This study deals with the problem of selecting 6 sigma projects. Traditionally, such selection was based on CTQ (critical to quality) or COPQ (cost of poor quality) derived within business units. Since the objective of 6 sigma is to achieve business goals in a short period, 6 sigma projects should be selected and carried out in coincidence with the whole company's strategies. This paper proposes two methods of selecting 6 sigma projects: one is to identify CTQ's by analyzing the company's BSC's (balanced score card) and then deploying them into subunits of the company and the other is to identify those projects with large hidden COPQ or cost of waste by applying value stream analysis and process model simulation to derive process cost models.

This paper is concerned with a six sigma green belt training program. Comparative studies of existing training programs for three major companies (Samsung Electronics Company, Hyundai Motor Company, and LG Chemical Ltd.) and two consulting firms (Korean Standards Association and Korea Management Association) are made. Based on the comparative studies, a new green belt training program is proposed. The main focus of this program is on manufacturing, specially on cost and waste reductions, yield improvement, and operations with opportunity to improve capacity without major capital expenditure. The green belts take up to 4 or 5 days of intensive, highly quantitative training, roughly corresponding to the five macro phases of the six sigma methodology: define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. The six sigma tool sets for each phase are also specified.

This paper presents a multi-criteria decision model and Multi-Criteria Generic Algorithm(MCGA) approach to improve backbone topology by leveraging the Virtual Link(VL) system in an hierarchical Link-State(LS) routing domain. Given that the sound backbone topology structure has a great impact on the overall routing performance in an hierarchical LS domain, the importance of this research is evident. The proposed decision model is to find an optimal configuration of VLs that properly meets two-pronged engineering goals in installing and maintaining VLs: i.e., operational costs and network reliability. The experiment results clearly indicates that it is essential to the effective operations of hierarchical LS routing domain to consider not only engineering aspects but also specific benefits from systematical layout of VLs, thereby presenting the validity of the decision model and MCGA.

Objective of this paper is to develop the user mobility model(UMM) which is used for the performance analysis of location update and paging algorithm and at the same time, consider the user mobility pattern(UMP) in zone-based cellular networks. User mobility pattern shows correlation in space and time. UMM should consider these correlations of UMP. K-dimensional Markov chain is presented as a UMM considering them where the states of Markov chain are defined as the current location area(LA) and the consecutive LAs visited in the path. Also, a new two dimensional Markov chain composed of current LA and time interval is presented. Simulation results show that the appropriate size of K in the former UMM is two and the latter UMM reflects the characteristic of UMP well and so is a good model for the analytic method to solve the performance of location update and paging algorithm.

In this paper, the fuzzy group method data handling-type(GMDH) neural networks and their application to the forecasting of mobile communication system are described. At present, GMDH family of modeling algorithms discovers the structure of empirical models and it gives only the way to get the most accurate identification and demand forecasts in case of noised and short input sampling. In distinction to neural networks, the results are explicit mathematical models, obtained in a relative short time. In this paper, an adaptive learning network is proposed as a kind of neuro-fuzzy GMDH. The proposed method can be reinterpreted as a multi-stage fuzzy decision rule which is called as the neuro-fuzzy GMDH. The GMDH-type neural networks have several advantages compared with conventional multi-layered GMDH models. Therefore, many types of nonlinear systems can be automatically modeled by using the neuro-fuzzy GMDH. The computer program is developed and successful applications are shown in the field of estimating problem of mobile communication with the number of factors considered.

In this paper we study the delivery policy of internet bookstores and recommend the improved policy to increase customer satisfaction and sales revenue. We classify customers into two, the price-sensitive and the delivery time-sensitive, and develop a new shipping method, the unhurried shipping, for the price-sensitive who are reluctant to pay shipping fee for the small purchase but willing to wait extra time for the ordered goods. The customers could get discount on shipping fee by the unhurried shipping but have to accept the longer delivery lead-time. We investigate the possible ways to reduce costs with the prolonged delivery time and show that some costs regarding shipmentand inventory could be saved in order to make up for additional shipping costs for the price-sensitive.

