The SAE International Journal of Materials and Manufacturing has retracted a paper after realizing the authors ripped off a 1999 PhD thesis.
According to the notice, the 2014 paper — about the best ways to set up manufacturing cells in the automobile industry — “is almost entirely taken” from a Durham University, UK student’s PhD thesis. The thesis, “Computer-aided design of cellular manufacturing layout,” was written by Yue Wu. We were unable to track him down after he left the University of Exeter‘s Manufacturing Enterprise Center.
Here’s the notice for “Reengineering the Layout: A CMS Methodological Approach”:
SAE International has determined that the above referenced paper is almost entirely taken from the following PhD thesis, which was not cited or otherwise adequately acknowledged: Wu, Y., “Computer-Aided Design of Cellular Manufacturing Layout,” PhD thesis, University of Durham, 1999, http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1464/. This constitutes a breach of ethics and warranties made by the author with respect to original contributions to the literature. SAE International received, reviewed, accepted, and published the paper in good faith based on these warranties; we censure the author’s conduct and as a result, we have retracted the paper from publication. The retracted paper will remain available online and in print to maintain the scholarly record, but it will henceforth feature a watermark on each page as RETRACTED.
We’ve reached out to first author Jayant Bhangale at the Matoshri College of Engineering in India and the editor, and will update if we hear back.
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And the first author is apparently the chair of mechanical engineering. So who is going to conduct the investigation (if they even do that)? Great example to set for the department.