A dynamic programming approach for resource allocation in oil and gas industry

Maintenance engineering plays an important role in management of oil and gas projects. This paper presents a dynamic programming approach for resource allocation in oil and gas projects. The study presents a dynamic programming approach to allocate human resources for repairment of oil and gas equipment. Many heavy equipment normally needs to be repaired on predetermined scheduled and the process normally takes days or even weeks. The process can be divided into three stages of disassembling the equipment, executing the repairment and assembling the equipment. The proposed model of this paper models the problem into a classical dynamic programming and using a real-world case study, the implementation of the proposed model is described

A Framework for Estimating the Applicability of GAs for Real‐World Optimization Problems

This paper introduces a methodology for estimating the applicability of a particular Genetic Algorithm (GA) configuration for an arbitrary optimization problem based on run-time data. GAs are increasingly employed to solve complex real-world optimization problems featuring ill-behaved search spaces (e.g., non-continuous, non-convex, non-differentiable) for which traditional algorithms fail. The quality of the optimal solution (i.e., the fitness value of the global optimum) is typically unknown in a real-world problem, making it hard to assess the absolute performance of an algorithm which is being applied to that problem. In other words, with a solution provided by a GA run, there generally lacks a method or a theory to measure how good the solution is. Although many researchers applying GAs have provided experimental results showing their successful applications, those are merely averaged-out, \emph{ad hoc} results. The results cannot represent nor guarantee the usability of the best solutions obtained from a single GA run since the solutions can be very different for each run. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a formalized measurement to estimate the applicability of GAs to real-world problems. This work extends our earlier work on the convergence rate, and proposes an evaluation metric to quantify the applicability of GAs. Through this metric, a degree of convergence can be obtained after each GA run so that researchers and practitioners are able to obtain certain information about the relation between the best solution and all of the feasible solutions. To support the proposed evaluation metric, a series of theorems are formulated from the theory of matrices. Moreover, several experiments are conducted to validate the metric

Framework of Six Sigma implementation analysis on SMEs in Malaysia for information technology services, products and processes

For the past two decades, the majority of Malaysia’s IT companies have been widely adopting a Quality Assurance (QA) approach as a basis for self-improvement and internal-assessment in IT project management. Quality Control (QC) is a comprehensive top-down observation approach used to fulfill requirements for quality outputs which focuses on the aspect of process outputs evaluation. However in the Malaysian context, QC and combination of QA and QC as a means of quality improvement approaches have not received significant attention. This research study aims to explore the possibility of integrating QC and QA+QC approaches through Six Sigma quality management standard to provide tangible and measureable business results by continuous process improvement to boost customer satisfactions. The research project adopted an exploratory case study approach on three Malaysian IT companies in the business area of IT Process, IT Service and IT Product. Semi-structured interviews, online surveys, self-administered questionnaires, job observations, document analysis and on-the-job-training are amongst the methodologies employed in these case studies. These collected data and viewpoints along with findings from an extensive literature review were used to benchmark quality improvement initiatives, best practices and to develop a Six Sigma framework for the context of the SMEs in the Malaysian IT industry. This research project contributed to both the theory and practice of implementing and integrating Six Sigma in IT products, services and processes. The newly developed framework has been proven capable of providing a general and fundamental start-up decision by demonstrating how a company with and without formal QIM can be integrated and implemented with Six Sigma practices to close the variation gap between QA and QC. This framework also takes into consideration those companies with an existing QIM for a new face-lift migration without having to drop their existing QIM. This can be achieved by integrating a new QIM which addresses most weaknesses of the current QIM while retaining most of the current business routine strengths. This framework explored how Six Sigma can be expanded and extended to include secondary external factors that are critical to successful QIM implementation. A vital segment emphasizes Six Sigma as a QA+QC approach in IT processes; and the ability to properly manage IT processes will result in overall performance improvement to IT Products and IT Services. The developed Six Sigma implementation framework can serve as a baseline for SMEs to better manage, control and track business performance and product quality; and at the same time creates clearer insights and un-biased views of Six Sigma implementation onto the IT industries to drive towards operational excellence

Framework of Six Sigma implementation analysis on SMEs in Malaysia for information technology services, products and processes

For the past two decades, the majority of Malaysia’s IT companies have been widely adopting a Quality Assurance (QA) approach as a basis for self-improvement and internal-assessment in IT project management. Quality Control (QC) is a comprehensive top-down observation approach used to fulfill requirements for quality outputs which focuses on the aspect of process outputs evaluation. However in the Malaysian context, QC and combination of QA and QC as a means of quality improvement approaches have not received significant attention. This research study aims to explore the possibility of integrating QC and QA+QC approaches through Six Sigma quality management standard to provide tangible and measureable business results by continuous process improvement to boost customer satisfactions. The research project adopted an exploratory case study approach on three Malaysian IT companies in the business area of IT Process, IT Service and IT Product. Semi-structured interviews, online surveys, self-administered questionnaires, job observations, document analysis and on-the-job-training are amongst the methodologies employed in these case studies. These collected data and viewpoints along with findings from an extensive literature review were used to benchmark quality improvement initiatives, best practices and to develop a Six Sigma framework for the context of the SMEs in the Malaysian IT industry. This research project contributed to both the theory and practice of implementing and integrating Six Sigma in IT products, services and processes. The newly developed framework has been proven capable of providing a general and fundamental start-up decision by demonstrating how a company with and without formal QIM can be integrated and implemented with Six Sigma practices to close the variation gap between QA and QC. This framework also takes into consideration those companies with an existing QIM for a new face-lift migration without having to drop their existing QIM. This can be achieved by integrating a new QIM which addresses most weaknesses of the current QIM while retaining most of the current business routine strengths. This framework explored how Six Sigma can be expanded and extended to include secondary external factors that are critical to successful QIM implementation. A vital segment emphasizes Six Sigma as a QA+QC approach in IT processes; and the ability to properly manage IT processes will result in overall performance improvement to IT Products and IT Services. The developed Six Sigma implementation framework can serve as a baseline for SMEs to better manage, control and track business performance and product quality; and at the same time creates clearer insights and un-biased views of Six Sigma implementation onto the IT industries to drive towards operational excellence

An approach to modelling and describing software evolution processes

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