AI and OR in management of operations: history and trends

The last decade has seen a considerable growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for operations management with the aim of finding solutions to problems that are increasing in complexity and scale. This paper begins by setting the context for the survey through a historical perspective of OR and AI. An extensive survey of applications of AI techniques for operations management, covering a total of over 1200 papers published from 1995 to 2004 is then presented. The survey utilizes Elsevier's ScienceDirect database as a source. Hence, the survey may not cover all the relevant journals but includes a sufficiently wide range of publications to make it representative of the research in the field. The papers are categorized into four areas of operations management: (a) design, (b) scheduling, (c) process planning and control and (d) quality, maintenance and fault diagnosis. Each of the four areas is categorized in terms of the AI techniques used: genetic algorithms, case-based reasoning, knowledge-based systems, fuzzy logic and hybrid techniques. The trends over the last decade are identified, discussed with respect to expected trends and directions for future work suggested

ABC Diffusion in the Age of Digital Economy: the UK Experience

Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a call for further research to trace the effects of the speedy changes in business environment on management accounting practices. This study assesses the impact of different information technologies on ABC adoption and implementation. It uses a cross-sectional survey of financial directors and controllers in the UK firms. Postal and electronic questionnaires have been used in order to collect the empirical data. The findings revealed that the rate of ABC adoption has shown a number of changes between 1999 and 2005. The proportions of ABC users and those currently assessing it have dramatically fallen. The percentage of firms rejecting ABC has slightly fallen as well. However, there has been a considerable increase in the number of firms that abandoned ABC implementation and those firms that gave no consideration for its implementation. These results indicate a decrease in the popularity of ABC. ERP systems seem to have a slightly low significant impact on the initial decision of ABC adoption in those firms that do not have any consideration for ABC and firms that have an ERP system before ABC adoption. Furthermore, the results indicate that firms use different information technologies in the ABC assessment and implementation. For ABC assessment, general software applications are the most preferable software packages while a mix of different ABC software packages is the most popular in the case of ABC implementation. Finally, the findings of this study provide an indication on the nature of the possible effect of general IT-related problems on ABC implementation

Intelligent multimedia communication for enhanced medical e-collaboration in back pain treatment

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2004 SAGE PublicationsRemote, multimedia-based, collaboration in back pain treatment is an option which only recently has come to the attention of clinicians and IT providers. The take-up of such applications will inevitably depend on their ability to produce an acceptable level of service over congested and unreliable public networks. However, although the problem of multimedia application-level performance is closely linked to both the user perspective of the experience as well as to the service provided by the underlying network, it is rarely studied from an integrated viewpoint. To alleviate this problem, we propose an intelligent mechanism that integrates user-related requirements with the more technical characterization of quality of service, obtaining a priority order of low-level quality of service parameters, which would ensure that user-centred quality of perception is maintained at an optimum level. We show how our framework is capable of suggesting appropriately tailored transmission protocols, by incorporating user requirements in the remote delivery of e-health solutions

Potential applications of simulation modelling techniques in healthcare: lessons learned from aerospace and military

The Aerospace and Military areas are to do with complex missions and situations. Modelling and Simulation (M&S) has been applied in many areas of defence ranging from space sciences, satellite engineering to multi-warfare (air warfare, undersea warfare), air & missile defence, acquisition, tactical military trainings & exercises, national security analysis and strategic decision making & planning, etc. The application of simulation modelling techniques in healthcare would improve the provision of healthcare services; however, their application has been much relatively feeble in the healthcare sector as compared to the defence sector. This paper presents results from a systematic literature survey on applications of modelling simulation techniques in the Aerospace & Military. The knowledge gained or lessons learned from the survey were finally used to analyze the potential applications of the simulation modelling techniques to the healthcare sector. Results show that in the defence sector, Distributed Simulation has now become a widely adopted technique. However, System Dynamics (SD) and Discrete Event Simulation (DSE) have also gained relative attention. From this survey it becomes clear that various simulation modelling techniques are useful for specific purposes and have potential applications in the healthcare sector

