A manufacturing system energy-efficient optimisation model for maintenance production workforce size determination using integrated fuzzy logic and quality function deployment approach

In maintenance systems, the current approach to workforce analysis entails the utilisation of metrics that focus exclusively on workforce cost and productivity. This method omits the “green” concept, which principally hinges on energy-efficient manufacturing and also ignores the production-maintenance integration. The approach is not accurate and could not be heavily relied upon for sound maintenance decisions. Consequently, a comprehensive, scientifically-motivated, cost-effective and an environmentally-conscious approach are needed. With this in view, a deviation from the traditional approach through employing a combined fuzzy, quality function deployment interacting with three meta-heuristics (colliding bodies optimisation, big-bang big-crunch and particle swarm optimisation) for optimisation is made in the current study. The workforce size parameters are determined by maximising workforce size’s earned-valued as well as electric power efficiency maximisation subject to various real-life constraints. The efficacy and robustness of the model is tested with data from an aluminium products manufacturing system operating in a developing country. The results obtained indicate that the proposed colliding bodies’ optimisation framework is effective in comparison with other techniques. This implies that the proposed methodology potentially displays tremendous benefit of conserving energy, thus aiding environmental preservation and cost of energy savings. The principal novelty of the paper is the uniquely new method of quantifying the energy savings contributions of the maintenance workforc

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty papers which were presented in the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY 2011 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments , held in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, from 22ndto 24thof June, 2011.The main motive of the meeting was growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, and creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily companies and their businesses. Due to this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability 2.0” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Also, the notation“2.0” is to promote the publication as a step further from our previous publication – “Business Sustainability I” – as would be for a new version of software. Concerning the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participation, in accordance with the Conference's assumed mission to promote Proactive Generative Collaborative Learning, the Conference Organisation shares/puts open to the community the papers presented in this book, as well as the papers presented on the previous Conference(s). These papers can be accessed from the conference webpage (http://labve.dps.uminho.pt/bs11). In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 107 authors from 11 countries, namely from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, and United States of America. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope, and would like, that this book to be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the third of which is planned for year 2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An innovative framework for implementing lean principles in product- service system

The aim of this research project is to develop an innovative framework to implement lean principles in Product-Service System (PSS) with the capability of assessing the leanness level of the services offering process. The framework comprises three implementation phases namely: assessment of the current state, developing a future state, and stabilising the new way of operations. Additionally, the framework covers the enablers, factors, and appropriate lean tools required for the successful implementation of lean practices in Product-Service System (PSS), as well as, the challenges that may obstacle the implementation process. The proposed framework has integrated an assessment model that provides a quantifiable measure of the leanness level of Product-Service System (PSS). Five main enablers and thirty three factors emerging from these main enablers deemed to be critical for the successful implementation of lean practices in Product-Service System (PSS). Moreover, a series of eight inhibitors appeared to block the implementation process. The Product-Service System leanness assessment model was developed upon three main levels, namely: enablers, criteria, and attributes. The first level contains five enablers. These enablers are supplier relationship, management leanness, workforce leanness, process excellence, and customer relationship. In the second level there are twenty one criteria such as: supplier delivery, culture of management and process optimisation. Finally, the third level consists of seventy three attributes. By using multi-grade fuzzy approach the PSS leanness index was computed and areas for further improvement were identified. A combination of research methodology approaches has been employed in this research. Firstly, an extensive literature review related to lean and PSS was conducted. Secondly, the qualitative approach and the case study were selected as an appropriate methodology for this research, using semi-structured and structured interview techniques to gather the required data from experts who are involved in lean projects in their companies. Finally, validation of the results was carried out using real life industrial case studies and experts judgment. Case studies demonstrate that the framework provides guidelines for manufacturing companies that aim to implement lean principles in Product-Service System (PSS). The framework enables manufacturing companies to better satisfy their customers’ needs through responding quickly to their changing demands; to improve the service offering process through reducing the creation of wastes and non-value added activities; and to improve competitiveness through increasing customers’ value. Additionally, the PSS leanness index is useful for improving the service offering process. The index provides manufacturing companies with a real insight into the leanness level of their service offering, as well as, it provides managers with a quantifiable measure of how lean their PSS is. The index identifies the gap between the current state and the future state and this helps in determining areas for further improvement

Towards Assessment of information system agility

International audienceCurrently, the information systems agility and the satisfaction of the dynamic environment requirements is essential challenges for companies. The purpose of this paper is to represent the existing approaches for achieving agility in software development as well as in production system. The objective is to identify the relevant metrics for evaluating information system agility. Then, we propose an analysis model that contains these agile metrics, to observe their combination in information system

