In uncertain cases, the result and efficiency of a current period (or production cycle) are in?uenced not only by the risks which exist in current period but also by the risks which exist in the previous ones. What is more, the risk itself is also affected greatly by the risks which exist in the earlier periods. This kind of problem is called a limited-cycle problem with multiple periods. Normally, workers ’efficiency is different on different tasks. How can we get an optimal assignment to minimize the total expected costs? In this paper, we consider the optimal worker assignment considering two kinds of efficiency, clever or poor efficiency on tasks. The regularity will be described that n-1 workers have two clever tasks of all, 1 worker has no clever task by contrast. Also, some numerical experiments will be done to check out the regularity of the optimal assignment that each worker has two or three clever tasks.

A healthcare service was visualized by physical activity of healthcare workers ’tasks at a longterm care nursing home in Japan. Physical activity was measured by four healthcare workers using an activity meter. The workers ’tasks in healthcare services were quanti?ed by high-intensity activity of 3.0 METs (metabolic equivalents) or more, and by the relationship between physical activity and healthcare tasks. A higher workload for healthcare workers could be quanti?ed by the average physical activity and the cumulative time of high-intensity activity of 3.0 METs or more. Healthcare workers with signi?cant experience completed daily tasks effectively, but the tasks included high-intensity physical activity or a higher workload. In addition to observational methods, improvement of healthcare services should be considered by quantitative variables.

Cyber-physical system (CPS) is one core concept of Industry 4.0. A cyber space has mirror information of physical space and activities in the physical space are synchronized with activities in cyber space. SURUGA Gateway is a CPS, running in a Japanese robot component producer. Innovation process(design) and operation (manufacturing) process is integrated together on the SURUGA Gateway, enabling high quality, short leadtime, low cost, and high ?exibility. Various decisions were made in the cyber space, then executed in physical space automatically. Materials input to manufacturing process according to production plan which created by modi?ed ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, fabricated according to optimized routing and scheduling. All NC (numerical control) machines and MC (machining center) were connected and integrated on a centralized platform using Ethercat protocol and interface, and serial electronic signal control for old machines. The KAMISHIBAI (VPS: virtual production system) is embedded in the SURUGA Gateway,providing online training to assembly operators. Innovation process drives operation process, while know-how to improve efficiency and quality in operation process is feedback to the innovation process. The integration of innovation process and operation process, speci?cally the integration of design, material ?ow, machine ?ow and human resource is most successful point of the SURUGA Gateway. SURUGA Gateway successfully reduced leadtime by 80% and recognized as best practice in Hannover Messe and G20 business conference.