As one of many design variables, the role of dimension tolerances is to restrict the amount of size variation in a manufactured feature while ensuring functionality. In this study, a nonlinear integer model has been modeled to allocate the optimal tolerance to each individual feature at a minimum manufacturing cost. While a normal distribution determines statistically worst tolerances with its symmetrical property in many previous tolerance allocation studies, a asymmetrical distribution is more realistic because its mean is not always coincident with a process center. A nonlinear integer model is modeled to allocate the optimal tolerance to a feature based on a beta distribution at a minimum total cost. The total cost as a function of tolerances is defined by machining cost and quality loss. After the convexity of manufacturing cost is checked by the Hessian matrix, the model is solved by the Complex Method. Finally, a numerical example is presented demonstrating successful model implementation for a nonlinear design case.

Entity-relationship modeling for designing relational database is a very complicated thinking process that requires extensive knowledge and experiences. It is very likely that designers make mistakes in this process. In order to minimize the mistakes, a systematic method to guide the thinking process is needed. In this research, an entity-relationship modeling system is developed, which resolves the whole process of information modeling, data modeling, and functional dependency relationship analysis into small and simple decision-making steps. Therefore, it can reduce the possibility of making decision errors and improve the efficiency of the modeling process. It's functionality and efficiency is verified through some modeling examples. It is expected that the modeling system can be commercialized, if some functions are added, such as detection, warning, and correction of decision errors, and educational help.

In e-business environment, business processes inevitably get more entangled and entail collaboration between distributed and heterogeneous platforms that are not easy to manage. Therefore, systematic and automated management of business process execution has drawn a great concern among companies that necessitate collaborative business processes. The concept of workflow inheritance enables abstraction, polymorphism and reusability of processes, and therefore contributes to extending and executing the processes effectively. We analyze various types of interoperation between business processes, and identify 6 primitive interoperability patterns. We propose a method for extensible collaborative process composition using workflow inheritance and provide collaborative workflow between business processes using web services.

For the interoperability between workflow systems, we have proposed data exchange scenarios based on mobile agents. The scenarios include sequence diagrams and methods defined by UML. The mobile agents are designed based on the mobile agent standard MASIF developed by OMG.

This study proposes a method of implementing Six Sigma linking Lean approach and/or TOC(Theory of Constraints). A case study carried out in a PCB production line is examined to compare Lean Six Sigma and TOC Six Sigma. Implementing guidelines are given to achieve the whole company's optimum.

Process capability has long been viewed as a critical performance measure to indicate how well a process meet the specifications and customer requirements. Several indices, including $C_p$ and $C_{pk}$, have been proposed and widely implemented to quantify the process capability. However, these indices have been obtained without regard to inspection or screening procedures through which finished products will be truncated at the specifications. Consequently, only a fraction of outgoing products within the specifications will be passed into the customers. From the customer's point of view, it will thus be meaningful to assess the process capability with truncated samples. This article investigates how to estimate the process capability when only incomplete truncated data are available. On the basis of parameter estimation for truncated samples, the proposed methodology may be helpful to evaluate the process capability by examining a sample of items from the lots submitted.

There have been dramatic technology changes in telecommunication sector during last two decades. New application services like the introduction of international mobile services, fiber optical home services and satellite personal services are expected to play a major role in the whole field of telecommunication services. In the users' viewpoint, the proper selection and the efficient application of the specific telecommunication service among the various alternatives at hand are recognized as principle means for ensuring the whole business competitiveness. Despite the definite need for the telecommunication service selection strategies, very few researches have been reported in this field. In this paper, attempts are made to identify the companies' decision factors considered in selecting the telecommunication services, to draw the strategic dimensions and categorize each company with respect to the identified dimensions, and to finally find the characteristics of each strategic group in selecting the telecommunication service.

