Using Genetic Algorithms for Building Metrics of Collaborative Systems

he paper objective is to reveal the importance of genetic algorithms in building robust metrics of collaborative systems. The main types of collaborative systems in economy are presented and some characteristics of genetic algorithms are described. A genetic algorithm was implemented in order to determine the local maximum and minimum points of the relative complexity function associated to a collaborative banking system. The intelligent collaborative systems based on genetic algorithms, representing the new generation of collaborative systems, are analyzed and the implementation of auto-adaptive interfaces in a banking application is described.Collaborative Systems, Genetic Algorithms, Metrics, Banking, Auto-Adaptive Interfaces

Using Genetic Algorithms for Building Metrics of Collaborative Systems

he paper objective is to reveal the importance of genetic algorithms in building robust metrics of collaborative systems. The main types of collaborative systems in economy are presented and some characteristics of genetic algorithms are described. A genetic algorithm was implemented in order to determine the local maximum and minimum points of the relative complexity function associated to a collaborative banking system. The intelligent collaborative systems based on genetic algorithms, representing the new generation of collaborative systems, are analyzed and the implementation of auto-adaptive interfaces in a banking application is described

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

Service supply chain management : a hierarchical decision modeling approach

A Service Supply Chain (SSC) may be described as a network of service provider facilities (in-house or outsourced), each of which is able to process one or more service tasks on an as needed basis. Two key characteristics of a SSC are (i) the business service is decomposable into several sequential tasks that can be processed by different service providers, and (ii) the primary capacity resource is skilled labor. SSCs are increasingly being developed by companies that experience a high variability of demand for their services (e.g., loan processing, analytical consulting services, emergency repair crews, claims processing, etc.). Typically, the customer wait time penalty is very high, to the extent that if the service is not provided within a certain time, the customer service request will abort. As a result, the service provider needs to maintain sufficient processing capacity to meet peak levels of demand. The primary advantage of a SSC, relative to a traditional dedicated facility, is that the processing capacity (labor) can be economically adjusted (lower hiring and firing costs) to match changes in the current demand level. In this dissertation, a hierarchical framework for modeling the decision structure in SSCs is developed. This framework introduces and defines the key SSC entities: service products, service jobs, service providers, and the parameters for characterizing the demand behavior. As part of the framework two problems are formulated and solved. First, given that Service Supply Chains are intended to be dynamic delivery networks that efficiently respond to demand variations, a strategic problem is which candidate service providers are selected to form the SSC network, and how the service tasks are assigned within the provider network. The problem is formulated and solved as a binary program. Second, a consequent tactical problem is how the workforce level at each service provider is dynamically adjusted (hiring and firing) as the real time demand data comes in the problem is formulated and solved as a linear program that bounds a mixed integer program (MIP). The strategic model takes the demand parameters, the competing providers’ information, and the service and tasks parameters, to select the providers that are going to become part of the SSC and assign tasks to them. A method to quantify cumulative demand variation per seasonal cycle is presented to derive aggregate demand parameters from the forecast. The design objective of the strategic model is to minimize set up cost and projected operational cost. The objective is achieved by simultaneously minimizing capital cost, hiring cost, firing cost, service delay cost, excess capacity cost, labor cost, and quality cost while fulfilling the capacity, tasks assignment, facility installation, and task capability constraints. The tactical model is constrained by the providers and task assignment resulting from the strategic model. It uses a more accurate demand forecast, and minimizes actual operational costs represented by hiring cost, firing cost, backlog cost and labor cost, while fulfilling the production balance, routing, capacity, workforce balance and demand constraints. It is solved in two phases. A relaxed model is solved as an LP and its solution is used for bounding a MIP problem. Finally, the behavior of the two models is studied by performing numerical experiments changing key supply chain parameters such as hiring and firing cost, demand variability, labor cost, and backlog cost

New perspectives on design and delivery: The context of service desk

This research has identified the trends apparent in service desk design and delivery literature. By doing archival analysis, this investigation has led to the development of a generic framework which has identified three themes in service desk design – User groups, Support models, and Technology types – and two themes in service desk delivery – Direction of delivery, and Executive support level. This research also aims to provide an understanding of service desk functions and the challenges faced by organisations in delivering those functions

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Towards Optimal IT Availability Planning: Methods and Tools

The availability of an organisation’s IT infrastructure is of vital importance for supporting business activities. IT outages are a cause of competitive liability, chipping away at a company financial performance and reputation. To achieve the maximum possible IT availability within the available budget, organisations need to carry out a set of analysis activities to prioritise efforts and take decisions based on the business needs. This set of analysis activities is called IT availability planning. Most (large) organisations address IT availability planning from one or more of the three main angles: information risk management, business continuity and service level management. Information risk management consists of identifying, analysing, evaluating and mitigating the risks that can affect the information processed by an organisation and the information-processing (IT) systems. Business continuity consists of creating a logistic plan, called business continuity plan, which contains the procedures and all the useful information needed to recover an organisations’ critical processes after major disruption. Service level management mainly consists of organising, documenting and ensuring a certain quality level (e.g. the availability level) for the services offered by IT systems to the business units of an organisation. There exist several standard documents that provide the guidelines to set up the processes of risk, business continuity and service level management. However, to be as generally applicable as possible, these standards do not include implementation details. Consequently, to do IT availability planning each organisation needs to develop the concrete techniques that suit its needs. To be of practical use, these techniques must be accurate enough to deal with the increasing complexity of IT infrastructures, but remain feasible within the budget available to organisations. As we argue in this dissertation, basic approaches currently adopted by organisations are feasible but often lack of accuracy. In this thesis we propose a graph-based framework for modelling the availability dependencies of the components of an IT infrastructure and we develop techniques based on this framework to support availability planning. In more detail we present: 1. the Time Dependency model, which is meant to support IT managers in the selection of a cost-optimal set of countermeasures to mitigate availability-related IT risks; 2. the Qualitative Time Dependency model, which is meant to be used to systematically assess availability-related IT risks in combination with existing risk assessment methods; 3. the Time Dependency and Recovery model, which provides a tool for IT managers to set or validate the recovery time objectives on the components of an IT architecture, which are then used to create the IT-related part of a business continuity plan; 4. A2THOS, to verify if availability SLAs, regulating the provisioning of IT services between business units of the same organisation, can be respected when the implementation of these services is partially outsourced to external companies, and to choose outsourcing offers accordingly. We run case studies with the data of a primary insurance company and a large multinational company to test the proposed techniques. The results indicate that organisations such as insurance or manufacturing companies, which use IT to support their business can benefit from the optimisation of the availability of their IT infrastructure: it is possible to develop techniques that support IT availability planning while guaranteeing feasibility within budget. The framework we propose shows that the structure of the IT architecture can be practically employed with such techniques to increase their accuracy over current practice

CPA Vision, Focus on the Horizon: Pathfinder Profiles

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/2866/thumbnail.jp