Calls for papers

 

Asian Journal of Management Science and Applications

 

Special Issue on: "Lean, Cellular Manufacturing and Seru Production"

Guest Editors:
Ikou Kaku, Tokyo City University, Japan
Gursel Suer, Ohio University, USA
Nallan C. Suresh, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, USA

As a core concept and tool of lean production, cellular manufacturing (CM) has been widely researched in the past 30 years. Many organisations have applied CM concepts in manufacturing and service processes. While cells are converted from job shops, serus are converted from assembly lines.

Since 1991, seru production (SP, or Japanese assembly cell) has successfully been adopted in electronics, auto components and other industries throughout Asia. Seru is an extension of just-in-time (JIT) philosophy to organisation (Stecke 2012). SP has been called the next generation of lean in Asia for several years, but is not widely known outside Asia (Liu 2013).

Seru has been developed to prosper in a volatile market with shorter product lifecycles, uncertain product types and fluctuating production volumes (sometimes mass, sometimes batch, and sometimes very small volumes). Asian manufacturing giants such as Sony, Canon, Panasonic and Samsung have dismantled assembly conveyor lines and adopted SP, which can efficiently and effectively respond to customer requirements in a volatile market.

Seru is also a new approach for mass customisation. Seru has many benefits. It can reduce lead time, setup time, WIP inventories, finished product inventories, cost, required workforce and shop floor space. Seru also influences profits, product quality and workforce motivation in a positive way. For example, by applying seru , Canon's average productivity became much higher than that of Toyota.

The aim of this special issue is to provide a forum for exchanging the latest developments in the field of CM/SP. A special focus is on highlighting the similarities and differences between seru and machining and assembly cells. The issue will also bring researchers and practitioners together to produce synergy between scientific developments and empirical experiences and needs.

The issue will carry revised and substantially extended versions of selected papers presented at the 2013 Asian Conference of Management Science and Applications (ACMSA2013), but we also strongly encourage researchers unable to participate in the conference to submit articles for this call.

Subject Coverage
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Agile principles in CM/SP
• Assembly cell, seru versus assembly line
• Cell formation
• Cell/seru loading
• CM/SP applications in service
• CM versus SP
• Design and control of CM/SP
• Human factors in CM/SP
• Information systems in CM/SP
• Implementation issues of CM/SP
• Inventory control in CM/SP
• JIT in CM/SP
• Layout design in CM/SP
• Lean principles in CM/SP
• Mass customisation in CM/SP
• Operations in CM/SP

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our Submitting articles page.

Important Dates

Manuscripts due by: 31 May, 2014

Notification to authors: 30 July, 2014