BPMS (Business Process Management Systems) is aninformation system that systematically supports designing, administrating, and improving the business processes. It can execute the business processes by assigning tasks to human or computer agents according to the predefined definitions of the processes. In this research we developed a task assignment algorithm that can maximize overall process efficiency under the limitation of agents' capacity. Since BPMS manipulates the formal and predictable business processes, we can analyze the processes using queuing theory to achieve overall process efficiency. We first transform the business processes into queuing network model in which the agents are considered as servers. After that, workloads of agents are calculated as server utilization and we can determine the task assignment policy by balancing the workloads. This will make the workloads of all agents be minimized, and the overall process efficiency is achieved in this way. Another application of the results can be capacity planning of agents in advance and business process optimization in reengineering context. We performed the simulation analysis to validate the results and also show the effectiveness of the algorithm by comparing with well known dispatching policies.

This paper traces the expanding role of simulation from its early beginning on mainframe computers to the $21^{st}$ Century's enterprise manufacturing environment of remote access and control. It includes an examination of the current and future role of integrated graphic animation as a primary medium of technical communications. The paper concludes with an example application of distance learning in the design, analysis, and operation of Programmable Logic Controllers on the Factory Floor of the future.

Progressive mesh representation and generation have become one of the most important issues in network-based computer graphics. However, current researches are mostly focused on triangular mesh models. On the other hand, solid models are widely used in industry and are applied to advanced applications such as product design and virtual assembly. Moreover, as the demand to share and transmit these solid models over the network is emerging, the generation and the transmission of progressive solid models depending on specific engineering needs and purpose are essential. In this paper, we present a Cellular Topology-based approach to generating and transmitting progressive solid models from a feature-based solid model for internet-based design and collaboration. The proposed approach introduces a new scheme for storing and transmitting solid models over the network. The Cellular Topology (CT) approach makes it possible to effectively generate progressive solid models and to efficiently transmit the models over the network with compact model size.

This paper addresses an AGV dispatching problem in semiconductor clean-room bays where AGVs move cassettes of wafers between machines or machines and a central buffer. Since each machine in a bay has a local buffer of limited capacity, material flow should be controlled in a careful way to maintain high system performance. It is regarded that two most important performance measures in a semiconductor bay are throughput rate and lead-time. The throughput rate is determined by a bottleneck resource and the lead-time depends on smooth material flow in the system. This paper presents an AGV dispatching procedure based on the concept of theory of constraints (TOC), by which dispatching decisions are made to utilize the bottleneck resource at the maximum level and to smooth the flow of material. The new dispatching procedure is compared with existing dispatching rules through simulation experiments.

While demands for express service are rapidly increasing according to recent progress of electronic commerce, express service companies are struggling to take a larger delivery service market share through ongoing improvement in their service processes. Extension of cut-off time for express service centers can provide the express company with increase of total sales, but it may also cause to increase the possibility not to satisfy customer needs due to work delay in the consolidation terminal. Therefore, compromised decision for cut-off time of each service center should be made by taking operation characteristics of the consolidation terminal into account. This study suggests an approach for determining the cut-off time for express service centers according to operational characteristics of the consolidation terminal with the objective of maximizing expected incremental sales. The problem defined in this study can be represented as two successive models; one is an integer programing model in which the best cut-off time for each sales center are determined, and the other is a single machine scheduling model in which a working schedule in the consolidation terminal is obtained. A genetic algorithm is developed to solve the two models simultaneously. Finally, an example problem is carried out to verify applicability and performance of the algorithm with the data set collected from an express company.

This paper deals with a performance evaluation model of transporters in refrigerate warehouse. This study focussed on determining refrigerate warehouse design to minimize the expected travel time to improve the transporter performance and to minimize the operating costs. This study proposes the important detail aspects of refrigerate warehouse design, operational parameters and congestions. For solving this problem, we have shown a mathematical model to compute the initial value of the system performance and also a simulation model using AutoMod. A systematic approach proposed in this study for an optimal planning of order-picking warehouse is known as an effective method for the planning of order-picking warehouse and a performance evaluation problem of refrigerate warehouse operation.

