【Time】 2:00PM-3:00PM，June 22, 2010 (Tuesday) 

【Venue】Room 510, Shunde Building 

【Speaker】Dr. Jinshan Li, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky 

【Host】 Professor Li Zheng 

【Title】 Quality and Flexibility: Coupled or Independent?

【Abstract】 Manufacturing systems are becoming more and more flexible. Many flexible systems implement batch operations to shorten changeover time, reduce cost, and improve quality. Although flexible manufacturing systems have been studied extensively, the question of quality is typically ignored. However, flexibility and product quality are tightly coupled. Using the evidence from automotive manufacturing, as well as analytical results, we show that flexibility has a significant impact on product quality. 

Motivated by this fact and scarcity of research on the coupling between flexibility and quality, a Markov chain model is developed to study quality in flexible manufacturing systems, in particular, in systems with batch productions. Analytical expressions to evaluate quality performance are derived. Structural properties to address the batch and sequence policies are presented. Methods to improvement quality through re-sequencing and bottleneck identifications are introduced. A case study at an automotive paint shop is described. The results reported in this talk indicate that analysis of the coupling between flexibility and quality opens up a new direction of research in Production Systems Engineering. 

In addition, this talk will briefly introduce other recent research projects in production systems and health care systems, etc.

【Bio Sketch】Dr. Jingshan Li will be an Associate Professor with tenure in Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in University of Wisconsin at Madison (starting from July 1st, 2010). He has been an Assistant Professor with Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY since 2006. He was a Staff Researcher in Manufacturing Systems Research Lab, General Motors Research & Development Center, Warren, MI from 2000 to 2006. He received BS from Dept. of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and MS from Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, and PhD in Electrical Engineering – Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI in 1989, 1992 and 2000, respectively. 

Dr. Li is the co-author (with Prof. S.M. Meerkov) of the textbook Production Systems Engineering (Springer, 2009), and he co-edited (with Prof. P.T. Kabamba) the book Advances in Systems Theory: Control, Communication Networks, Production Systems and Rational Behavior (WingSpan Press, 2009). Up-to-date, he has published 38 refereed journal articles, 4 book chapters and 46 conference proceedings. He was the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and Mathematical Problems in Engineering. He received NSF CAREER Award (2010-2015), the 2009 IIE Transactions Best Application Paper Award – Design and Manufacturing, 2005 IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering Best Paper Award, 2006 IEEE Early Industry/Government Career Award in Robotics and Automation, and he was also in the Finalists of Best Paper Award of 2009 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering and Best Automation Paper Award of 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. His primary research interests are in design, analysis and control of production and health care systems. His research has been supported by NSF, General Motors, Central Baptist Hospital, University of Kentucky Hospital, DOE, UKRF and SME.

Looking forward to your participation.