A review of information flow diagrammatic models for product-service systems

A product-service system (PSS) is a combination of products and services to create value for both customers and manufacturers. Modelling a PSS based on function orientation offers a useful way to distinguish system inputs and outputs with regards to how data are consumed and information is used, i.e. information flow. This article presents a review of diagrammatic information flow tools, which are designed to describe a system through its functions. The origin, concept and applications of these tools are investigated, followed by an analysis of information flow modelling with regards to key PSS properties. A case study of selection laser melting technology implemented as PSS will then be used to show the application of information flow modelling for PSS design. A discussion based on the usefulness of the tools in modelling the key elements of PSS and possible future research directions are also presented

Lean Thinking: Theory, Application and Dissemination

This book was written and compiled by the University of Huddersfield to share the learnings and experiences of seven years of Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded projects with the National Health Service (NHS). The focus of these projects was the implementation of Lean thinking and optimising strategic decision making processes. Each of these projects led to major local improvements and this book explains how they were achieved and compiles the lessons learnt. The book is split into three chapters; Lean Thinking Theory, Lean Thinking Applied and Lean Thinking Dissemination

Business integration models in the context of web services.

E-commerce development and applications have been bringing the Internet to business and marketing and reforming our current business styles and processes. The rapid development of the Web, in particular, the introduction of the semantic web and web service technologies, enables business processes, modeling and management to enter an entirely new stage. Traditional web based business data and transactions can now be analyzed, extracted and modeled to discover new business rules and to form new business strategies, let alone mining the business data in order to classify customers or products. In this paper, we investigate and analyze the business integration models in the context of web services using a micro-payment system because a micro-payment system is considered to be a service intensive activity, where many payment tasks involve different forms of services, such as payment method selection for buyers, security support software, product price comparison, etc. We will use the micro-payment case to discuss and illustrate how the web services approaches support and transform the business process and integration model.

An investigation into practices, issues and improvement opportunities of logistical outsourcing : a study of integrated warehouse services : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Massey University

Some Bahasa Indonesian LanguageA pressure to maintain company's profitability and at the same time a need for the company to increase service level and productivity, has forced the organisation to re-engineer its business systems into a more efficient and effective process. Outsourcing has introduced a new concept to re-engineering the company's business system by transferring the company's non-core business to the experts. Outsourcing can be a tool to achieve the competitive advantage. Even though, unsuccessful outsourcing implementation due to poor planning of outsourcing strategy might result in many problems for the company. The reality is outsourcing is expected to be further developed in the future. Thus, there is plenty of room for logistical outsourcing growth. Nonetheless, the barriers of logistical outsourcing growth, such as poor outsourcing planning strategy causes the lack of understanding of outsourcing and lack of proper logistical infrastructure. These barriers result in the need to review the issues applicable in the practices of logistical outsourcing. This research, therefore, investigates practices, issues and improvement opportunities of logistical outsourcing with regards to the practices of Integrated Warehouse Services. The use of multi-strategy research by combining the qualitative and quantitative research leads to the achievement of the research objective. This research found that reasons to outsource, the selection of outsourced activities and outsourcing provider selection process were the most important factors in outsourcing decision making process. The practices of IWS has been identified to gain success in improving customer service, reducing product cost, improve productivity, improving information sharing, reducing response time and improving space utilisation. The outcomes of this research illustrates that there is a tendency to perceive provider selection process and criteria and also the logistical outsourcing agreements and relationships as the logistical outsourcing issues to have the most concern in the practices of Integrated Warehouse Services. This research also found that the company needs to have improvements in the outsourcing agreements and relationships, employees training of outsourcing concept and the selection process of outsourcing provider

The Role of Maintenance and Facility Management in Logistics: A Literature Review

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review on the different ways of carrying out Facility Management and related topics in order to uncover that there is limited research regarding the impact of Facility Management on the logistics and operational performance of warehouses. Design/methodology/approach - Four different focus areas have been identified and for each one different methodologies and streams of research have been studied. Findings - The study underlines the importance of Facility Management for the logistics operations; therefore it supports the notion that investments aiming at preserving the status of the building and service components of warehouses are crucial. Originality/value - This paper aims to suggest to Facility Management managers that they can contribute to enhance business performance by designing effective Facility Management strategie

