Business performance analytics: exploring the potential for performance management systems

Business Performance Analytics (BPA) entails the systematic use of data and analytical methods (mathematical, econometric and statistical) for performance measurement and management. Although potentially overcoming some traditional diagnostic issues related to Performance Management Systems (PMS), such as information overload, absence of cause-effect relationships, lack of a holistic view of the organisation, research in the field is still in its infancy. A comprehensive model for operationalising analytics for diagnostic and interactive PMS is still lacking. Adopting an action research approach, this paper addresses this gap and develops a five-step framework applied to a company operating in the construction industry. The results show that in addition to encouraging dialogue, BPA can contribute to identifying critical performance variables, potential sources of risk and related interdependencies. A number of critical issues in implementing data-based approaches are also highlighted, including data quality, organisational competences and cultural shifts

Diffusion of agile supply chains attributes: a study of the UK upstream oil and gas industry cluster

This study examines agile supply chain capabilities in oil and gas clusters, in the light of cluster and industrial district theory. The aim is to provide evidence of their potential impact on competitiveness and business performance within the UK upstream oil and gas cluster. Agility is the ability of organisations to operate and prosper in market conditions characterised by dynamism and constantly changing customer tastes. Clusters and industrial districts refer to the geographic concentration of firms in an industry that enables the firms to benefit from competition and cooperation as well as enhanced productivity within the cluster.A review of past theoretical and empirical studies on supply chain management, agility and clusters identifies four dimensions of agility: customer enrichment, cooperating to compete, mastering change and uncertainty, and leveraging the impact of people and information. The cluster theory points to the competitive advantage of being in geographic proximity to the members of a supply chain, including enhanced productivity, easy access to enriched and high quality factors of production, reduction of transaction and transportation costs as well as increased innovativeness. These all contribute to improving the competitive capability of a firm as well as having impact on the business performance of organisations. A survey of 880 firms in the UK upstream oil and gas cluster was conducted to determine the specific impact of cluster location attributes on the agility of supply chains. Six case studies involving the three tiers of the supply chain and supporting organisation were carried out.Structural equation modelling revealed strong impact of clusters on competitive objectives but weak impact on business performance. Results from the survey show that cluster agility has strong impact on both competitive objectives and business performance. The case study revealed that agility is a strategic tool adopted by the smaller organisations within the supply chain to mitigate the scale of large organisations. Equally, SMEs consider that being in UK oil and gas cluster enhances their responsiveness

Disease diagnosis in smart healthcare: Innovation, technologies and applications

To promote sustainable development, the smart city implies a global vision that merges artificial intelligence, big data, decision making, information and communication technology (ICT), and the internet-of-things (IoT). The ageing issue is an aspect that researchers, companies and government should devote efforts in developing smart healthcare innovative technology and applications. In this paper, the topic of disease diagnosis in smart healthcare is reviewed. Typical emerging optimization algorithms and machine learning algorithms are summarized. Evolutionary optimization, stochastic optimization and combinatorial optimization are covered. Owning to the fact that there are plenty of applications in healthcare, four applications in the field of diseases diagnosis (which also list in the top 10 causes of global death in 2015), namely cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, and tuberculosis, are considered. In addition, challenges in the deployment of disease diagnosis in healthcare have been discussed

Managing innovations in engineering industries

It has been shown in this thesis why innovations are regarded as the lifeline of engineering industries. Continuous flow of novel ideas is the source of innovations but the encouragement, creation and nurturing of such ideas requires many distinct managerial attributes. Hence, management of innovations is complex but an important area of study which is not amenable to standard analyses due to its multidisciplinary nature and dependence on a large number of intangible variables. It has been shown that proper management of innovations would involve at least three distinct but closely linked activities, namely: (a) managing people, in particular the innovators, as well as inspiring others to become innovators; (b) managing the environment so that it is conducive to innovations; and (c) managing innovative processes in order to ensure that innovations are properly nurtured, well targeted and economically implemented within clearly defined time and budgetary constraints. The thesis has been divided into eight chapters; an outline of the chapters is given below. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the subject of managing innovations in engineering industries. It sets the scene for carrying out research in this field, identifies the problems to be tackled and makes a clear statement of the aims. Chapter 2 offers a critical review of the published works relevant to the field of research covered in this thesis. The purpose of this study was to understand the state of the art approach to: (a) creating and maintaining the innovative environment; (b) inspiring and leading engineers to come up with innovative solutions for engineering problems; (c) managing the innovative processes for better efficiency. Finally, in view of the comprehensive review of the relevant published literature, this chapter justifies the aims of this research. Chapter 3 describes research methodology i. e. the procedure for conducting this programme of research. The purpose of this study was to ensure that the research programme was conducted in accordance with the scientific method as closely as practicable. For sake of clarity, chapter 4 first draws distinction between inventions, innovations and engineering design and later identifies a large number of intangible factors that influence the three principal components, i. e. innovative environment, innovators and the innovation process. It is suggested that the innovativeness of engineering companies depends on these three principal components. Hence, innovativeness may be assessed by determining the influence of each on the principal components with the help of suitable computational techniques. Two computer applications have been developed to: (a) evaluate the innovativeness of engineering organisations; and (b) analyse the risks embedded in either accepting innovative ideas or implementing innovative projects. These applications are based on questionnaires and may serve as computer aided management (CAM) tools for dealing with the multidimensional problem of managing innovations speedily and efficiently. Chapter 5 analyses the influence of factors identified in chapter 4 and uses the two aforementioned applications to survey the innovativeness of four engineering organisations for their innovativeness and evaluate two projects for the risks surrounding them. These assessments were carried in the form of six case studies. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 present the results of the six case studies and a focused discussion of the results and other observations made during the course of this research. Chapter 8 draws conclusion from this research and proposes further work that may be carried out in order to study yet unknown factors, refine the questionnaires conduct further tests in different industrial environments to build confidence in the use of CAM Applications as tools for rapid response management of innovations in engineering industries

