Sales and operations planning (S&OP), despite its importance in balancing demand and supply, faces significant challenges due to system complexity, uncertainty, and conflicting objectives. While previous research has primarily examined the effects of integration, flexibility, and inventory control on cost and customer service level under demand uncertainty, it has often overlooked the simultaneous consideration of plan stability, procurement time uncertainty, and supplier capacity constraints. This study addresses these gaps by developing a multi-objective S&OP simulation–optimization model that jointly considers plan stability objectives and capacity-constrained supply order allocation under both demand and procurement time uncertainty. Computational results from an automotive industry case study show that frozen horizon length has a more significant impact on customer service, delivery time, and plan stability than on total profit. A bi-sourcing policy proved more advantageous than single sourcing even under unlimited capacity and lower unit costs, while moderate procurement lead-time uncertainty outperformed deterministic lead times under long supply intervals. This reveals counterintuitive temporal supply dynamics in which lead-time overlaps and order crossings yield favorable logistics cost trade-offs. The results also indicate that sourcing policies, supply intervals and lead-time uncertainty influence plan stability even when frozen horizon length is fixed. These findings provide manufacturers with insights to balance flexibility and stability in S&OP, while managing multiple uncertainty sources and multi-sourcing strategies in dynamic supply chain environments.

When lifting a load using a crane, it must be hoisted directly above its center of gravity (COG) to prevent tilting and swinging, which can lead to serious accidents. Therefore, accurately identifying the COG before lifting is essential for crane safety and is a key technology for crane-lift automation. Although many methods exist for measuring the COG after the load is lifted, they often fail to prevent potential risks. Therefore, for loads with a rectangular bottom, we propose and develop a sensor system capable of detecting COG “before” the load is lifted. A depth camera and a lifting force sensor are mounted on a crane hook. The lifting force sensor also functions as a spring, allowing the lifting force to increase gradually when a crane wire is wound. The direction of the tilting of the load, that is, the direction of the COG, is detected from the change in the depth image of the top surface of the load when the load is lifted only slightly. The horizontal distance to the COG is determined by observing the changes in the lifting force, which varies before and after any edge of the load bottom is slightly lifted. Unless the COG of the load is directly beneath the lifting position, the load typically tilts toward one of the four edges of the rectangular bottom. Subsequently, to determine the COG in a two-dimensional plane, two lifting trials are required when the weight of the load is known, whereas three trials are required if the weight is unknown. Experiments were conducted to detect the COG of loads, confirming the effectiveness and sufficient accuracy of the proposed detection method.

A sophisticated chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) technology with in-line optical-thickness verification was developed for shallow-trench isolation formation in gate-all-around field-effect transistors with a multilayered Si/SiGe superlattice. The CMP tools were equipped with in-line optical critical dimension (OCD) measurement and a torque current monitor of the CMP turn-table motor for endpoint detection (EPD). In this study, model-based OCD fitting was applied to estimate the thicknesses of complex multilayered films: a SiN stopper on a thin SiO₂ buffer layer over a Si/SiGe/Si/SiGe/Si/SiGe superlattice epitaxially grown on a Si substrate. Immediately after the CMP with the electrical EPD and the in-line OCD measurement, the over-polished thickness of the SiN stopper was within 3 nm on the fin-patterned Si/SiGe superlattice despite the change in the SiO₂–CMP rate during continuous wafer processing. This nondestructive CMP control method improves the efficiency and quality of the CMP process in GAAFET fabrication.

This study aims to automate the production of globes for the visually impaired (VI) and provide low-cost alternatives. This process is achieved using a spherical surface processing machine dedicated to globe fabrication, equipped with a two-axis rotary positioning mechanism and a semiconductor laser. The machine operates based on machining paths generated by a custom-developed computer-aided manufacturing system specifically designed for globe production. As the system generates tool paths from geopolitical information, it supports a variety of applications beyond conventional drilling. These include the creation of raised solid borders, the addition of textures using small point clouds applied exclusively to land areas, and the merging of small-area countries with larger neighboring countries. This allows users to obtain globes tailored to their specific purposes and preferences. As a result, the developed processing system is capable of automatically producing customized globes for VI individuals within one day. In an experiment conducted to investigate which globe characteristics were preferred by several VI participants, no single design was found to be universally preferred. This finding indicates the effectiveness of the proposed system, as it enables customization according to individual user preferences.