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It is a challenge to print a model with the size that is larger than the working volume of a three-dimensional (3D) printer. The purpose of this paper is to present a feasible approach to divide a large model into small printing parts to fit the volume of a printer and then assemble these parts into the final model.

The proposed approach is based on the skeletonization and the minima rule. The skeleton of a printing model is first extracted using the mesh contraction and the principal component analysis. The 3D model is then partitioned preliminarily into many smaller parts using the space sweep method and the minima rule. The preliminary partition is finally optimized using the greedy algorithm.

The skeleton of a 3D model can effectively represent a simplified version of the geometry of the 3D model. Using a model’s skeleton to partition the model is an efficient way. As it is generally desirable to have segmentations at concave creases and seams, the cutting position should be located in the concave region. The proposed approach can partition large models effectively to well retain the integrity of meaningful parts.

The proposed approach is new in the rapid prototyping field using the model skeletonization and the minima rule. Based on the authors’ knowledge, there is no method that concerns the integrity of meaningful parts for partitioning. The proposed method can achieve satisfactory results by the integrity of meaningful parts and assemblability for most 3D models.

The purpose of this paper is to present the research for improvement of the operating room in a hospital, to reduce patient waiting time and increase the resource utilization.

Value stream mapping (VSM) is used to represent the entire operating room (OR) process and patient flow to identify problems. Agent‐based simulation (ABS) is applied to model human behaviors in the OR operation. Agents perform human factors in the simulation model with autonomous and interactive functions actively.

The research outcomes prove the effectiveness of integrated VSM and ABS to improve decision making in human‐centred healthcare environments.

Because the state is dynamically changed, the task priority needs to be updated dynamically. The nurse schedule to transport patients between different units is to be detailed.

Long waiting lists in hospitals lead to patient dissatisfaction and care quality reduction. It is crucial to identify inefficiency and to improve the healthcare delivery effectively.

The paper shows how VSM and ABS are integrated in the modeling for the dynamic OR planning. It improves the simulation modeling of healthcare delivery.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an effective approach to decide design details using benchmarking to capture the existing practice in sustainable design.

This paper reports a systematic method for sustainable product design. The method uses benchmarks as references searching for design details to achieve sustainable solutions. Quality function deployment is used to guide the search process for competitive products using benchmarking to meet quantitative targets of product and to increase knowledge for sustainable design.

The proposed method can meet both functional and sustainable requirements of product design. 18.55 percent reduction in carbon equivalent emissions is achieved compared to benchmarks in wheelchair design. The research reveals that when weight, material and number of components used in product decrease, environmental footprints and cost of the product improve.

The research improves the existing method of sustainable product design. Both sustainable requirements and functional demands of product are identified from qualitative criteria to quantitative metrics using benchmarking and the life cycle assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify external and internal uncertainties in product design process. The research addresses the measure of product future changes.

Two methods are proposed to model and quantify uncertainty in the product life cycle. Changes of user preferences are considered as the external uncertainty. Changes stemming from dependencies between components are addressed as the internal uncertainty. Both methods use developed mechanisms to capture and treat changes of user preferences. An agent-based model is developed to simulate sociotechnical events in the product life cycle for the external uncertainty. An innovative application of Big Data Analytics (BDA) is proposed to evaluate the external and internal uncertainties in product design. The methods can identify the most affected product components under uncertainty.

The results show that the proposed method could identify product changes during its life cycle, particularly using the proposed BDA method.

It is essential for manufacturers in the competitive market to know their product changes under uncertainty. Proposed methods have potential to optimize design parameters in complex environments.

This research bridges the gap of literature in the accurate estimation of uncertainty. The research integrates the change prediction and change transferring, applies data management methods innovatively, and utilizes the proposed methods practically.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a method of the bottleneck detection for Emergency Department (ED) improvement using benchmarking and design of experiments (DOE) in simulation model.

Four procedures of treatments are used to represent ED activities of the patient flow. Simulation modeling is applied as a cost-effective tool to analyze the ED operation. Benchmarking provides the achievable goal for the improvement. DOE speeds up the process of bottleneck search.

It is identified that the long waiting time is accumulated by previous arrival patients waiting for treatment in the ED. Comparing the processing time of each treatment procedure with the benchmark reveals that increasing the treatment time mainly happens in treatment in progress and emergency room holding (ERH) procedures. It also indicates that the to be admitted time caused by the transfer delay is a common case.

The current research is conducted in the ED only. Activities in the ERH require a close cooperation of several medical teams to complete patients’ condition evaluations. The current model may be extended to the related medical units to improve the model detail.

ED overcrowding is an increasingly significant public healthcare problem. Bottlenecks that affect ED overcrowding have to be detected to improve the patient flow.

Integration of benchmarking and DOE in simulation modeling proposed in this research shows the promise in time-saving for bottleneck detection of ED operations.

This paper aims to introduce the efficiency improvement in the operating room (OR) of a local hospital using the integration of simulation and optimization.

Based on the simulation model, a Tabu search (TS) algorithm is developed as an optimizer for the meta-heuristic optimization method to find the optimum configuration of resources for the OR operation.

The computational efficiency is improved for the optimum search. Results show that 21 percent more patients can be processed compared to the existing operation. The average time stay of patients in the OR is reduced by 17 percent.

Limited resources considered in the model may limit the capacity of the proposed method, more resources including nurses, beds in post-operative units, and beds in inpatient wards will be included in the decision variables.

Long waiting lists in the OR lead to the low performance of healthcare systems. It is crucial to identify inefficiency and to improve the OR operation efficiently.

The TS-based heuristic optimizing method developed in this research shows the promise in time saving of the optimal solution search for the OR efficiency improvement.

Internet technology is changing the way of product development, ranging from information gathering, product managing and commerce to product development, and maintenance. In order to obtain the evidence of the extent of Web‐based applications in industry, we did a survey to examine the impact and need of the Internet in product development under industrial environments. This paper provides a view of Internet‐based applications in Canadian industry based on the data received from 42 Canadian small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which results in a solution to improve current Web‐based industrial applications. A framework of an industrial‐oriented Web‐centred system is proposed based on the demand found from the survey. Some examples are provided to demonstrate applications of the proposed framework.