A framework for selecting workflow tools in the context of composite information systems

When an organization faces the need of integrating some workflow-related activities in its information system, it becomes necessary to have at hand some well-defined informational model to be used as a framework for determining the selection criteria onto which the requirements of the organization can be mapped. Some proposals exist that provide such a framework, remarkably the WfMC reference model, but they are designed to be appl icable when workflow tools are selected independently from other software, and departing from a set of well-known requirements. Often this is not the case: workflow facilities are needed as a part of the procurement of a larger, composite information syste m and therefore the general goals of the system have to be analyzed, assigned to its individual components and further detailed. We propose in this paper the MULTSEC method in charge of analyzing the initial goals of the system, determining the types of components that form the system architecture, building quality models for each type and then mapping the goals into detailed requirements which can be measured using quality criteria. We develop in some detail the quality model (compliant with the ISO/IEC 9126-1 quality standard) for the workflow type of tools; we show how the quality model can be used to refine and clarify the requirements in order to guarantee a highly reliable selection result; and we use it to evaluate two particular workflow solutions a- ailable in the market (kept anonymous in the paper). We develop our proposal using a particular selection experience we have recently been involved in, namely the procurement of a document management subsystem to be integrated in an academic data management information system for our university.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Extending IT infrastructures in the service sector organisations through enterprise resource planning – a telecom case study

Copyright @ 2012 ISEing.Service Sector Organisations (SSOs) have significantly focused on adopting and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to automate their prime business processes, enhance organisational productivity with lower costs and prompt service delivery to fulfil consumer demands. Thus, ERP systems are considered as a principal source to provide imperative information vital for strategic decision making process. On the contrary, ERP systems adoption and implementation is also highly considered as a challenging and expensive process that not only requires rigorous efforts but also demands to have an exhaustive investigation of influential factors that are critical to the adoption and implementation of ERP systems. As a result, the authors exhibit that it is of great significance to investigate this area within SSOs. In so doing, this paper thus focuses on the ERP critical success factors from five different categories such as: stakeholders; process; technology; organisation; and project based on the literature analysis. These perspectives comprise of 24 factors that are imperative for a successful ERP adoption and implementation. These factors are validated through an in-depth qualitative single case study based research. The findings from the literature and empirical demonstrate that most of the factors influencing the decision making process for ERP adoption and implementation are highly significant with exception to few that have either low or medium importance

Facilitators and barriers to the integration of healthcare service and building design

Service design research recognises the importance of infrastructure design in the achievement of streamlined service delivery. Although research about service design and building design is abundant, very little is known about the integration of these processes. Therefore, this research aimed at identifying facilitators and barriers to the integration of service and building design processes. To this end, the initial results from a historical investigation of the redevelopment of a hospital in Salford, UK were used to identify facilitators and barriers to the integration of service and building design. Data was collected through interviews, document analysis and a workshop. Initial results present internal and external factors related to the design process generating barriers to integration of service and building design

Experimental comparison between proportional and PWM-solenoid valves controlled servopneumatic positioning systems

The performance of the Dynamical Adaptive Backstepping-Sliding Mode Control (DAB-SMC) scheme for positioning of a pneumatic cylinder regulated by two types of PWM-solenoid valves is experimentally investigated. The goal is to study the compromise in controller’s performance as the system moves from using a proportional valve to employing the low-cost PWM-solenoid valves. Sinusoidal and multiple-step inputs are used as the reference position trajectories. Experimental results show that the DAB-SMC scheme works best with the proportional valve. The performance, however, deteriorates by more than twofold, once the system utilizes PWM- solenoid valves of 3/2-way or 2/2-way configurations. From this study, tradeoff between performances of different types of valves applied on a DAB-SMC scheme-controlled servo positioning system is successfully documented. This information helps to configure appropriate servopneumatic system for positioning applications