Railroad system is consisted of resources of rail track, signal system, and vehicles. Railway operation must use these limited resources and maximize resource utilization. Line capacity(number of trains throughput/day) is determined by such as parameters, line utilization rate($\alpha$), dummy rate for the break-through hour($\beta$), and dummy rate for the number of rail track intervals($\delta$). Line capacity simulation(LCS) determined the line capacity through simulation given $\alpha$, $\beta$, and $\delta$. This paper deals with the development of parameter evaluation simulation(PES). PES presents the decision maker with the relationship of line capacity and measurement of robustness for various scenarios in different parameters and then the decision maker can determine the appropriate parameters.

We analyze how much employees' work abilities and overall satisfaction on the job or corporate influence on the productivity and customer satisfaction in the service industry, which is characterized by simultaneity, heterogeneity, intangibility and etc. Employees always encounter customers in process of the service. So, the employees' attitudes and behaviors have direct influences on the service quality or satisfaction which customers perceive. Also, employees' satisfaction or work abilities can lead to increase or decrease the productivity. To grasp and demonstrate the cause and effect relationship, we firstly measure the degrees of employee satisfaction organized by 11 factors through survey, and also measure employees' overall satisfaction, organizational commitment and productivity. Secondly, we define service value as the employee's objective measure index and collect it with the data related to customer satisfaction. Based on the collected data, thirdly we define how the relationship among the employee satisfaction, the productivity, the service value and the customer satisfaction are affected by the employees' work abilities and overall satisfaction with SEM(Structural Equation Model). And finally, we classify employees according to their abilities and the degrees of satisfaction respectively and suggest important strategies to manage them effectively.

In this paper, we use three cluster algorithms (K-means, Self-Organizing Map, and Fuzzy K-means) to find proper graded stock market brokerage commission rates based on the cumulative transactions on both stock exchange market and HTS (Home Trading System). Stock trading investors for both modes are classified in terms of the total transaction as well as the corresponding mode of investment, respectively. Empirical analysis results indicated that fuzzy K-means cluster analysis is the best fit for the segmentation of customers of both transaction modes in terms of robustness. We then propose the rules for three grouping of customers based on decision tree and apply different brokerage commission to be 0.4%, 0.45%, and 0.5% for exchange market while 0.06%, 0.1%, 0.18% for HTS.

Component-based development approach is used in modern software system development projects that are very complex and large-scale. Technical components are more effective rather than business components in software development. However, on the Microsoft .net environment, the technical component-based development issues are not adopted. Moreover, software architecture on the .net environment is not studied yet because the development platform is recently used in the development of enterprise-level system. This paper proposes a technical component-based software architecture on .net environment. Seven technical components - configuration, data access, exception, file I/O, log, message, and paging - are contained in the architecture. The proposed architecture enables developers to reduce development time and to concentrate business logic rather than architectural issues. To verify the proposed architecture and the components, a partner management system is developed based on the architecture.

We consider scheduling jobs on multipurpose machines where jobs can be processed by a subset of the machines operated in parallel with the objective of minimizing makespan. We apply LPT(Longest Processing Time first) algorithm and prove that its posterior worst-case performance ratio is at most $log_24m/(1+{\lambda})$, where \lambda is the number of machines eligible for processing the job with the latest completion time. In general, LPT is shown to always find a schedule with makespan at most $log_24m/3$ times optimum.

In this paper, an automated design system for ball-joint parts based on 3-D solid modeler is developed. Parametric modeling and API provided by 3-D solid modeler is engaged to develope the system which consists of four main modules such as : 3-D part modeling, parts assembling, 2-D drafting, and database interfacing modules. The automated design system is implemented on a computer, and shows us that it shorten the design processing time which have taken over 5 hours to only few minutes.

A group of digital human models with various sizes which properly represents a population under consideration is needed in the design process of an ergonomic product in virtual environment. The present study proposes a two-step method which produces a representative group of human models in terms of stature and weight. The proposed method first generates a designated number of pairs of stature and weight within an accommodation range from the bivariate normal distribution of stature and weight of the target population. Then, from each pair of stature and weight, the method determines the sizes of body segments by using 'hierarchical' regression models and corresponding prediction distributions of individual values. The suggested method was applied to the 1988 US Army anthropometric survey data and implemented to a web-based system which generates a representative group of human models for the following parameters: nationality, gender, accommodation percentage, and number of human models.