<p>The overall purpose of this study is to illuminate the changeover process experienced by individuals who as adults acquired a traumatic brain injury (TBI), to increase the knowledge and the understanding of this process, and describe the meaning of support in every day life.</p><p>Persons who acquired a TBI as adults were administered a semi-structured interview covering six areas: consequences of TBI, family and social networks, working life and occupation, life-changes, support from society and everyday life. The interviews were qualitative and in-depth. A total of 15 informants participated, aged between 19-53 years when injured. Data were structured and underwent two phases of analysis. In the first phase, data underwent latent content analysis, underpinned by a hermeneutic approach, and in the subsequent phase, reanalysed within a framework derived from the theory of social recognition.</p><p>Findings from the first phase of inductive analysis elicited key themes: (i) the meaning of care, a question of formal and/or informal support; (ii) the meaning of action, a question of activity versus inactivity; (iii) autonomy, a question of dependence versus independence; (iv) social interaction, a question of encounter and/or treatment; (v) the theme of changes, a question of process versus stagnation; and (vi) emotions, an oscillation between hope versus hopelessness. After the construction of the six themes each of them were, through a discursive analysis, connected with theories, earlier studies in the field of brain injuries and important interview quotations from the empirical material. During this phase, an interest developed to study the material from a new theoretical point of view. The second phase of analysis therefore involved the development of a framework derived from Honneth’s (1995) theory of social recognition. The central construct of ‘recognition’ was analysed from three different dimensions proposed by Honneth: the individual dimension, the legal dimension, the value dimension. Using this framework, the data were reanalysed. The scientific term for this process of re-contextualisation and re-description of data is abduction inference.</p><p>Reported consequences were negative as well as positive. Significant others (e.g. next of kin) had an important function as a driving force for training and preparation for life-situation after injury. A majority of the informants were satisfied with support from society, such as hospital-care, rehabilitation and community support. Such support, initially, proceeded without problems but as time passed, the responsibility shifted to the person with TBI to take the initiative in arranging longer-term services. Long-term support which addresses physical, cognitive as well as psychosocial consequences of the TBI is important for outcomes. The majority of the informants had difficulties in returning to working life after the injury. The outcomes and recovery seemed to be a prolonged process, probably never ending, but which gradually over time becomes integrated as a part of life. The informants gave varying accounts of the extent to which they experienced social recognition.</p>

This Master’s thesis has been carried out within the subject area of Production Development and Management and aims to reduce internal lead times in make-to-order (MTO) and job-shop production environments with the use of identified theoretical methods. The reason this particular production environment was chosen was the flexibility and satisfaction it provides its customers. Today, customers expect customised products, a situation which causes problems for manufacturers as they are unable to produce such products in large amounts. In order to investigate problems with these kinds of environments and the causes for long lead times, we have conducted a literature study where we identified the problems these particular kinds of production environments experience regarding production planning and control which are related to the immense amount of time consumed by changeovers because of high demand variance and high requirements for customisation. To affirm the theoretical findings, we opted to undertake a case study and chose Talent Plastics Gislaved AB as our case, because this company utilises an MTO and job-shop production environment for its production of highly customised products with high demand variance. In the analysis of our case, we found that the wastes in the organisation were similar to those identified in the theoretical findings. The current planning system and the current state of the manufacturing lead time system were evaluated and a theoretical framework using a combination of lean production, work load control and constant work-in-process theories was suggested. We claim that concentrating on the reduction of setup times can lead the job-shop towards drastically decreased lead times and a much more effective use of time throughout the organisation. Because the organisation will continue to face problems due to the ever-increasing demand variance and requirements for customisation, there are plenty of opportunities for further research in these kinds of production environments. Emerging theories, such as quick response manufacturing, may also be tested to construct an efficient framework.

