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Group Technology
I spent most of my time in the research of Group Technology. A brief review of the subject is as follows:
Introducing a new part into manufacturing can cost from $1,300 to $12,000, including expenses for design, planning and control. Clearly, if a company can reduce the number of new parts it needs, it would realize large cost savings. Consider a company that typically releases 2,000 new parts per year. If the company could substitute existing parts for only 10% of these new parts, it could reap an annual saving ranging from a relatively modest $260,000 to a quite substantial $2.4 million. But this saving hinges on one critical factor: the identification of parts that can be used with or without modifiction to meet the designer's need. A "GROUP TECHNOLOGY" manufacturing data base offers great assistance in this identification process (Hyer and Wemmerlov).
The identification in the Group Technology is different from the Pattern Designs that is used in the Object-Oriented programming. But the objective is the same: design reusable component or software. A large papers have been published in the literature. Several research papers of mine can be checked at this site.
Other research interests:
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