Feasibility Study of CMMS Implementation A case study in RAJA Passenger Trains Company Seyed Mohammad Rezvani Zaniani Mahmoud Valibeigloo Mehdi Asghari * RAJA Passenger Trains Co. & Joint master students of maintenance management in Luleå University, Luleå, Sweden and Sharif University, Tehran, Iran

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract With the extension of industries and complexity of the work processes in big organizations, the need for information systems is felt more than ever and this need intensified such that there is no enterprise today may survive without the existence of information systems in the competitive environment. The role of information systems is retrieving, storing, processing, and diffusing information and by this application it could increase the enterprises productivity and therefore they have found special position within the organizations. Today, most of the organizations try to improve their information systems. Implementation of a good information system that can have a good relation with its considered industry has its special stages which are called the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The commencement point of the systems development life cycle is feasibility study. Clearly, without feasibility study implementation and optimization of information system does not seem logical. This paper points out the feasibility study of implementing an information system in the maintenance department, - which is known as Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) - in Raja Passenger Trains Co.

Keywords: CMMS MIS Maintenance Feasibility Study SDLC

1- Introduction At the beginning of 50th AD, the first use of computer within organizations was for the execution of the repeated financial calculations (accounting) and then it was used in other work fields of the organization as well such as personnel system, warehousing, and production planning. At the middle

of 70s AD, computer was tended to be used in maintenance fields. Chapman states that CMMS was first discovered in 1976 and it is extensively considered today [1]. Lamendola stresses the need for omitting the invaluable additional activities and granting special attention to the documentation of the works in maintenance. He states that this idea to a higher scale is the base for the CMMS". [2] Wireman, Hannan and Keyport, and Callahan have suggested the potential ability of reporting and analyzing capabilities as the other capabilities of CMMS. [3, 4 and5] Dunn & Johnson refers to CMMS as a tool for coordinating and connection between the maintenance section and the production section [6]. Galbraith introduces the reduction of the rate of organization requirements to the processing of information and increase of the information processing capacity within the organization as the two methods for reducing pressure imposed on the maintenance section due to the improvement in different technologies [7]. The CMMS are able to optimize the performance of the maintenance management activities in controlling complexities and help the managers in their decision-making process by their Decision Support Systems (DSS). [8] Casinger & Travis have summarized the difficulties in relation with the maintenance management in modern industries and have introduced CMMS as a solution to such difficulties. [9] Considering the presented definitions and characteristics of the CMMS, we shall take into account that these systems were successful in only 20% of the Iranian industries utilized [10]. Followings are the curbs on the way of the successful execution of Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) which are vary from one organization to the other [10]: 1- Lack of feasibility study and lack of predetermined CMMS objectives and evaluation 2- Lack of integration in designing, installing, and implementation 3- Lack of a comprehensive strategy in maintenance Dept. 4- Existence of useless data which are confusing in decision support systems Considering the above-mentioned cases concerning the complexity of the function of CMMS and their lack of success in the industries in which they have been applied, it is necessary for this kind of information systems -which are considered as a part of Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systemsto leave behind system development life cycles in order to be executed successfully through transmitting of the logical stages of system development life cycles, and being settled in the organization. The life cycle of the information systems include stages that result in the right planning, designing, and implementing of the information systems. The life cycle of the information systems includes the stages are shown in figure 1. The computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) similar to any other information system require transition from the different stages of life cycle for designing, producing, and implementing. Designers of the information systems use of different methodologies for implementing the life cycle of the information systems which are as follow:

Figure 1.Stages of system development life cycles [11]

-

Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) Rational Unified Process (RUP) Extreme Programming (XP) Adoptive Software Development Prototyping

From the above methodologies, which are known as information system development methodologies, the SSADM and RUP methodologies are known more than the others. SSADM is a structured methodology and RUP is an object-oriented methodology [11]. With a look to different methodologies of the information systems, one may discover that the first phase of the life cycle of the information systems is equal in all of them. For making familiar with this phase, which is feasibility study, we take a general look at different stages of the life cycle concerning the information systems to become acquainted with feasibility study.

