Abstract

Abstract

Abstract
The nesting problem consists of defining the cutting plan of a piece of raw material in smaller irregular shapes, and has applications in the apparel and footwear industries. Due to its NP-hard nature, the optimal solution can only be guaranteed by exhaustively trying all possible solutions and choosing the best one. Because this is impractical in real-life industrial problems, automatic approaches are based on optimization meta-heuristics that search for sub-optimal but good enough solutions. These optimization techniques rely on the construction and evaluation of several solutions, thus requiring heavy geometric manipulation of the irregular polygons that constitute the problem data. Efficient processing of this geometric information is thus necessary to make effective fully automatic approaches to nesting problems in industrial environments. This paper describes Fafner, an FPGA-based custom computing machine that is used to accelerate the geometric operations, that are in the core of heuristic solutions to the nesting problem. The system is used as an auxiliary processor attached to a low cost personal computer, and combines a custom programmable processor with an array of custom circuits for the processing of irregular polygons.

Abstract
When properly applied, statistical tools are an effective way for improving process quality. Although training on statistical process control (SPC) is increasing, unfortunately it is likely to find examples where the SPC implementation does not lead to any kind of process improvement. In fact, SPC implementation is not a simple and automatic task. Frequently the blind use of these tools causes more perplexity than value. The availability of statistical software together with the pressure for ISO 9000 registration can partially explain this situation. In this paper, the basic principles of some statistical tools are clarified, and a case-study from a ferrous castings foundry is presented, describing a situation in which the traditional inference SPC tools are not recommended. Alternatively, graphical aids are applied in order to support process management decisions.

Abstract
This paper reports the activities of the ECOOP'99Workshop on Interactive System Design with Object Models (WISDOM'99). The paper presents the workshop rational, format, the discussion framework and its four identified issues: architecture, process, notation and traceability. The results of the workshop are proposals for a meta-architecture to develop interactive systems, an user-centered software development process framework, some comments on notation issues and finally a traceability model of user interface design. Furthermore this paper contains abstracts of all position papers presented at the workshop.

Abstract
This paper describes an application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to the performance assessment of Portuguese bank branches. The analysis shows how DEA can complement the profitability measure currently used at the bank. The use of an efficiency-profitability matrix enabled the characterisation of the branches' performance profile. Consistent with the bank's development objectives, the analysis focused on the relation between branch size and performance. Two alternative target setting strategies were explored. One eliminates pure technical inefficiencies by focusing on the selection of appropriate benchmarks. The other attains the branches' most productive scale size through the elimination of scale inefficiencies, with minimal changes to branches' scale size.