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                                                  Seminar

 

                                          jointly organised by

 

        The Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management,

                              The Chinese University of Hong Kong

 

                                                    and

 

                               The China Oxford Scholarship Fund

 

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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

               University of Oxford

 

Date  :   September 6th, 2006 (Wednesday)

Time  :  4:30pm -- 5:30pm.

Venue : Room 513

             William M. Mong Engineering Building (Engineering Building II)

             The Chinese University of Hong Kong

 

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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 Oxford, we have been extending our techniques for analysing

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 University of Oxford,

followed by a PhD in Computing at Durham University. She is a Reader in

Engineering Science in the Department of Engineering Science, University

of Oxford. Janet founded the Manufacturing Systems Group about 10 years

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 China Oxford Scholarship Fund:

 

The COSF was founded in 1992 to award scholarships for Chinese

graduates to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford.

Its objective is for the students to then return to China and

contribute in leadership positions that assist the future development

of their country.  It seeks to emulate the success of the Rhodes

Scholarship for Americans, and aims to enhance its programme to

include the provision of facilities, pastoral and administrative

support at Oxford and alumni links worldwide.  The Fund's key

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 OM FRS.

 

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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