2- System Development Life Cycle Concepts and Definition As mentioned previously the life cycle of the information systems is attributed to stages that an information system is supposed to leave them behind. The life cycle of the information systems, despite to the life cycle of some physical systems, is one of the ascending curves which efficiency of it is increased with the pass of time [11].

Figure 2.System development life cycles [11]

In this section, we continue with a brief explanation in case of different phase of the life cycle of the information systems: 1- Feasibility study: The feasibility study is used to determine if the project should get the go-ahead. If the project is to proceed, the feasibility study will produce a project plan and budget estimates for the future stages of development. [11] 2- Requirement Analysis (Analysis) and Design: Analysis gathers the requirements for the system. This stage includes a detailed study of the business needs of the organization. Options for changing the business process may be considered. Design focuses on high level design like, what programs are needed and how are they going to interact, low-level design (how the individual programs are going to work), interface design (what are the interfaces going to look like) and data design (what data will be required). During these phases, the software's overall structure is defined. Analysis and Design are very crucial in the whole development cycle. Any glitch in the design phase could be very expensive to solve in the later stage of the software development. Much care is taken during this phase. The logical system of the product is developed in this phase. [11] 3- Implementation: In this phase the designs are translated into code. Computer programs are written using a conventional programming language or an application generator. Programming tools like Compilers, Interpreters, and Debuggers are used to generate the code. Different high level programming languages like C, C++, Pascal, and Java are used for coding. With respect to the type of application, the right programming language is chosen. [11] 4- Test: In this phase the system is tested. Normally programs are written as a series of individual modules, these subjects to separate and detailed test. The system is then tested as a whole. The separate modules are brought together and tested as a complete system. The system is tested to ensure that interfaces between modules work (integration testing), the system works on the intended platform and with the expected volume of data (volume testing) and that the system does what the user requires (acceptance/beta testing). [11] 5- Maintenance: Inevitably the system will need maintenance. Software will definitely undergo change once it is delivered to the customer. There are many reasons for the change. Change could happen because of some unexpected input values into the system. In addition, the changes in the system could directly affect the software operations. The software should be developed to accommodate changes that could happen during the post implementation period. [11]

3- Introduction of RAJA Passenger Trains Company Considering the traditional and old textile of railroad, expanse of organization, 100% governmental environment, hardships, and problems arising from basic and underlying affairs and there was no possibility of establishment of basic changes or promotion in the quality of service offering. Hence, establishment of a set of outlooks, forces, systems, and special methods, and appreciating efficiency and criterion-based are necessary. With this outlook, Raja Passenger Train Company started its activity on Oct. 22, 1996 in the form of an independent governmental company, whose 100% shares belong to the Railway of the Islamic Republic of Iran, aiming at qualitative and quantitative growth in the field of passenger transportation. The policy of Raja has been concentrated on optimized utilization from facilities, successive optimization, enhancing efficiency and proper service offer in the direction of enhancement of the organization and promotion of qualitative and quantitative level of passenger service. This company is presently trying to provide more appropriate conditions for the traveling of dear compatriots by benefiting from specialty and experience of about 2100 efficient man

forces in the field of management, engineering, planning, research, operation, service rendering, and maintenance as well as by benefiting from the existing facilities. [12] In this direction honoring customers, respecting passenger s rights, successive promotion of level of passenger services were the main and fundamental policies of the company and great measures have been taken for achieving these objectives. The organization chart of the company is as follows:

Board of Directors

Managing Director

Performance assessment &

Vice President Operational

Plan & Budget Dept.

Research & Training Center

Public Relations Dept.

Vice President Technical

Khorasan Branch

Job Applicant Assessment Dept.

Security Dept.

