Abstract:

This is the sixth issue of the International Journal of Performability Engineering of the year 2016. We have implemented an on-line paper management system for the journal. The URL is http://ijpe-online.com/ijpe-submission/index.php/IJPE/index. Authors are requested to use this URL for submission of papers for publication. Authors are encouraged to submit their full research papers, case studies, review papers, short communications, book reviews, and other information such as details on conferences within the scope of the journal through the above URL. The journal will be edited by two new Editors-in-Chief starting from January 2017. The new EIC are Dr. Suprasad V. Amari, BAE Systems (suprasad.amari@gmail.com) and Dr. Sanjay K. Chaturvedi, IIT Kharagpur (eic.ijpe@gmail.com).
This issue of the journal consists of eight technical papers, including a short communication, and a book review.
The first paper, Evaluation and Optimization of Overall Equipment Effectiveness on a Pasting Machine in a Battery Manufacturing Industry, focuses on application of OEE to evaluate the performance of critical machines and to determine to what extent the TPM implementation affects the OEE. The procedure to estimate OEE has also been presented through case study which was carried out in industry manufacturing battery for vehicles.
The second paper, Experimental Investigation on Catalytic Properties of Copper Oxide in Internal Combustion Petrol Engine during Cold Start Emission, attempts to study the pollution from multi-cylinder SI engine, using Electrically Heating the Catalyst (EHC) with copper oxide as a catalyst.
The third paper, Productivity Enhancement in a Small Scale Manufacturing Unit through Proposed Line Balancing and Cellular Layout, adopts lean manufacturing techniques to enhance the productivity in gas stove burner manufacturing unit by reduction of lead time. The author has used the Rank position method for line balancing which gives optimum resource allocation for the process based on the Tori Amos Khang Trang time.
The fourth paper, Effects of Reinforcing Elements on the Performance of Laser Transmission Welding Process in Polymer Composites: A Systematic Review, has categorized laser transmission welding methods which are initially introduced to join thermoplastic sheet film and molded objects, and presently applied in industry join polymer composites. The paper has also discussed various properties of the laser transmission welding, its applicability, merits and limitations when applied for industrial cases.
The fifth paper, Approach to Assessment of Maintainability in Design, presents an approach for the evaluation of the maintainability in the design phase presented by its indicator viz. the average repair time while integrating the opinion of the experts for the choice of the parameter of the failure rate.
The sixth paper, Maintenance Priorities for a Repairable System of a Thermal Power Plant Subject to Availability Constraint, presents a methodology to maximize availability of a repairable system. The authors have used a Markov model to compute an availability matrix which provides various availability levels for different combinations of failure and repair rates of all the subsystems. Based upon this, the optimum values of failure and repair rates of each subsystem are obtained and maintenance priorities are decided for all the subsystems of a thermal power plant.
The seventh paper, A Methodology for Risk Assessment and Formulation of Mitigation Strategies for Trucking Industry, identifies various failure modes in the trucking industry and their effects and proposes a modified failure modes and effect analysis (MFMEA) to prioritize the mitigation strategy. The paper proposes to use the modified risk mitigation number (MRMN) approach and to apply interval type-2 Fuzzy FMEA to rank the risk factors. Ranked weightage of the risk factors and personal opinions of the experts have been taken into account for computation of risk mitigation matrix.
The eighth paper, A Cost-Based Maintenance Model based on a Non-Homogeneous Poisson Process, is a short communication. The paper proposes a maintenance model for a deteriorating system subject to vibration monitoring, which is based on a real system of the wind machines from a steel mill. The paper develops a cost model to determine the optimal number of allowable rebalances and the working age of the system and illustrates using a numerical case.
This issue also consists of a book review. The book reviewed is “Lean Six Sigma for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises: A Practical Guide”, Published by CRC Press (2016). This book is authored by Jiju Antony, S. Vinodh and E.U. Gijo.
I hope that the papers in this issue will be informative to the readers and motivate them to do more research in new directions. Suggestions to further improve the journal are most welcome.
I take this opportunity to thank the journal management, in particular Professor Eric Wong, for giving me an opportunity to work for the journal as one of the EICs. I also thank Professor Krishna B. Misra (Founder and long term EIC of the journal), Professor Dianxiang Xu (my Co-EIC), regional editors, assistant editors, editorial board members, authors, paper reviewers, journal subscribers and the readers of the journal for their enthusiasm, encouragement, support, and patience without which the journal could not have achieved its present status. I welcome the new EICs of the journal and wish them all success in bringing the IJPE to newer heights. I also expect that the journal will achieve more and more milestones in the years to come with the active participation and support of all concerned.