Firm technological responses to regulatory changes: A longitudinal study in the Le Mans Prototype racing

Despite the critical role of regulations on competition and innovation, little is known about firm responses and related effects on performance under regulatory contingencies that are permissive or restrictive. By longitudinally investigating hybrid cars competing in the Le Mans Prototype racing (LMP1), we counter-intuitively suggest that permissive regulations increase technological uncertainty and thus decrease the firms’ likelihood of shifting their technological trajectory, while restrictive regulations lead to the opposite outcome. Further, we suggest that permissive regulations favour firms that innovate their products by sequentially upgrading core and peripheral subsystems, while restrictive regulations—in the long term— favour firms upgrading them simultaneously. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Modelling and simulation of paradigms for printed circuit board assembly to support the UK's competency in high reliability electronics

The fundamental requirement of the research reported within this thesis is the provision of physical models to enable model based simulation of mainstream printed circuit assembly (PCA) process discrete events for use within to-be-developed (or under development) software tools which codify cause & effects knowledge for use in product and process design optimisation. To support a national competitive advantage in high reliability electronics UK based producers of aircraft electronic subsystems require advanced simulation tools which offer model based guidance. In turn, maximization of manufacturability and minimization of uncontrolled rework must therefore enhance inservice sustainability for ‘power-by-the-hour’ commercial aircraft operation business models. [Continues.

Real time mobile system for support in firefighting environments

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresThis dissertation addresses work being performed within the context of the Fire Forest Finder system, fulfilling the requests for a multi-information application intended for a vehicle mounted mobile device. The main objective of this dissertation is to provide a solution running on a PDA device that provides support in Fire Fighting environments. The user has access to: multi-information data of the theater of operations, an automotive navigation system (TomTom Navigator™) and a text messaging capability. The hardware present on this system is a DLoG X7™ industrial graded PDA that possesses the right sturdiness for this task. The software developed consists of three distinct interfaces: an appropriately customized TomTom Navigator™ interface for the end-users of this system and two additional applications were created to allow a proper visualization of the available information and also have an interface with text messaging input/output capabilities; It is important to refer that the GSM protocol, text messaging service in particular was the chosen communication mean due to the fact that this network has, at the time this dissertation was finished, the better and most reliable coverage of remote areas, such as the forests for which this system is intended to. In terms of experimental validation a series of performance, intuitiveness and usability tests were performed and analyzed in detail with the purpose of demonstrating the validity of the ideas presented. The thesis is completed by the depiction of the achieved results with the subsequent discussion and identification of open points as a result of the work done

Live, virtual, and constructive environments for performance support

As military systems become more complex, the operation and support of these systems becomes intrinsically more difficult. The U.S. Army\u27s current procurement process relies on industry to provide embedded training and performance support tools for the systems they produce. These tools are relatively new and in the early stages of development. As yet, they have failed to meet the needs of the technicians that are required to support these complex systems. Current efforts to provide enabling technologies that enhance the capabilities of automotive maintenance technicians are concentrated in three professional communities. First is the Performance Improvement community where work is focused on developing and implementing performance support system technologies that deliver information that is stored in information systems. Second is the Knowledge Management community working on organizational knowledge management techniques that capture, store, and map information that is delivered to workers within an organization. The third is the Training and Education community focusing on developing curriculum and delivery systems that support life-long-learning requirements. This dissertation addresses an essential component of performance systems, namely the ability to deliver the knowledge needed to guide a problem solver to a solution state, thereby enhancing worker capabilities. This objective is met by developing the LockTel Framework that provides a construct for segmenting knowledge into three environments for performance support, the live, the virtual, and the constructive environments. It provides a means for the maintenance technician to gain knowledge associated with completing a given task. Seventy-eight maintenance technician trainees at an U.S. Army training center tested the framework. The hypothesis behind the proposed construct was strongly supported, thereby establishing the foundation for future work in live, virtual, and constructive environments for performance support

Project-based Temporary Organizing and Routine Dynamics

Projects are forms of organizing that have become increasingly common in the past decades. The ad-hoc and temporary nature of projects seemingly poses significant challenges to the patterning of activities into organizational routines. Yet, considerable research in routine dynamics has been carried out in project contexts. In this chapter, we show that projects and routines share some common characteristics and that acknowledging the project nature of routines as well as the organizational routine nature of projects offers significant opportunities for the advancement of routine dynamics research

