Use of Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) is highly significant in Flexible Manufacturing Sys-tem (FMS) in which material handling in form of jobs is performed from one work center to an-other work center. A multifold increase in through put of FMS can be observed by application of multi load AGVs. In this paper, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) integrated with Memetic Algorithm (MA) named as Modified Memetic Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (MMP-SO) is applied to yield initial feasible solutions for scheduling of multi load AGVs for minimum travel and waiting time in the FMS. The proposed MMPSO algorithm exhibits balanced explora-tion and exploitation for global search method of standard Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm and local search method of Memetic Algorithm (MA) which further results into yield of efficient and effective initial feasible solutions for the multi load AGVs scheduling problem.

Cutouts are commonly used as access port for mechanical and electrical structures. Most of the structures generally work under severe dynamic loading and different constrained conditions during their service life. This may lead to vibration of the structure. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the vibration responses of laminated composite plates with cutouts precisely with less computational cost and good accuracy of these complex structures. A suitable finite element model is proposed and developed based on first order shear deformation theory using ANSYS parametric design language (APDL) code. The model has been discretized using an appropriate eight nodded element (SHELL 281) from the ANSYS element library. The free vibrations are computed using Block-Lanczos algorithm. The convergence study has been done of the developed model and compared with those available published literature. Effects of different geometric parameters (aspect ratio, thickness ratio, boundary conditions, number of layers, angle of lamina geometry of cutout, cutout side to plate side ratio and distance between cutouts) and material properties on the free vibration responses are discussed in detail. The frequency increases with increase in the number of layers, modulus ratio of plate and angle of lamina. The frequency decreases with increase in aspect ratio, thickness ratio, size of cutout and distance between cutouts. The boundary conditions of the plate play an important role in the free vibrations of the plate with cutouts. The Non-dimensional frequencies are higher for fully clamped boundary condition in comparison to other boundary conditions.

Today Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) still remains as an attempt alone. For more than a decade, supply chain evolution to be a low carbon chain in an energy and resource constrained world has been posing greater challenges. Though environmental policies remain without much variation towards green operations in an industry, the implantation strategies and stages vary. There have been a number of studies by researchers and a lot of endeavors by organizations to build a green supply chain, mainly because of pressure from the professional bodies like EPA, WEEE, OECD, and Clean Air Act to reduce emissions with growing concerns over climate change issues, global warming, and requirements from policy makers, end users, stake holders and others. But, at the implementation level there lacked a proper framework on GSCM which suggests guidelines for proper planning and coordination, and the practices to be adopted. This indicates the need for a complete strategic approach on the part of decision makers across the supply chain to have sustainability as a corporate social responsibility. The research gap exists in a holistic perception with regard to a product when supply chain stages are mapped for sustainability due to diverse environmental issues. Also, to build a holistic approach, we must know how the stages and levels interact. Thus, in this work, a Parametric Matrix demarking various level and stages of a supply chain related to a product, in general, is developed from various literatures till date. Such a metric will be useful for the industries to identify the bottleneck areas in their supply chain towards sustainability. Hence, the desired and relevant level of factors to be considered at each stage to become green can easily be decided.

Supply chains are changing due to changes in the global environment and to make the strategies effective most of the companies are striving towards the trends in the supply chain. Among the trends gamification is one of those that are creating an impact in the workspace with the techniques that are associated with it. Gamification in the supply chain had the least application and this study gave a road map for the decision makers like supply chain managers with the help of reviewing papers from the databases that are available. Findings say that giants like Amazon and Starbucks are applying gamification techniques to bring more transparency and visibility to reduce errors and to mitigate errors. This paper is providing evidence from the different activities like order management, warehousing activities with case applications are discussed. We conducted systematic literature review with 118 papers on gamification and 22 found relevant to the supply chain and its activities.

Leaf springs in vehicles are used to absorb, store and release energy. During this cycle stresses induced in the springs must not exceed design stress, in order to avoid settling or premature failure. Number of experiments are done in order to determine the stresses, load rate and deflection, which involves lot of time and cost. Today, the technologies in leaf springs are changing gradually; therefore new tools are required to keep aligned with worldwide technological requirements. The work presented in this paper provides a CAE solution to static analysis of 65Si7 leaf springs used in light commercial vehicles (LCV’s). A practical model of leaf spring used in LCV has been taken into consideration for this study. It has been experimentally tested for deflection, stress and load rate on a full scale leaf spring testing machine. A static structural CAE analysis of leaf spring has been done under similar loading condition. The CAD model of the leaf spring has been prepared in solid works and analyzed using ANSYS. Using CAE tools, ideal type of contact and meshing elements have been proposed to achieve results closer to the experimental results. The analytical method for static analysis of the leaf springs has also been described. CAE results have been compared with experimental and analytical results for validation.