Towards Developing a Digital Twin Implementation Framework for Manufacturing Systems

This research studies the implementation of digital twins in manufacturing systems. Digital transformation is relevant due to changing manufacturing techniques and user demands. It brings new business opportunities, changes organizations, and allows factories to compete in the digital era. Nevertheless, digital transformation presents many uncertainties that could bring problems to a manufacturing system. Some potential problems are loss of data, cybersecurity threats, unpredictable behavior, and so on. For instance, there are doubts about how to integrate the physical and virtual spaces. Digital twin (DT) is a modern technology that can enable the digital transformation of manufacturing companies. DT works by collecting real-time data of machines, products, and processes. DT monitors and controls operations in real-time helping in the identification of problems. It performs simulations to improve manufacturing processes and end-products. DT presents several benefits for manufacturing systems. It gives feedback to the physical system, increases the system’s reliability and availability, reduces operational risks, helps to achieve organizational goals, reduces operations and maintenance costs, predicts machine failures, etc. DT presents all these benefits without affecting the system’s operation. xv This dissertation analyzes the implementation of digital twins in manufacturing systems. It uses systems thinking methods and tools to study the problem space and define the solution space. Some of these methods are the conceptagon, systemigram, and the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ in Russian acronym). It also uses systems thinking tools such as the CATWOE, the 9-windows tool, and the ideal final result (IFR). This analysis gives some insights into the digital twin implementation issues and potential solutions. One of these solutions is to build a digital twin implementation framework Next, this study proposes the development of a small-scale digital twin implementation framework. This framework could help users to create digital twins in manufacturing systems. The method to build this framework uses a Model-Based Systems Engineering approach and the systems engineering “Vee” model. This framework encompasses many concepts from the digital twin literature. The framework divides these concepts along three spaces: physical, virtual, and information. It also includes other concepts such as digital thread, data, ontology, and enabling technologies. Finally, this dissertation verifies the correctness of the proposed framework. The verification process shows that the proposed framework can develop digital twins for manufacturing systems. For that purpose, this study creates a process digital twin simulation using the proposed framework. This study presents a mapping and a workflow diagram to help users use the proposed framework. Then, it compares the digital twin simulation with the digital twin user and system requirements. The comparison finds that the proposed framework was built right

INTEGRATED DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF LOGISTIC NETWORKS: ORIENTED PLACEMENT OF THE ORDER PENETRATION POINT

The placement of the order penetration point (OPP) is a key decision in automotive supply chains since the product will be differentiated according to the customers’ requirements only after the OPP. From a marketing perspective variety proliferation is encouraged. Yet, competition has shifted from individual firms to global supply chains and under given market uncertainty the significance of supply chain flexibility is increasing. Upstream however, the expansion of outsourcing, supplier rationalization and lean production practices has yielded substantial progress in terms of supply chain efficiency. In order to economically operate the supply chain, the positioning of order penetration points is vital to inflict as much downstream process and product flexibility to be amenable to changing market demand and to guarantee as much upstream stability to allow for accurate and risk-controlled planning of cost-efficient supply chain processes. This paper identifies and analyses the main factors related to OPP problems and presents a method for OPP positioning under a supply chain perspective, integrating the influence of product diversity and supply chain flexibility over a complete product life-cycle systematically

Building a boundaryless manufacturing organisation through HITOP method

There is little empirical research to support the allegation that ‘leagile’ manufacturing organisations thrive in hostile environments, nor has it been demonstrated that organisation processes (referred to as enablers) actually support ‘leagile’ performance. This study tests the statistical significance of five selected HITOP (highly integrated technology, organisation and people) ‘leagile’ enablers. This was accomplished by using a mail survey instrument to measure the presence of ‘leagile enablers’ in a sample of companies taken from best factory award winners in UK, US and Japan. [Continues.

Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Production Systems and Logistics (CPSL 2021)

Proceedings of the CPSL 202