Vice president Financial& Administrative

Region Branches

Fig 3.Hierarchy chart of RAJA divisions [12]

Considering the organization chart and the general policies of this company, the vice president technical (technical deputy) of this organization has undertaken the maintenance of wagons that for the execution of such repairs, this deputy applies it different factories and administrations. RAJA Passenger Trains Company has provided several information systems for the execution of the personnel, financial, and warehouse affairs and it applies them as well. However, it has not used any integrated information systems for the execution of its maintenance affairs in the technical deputy. Since the personnel of the technical deputy are recruited through the Financial and Human Resources Deputy, the entire personnel transactions of the technical deputy are done through the information system of the financial deputy and the human resources, and since due to the governmental structure of RAJA Company the entire expenses of it are under the supervision of the same deputy and under the commitment of the financial unit of this deputy. Also from another aspect the entire information related to purchase of the spare parts of warehouses are related to the financial deputy and technical deputy just uses of these information systems toward its objectives. It is also worth mentioning that the technical deputy of RAJA Company makes use of several island information systems in different sections and offices of itself but due to the lack of communication between these systems, interactive processing is not practiced on this deputy and this deputy faced with serious difficulties in different fields such as tracking the optimized maintenance expenses, tracking and analyzing the repair capacity of its workshops, prediction of the consumption rate of spare parts, automation of the repairs executive processes, determining the life time of wagons, determining the optimized repair times based on the performance of wagons, and so on and as mentioned before these are due to the lack of a integrated information system in maintenance Dept. . Therefore, in case of increasing the productivity of the company, application of a maintenance computerized system (designed based on the needs of this company) will be very effective and useful, but with considering the diversity of wagons that this deputy undertakes their maintaining and also considering the privatization policy and different contractors that each of them undergo a part of repairs, the planning and execution maintenance process is a complex activity which complex CMMS.

Therefore, considering the complexity of this CMMS and its executive expenses, feasibility of the designing and implementation of it is necessary. In the feasibility phase, the requirement of RAJA Company for a CMMS is determined, and then the ability of this company for implementing a Computerized Maintenance Management System was analyzed.

4- Feasibility study of the CMMS system of RAJA Company: In the feasibility phase, which is the first phase of the lifecycle of an information system, organization is analyzed from two aspects: 1) Organization requirement of such information system and economic feasibility study 2) Ability of the organization concerning the implementation of the above system In this section, with the analysis of the two above debates, RAJA Company is studied from the viewpoint of implementing a computerized maintenance management system. 4-1- Organization requirement of CMMS and economic feasibility study One may identify the need for a CMMS in the maintenance department of RAJA Company from the difficulties resulted from the lack of this system. Such difficulties are the representative of needs and requirements that are solvable through applying an efficient and integrated CMMS. Followings are some of the difficulties identified through field interviews and analysis of the maintenance and repair process: - Weakness of the relations among the unites inside organization due to the use of island information systems - Weakness of the relations between the contractors due to the non-establishment of the relation between the information systems of contractors and RAJA Company - Lack of sufficient information in relation with out of ordered wagons - Existence of stagnant and defunct items in warehouses - Slow trend of the supply process of materials and parts due to the lack of comprehensive information and non-coordination between the workplace stock and the main warehouses. - Non-existence of a compiled maintenance program for wagons based on their performance data - Impossibility of controlling and correcting the maintenance processes due to the lack of maintenance data - Lack of comprehensive information resources for helping to the decision-making process of managers - Impossibility of tracking on repair expenses for determining the optimal repair expenses - Lack of the performance indicators in every unit due to the lack of their work information - Existence of additional operation units in the enterprise chart - Impossibility of tracking repair processes in RAJA Regions workshop - Lack of comprehensive information gathered through different operational units for using in the supply process - Lack of the maintenance identification in favor of wagons - Registration of information in the private software of contractors which could remove with them being changed. The aforementioned difficulties, which indicate the need for a CMMS in RAJA Company, are parts of difficulties that this company is being suffered from an ineffective information system. Such difficulties impose expenses on RAJA Company in the maintenance department that increases the maintenance expenses. Since RAJA Company offers services in the field of transporting passengers, sometimes, lack of information result in the reduced safety of the transportations or the reduced satisfaction of the customers and spoiling the customer-oriented policy of RAJA Company. In this case, using of some information acquired from the statistical information concerning the functioning of RAJA Company in 2007 [12], some of the repair expenses of RAJA Company that are because of the lack of computerized maintenance information software are estimated in order to launch the

required investigations in case of the feasibility of economic and frugality aspects of a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). Type of repairs