For today’s high competitive market, when immensity purchasing of inventory becomes convenient or obligatory, to discover an alternative market in order to maximize the revenue earned is a tradition. In this paper, we considered an inventory model for seasonal products with Weibull rate of deterioration having two potential markets, say, primary and alternate. To handle the inventory up to the next season will result an increase in total cost. So it is a favorable task to transfer the remaining stock to the alternate market even at a slightly differ in selling price. Solution procedure, numerical examples and sensitivity analysis for different variables are presented to illustrate the model.

There is an overwhelming need to focus on the human capital and the role of this important resource on organizations’ systems. In addition, there is a need for study on human resource development and participative management system. This would not be an interesting topic for study, if it were not a comparative study in the field of human capital and participative management system. Two important sectors were selected for the study i.e., Gas and Car parts companies. Gas Indian Ltd in Delhi (GAIL) and the National Gas Company of Isfahan, Iran; and also, two manufacturers of car parts in India and Iran, named Sona Group Company (in India) and Atlas Pump Sepahan (in Iran) were selected. The objectives of the study were associated with the role of some important human resource factors in participative management system. Objectives of the study are as follows: The role of communication, employees compassion, employees sentiment, reward system and training in participative management system, also if there were any significant difference on the impact of mentioned variables in Indian and Iranian organizations from the perspective of employees. The questionnaires were distributed among randomly selected employees and the researcher collected responses through the questionnaires of employees. Analysis of data was based on the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). Three levels of analyses were computed: 1. Descriptive analyses 2. T-Test 3. Correlation analyses. The general observations associated with attitudes of Indian and Iranian employees about hypotheses are presented in this paper.

The principal objective of this paper is to conceptualize the scope of improving the responsiveness of logistics by eradicating the restrictions posed by unnecessary delays and human factors, in conjunction with underscoring the positive externalities that will emerge as societal benefits. Various attributes like ‘idle time’, ‘geographical & regional aspects’, ‘truckers limitations’, and ‘uncertainties’ have been taken into consideration to expand the outlook of logistics operations. This paper assembles knowledge to propose an approach to establish the convergence of various relevant aspects of the operational dimension of trade & transport facilitation. Furthermore, these are the aspects which although studied disjointedly were hitherto ignored as interrelated while planning logistics operations.

With ever increasing demand for manufactured products of hard alloys and metals with high surface finish and complex shape geometry, more interest is now being paid to non-traditional machining (NTM) processes, where energy in its direct form is used to remove material from workpiece surface. Compared to conventional machining processes, NTM processes possess almost unlimited capabilities and there is a strong believe that use of NTM processes would go on increasing in diverse range of applications. Presence of a large number of NTM processes along with complex characteristics and capabilities, and lack of experts in NTM process selection domain compel for development of a structured approach for NTM process selection for a given machining application. Past researchers have already attempted to solve NTM process selection problems using various complex mathematical approaches which often require a profound knowledge in mathematics/artificial intelligence from the part of process engineers. In this paper, four NTM process selection problems are solved using an integrated PROMETHEE (preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation) and GAIA (geometrical analysis for interactive aid) method which would act as a visual decision aid to the process engineers. The observed results are quite satisfactory and exactly match with the expected solutions.

In the global competitiveness and growing market environment, “Actual competition is not between firms against firm, than supplier against supplier”. Globally in the fastest market development world gets closer and closer. Consumers prefer fast delivery, economical product, excellent service and high quality product with desired service level. For successful management of this supply chain, supplier considered as the base source for all processes. Therefore, an efficient supplier selection and evaluation process needs to be incorporate. The main purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive state-of-the-art literature review and critique of the studies related to various aspects of supplier selection problem over the past two decades. Research papers appearing in the reputed and leading international journals from 1991 to 2011 are gathered and analyzed. Primary focus is given on more than 200 published and unpublished works. It has been referred extensively to carry out state-of-the-art review for supplier selection problem. Finally, paper provides future perspective based on current research trends available in the published literature.