The objective of bridge construction cost allocation is to distribute in a fair and rational manner the bridge construction costs among those vehicles using the bridge. In most bridge construction cost allocation studies, bridge construction costs are mainly distributed according to traffic load(gross vehicle weight), without any consideration of bridge capacity requirements(the number of lanes). In this paper, a bridge cost allocation method for considering both traffic capacity and traffic loads is developed. The proposed method is based on cooperative game theory, particularly two concepts known as the Aumann-Shapley (A-S) value and Shapley value. This method can help to analyze the impact of traffic capacity costs. By applying the proposed method to an example, traffic capacity cost is found to be high so that traffic capacity should be considered to allocate the bridge construction costs to vehicle classes in a more equitable manner.

This paper considers a conformity testing problem on EJB(Enterprise JavaBeans). The EJB architecture is a component architecture for the development and deployment of component-based distributed business applications. The objective is to find an optimal test sequence for the conformity test between the EJB specification and an implemented one. For the test sequence, we formulate the problem as a rural Chinese postman tour one and use a linear programming formulation. Based upon the formulations, we suggest a conformance test procedure and show its efficiency by applying the procedure to the CMP(Container- Managed persistency) entity bean of the EJB.

A technology roadmap was developed for haptic interface technologies to be applied to games. Haptic interface technologies are expected to play an important role in games to provide gamers with interaction and immersive perception in near future, even though haptic interface technologies have been less studied than other perception-related technologies with respect to games. Information on two types of haptic interfaces - portable and desktop - and their evolution processes were analyzed in terms of technological demands. Haptic feedback technologies to realize these demands were inspected with the time frame and haptic feedback technologies were derived using a technology tree. The technology roadmap of haptic interfaces in game was finally constructed by mapping the technological demands in time with game technology trends. The technology roadmap of haptic interfaces will have implications on developing haptic interfaces to be applied to many applications including virtual realities and games.

In supply chain management, supplier capacity is very important to meet the customer demand quickly. This paper studies a supplier evaluation structure and then suggests a methodology using fuzzy theory for selecting an effective supplier. Several quantitative and qualitative evaluation factors should be analyzed in the evaluation structure. The qualitative factors includes not only product and service qualities but financial condition. The methodology deals with both the quantitative and qualitative factors together through fuzzy inference. A case study is also presented to show how to choose the best one among potential suppliers.

In this paper, we propose a reference model for logistics processes to improve the effect of RosettaNet standards application to domestic industry. First of all, implementation cases applied to logistics processes in the world are investigated. Second, logistics processes of domestic manufacturers are analyzed for the application of RosettaNet standards, and the processes are compared with PIP. Finally, a new logistics processes model and corresponding PIP documents which reflect domestic situations are proposed.

Recently, many enterprises are introducing a workflow management system for the successful implementation of BPR(Business Process Reengineering). Proposed in this study is the workflow management system which has a light-weight component structure and an XPDL(XML Process Definition Language) file interpretation facility. The XPDL is the standard process definition exchange format developed by WfMC(Workflow Management Coalition). The major causes of inefficiency at current implementations of workflow management systems are the centralized workflow engine structure and the use of proprietary workflow definition format among most solutions. The proposed light-weight component structure in this study is the intermediate structure that takes the strength of both centralized and distributed workflow engines. And a prototype workflow system which uses an XPDL process definition file as input is developed through the thorough analysis of functional requirements.

Because the designed workflow may contain potential errors which may result in deadlocks, livelocks and so on, it is important to analyze the correctness of a workflow definition before it is put into the run time environment. Proposed in this paper is a transformation procedure of an UML activity diagram into a Petri net for the analysis of a workflow. By combining the strengths of easy-to-use functionality of an activity diagram and the analysis power of a Petri net, workflow analysts in the enterprise can model and analyze various kinds of workflow definition more easily and accurately.

