3D database in realtime virtual simulation plays a key role because it makes users feel reality in virtual space. In a application view of 3D database, a systematic construction approach is required to reduce its construction time and increase its quality. However, many researches have been mostly focused on realtime graphic issues and its key technologies. In virtual simulation of transportation equipments, this paper proposes a systematic construction process of 3D database consisting of four stages as follows: 1) determine the activity space of a equipment, 2) collect data related to 3D database construction, 3) make a 3-dimensional modeling strategy, and 4) generate and evaluate a 3D model. This paper also introduces a new procedure of 3D environment modeling, which summarizes and expands our modeling experiences, to be used as a modeling guide.

This paper presents critical steps in building client/server application with UML and Visual Basic, which are derived from the implementation case of a typical order processing system. To begin with, we briefly review the software architecture, the diagrams and the object-oriened building process in the UML. In the inception phase, it is critical to define the project charter, to draw use case diagrams, and to construct a preliminary architecture of the application. In the elaboration phase, it is critical to identify classes to be displayed in the class diagram, to develop user interface prototypes for each use case, to construct sequence diagram for each use case, and finally to design an implementation architecture. Steps to construct implementation architecture are given. In the construction phase, it is critical to design both the database and components. Steps to design these components are described in detail. Additionally the way to create the Internet interface is suggested.