The purpose of this paper is to reorganize cost adjustment factors of software development projects in estimating software development cost, and derive adjustment coefficients of application types and language types by analytical hierarchy process. We constructed a decision-making hierarchy of various criteria which determine the complexity of application types and language types, and conducted a survey on the pairwise comparison among alternatives. Finally, the cost adjustment coefficients of application types and language types were derived by analytic hierarchy process. This paper is the first study in which the analytic hierarchy process was applied to the field of estimating cost adjustment factors of software development projects.

The purpose of this study is to identify the determinants of new venture performance according to years of operation in the view of integrated research framework. We propose the integrated new ventures performance model which is composed of entrepreneur, organization/resources, industrial environment, strategy/foundation process and availability of supporting systems as corresponding variables to new ventures performance. The determinants of new venture performance according to years of operation are identified through the multi-variate statistical analysis such as moderating regression analysis with the data gathered from 110 executives of venture companies. For internal variables, entrepreneur's managerial ability and technical expertise and employee's ability affect venture's performance increasingly as years of operation increases but resource procurement ability affects decreasingly. Related to external variables, years of operation plays positive moderating role on market size growth and supporting system availability, but negative role on government venture policy for venture performances. Though this study has limitation of small sample, limited questionnaire and performance measure, it has managerial contribution of identifying determinants of new venture performance according to years of operation.

A flexible assembly system (FAS) is a production system that assembles various parts with many constraints and manufacturing flexibilities. This paper presents a new method for efficiently solving the integrated process planning and scheduling in FAS. The two problems of FAS process planning and scheduling are tightly related with each other. However, in almost all the existing researches on FAS, the two problems have been considered separately. In this research, an endosymbiotic evolutionary algorithm is adopted as methodology in order to solve the two problems simultaneously. This paper shows how to apply an endosymbiotic evolutionary algorithm to solving the integrated problem. Some evolutionary schemes are used in the algorithm to promote population diversity and search efficiency. The experimental results are reported.

The main purpose of this study is to find out the optimal solution of the vehicle routing problem considering heterogeneous vehicle(s), double-trips, and multi depots. This study suggests a mathematical programming model with new numerical formula which considers the amount of delivery and sub-tour elimination and gives optimal solution by using OPL-STUDIO(ILOG). This study also suggests modified genetic algorithm which considers the improvement of the creation method for initial solution, application of demanding point, individual and last learning method in order to find excellent solution, survival probability of infeasible solution for allowance, and floating mutation rate for escaping from local solution. The suggested modified genetic algorithm is compared with optimal solution of the existing problems. We found the better solution rather than the existing genetic algorithm. The suggested modified genetic algorithm is tested by Eilon and Fisher data(Eilon 22, Eilon 23, Eilon 30, Eilon 33, and Fisher 10), respectively.

Human factors engineering design guidelines for main control rooms(MCR) in nuclear power plants(NPP) have been applied to optimize human-machine interface(HMI) between operators and their equipment on the basis of physical, physiological and cognitive aspects. However, the HMI design for MCR is not found to be sufficient to maximize operators' performance since the operators in the MCR experience excessive stress due to the environmental factors such as inappropriate interiors and illumination. Therefore, well-designed environment of the MCR may be equally important to improve human performance in the MCR. The objectives of the study are two-fold: (1) to propose an interior design of SHIN-KORI 1 2 for pleasant and comfortable working environments, and (2) to design indirect lighting system to enhance visibility and productivity. The human factors engineering checklists were developed to examine whether or not the proposed human-environment design for SHIN-KORI 1 2 satisfies the regulations and guidelines presented by NUREG-0700 Revision 1. The implications of the human-environment design are discussed in detail.

In order to quickly respond to the rapidly changing manufacturing environment, it is imperative for the system to have such capabilities as flexibility, adaptability, reusability, etc. One of the promising approaches for new manufacturing paradigm satisfying those capabilities is the fractal manufacturing system (FrMS). The FrMS can be optimized by reorganizing the structure of fractals through the dynamic restructuring process (DRP) to deal with the changes of environment. Through the DRP, the logical connections between fractals and roles of fractals are autonomously changed. To determine an appropriate fractal structure, certain rules are needed to build and evaluate alternative structures for fractals involved in the DRP. In this paper, an algorithm for the DRP-, which is invoked when some equipment are unavailable, is introduced and explained with examples.

