In the project management, buffers are considered to handle uncertainties that lead to changes in project scheduling which in turn causes project delivery delay. The purpose of this survey is to discuss the state of the art on models and methods for project buffer management and time optimization of construction projects and manufacturing industries. There are not literally any surveys which review the literature of project buffer management and time optimization. This research adds to the previous literature surveys and focuses mainly on papers after 2014 but with a quick review on previous works. This research investigates the literature from project buffer sizing, project buffer consumption monitoring and project time/resource optimization perspectives.

This work investigated and predicted the fatigue life durability of Austenitic Stainless Steel 316L due to its importance in plant industries worldwide. Modelling and simulations were performed to clarify the fracture as well as stress distribution using integrated mechanism. Experimental fatigue validations were also carried out to demonstrate the effect of various fatigue life parameters. Various loading conditions with variable load amplitudes were validated utilizing a frequency of 5 Hz and a stress ratio of 0.1. The accuracy of the simulation results were also verified based on the experimental data. High consistencies between the predicted fatigue life and the experimental results were achieved which increases the validity of the built model.

Turning the attention towards a net performance of the Indonesian oil and gas industry is important. Inconsistent performance of the oil and gas industry has shown the negative consequence for the nation’s economy. However, up to some extent, the issues can be resolved through green supply chain integration. Therefore, the ultimate purpose of this study is to investigate the role of green supply chain integration on the sustainable performance of the oil and gas industry of Indonesia. To collect the data, a survey questionnaire was used, and questionnaires were distributed among the employees of oil and gas companies in Indonesia. From total three hundred (300) distributed questionnaires, two hundred and one (201) were returned and used to analyze the data through Smart PLS 3. Findings reveal that green supply chain activities had a positive contribution in sustainable performance among oil and gas companies. Supplier integration, customer integration and technological integration had a substantial impact on economic sustainable performance and environmentally sustainable performance. Thus, the Indonesian oil and gas companies are recommended to use green supply chain activities to enhance performance.

The development of techniques that allow producing high-finish surfaces of geometrically-complex parts of difficult-to-machine materials by electrical discharge machining (EDM) is an emerging research area. The aim of this work is to study the application of electrolytic-plasma polishing technique for the high-quality surface finish of the parts obtained by EDM process. The structural alloy steel 38KH2N2MA (GOST 4543 – 71) was selected as the processing material. The morphology of the machined surface was examined using optical micrographs. It was observed that applying the electrolytic plasma polishing for the duration of 5 minutes results in reducing the surface roughness of the ED machined surface by a factor of 5. It is also concluded that the combined action of EDM with electrolytic plasma polishing method is suitable for attaining the desired surface finish.

Application of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) in modeling of combined cycle power plant (CCPP) with dry cooling tower (Heller tower) has been investigated in this paper. Prediction of power plant output (megawatt) under different working conditions was made using multi-layer feed-forward ANN and training was performed with operational data using back-propagation. Two ANN network was constructed for the steam turbine (ST) and the main cooling system(MCS). Results indicate that the ANN model is effective in predicting the power plant output with good accuracy.

The aim of the current study is to examine the role of competitive advantage and commodity strategic supply chain in the textile industry of Indonesia. Additionally, the mediating role of export performance was examined to expedite textile industry performance. The moderating role of supply chain top management team support was also investigated. To achieve the objectives, primary data were collected with the help of a questionnaire. Employees of textile companies were selected as the respondents and PLS-SEM was used in this study. Moreover, the preliminary analysis was performed through SPSS. Ten hypotheses were developed to examine the relationships among competitive advantage, commodity strategic supply chain, export performance, supply chain top management team support and textile industry performance. Findings of the study indicate that competitive advantage and commodity strategic supply chain played a valuable role to enhance textile industry performance. Export performance is a mediating variable between competitive advantage and textile industry performance, moreover, it is also a mediating variable between commodity strategic supply chain and textile industry performance. Likewise, supply chain top management team support as a moderating variable enhances the positive impact of competitive advantage on textile industry performance.

In this work, novel cellulosic fibers are extracted from Washingtonia Filifera (WF) plant using an environment friendly technique. Morphological, physico-chemical, thermal and mechanical properties are reported in this paper. Micro graphical SEM shows the presence of cells in the fiber. FTIR and XRD experimental analyzes show a cristinality index of 48.88%, and the WF fibers are found to be thermally stable until 201°C by using TGA and DTG thermo graphic analyzes with an appropriate activation energy of 72.46 kJ/mol, where Young modulus and tensile strength of strain were determined using tensile tests of single fiber at 2.17 GPa, 134 MPa and 26.55%, respectively. Mechanical properties are analyzed using a statistical method.

Multi-criteria decision making approach is one of the most troublesome tools for solving the tangled optimization problems in the machining area due to its capability of solving the complex optimization problems in the production process. Turning is widely used in the manufacturing processes as it offers enormous advantages like good quality product, customer satisfaction, economical and relatively easy to apply. A contemporary approach, MOORA coupled with PCA, was used to ascertain an optimal combination of input parameters (spindle speed, depth of cut and feed rate) for the given output parameters (power consumption, average surface roughness and frequency of tool vibration) using L27 orthogonal array for turning on ASTM A588 mild steel. Comparison between MOORA-PCA and TOPSIS-PCA shows the effectiveness of MOORA over TOPSIS method. The optimum parameter combination for multi-performance characteristics has been established for ASTM A588 mild steel are spindle speed 160 rpm, depth of cut 0.1 mm and feed rate 0.08 mm/rev. Therefore, this study focuses on the application of the hybrid MCDM approach as a vital selection making tool to deal with multi objective optimization problems.

In the current decade, with an increase in e-commerce, the logistics activities have grown rapidly. However, the logistics industry of the Malaysian country is declining, as the ranking of this industry has shown downfall continuously during the past few years. The decrease in logistics industry performance reduces the contribution in a Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Therefore, to address this issue, the primary objective of this study was to examine the role of strategic management accounting practices to enhance the profitability of the Malaysian logistics firms. Questionnaires were adopted to collect the primary data and they were distributed among the employees of the logistics companies. All the questionnaires were distributed through area cluster sampling technique. Partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyze the collected data. The results indicate that strategic management accounting practices had a significant positive relationship with supply chain outcomes and supply chain outcomes had a significant positive relationship with the profitability of the logistics companies. Finally, this is one of the pioneer studies, which examined the impact of strategic management accounting practices on the outcome of the logistics firms.

The current study measures the mechanical behavior of both natural and the monobloc elastomeric disc prosthesis (CadiscTM-L) by employing a finite element method (FEM) to study the fiber-reinforced constitutive formulation provided in the literature. The three-dimensional geometry was created by computed tomography (CT) scan imaging technique. Frontal pure rotational, sagittal, and axial momentum of 7.5 N·m were applied on the top of L3 while the lower half of the L5 was fixed in all directions. This investigation was performed considering two stages: (1) intact L3–L5 lumbar spine (INT model), and (2) Cadisc implemented between L4 and L5 (IMP model). The numerical results for the INT model were validated by experimental data from the literature. Several parameters including the inter-segmental rotation, range of motion in flexion-extension, axial rotation and lateral bending were analyzed. Our numerical results show that the IMP model has a 50% reduction in the ‘range of motion’ and a 33% reduction in flexion in lateral bending compared to the INT model. These outcomes of this paper reveal the feasibility of applying a fibre-reinforced constitutive formulation to generate an accurate three-dimensional FEM model.