Operational Research in Education

Operational Research (OR) techniques have been applied, from the early stages of the discipline, to a wide variety of issues in education. At the government level, these include questions of what resources should be allocated to education as a whole and how these should be divided amongst the individual sectors of education and the institutions within the sectors. Another pertinent issue concerns the efficient operation of institutions, how to measure it, and whether resource allocation can be used to incentivise efficiency savings. Local governments, as well as being concerned with issues of resource allocation, may also need to make decisions regarding, for example, the creation and location of new institutions or closure of existing ones, as well as the day-to-day logistics of getting pupils to schools. Issues of concern for managers within schools and colleges include allocating the budgets, scheduling lessons and the assignment of students to courses. This survey provides an overview of the diverse problems faced by government, managers and consumers of education, and the OR techniques which have typically been applied in an effort to improve operations and provide solutions

A comparative analysis of executive information systems in organisations in South Africa and Spain

Executive Information Systems (EIS) grew out of the information needs of executives and are designed to serve the needs of users in strategic planning and decision-making. EIS are high risk information technology (IT) implementation projects. With the emergence of global information technologies, existing paradigms are being altered which are spawning new considerations for IT implementation. Web-based technologies are causing a revisit to existing IT implementation models, including those for EIS. The authors compare two recent survey studies of EIS implementation in well-established organisations in South Africa and Spain. From a comparative analysis, the authors report six identified similarities and three differences in EIS in these countries

Recruitment and selection processes through an effective GDSS

[[abstract]]This study proposes a group decision support system (GDSS), with multiple criteria to assist in recruitment and selection (R&S) processes of human resources. A two-phase decision-making procedure is first suggested; various techniques involving multiple criteria and group participation are then defined corresponding to each step in the procedure. A wide scope of personnel characteristics is evaluated, and the concept of consensus is enhanced. The procedure recommended herein is expected to be more effective than traditional approaches. In addition, the procedure is implemented on a network-based PC system with web interfaces to support the R&S activities. In the final stage, key personnel at a human resources department of a chemical company in southern Taiwan authenticated the feasibility of the illustrated example.[[notice]]補正完畢[[journaltype]]國內[[incitationindex]]SCI[[incitationindex]]E

Strategic development of the built environment through international construction, quality and productivity management

This thesis presents a coherent, sustained and substantial contribution to the advancement of knowledge or application of knowledge or both in the field of construction management and economics. More specifically, this thesis outlines the strategic development of the built environment through lessons from international construction, quality and productivity management. The strategic role of construction in economic development is emphasized. It describes the contributions transnational construction firms made towards modern-day construction project management practices globally. It establishes the relationship between construction quality and economic development and fosters a better understanding of total quality management and quality management systems in enhancing construction industry performance. Additionally, it prescribes lessons from the manufacturing industry for construction productivity and identifies the amount of carbon emissions reduced through lean construction management practices to alleviate the generally adverse effects of the built environment on global climate change. It highlights the need for integrated management systems to enhance quality and productivity for sustainable development in the built environment. The thesis is an account of how the built environment has evolved, leveraging on lessons from international construction, quality and productivity management for improvements over the past two decades

A survey of outlier detection methodologies

Outlier detection has been used for centuries to detect and, where appropriate, remove anomalous observations from data. Outliers arise due to mechanical faults, changes in system behaviour, fraudulent behaviour, human error, instrument error or simply through natural deviations in populations. Their detection can identify system faults and fraud before they escalate with potentially catastrophic consequences. It can identify errors and remove their contaminating effect on the data set and as such to purify the data for processing. The original outlier detection methods were arbitrary but now, principled and systematic techniques are used, drawn from the full gamut of Computer Science and Statistics. In this paper, we introduce a survey of contemporary techniques for outlier detection. We identify their respective motivations and distinguish their advantages and disadvantages in a comparative review