Evaluation of Leanness, Agility and Leagility Extent in Industrial Supply Chain

The focus of Lean Manufacturing (LM) is the cost reduction by eliminating non value added activities (waste i.e. muda) and enabling continuous improvement; whereas, Agile Manufacturing (AM) is an approach which is mainly focused on satisfying the needs of customers while maintaining high standards of quality and controlling the overall costs involved in the production of a particular product. This approach has geared towards companies working in a highly turbulent as well as competitive business environment, where small variations in performance and product delivery can make a huge difference in the long term to a company’s survival and reputation amongst the customers. Leagility is basically the aggregation of lean and agile principles within a total supply chain strategy by effectively positioning the decoupling point, consequently to best suit the need for quick responding to a volatile demand downstream yet providing a level scheduling upstream from the marketplace. A leagile system adapts the characteristics of both lean and agile systems, acting together in order to exploit market opportunities in a cost-efficient way. The present research aims to highlight how these lean, agile as well as leagile paradigms may be adapted according to particular marketplace requirements. Obviously, these strategies are distinctly different, since in the first case, the market winner is cost; whereas, in the second case, the market winner is the availability. Agile supply chains are required to be market sensitive and hence nimble. This means that the definition of waste is different from that appropriate to lean supply. The proper location of decoupling point for material flow and information flow enables a hybrid supply chain to be better engineered. This encourages lean (efficient) supply upstream and agile (effective) supply downstream, thus bringing together the best of both paradigms. While implementing leanness/agility/leagility philosophy in industrial supply chain in appropriate situations, estimation of a unique quantitative performance metric (evaluation index) is felt indeed necessary. Such an index can help the industries to examine existing performance level of leanness/agility/leagility driven supply chain; to compare ongoing performance extent to thedesired/expected one and to benchmark best practices of lean/agile/leagile manufacturing/supply chain, wherever applicable. The present research attempts to assess the extent of leanness, agility as well as leagility, respectively, for an organizational supply chain using fuzzy/grey based Multi- Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approaches. During this research, different

Overview of the CRM Market in Tunisia

The aim of this paper is to realize the importance of a CRM approach, to detect the degree of awareness of Tunisian managers of this importance and  analyse the degree of integration of CRM in the Tunisian companies. Initially, we focus on the definition and components of CRM, then we focus on the level of integration of CRM within Tunisian enterprises.The Tunisian company begins to integrate the CRM tool : although a minority adopts CRM as software , operational CRM technologies as analytical know quite a development.This essentially depends on adoption of sales and business of the company. Keywords: CRM- Operational Tools- Analytical Tools- Tunisian Company. DOI: 10.7176/JMCR/81-03 Publication date:August 31st 202

Development of a lean principles framework for ERP implementation process

The aim of this research is to develop a novel framework based on lean principles and tools to be exploited in managing ERP implementation processes in order to enhance the overall success rate of the implementation project, which in turn minimises cost and time overruns. The framework consists of three stages built in a logical sequence taking into consideration the requirements of ERP projects implementations and the lean transformation principles. The first stage starts with an assessment model to measure the organisational readiness for implementing ERP system using leanness assessment approach. The second stage of the framework introduces the use of the Obeya lean tool along with a change management model to help visualize and streamlining the process of ERP implementation. In the final stage, a value stream mapping technique is used to identify potential waste occurrence and eliminate non-value adding activities from the process. As a result, a new eight stages ERP implementation process is developed and presented with descriptions on the activities encompassed in each stage. A research methodology consisting of four major phases was employed to attain the targeted objectives of the research; beginning with project initiation and contextual definition followed by data collection and field study. The data acquired from the previous two phases were used to conduct a thorough analysis from which key findings were drawn and used in the creative development of the readiness assessment model and the framework. Finally, elementary aspects of the framework were put to scrutiny through live case studies and professional expert judgement. The author made use of both qualitative and quantitative research measures. A validation for the ERP readiness assessment model is conducted initially on three case studies, and then the whole framework is validated through two other case studies and experts’ judgments. The results and overall feedback reflected a high level of acceptance of the framework structure and approach. The novel framework has the capability to improve the ERP implementation process providing it is utilised fully. It helps organisation to successfully deliver ERP systems on time, on budget, and with the required functionalities with high-level of acceptance from all stakeholders

Assessing BPM’s role in a digital innovation project

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementThe world is changing. In the digitalization era, digital devices are everywhere, enabled by the quick proliferation of smart and connected products. The transformation we are witnessing is not only about the new digital artefacts, but also includes the alignment of the operations, business processes, strategy and organizational, and IT structures, resulting in the so-called maturity. Although it might not be trivial, this increased efficiency is closely connected with the processes, of how to create opportunities for optimizing and redesigning them. However, the combination of digital innovation and business process management, and how one benefits the other, is not very explored in the literature, which constitutes a research gap. Given this, the importance of business process management practices and their relationship with the remaining organisation’s dimensions was studied and assessed through a comprehensive and systematic literature review. Hence, insights were gathered to create a framework that allows answering the research question “What is the BPM’s role in a digital innovation project?”. It was expected to understand the challenges associated with digital transformation, what core requirements are the most valuable, and what is the role of process management in all of it. A focus group has confirmed the usefulness of the artefact, by showing the correlation between the different elements in scope and allowing an understanding of the capabilities needed in the organisation. Nonetheless, the feedback suggested the adaptation of the framework to include a maturity assessment pre-stage and cost evaluation per digital transformation category, so it can be completely transversal to all types of organisations and all budgets