*********************************************************************
                             
                    Seminar
                    
                     jointly organised by
        The
Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management,
                              The
                           
                        and
                               The 
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Title: Theoretical and Practical Findings on Mass
Customization Manufacturing Systems
Speaker: Dr. Janet Efstathiou
               Reader in Engineering Science
               Department of Engineering Science
               
Date 
:   September 6th, 2006 (Wednesday)
Time 
:  4:30pm -- 5:30pm.
Venue : Room 513
             
             The 
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Abstract:
Mass Customization poses many practical problems in the
design and 
operation of a facility that is
capable of producing many kinds of 
products to a short lead time and a
low cost, in response to a customer's 
request. At 
the complexity of a manufacturing
facility, defined as the amount of 
information needed to know the
state of the products in the facility. By 
adopting a simple model, consisting
of a push line, decoupling inventory 
and a pull line, we have been able
to estimate the information load for 
each aspect of the facility. We
have developed and compared a number of 
different aspects for operating and
managing each aspect of the facility, 
including inventory location
strategies and customer pre-orders. The 
complexity-based analysis enables
comparison of the components of the 
facility and provides
recommendations for the facility manager on what to 
improve in order to produce the
biggest impact on the complexity of the 
operation. The results and findings
from two case studies will be 
presented and discussed.
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Biography:
Janet Efstathiou obtained a BA in
Physics at 
followed by a PhD in Computing at 
Engineering Science in the Department of Engineering
Science, University 
of 
ago, with interests in Mass
Customization, reconfigurable systems, 
facility design, scheduling and the
complexity of manufacturing systems. 
Dr Efstathiou is also a founding
member of the Cabdyn research cluster 
(Complex Agent-Based Dynamic Networks).
This is a multi-disciplinary 
collaboration involving colleagues
from physics, business studies, 
biology, computing and statistics.
Recent work in this area is 
investigating the structure of
supply networks and dynamic networks, such 
as mobile communication networks.
************************  ALL ARE WELCOME  **********************
 
About the 
 
The COSF was founded in 1992 to award scholarships for
Chinese
graduates to pursue postgraduate
studies at the 
Its objective is for the students to then return to 
contribute in leadership positions
that assist the future development
of their country.  It seeks to emulate the success of the 
Scholarship for Americans, and aims to enhance its programme to
include the provision of
facilities, pastoral and administrative
support at 
objectives are to award 20-25
annual scholarships of 30,000 pounds per
student.  This will require an annual disbursement
of around 1,000,000
pounds, for which the Fund aims to
raise a capital sum of 25 million
pounds.  The Fund's patron is the Rt. Hon.
Baroness Thatcher of
Kesteven LG 
 
COSF enquiries: 
Gwyneth Pratt (Email: gwyneth@chinaoxford.org)
 
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CUHK seminar host: Janny Leung
Tel :     (852) 2609-8238
Email : janny@se.cuhk.edu.hk
Seminar Enquiries: Mr. Peixiang
Zhao or Prof. Jeffrey Xu Yu,
       
Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management
        CUHK
Email:     seg5810@se.cuhk.edu.hk
Website: http://www.se.cuhk.edu.hk/~seg5810
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