Dissemination of contextual information for assisted driving

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e TelecomunicaçõesDriver assistance systems can be used to improve road and car safety, reduce driving fatigue and provide a more e cient driving experience. An important part of these systems is the communication between vehicles, and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. This work presents mechanisms enabling driving support, exploring the vehicular network to provide information about the drivers neighborhood. The network is composed by vehicles, tra c signals and xed stations along the road. Each car is equipped with a recording camera, a GPS receiver, as well as communication modules such as WiFi, WAVE and 3G/4G, allowing the exchange of data between the various nodes. The data exchanged is composed by positional data of neighboring vehicles, sensor information from tra c signals and video images incoming from other vehicles. This data is used to facilitate the driver in decision making, but can also provide an overview of the tra c density in the neighborhood. The tra c signals broadcast their position and if they are dynamic (such as tra c lights), their status is also transmitted. The xed stations are equipped with numerous sensors and are used to provide environmental data. The driver can access all the collected data via visual information, on a display screen that contains a map of the neighborhood along with the information available of the nearby nodes. The proposed system is evaluated through real vehicular experiments in two distinct scenarios: urban and highway. The results show that the communication delay is higher in the highway scenario, mainly due to the distance between vehicles and travelling speeds. However, promising results regarding the maximum delay and the average number of retransmissions foresee important inputs for future services of assisted-driving, in general, and carovertaking assistance, in particular.Os sistemas de condução assistida podem ser utilizados para melhorar a segurança rodoviária e automóvel, reduzir a fadiga da condução e proporcionar uma experiência de condução mais e ciente. Uma parte importante desses sistemas e a comunicação entre veículos e comunicação veiculo infraestrutura. Este trabalho propõe mecanismos que permitem o suporte a condução, explorando a rede de veicular para fornecer informações sobre a vizinhança do condutor. A rede e composta por veículos, sinais de transito e estações fixas ao longo da estrada. Cada carro esta equipado com uma camera de gravação, um receptor GPS, bem como módulos de comunicação, como WiFi, WAVE e 3G/4G, permitindo a troca de dados entre os vários nos. Os dados trocados são compostos por dados posicionais de veículos vizinhos, informações sensoriais de sinais de trânsito e imagens de vídeo provenientes de outros veículos. Esses dados s~ao usados para facilitar a tomada de decisões, mas também podem fornecer uma vis~ao geral da densidade de tráfego na vizinhança. Os sinais de transito transmitem a sua posição e, no caso de serem dinâmicos (como semáforos), o seu estado actual também e transmitido. As estações fixas estão equipadas com vários sensores e sao usadas para fornecer dados ambientais. O condutor pode aceder a todos os dados recolhidos através de informações visuais, num ecrã que contém um mapa da sua redondeza junto com a informação disponível dos nos vizinhos. O sistema proposto e avaliado através de testes reais em dois cenários distintos: urbano e auto-estrada. Os resultados mostram que o atraso da comunicação e maior no cenário da auto-estrada, principalmente devido as maiores distancias entre os veículos e as velocidades mais elevadas. No entanto, resultados promissores em relação ao atraso máximo e ao numero médio de retransmissões prevêem contribuições importantes para serviços futuros de condução assistida em geral, e assistência de ultrapassagem de veículos, em particular

Transferring knowledge of manufacturing techniques in multinational corporations:preliminary findings

With the growth of the multinational corporation (MNC) has come the need to understand how parent companies transfer knowledge to, and manage the operations of, their subsidiaries. This is of particular interest to manufacturing companies transferring their operations overseas. Japanese companies in particular have been pioneering in this regard, with techniques such as the Toyota Production System (TPS) for transferring the ethos of Japanese manufacturing and maintaining quality and control in overseas subsidiaries. A great deal has been written about the process of transferring Japanese manufacturing techniques, but much less is understood about how the subsidiaries themselves, which are required to make use of such techniques, actually acquire and incorporate them into their operations. The research on which this paper is based therefore examines how, from the perspective of the subsidiary, knowledge of manufacturing techniques is transferred from the parent company. There is clearly a need to take a practice-based view to understanding how the local managers and operatives incorporate knowledge about manufacturing techniques into their working practices. In-depth qualitative research was, therefore, conducted in the subsidiary of a Japanese multinational, Denso Corporation, involving three main manufacturing initiatives (or philosophies), namely ‘TPS’, ‘TPM’ and ‘TS’. The case data were derived from 52 in-depth interviews with project members, moderate participant observations, and documentations. The aim of this paper is to present the preliminary findings from the case analyses. The research contributes to our understanding of knowledge transfer in relation to the circumstances of the selection between adaptation and replication of knowledge in the subsidiary from its parent. In particular this understanding relates to transfer across different flows and levels in the organisational hierarchy, how the whole process is managed, and also how modification takes place