Orientador: Olivio Novaski / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-09T23:02:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sugai_Miguel_D.pdf: 1274322 bytes, checksum: 70a6b343805d0ccb0f6f8bb640c793dd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: As metodologias de redução de tempo de preparação (setup) ganharam importância quando se tornou necessário produzir em pequenos lotes e grande variedade com o mesmo sistema produtivo. No contexto histórico, recebe maior destaque a metodologia SMED (Single- Minute Exchange of Die) elaborada por Shigeo Shingo, consultor da Toyota Motors Company, que deu passos relevantes em termos conceituais e técnicos. Nos dias atuais, o uso do SMED nas indústrias brasileiras tem sido mais comum. Contudo, tem surgido a preocupação em realizar melhorias que possibilitam a plena recuperação da capacidade produtiva após o setup. Este período da retomada (fase pós-setup) não tem recebido muitas atenções e em alguns sistemas produtivos tem gerado muitas perdas. Este trabalho realiza uma revisão histórica e o estado da arte dos conceitos de setup e changeover (virada de produção) sendo que a principal contribuição desta tese é propor um Método de Classificação dos Elementos do Período da Retomada. Partindo das causas primárias do diagrama de Ishikawa, a classificação utiliza como base as informações da revisão bibliográfica e dos estudos de caso múltiplos (máquina individual, arranjo celular e linha de produção) realizados na indústria metal-mecânica. O resultado final foi o desenvolvimento do Método de Classificação dos Elementos do Período da Retomada e da Planilha de Classificação de Sentenças com o qual se avalia cada elemento do período da retomada conforme as categorias ¿geração de instabilidade¿, ¿intermediário¿ e ¿domínio¿ no período da retomada. Este método foi testado em outros dois estudos de caso de produção discreta para validar o seu conteúdo, embora contenha informações úteis para outros sistemas produtivos / Abstract: The setup time reduction methodologies gained importance when the industry was challenged to produce in small lots and high variety with the same production system. In the historical context, SMED methodology, elaborated by Shigeo Shingo, a Toyota Motors Company consultant, deserves special attention. His methodology has given prominent steps in terms of evaluation and technical concepts regarding setup time reduction methodologies. Today, the use of the SMED in the Brazilian industries has become commonplace. However, the concern to make improvements to achieve full recuperation of production capacity after setup has arisen. This run-up period has not received the necessary attention, leading to big losses in some production systems. This work is a historical review and a presentation of the state-of-the-art of setup and changeover concepts and, its main contribution, is proposing a classification method of the elements that cause the run-up period. Starting from the primary causes of Ishikawa's diagram, the classification is based on the information from bibliographical revision and from the multiple case studies (individual machine, cellular arrangement and production line) developed in the metal-mechanical industry. The final result is the Classification Method of Element that Cause the Run-up period in which each causal element is evaluated according to the categories ¿instability generation¿, ¿intermediate¿ and ¿domain in the run-up period¿. This Classification Method has been tested in other two case studies to validate the concept and it received the approval in cases of discrete production, although it also contains relevant information for other productive systems / Doutorado / Materiais e Processos de Fabricação / Doutor em Engenharia Mecânica

The overall purpose of this study is to illuminate the changeover process experienced by individuals who as adults acquired a traumatic brain injury (TBI), to increase the knowledge and the understanding of this process, and describe the meaning of support in every day life. Persons who acquired a TBI as adults were administered a semi-structured interview covering six areas: consequences of TBI, family and social networks, working life and occupation, life-changes, support from society and everyday life. The interviews were qualitative and in-depth. A total of 15 informants participated, aged between 19-53 years when injured. Data were structured and underwent two phases of analysis. In the first phase, data underwent latent content analysis, underpinned by a hermeneutic approach, and in the subsequent phase, reanalysed within a framework derived from the theory of social recognition. Findings from the first phase of inductive analysis elicited key themes: (i) the meaning of care, a question of formal and/or informal support; (ii) the meaning of action, a question of activity versus inactivity; (iii) autonomy, a question of dependence versus independence; (iv) social interaction, a question of encounter and/or treatment; (v) the theme of changes, a question of process versus stagnation; and (vi) emotions, an oscillation between hope versus hopelessness. After the construction of the six themes each of them were, through a discursive analysis, connected with theories, earlier studies in the field of brain injuries and important interview quotations from the empirical material. During this phase, an interest developed to study the material from a new theoretical point of view. The second phase of analysis therefore involved the development of a framework derived from Honneth’s (1995) theory of social recognition. The central construct of ‘recognition’ was analysed from three different dimensions proposed by Honneth: the individual dimension, the legal dimension, the value dimension. Using this framework, the data were reanalysed. The scientific term for this process of re-contextualisation and re-description of data is abduction inference. Reported consequences were negative as well as positive. Significant others (e.g. next of kin) had an important function as a driving force for training and preparation for life-situation after injury. A majority of the informants were satisfied with support from society, such as hospital-care, rehabilitation and community support. Such support, initially, proceeded without problems but as time passed, the responsibility shifted to the person with TBI to take the initiative in arranging longer-term services. Long-term support which addresses physical, cognitive as well as psychosocial consequences of the TBI is important for outcomes. The majority of the informants had difficulties in returning to working life after the injury. The outcomes and recovery seemed to be a prolonged process, probably never ending, but which gradually over time becomes integrated as a part of life. The informants gave varying accounts of the extent to which they experienced social recognition.