During the past decades automated storage/retrieval (AS/R) systems have been dominantly implemented in most industrial fields due to their handling efficiency and high utilization of storage space. Such AS/R systems consist of several modules each of which contains two racks and a S/R machine. This paper proposes a design of the hybrid AS/R module which can be adopted without too much initial expenditure by most of small-and-medium sized companies. The hybrid module consists of an AS/R module on the upper floor and a traditional warehouse module on the lower floor. For the AS/R module, analytical expressions of the expected travel times for the S/R machine and the elevator per operation are derived. The expected travel times represent the performance of the module and thus can be used for its economic design.

HAPS (High Altitude Platform Station) which is defined as a station located on an object at an altitude of 20 to 50 km and at a specified, nominal, fixed point relative to the earth is a promising technology capable of providing broadband multimedia services. In this study, economical aspects of HAPS service are analyzed by estimating the revenue and costs incurred by the service. To evaluate the profitability of HAPS service, the number of subscribers is estimated and then the net present value (NPV), payback period, and the rate of return on investment (ROI) are calculated under various scenarios.

This paper presents a simulated algorithm(SA) for the optimal reliability design problem of a series system with multiple component choices incorporated at each subsystem. The objective of the problem is to maximize the system reliability while satisfying some constraint on system budget. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear binary integer programming problem and characterized as an NP-hard problem. The SA algorithm is developed by introducing some solution-improvements methods. Numerical examples are tested and the results are compared. The results have demonstrated the efficiency and the effectiveness of the proposed SA algorithm.

Supply Chain (SC) can balance demands with supply activities as executing Supply Chain Planning (SCP). The fluctuated demands, however, will break the balance between demand and supply. It means that the present SCP is useless in responding the changed demands. Thus it is necessary for SCP to be updated with changed demands. We call this procedure as Supply Chain Replanning. However, the existing measures for SC can not deal with the balance between supply and demand so that they can not detect effectively the timing of replanning. For this reason, a new performance measure, Balancing Point, is developed using momentum, a concept of Physics. It can treat the balance between supply and demand. Also, a replanning method based on Balancing Point is proposed. The proposed method is more effective than the existing replanning method, periodic replanning method and net inventory method.

In this paper, we consider the joint replenishment problem of a one-warehouse, n-retailer system. We introduce a joint replenishment and delivery strategy of a warehouse and develop a mathematical model based on the proposed strategy. Two efficient algorithms are presented and compared using numerical examples. The proposed strategy is compared with the common cycle strategy for 1,600 randomly generated problems, and has been proven to be superior to the common cycle strategy.

AGV flowpath layout design is one of the most important steps for efficient AGV systems design. Since it was formulated by Gaskins & Tanchoco (1987), a unidirectional AGV flowpath layout design problem has been tackled by many researchers. However, the solution methods were traded off between the solution quality and the computational time. In this paper, a tabu search technique is applied to obtain a good solution for a relatively large problem in reasonable computational time. Specifically, fast construction algorithm for feasible initial solutions, long-term memory structure and neighbor solutions generation are adapted to the problem characteristics and embedded in the tabu search algorithm. Also, sets of computational experiments show that the proposed tabu search algorithm outperforms to the Ko and Egbelu's algorithm (2003).

This paper presents a two-phase method for the vehicle routing problems with time windows(VRPTW). In a supply chain management(SCM) environment, timely distribution is very important problem faced by most industries. The VRPTW is associated with SCM for each customer to be constrained the time of service. In the VRPTW, the objective is to design the least total travel time routes for a fleet of identical capacitated vehicles to service geographically scattered customers with pre-specified service time windows. The proposed approach is based on ant colony optimization(ACO) and improvement heuristic. In the first phase, an insertion based ACO is introduced for the route construction and its solutions is improved by an iterative random local search in the second phase. Experimental results show that the proposed two-phase method obtains very good solutions with respect to total travel time minimization.