Overhaul

Annual

Emergency

Routine

No. of repairs

149

1297

4041

259585

Table 1. Total repairs performed in RAJA Company in 2007 [12]

Overhauls are executed once in every 4 years for repairing the entire wagon sections for being reused. According to UIC574 Receipt issued by International Railroad Union, overhaul of wagons may be done according to specific time periods or based on the performance of wagon. In the second approach, when the performance of a wagon is lowered to a special extend threatening the safety of the passengers, the considered wagon is sent to the repair stations. It is notable mentioning that repair of wagon is economical based on its performance, because based on the field interviews, sometime, some of wagons that are sent to the repair stations are still safe and some of the wagons that their repair time is not matured require overhaul. Therefore, in the field of overhaul, wagons may be sent to the repair stations to be fundamentally repaired considering their functioning level through applying a comprehensive information system holding the work information concerning the entire repair contractors and with the initiation of technical inspection systems concerning wagons for registering the faults of wagons after every travel in this system. The overhaul expense of wagons is almost equal to 50,000 Euro. The annual repair of wagons has a fixed instruction that every in each one of its annual repair shall be repaired based on this instruction. It must be mentioned that these instructions are not issued by the wagons manufacturer company and they are based on the repairs in the entire technical units of the wagon (annual repairs are based on the repair of the entire technical sections except to the decorative sections of the wagon). Based on the fulfilled field interviews, the above instruction is not of the required efficiency, because at the time of annual repairs, some parts of the wagon do not require maintenance, whereas, they must be repaired due to the annual repair instructions and this may result in Intrusive Maintenance (IM). Based on the same field interview, the repair personnel confessed that making use of the repair history; we may correct the annual maintenance instructions in order to avoid the execution of the additional repairs as well as the Intrusive Maintenance (IM). The annual maintenance expense of wagons is 10,000 Euro approximately. There is another group of repairs that is called the Routine maintenance, which is imputed to the daily inspections. Since RAJA Company offers services in the field of transporting passengers and trains must be of enough required security, trains must be inspected after every travel to make sure of their true technical functioning and security. The considerable point in case of the daily inspections (Routine Maintenance) is that in this kind of inspections, attention to the history of wagons is done based on a general instruction, whereas, considering the field interviews, the repair personnel confirm that if the daily inspections are based on an instruction derived from the history of routine maintenance, quality of the daily inspections will be growth up and might be remarkable. Expense of the routine maintenances in every year for the entire wagons under service is equal to 5191700 Euro Emergency Maintenances are attributed to that group of repairs that are out of the overhaul and annual maintenances and daily inspections and are done due to the bad quality of maintenances concerning wagons. This group of maintenances that usually results in the occurrence of delay in the travel of trains is accompanied by the reduced satisfaction of the passengers and causes many expenses. The cost of emergency maintenances is different and sometimes they exceed up to overhaul expenses. According to the field studies, one of the main reasons of the emergency repairs is the nonconcentration on the repair processes in the repair periods on necessary occasions that is the result of the lack of a Computerized Maintenance Management system for tracking the faults of wagons and concentrating on the maintenance processes concerning them.

