The aminolytic depolymerization of PET bottle waste with ethanolamine by conventional heating and microwave irradiation heating method was attempted with heterogeneous, recyclable acid catalysts such as beta zeolite (SiO2/ AlO2= 15 Na- form) and montmorillonite KSF. The pure product bis-(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalamide (BHETA) of aminolysis was obtained in good yield (85- 88%). The BHETA, thus obtained, was subjected to cyclization reaction by heating with polyphosphoric acid as well as by chlorination (using phosphoryl chloride), bromination (using red phosphorous and liquid bromine) and nitration (conc. HNO3 + conc. H2SO4) followed by conventional and microwave irradiation heating in N,N- dimethyl formamide/ potassium carbonate solution. The product so obtained was 2, 2’-(1,4-phenylene)–bis-(2-oxazoline) (PBO), which has applications in polymer synthesis as a chain extender/ chain coupling agent or a cross linker. The productswere analyzed by FTIR, DSC, Mass and NMR (1H and 13C NMR).

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is essentially a commercial software package that enables the integration of transaction - oriented data and business processes throughout an organization. In order to remain competitive in this global business scenario, the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are opting for ERP implementation. In Indian SME sector, the adoption of ERP is rapidly increasing. Literature shows many instances where organizations, even after implementing such novel information systems like ERP, are unable to derive the benefits of integration. It is, therefore, not surprising that implementation of enterprise information systems in general is quite difficult due to their size, scope and complexity. Therefore, there is a need to identify some issues that would lead to positive outcome for the implementation of ERP systems in the context of Indian SME sector. This paper thus attempts to identify and to prioritize the factors influencing proper implementation of ERP systems in a business organization particularly for Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs). The research presented here is specifically targeted the Indian SMEs, which have already completed the process of implementing ERP system.

In this paper, we address the optimization of an integrated line balancing process with workstation inventory management. While doing so, we have studied the interconnection between line balancing and its conversion process. Almost each and every moderate to large manufacturing industry depends on a long and integrated supply chain, consisting of inbound logistic, conversion process and outbound logistic. In this sense an approach addresses a very general problem of integrated line balancing. Research works reported in the literature so far mainly deals with minimization of cost for inbound and outbound logistic subsystems. In most of the cases conversion process has been ignored. We suggest a generic approach for linking the balancing of the line of production in the conversion area with the customers’ rate of demand in the market and for configuring the related stock chambers. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to translate the underlying problem in the form of mixed nonlinear programming problem and design the optimum supply chain so that the total inventory cost and the cost of balancing loss of the conversion process is jointly minimized and ideal cycle time of the production process is determined along with ideal sizes of the stock chambers. A numerical example has been added to demonstrate the suitability of our approach.

Supply chain management (SCM) is becoming critical as firms recognize that competition is
shifting from company versus company to supply chain versus supply chain. In the present
competitive scenario, the fierce competition has driven most companies to seek for means of
enhancing performance beyond their four wall boundaries. The firm’s ability in collaborating
with its upstream and downstream partners determines its success in attaining better
performance with supply chain collaboration; a firm is able to serve fragmented markets in
which end customers require more product varieties and availability with shorter product life
cycle and, at the same time, lower supply chain costs. This paper introduces the framework of
continuous supply chain collaboration (CSCC), which extends the traditional frame of reference
in strategic sourcing from a supplier centric to a supply-chain-scope as continuous
improvement efforts to enhance the customer satisfaction. CSCC practices are rather
exceptional, yet CSCC is believed to be the single most comprehensive framework for attaining
operational excellence.