This paper deals with a process planning problem in the flexible assembly system (FAS). The problem is to assign assembly tasks to stations with limited working space and to determine assembly routing with the objective of minimizing transfer time of the products among stations, while satisfying precedence relations among the tasks and upper-bound workload constraints for each station. In the process planning of FAS, the optimality of assembly routing depends on tasks loading. The integration of tasks loading and assembly routing is therefore important for an efficient utilization of FAS. To solve the integrated problem at the same time, in this paper we propose a new method using an artificial intelligent search technique, named 2-leveled symbiotic evolutionary algorithm. Through computational experiments, the performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with those of a traditional evolutionary algorithm and a symbiotic evolutionary algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the algorithms compared.

This study aims to investigate effect of external load and motion repetitiveness on perceived discomfort. An experiment was performed for measuring discomfort scores at varying conditions, in which external load, motion repetitiveness and arm posture were employed as experimental variables. The arm posture was controlled by shoulder flexion and abduction, and by elbow flexion. Fifteen healthy college-age students without history of musculoskeletal disorders voluntarily participated in the experiment. The results showed that the effect of external load, motion repetitiveness and shoulder posture on discomfort were statistically significant, but that elbow posture did not significantly affect discomfort ratings. The effect of external load was much larger than that of any other variables, and that of repetitiveness was second only to external load. Discomfort scores significantly increased linearly as the levels of external load and motion repetitiveness increased. This implies that although they were not fully reflected in the existing posture classification scheme such as OWAS, RULA, etc., the effect of external load and motion repetitiveness should be taken into consideration for precisely quantifying work load in industry. Based on regression analysis, equivalent values of external load and motion repetitiveness in terms of discomfort scores were provided, which would be useful for better understanding the degree of their effect on work load.

In shipbuilding area, data sharing is one of the crucial issues. Recently, for collaborative design, ship structural CAD systems adopt the database as its primary storage. Database is useful to deal with the large amount of design information among the heterogeneous design department and design stage. To make the database-based CAD system object-oriented database(OODB) and object-relational database(ORDB) can be used. It is important to select proper database because the CAD system performance mainly depends on access performance of database. In this research, using prototype CAD system from other research, access performance of OODB and ORDB form CAD system was evaluated. STEP application protocol was used as the database schema and experiment was made in query by property and query by region. The results give some idea of how to choose the database for CAD systems.

The main subject to become a hub port is automation. The automated container terminal has already operated in advanced ports and it has been planned for the basic planning and operation design in domestic case. The key of automated container terminal is effective operation of both ATC(automated transfer crane) and AGV(automated guided vehicle) which is automated handling equipments. This is essential to productivity of automated container terminal. This study suggests the most optimal method of equipment operation in order to minimize loading time using each three types of effective ATC operation methods and AGV dispatching rules in automated container terminals. As the automated equipment operation causes unexpected deadlocks or interferences, it should be proceeded on event-based real time. Therefore we propose the most effective ATC operation methods and AGV dispatching rules in this paper. The various states occurred in real automated container terminals are simulated to evaluate these methods. This experiment will show the most robust automated equipment operation method on various parameters(the degree of yard re-marshaling, the number of containers and AGV)

Lot-streaming is the process of splitting a job (lot) into a number of smaller sublots to allow the overlapping of operations between successive machines in a multi-stage production system. A new genetic algorithm (NGA) is proposed for minimizing the mean weighted absolute deviation of job completion times from due dates when jobs are scheduled in a no-wait lot-streaming flow shop. In a no-wait flow shop, each sublot must be processed continuously from its start in the first machine to its completion in the last machine without any interruption on machines and without any waiting in between the machines. NGA replaces selection and mating operators of genetic algorithms (GAs), which often lead to premature convergence, by new operators (marriage and pregnancy operators) and adopts the idea of inter-chromosomal dominance. The performance of NGA is compared with that of GA and the results of computational experiments show that NGA works well for this type of problem.