In this paper, we propose an urgency and efficiency based wireless packet scheduling (UEPS) algorithm that is able to schedule real time (RT) and non-real time (NRT) traffics at the same time. The proposed UEPS algorithm is designed to support wireless downlink packet scheduling in the OFDMA system which is a strong candidate wireless system for the next generation mobile communications. The UEPS algorithm uses the time-utility function as a scheduling urgency factor and the relative status of the current channel to the average one as an efficiency indicator of radio resource usage. The design goal of the UEPS algorithm is to maximize throughput of NRT traffics with satisfying QoS requirements of RT traffics. The simulation study shows that the proposed UEPS algorithm is able to give better throughput performance than existing wireless packet scheduling algorithms such as proportional fair (PF) and modified-largest weighted delay first (M-LWDF) while satisfying QoS requirements of RT traffics such as the average delay and the packet loss rate under various traffic loads.

Since the cost of software maintenance occupies about 50~75% in a general successful organization, the software maintenance plays an important role in software life cycle. In particular, if the managed system needs to be operated in a long term or the system is very large and complex, then the maintenance is especially more important. Software maintenance is defined as software modification activities after customer delivery, such as improvement of performance or functionality, error correction, adaptation to environmental changes, etc. In this paper, software cost estimation models are proposed, that is based on productivity of manpower in maintenance projects. In order to do this, the activities of maintenance are classified into function change, non-function change, user support and application operation. The proposed models are constructed and verified based on the real size and cost information of projects in the real world. The approach in this paper is to discriminate the heterogeneous activities in maintenance projects, and then to calculate the respective cost of each discriminated activity. By using the proposed models, the total cost of maintenance project is summed from the costs of four activities. In addition the number of conflicts between owner and order receiver about the amount of cost will be reduced and the reasonable cost estimation system will be established.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and show the efficiency of the URL(Unload Request Logic) and LRL(Load Request Logic) of the dispatcher in the Fab(Fabrication) Manufacturing Execution System. These logics are the core procedures which control the material(wafer and glass substrate) flow efficiently in the semiconductor and LCD fab considering inter-bay as well as intra-bay material flow. We use the present and future status information of the system by look-ahead and the information about the future transportation schedule of Automated Guided Vehicles. The simulation results show that the URL and LRL presented in this paper reduce the average lead time, average and maximum WIP level, and the average available AGV waiting time.

As today's business environment has become more and more competitive, forward as well as backward flows of products among members belonging to a supply chain have been increased. The backward flows of products, which are common in most industries, result from increasing amount of products that are returned, recalled, or need to be repaired. Effective management for the backward flows of products has become an important issue for businesses because of opportunities for simultaneously enhancing profitability and customer satisfaction from returned products. Since third party logistics service providers (3PLs) are playing an important role in reverse logistics operations, they should perform two simultaneous logistics operations for a number of different clients who want to improve their logistics operations for both forward and reverse flows. In this case, distribution networks have been independently designed with respect to either forward or backward flows so far. This paper proposes a mixed integer programming model for the design of network integrating both forward and reverse logistics. Since the network design problem belongs to a class of NP-hard problems, we present an efficient heuristic algorithm based on genetic algorithm (GA), of which the performance is compared to the lower bound by Lagrangian relaxation. Finally, the validity of proposed algorithm is tested using numerical examples.

The Purpose of this paper is to propose performance evaluation schemes of flexible manufacturing cell using a generalized stochastic Petri net. In the competitive and global manufacturing environment, to evaluate the feasibility and manufacturability of a product in the product design stage is highly required. Through this process, all the possible problems which may occur in the manufacturing stage can be fixed in early stage. The scheme of generalized stochastic Petri net utilizing both immediate and exponential distributed transitions are applied to model a manufacturing cell with flexible machines, material handler, transporter and buffers. Performance analyses are performed based on behavioral, structural and quantitative properties. A flexible manufacturing cell is evaluated using a Petri net simulator.