In this paper, we present machining tests by turning En-31 steel alloy with tungsten carbide
inserts using soluble oil-water mixture lubricant under different machining conditions. Firstorder
and second-order cutting force prediction models were developed by using the
experimental data by applying response surface methodology combined with factorial design of
experiments. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is also employed to check the adequacy of the
developed models. The established equations show that feed rate and depth of cut are the main
influencing factors on the cutting force followed by tool nose radius and cutting velocity. It
increases with increase in the feed rate, depth of cut and tool nose radius but decreases with an
increase in the cutting velocity. The predicted cutting force values of the samples have been
found to lie close to that of the experimentally observed values with 95% confident levels.
Moreover, the surface response counters have been generated from the model equations.
Desirability function is used for single response optimization.

In today’s environment, cash conversion cycle is randomly used as a measure of liquidity of the organizations. Cash conversion cycle is considered as the length of time between raw-materials and collection of cash from debtors. It can be used as a benchmarking competitors or comparing companies. On the other hand, Cash holding is one of the most important financial decisions that a manager has to make in any organization. Some organizations hold more cash and some organizations hold less cash. In this study, we perform a survey to make a relationship between Cash Conversion Cycle and Cash Holding.

Novel 4-(1-(4-(4-(4-aminophenyl)-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-6-(4-(diethylamino)phenyl)-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-1H-pyrazol-4-yl)benzenamine fluorescent dye was synthesized by multistep synthesis from cyanuric chloride and phenyl acetonitrile. It has absorption at 360 nm with single emission at 497 nm having fairly good quantum yield (0.379). The intermediates and the dye were characterized by FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR and Mass spectral analysis. Its utility as biocompatible fluorescent dye was explained by conjugation with bovine serum albumin. The method is based on direct fluorescence detection of fluorophore labelled protein before and after conjugation. Purified fluorescent conjugates were subsequently analyzed by fluorimetry. The analysis showed that the tested conjugation reaction yielded fluorescent conjugates of the dye through carbodiimide chemistry.

This paper deals with data mining applications for the supply chain inventory management. ABC characterization is typically utilized for stock items arrangement on the grounds that the quantity of stock items is large to the point that it is not computationally practical to set stock and admin-istration control rules for every individual item. Moreover, in ABC classification, the inter-relationship between items is not considered. But practically, the sale of one item could influence the sale of other items (cross selling effect). Consequently, within each cluster, the inventories should be classified. In this paper, a modified approach is proposed considering both cross-selling effect and clusters to rank stock items. A numerical case is utilized to clarify the new ap-proach. It is represented that by utilizing this modified approach; the ranking of items may get influenced bringing about higher profits.

In today’s global and dynamic business environment, manufacturing organizations face the tremendous challenge of expanding markets and meeting the customer expectations. It compels them to lower total cost in the entire supply chain, shorten throughput time, reduce inventory, expand product choice, provide more reliable delivery dates and better customer service, improve quality, and efficiently coordinate demand, supply and production. In order to accomplish these objectives, the manufacturing organizations are turning to enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which is an enterprise-wide information system to interlace all the necessary business functions, such as product planning, purchasing, inventory control, sales, financial and human resources into a single system having a shared database. Thus to survive in the global competitive environment, implementation of a suitable ERP system is mandatory. However, selecting a wrong ERP system may adversely affect the manufacturing organization’s overall performance. Due to limitations in available resources, complexity of ERP systems and diversity of alternatives, it is often difficult for a manufacturing organization to select and install the most suitable ERP system. In this paper, two ERP system selection problems are solved using fuzzy multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) method and it is observed that in both the cases, SAP is the best solution.

An assembly line is a sequence of workstations, connected together by a material handling system, which is used to assemble components into a final product. The economic importance of assembly as a manufacturing process has led to extensive efforts for designing an assembly line to ensure efficiency and cost effectiveness of assembly operations. These efficiency and effectiveness can be maximized by minimizing balancing loss and system loss. The current work offers a range based measure for System loss and describes a technique for jointly minimizing balancing loss and system loss. To arrive at the optimum solution of the joint minimization problem, the same has been reduced to sequential marginal minimization problems and simulation technique has been installed for obtaining the optimal solution. For demonstration purpose, one example has been worked out to indicate the strength of the suggested method.