This diploma thesis deals with the optimization of production process at ADC Czech Republic s.r.o. Primarily, the method of Lean Six Sigma is used. The first part has a form of the literary study where individual methods used within the company are described. These are further applied in the practical part. The second part presents a brief introduction of the company including the production portfolio. The last part focuses on the practical solution of particular problems of two packaging lines aiming to increase the utilization. In the thesis, the DMAIC improvement cycle is employed.

This thesis deals with the management of the production process, focusing on unproductive activities. It comprises analysis of the current situation in the company Teva Czech Industries s.r.o. (the TCI) and suggestions for improvement measures. The first chapter presents theoretical basis for processing work. PMT methods, namely MTM and MOST, lean production with a focus on 5S, TPM and Kaizen are described. The second chapter is focused on the company TCI, core business, organization structure and analyzes the current status. It’s focused primarily on the process of critical non-manufacturing operations and the changeover cleaning process. The third chapter, following the analytical part consists of the proposed recommendations. The fourth chapter deals with the final evaluation.

The global market is very competitive due to fast changes in complex business environments and to survive or expand the business, organizations must embrace organizational change. However, adapting to change is not always easy, where organizations may experience obstacles and resistance along the way. Organizations may also experience that it is very hard to implement lean successfully, due to lack of know-how but especially resistance. The traditional way is to blame the blue-collars for the disturbing circumstances but in modern times the wind has changed its course where the managers themselves can be a contributor for implementation failures. Therefore, the aim of the research is to investigate what advantages that can be obtained by implementing a certain change initiative. Furthermore, to determine where resistance occurs and how to eliminate or reduce them. The change initiative in this research is implemented by conducting a case study in a Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs), where the main goal is to reduce the changeover time of a machine, by finding improvement suggestions using the Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) methodology. The results generated several improvement opportunities and gave an indication that there is a huge potential for improvements and elimination of waste during a typical changeover. The positive outcomes of implementing these improvement opportunities could theoretically reduce the changeover time, which directly reduces the overall cost but higher responsiveness, flexibility and efficiency can also be obtained. However, the evidence tells a story where the organization could experience obstacles during the implementation of the improvement suggestions, due to several factors. Surprisingly, the evidence points out that one root problem for resistance is difficulties of describing the underlying reason of the change initiative to the blue-collars. Moreover, there is in fact resistance and lack of awareness of the SMED methodology among the blue-collars and the managers, where fear of the unknown is another root problem for resistance.

Over the past decade, the objectives for coagulation based drinking water treatment processes have changed significantly. These changes are a result of stringent goals related to natural organic matter (NOM) removal to mitigate the formation of subsequent harmful and health-related disinfection by-products (DBPs) and the need to achieve adequate filtration performance to ensure sufficient particle removal for pathogen control. Another concern associated with coagulation optimization is the potential unintended consequences of a coagulant change on the distribution system, specifically related to lead release from lead pipe and solder materials. Optimizing these multi-objectives in a direct filtration treatment process presents significant challenges for source waters characterized by low levels of turbidity, alkalinity and organic matter content. Bench and pilot-scale experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of ferric sulfate, polyaluminum chloride (PACl) and aluminum chlorohydrate (ACH) against aluminum sulfate (alum) using variable coagulation dosage and pH conditions for a direct filtration facility. Bench-scale experiments were conducted to optimize NOM removal during coagulation using traditional organic matter surrogates coupled with molecular size characterization techniques. Pilot-scale studies provided a snapshot of feasibility in terms of filtration performance for favourable bench-scale conditions and also identified optimal conditions for filtration performance. Results from pilot testing demonstrated that favourable conditions identified for increased potential NOM removals during bench-scale testing were significantly different than optimal filtration conditions identified during pilot studies; and, in fact, severely compromised direct filtration performance due to increased solids loading to the filters. Bench-scale experiments evaluated lead leaching from lead and lead:tin solder galvanically connected to copper under stagnant conditions using variable chloride-to-sulfate mass ratio (CSMR) conditions for alum, ferric sulfate and PACl. Although recent research identifies high CSMRs (>0.5) as the main mechanism of attack in distribution systems following coagulant changeovers, CSMR was not the primary catalyst for lead leaching following the coagulant changeover conditions evaluated in this study. Residual concentrations of iron and aluminum remaining following coagulation were the principal contributors. Positive correlations were revealed between particulate iron and particulate lead concentrations following stagnation demonstrating that the adsorption of lead to iron oxides is a viable hypothesis for lead release.