Now, for the economic feasibility of a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), we proceed with analyzing the maintenance expenses concerning a wagon during its 15-year life cycle. The cash flow diagram of the routine maintenances is as follows in which "n" represents the number of years and the length of the entire period is 15 years. Routine maintenances

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Figure 4.Annual expenses of routine maintenances

Cash flow diagram of the overhaul maintenances in which n represents the number of years and the length of the entire period is 15 years. Overhaul Annually

1

2 3

Overhaul

Annually

4

5 6

Overhaul

Annually

7

8

Annually

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Considering the 15% as the annual interest coefficient, the net present value of the maintenances is equal to: - Net present value of the routine maintenances PR= net value of the entire routine maintenance expenses AR = annual expenses of the routine maintenances per total number of wagons = 5191700 Euro n= number of the years of a wagon's lifecycle =15 i = annual interest rate = 15

- Net present value concerning the overhaul maintenance For finding the value of the present expenses concerning the overhaul, first, we calculate the effective interest rate per 4-year time period as follows:

i a = Four-year interest rate per revamp= 0.75 n3 = Once per 4 years periods= 3 A0 = Overhaul maintenance expenses per wagon in its lifecycle = 50,000 Po = Present value of the entire overhaul expenses per wagon

m = the total number of wagons owned by RAJA Co. Po (total) = Total overhaul expenses for whole wagons

- Net present value of the annual maintenance PA = present value of the annual maintenances for a wagon during its lifecycle AA = expense of every annual maintenance = 10,000 I = annual interest rate = 15% n = number of years in a lifecycle of a wagon =15

For calculating the emergency maintenance expenses referring to the existing data of RAJA Company, annually, expenses equal to 280,000 is spent on such emergency maintenance [12] that for the 15year is equal to: PE =Emergency maintenance expenses of RAJA Company per a 15-year period

Now, from the total expenses concerning overhaul maintenances and annual and routine and emergency maintenances, the total maintenance expenses are calculated as follows: General expenses of maintenance in RAJA Company per the entire wagons in a 15-year period

It must be said that the above calculated expense is a part of direct expenses of maintenance that application of CMMS will have a higher impact on its optimization. Therefore, RAJA Company has other expenses for the execution of its maintenance affairs as well that are called Indirect Expenses

(e.g. water, electricity, telephone, and maintenance expenses of installations of workshops, and so on) that due to the indirect impact of the CMMS on them, they are not taken into account. Now, according to the field interviews and emphasis of the personnel on a CMMS Software and considering the nature of the maintenance process of RAJA Company, this will be highly capable of being improved and considering the general maintenance expenses of the company in a 15-year period and assuming that the used software can optimize the processes only for 1%, the frugality expense resulted form the application of this software is: Frugality rate resulting from applying CMMS=

1874930.48

This is while considering the price inquiry through a CMMS, supply of such a software through prototyping has a expense of 400,000 Euro (discovered from among different price inquiries from different Iranian software companies). Therefore, assuming 1 percent of optimization, which is not a mere inaccessible assumption, and also with considering the higher volume of expenses concerning the maintenance activities of RAJA Company, which is generally done in a concentrated fashion in Tehran Repair Station, application of such information system will be profitable and cost effective. In case of the feasibility study of a CMMS Software in RAJA Company, besides the feasibility study in the field of existing requirements and difficulties and economic feasibility, the ability of RAJA Company shall be investigated in case of implementing the above software. 4-2- Investigation of the ability of RAJA Company concerning the implementation of a CMMS About the facilities and capabilities existing in RAJA Company, this enterprise may be investigated in several points of view in line with the implementation of CMMS software. In this section, RAJA Company is analyzed in the viewpoint of organizational culture of this company concerning the implementation of a CMMS software and then in the viewpoint of hardware and software facilities. 4-2-1- Analyzing the capabilities of RAJA Company from the organizational culture viewpoint in line with implementation of CMMS About the organizational culture of RAJA Company, we must say that the organizational culture in fact means the how much the implementation of CMMS is welcomed by the personnel and enterprise of RAJA Company. In this connection, after a field study, the following cases are considered for the organizational reception of RAJA Company for the implementation of the aforementioned software: - Presently, RAJA Company uses of island information system that this matter indicated that application of a unified information system does not create a remarkable strength in the operational personnel, because they register their work information in these island information system. - Training unit of RAJA Company and the engineering and research office of it have presented Request For Proposal (RFP) that this indicates which this company senses the need of an efficient and integrated information system and it will not show any resistance against the implementation of such system in the site of its maintenance department - Name change of one of the directors of RAJA Company in the enterprise chart to the Planning, Budget, and Information Technology Management represents that RAJA Company has accomplished the backing up activities concerning the information technology making use of such management and it has paved the road for the implementation of the information system - Implementation and application of successful official automation software in this company indicates that application of such systems in the company has been successful and personnel of this company welcome the execution of such plans. 4-2-2- Investigation of the hardware ability of RAJA Company:

In case of the hardware and software ability of RAJA Company, we may say that with the field study, the following capabilities are observable in the implementation of the unified maintenance software: - All the personnel of the company have their private computers. - The entire contractors of RAJA Company have their special computer and work program as well. - All the personal computers of the personnel are connected to each other through local area network (LAN) of RAJA Company and the computers of the contractors are capable of being connected to the computers of RAJA Company. - In RAJA Company, there is a backup and support unit for solving the hardware and software problems that these sections, which are the network and computer contractors, can be used for the software backup of the CMMS. - RAJA Company makes use of SQL 2005 database that results in the reduced executive expenses of implementing CMMS software. The hardware ability of RAJA Company concerning the implementation of comprehensive and efficient maintenance software, which is structured and designed based on the company needs, represent that the implementation of such a system is possible with lower initiation expenses and this company is talented and ready to apply a useful CMMS.

Conclusion With the carried out investigations, which was the first phase of the information systems development phases and stages, the ability and requirements of RAJA Company concerning the application of a CMMS, which can meet the related needs of the department, were analyzed. Furthermore, feasibility of implementing this information system showed that application of this system can be very useful and it can reduce the maintenance expenses of the company. Lowered maintenance cost of the company through applying an integrated computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) represents that such processes are being done with higher effectiveness and efficiency and using of this information system may result in higher rate in maintenances productivity. Implementation of the information systems is usually followed by a higher expense that this composes a part of hardware supply expenses. According to the conducted investigations, it was discovered that the required hardware is available in this company, and this prepares the ground for the implementation of CMMS.

Acknowledgment This paper was one of the results of a project that was financially supported by the Raja passenger train corporation, so we would like to thank the Maintenance Department and Documentation Unit staff at this company, and in particular Mr. Mahmoud Ja fary the president of Raja Company. Also, we would like to appreciate Professor Uday Kumar of Div. of Operation and Maintenance Engineering in Luleå University of Technology for their direction and supervision on this study.

References [1] Chapman S., "Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS)", April 1993, Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Power Conference on Computerization of Maintenance Management Systems. [2] Lamendola M., "Repair more, repair less: where to focus", 1998, EC & M Electrical Construction of Maintenance, vol. 98, No. 9, Intertec Publishing Corporation, p. 56(2). [3] Wireman T., "Computerized Maintenance Management Systems", 1994, 2nd Industrial Press. [4] Hannan V., Keyport D., "Automating a maintenance work control system", 1991, Plant Engineering, pp. 108 110 [5] Callahan M., "10 Hidden features of a CMMS", 1997, Plant Engineering, pp75 76.

[6] Dunn R. and Johnson D., "Getting started in computerized maintenance management", 1991, Plant Engineering, pp. 55 58. [7] Galbraith J., "Organization Design", 1977, Addison-Wesley. [8] Hora M., "The unglamorous game of managing maintenance", 1987, Business 47 [9] Casinger L., Travis D., "Five causes of and remedies for maintenance manager headaches", 1997, Plant Engineering, vol 51, No. 13, Cahners Publishing Company. [10] Dabestani H., "Study of implemented CMMS in Iranian Industries", 2007, 4th conference on maintenance. [11] Azizi A., "structured system analysis and design method", 2000, Veyda publication. [12] Railway magazine of the Islamic republic of Iran

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