Towards an integrated perspective on fleet asset management: engineering and governance considerations

The traditional engineering perspective on asset management concentrates on the operational performance the assets. This perspective aims at managing assets through their life-cycle, from technical specification, to acquisition, operation including maintenance, and disposal. However, the engineering perspective often takes for granted organizational-level factors. For example, a focus on performance at the asset level may lead to ignore performance measures at the business unit level. The governance perspective on asset management usually concentrates on organizational factors, and measures performance in financial terms. In doing so, the governance perspective tends to ignore the engineering considerations required for optimal asset performance. These two perspectives often take each other for granted. However experience demonstrates that an exclusive focus on one or the other may lead to sub-optimal performance. For example, the two perspectives have different time frames: engineering considers the long term asset life-cycle whereas the organizational time frame is based on a yearly financial calendar. Asset fleets provide a relevant and important context to investigate the interaction between engineering and governance views on asset management as fleets have distributed system characteristics. In this project we investigate how engineering and governance perspectives can be reconciled and integrated to enable optimal asset and organizational performance in the context of asset fleets

Integrating diversity management initiatives with strategic human resource management

Managing diversity is usually viewed in broad conceptual terms as recognising and valuing differences among people; it is directed towards achieving organisational outcomes and reflects management practices adopted to improve the effectiveness of people management in organisations (Kramar 2001; Erwee, Palamara & Maguire 2000). The purpose of the chapter is to examine the debate on how diversity management initiatives can be integrated with strategic human resource management (SHRM), and how SHRM is linked to organisational strategy. Part of this debate considers to what extent processes associated with managing diversity are an integral part of the strategic vision of management. However, there is no consensus on how a corporate strategic plan influences or is influenced by SHRM, and how the latter integrates diversity management as a key component. The first section of the chapter addresses the controversy about organisations as linear, steady state entities or as dynamic, complex and fluid entities. This controversy fuels debate in the subsequent sections about the impact that such paradigms have on approaches to SHRM. The discussion on SHRM in this chapter will explore its links to corporate strategy as well as to diversity management. Subsequent sections propose that managing diversity should address sensitive topics such as gender, race and ethnicity. Finally, attention is given to whether an integrative approach to SHRM can be achieved and how to overcome the obstacles to making this a reality

Knowledge management : why do we need it for corporates

This article gives a brief introduction about Knowledge Management (KM), its need, definition, components, KM assets, challenges and processes of KM initiative at any organisation. It also provides a narration on how the KM initiative has been adopted at ICICI OneSource, to support the achievement of its Business Process Outsourcing objectives. Both knowledge sharing as well as reuse need to be encouraged and recognized at the individual employee level as well as the company level. This is best done by measuring and rewarding knowledgeperformance. Sustained strategic commitment and a corporate culture that is conducive to knowledge-performance are vital for success in Knowledge Management. The paper concludes with suggestions for the implication for policy and future practices

Utilization and Application of Business Computing Systems in Corporate Real Estate

This study reports on the utilization of business computing systems by corporate real estate executives. A survey was undertaken to examine four issues: types of property data collected, MIS report generation, hardware/software usage, and decision models and experts employed. NACORE members were surveyed and reported extensive usage of well-known business computing systems (e.g., transaction processing and management information systems), while newer systems (e.g., decision support and expert systems) are just beginning to be introduced into corporate real estate. Empirical analysis revealed differences among industries in the types of reports and property financial data that are maintained.

Learning in Strategic Alliances

{Excerpt} Strategic alliances that bring organizations together promise unique opportunities for partners. The reality is often otherwise. Successful strategic alliances manage the partnership, not just the agreement,for collaborative advantage. Above all, they also pay attentionto learning priorities in alliance evolution. The resource-based view of the firm that gained currency in the mid-1980s considered that the competitive advantage of an organization rests on the application of the strategic resources at its disposal. These days, orthodoxy recognizes the merits of the dynamic, knowledge-based capabilities underpinning the positions organizations occupy in a sector or market. Strategic alliances—meaning cooperative agreements between two or more organizations—are a means to enhance strategic resources: self-sufficiency is becoming increasingly difficult in a complex, uncertain, and discontinuous external environment that calls for focus and flexibility in equal measure. Everywhere, organizations are discovering that they cannot “go” it alone and must now often turn to others to survive

Enterprise resource planning in construction: An evaluation of recent implementations

In a large number of construction firms, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have replaced non-integrated information systems by integrated and maintainable software. The implementation of ERP systems in the construction industry is a difficult task. So far, ERP implementations have yielded more failures than successes in this industry. Our study tries to understand the underlying factors that cause success or failure of ERP in construction by analysing how ERP fits into the IT and business strategy of a firm. Empirical research was conducted by a multiple case study of three ERP-implementations in different business environments. Based on the results of this study, propositions are developed that relate factors for the success of ERP in construction to concepts of the existing literature on IT and strategy. These propositions are indicative, but present nevertheless a clear overall tren

An evolutionary complex systems decision-support tool for the management of operations

Purpose - The purpose of this is to add both to the development of complex systems thinking in the subject area of operations and production management and to the limited number of applications of computational models and simulations from the science of complex systems. The latter potentially offer helpful decision-support tools for operations and production managers. Design/methodology/approach - A mechanical engineering firm was used as a case study where a combined qualitative and quantitative methodological approach was employed to extract the required data from four senior managers. Company performance measures as well as firm technologies, practices and policies, and their relation and interaction with one another, were elicited. The data were subjected to an evolutionary complex systems (ECS) model resulting in a series of simulations. Findings - The findings highlighted the effects of the diversity in management decision making on the firm's evolutionary trajectory. The CEO appeared to have the most balanced view of the firm, closely followed by the marketing and research and development managers. The manufacturing manager's responses led to the most extreme evolutionary trajectory where the integrity of the entire firm came into question particularly when considering how employees were utilised. Research limitations/implications - By drawing directly from the opinions and views of managers, rather than from logical "if-then" rules and averaged mathematical representations of agents that characterise agent-based and other self-organisational models, this work builds on previous applications by capturing a micro-level description of diversity that has been problematical both in theory and application. Practical implications - This approach can be used as a decision-support tool for operations and other managers providing a forum with which to explore: the strengths, weaknesses and consequences of different decision-making capacities within the firm; the introduction of new manufacturing technologies, practices and policies; and the different evolutionary trajectories that a firm can take. Originality/value - With the inclusion of "micro-diversity", ECS modelling moves beyond the self-organisational models that populate the literature but has not as yet produced a great many practical simulation results. This work is a step in that direction

Knowledge Collaboration: Working with Data and Web Specialists

When resources are finite, people strive to manage resources jointly (if they do not rudely take possession of them). Organizing helps achieve—and even amplify—common purpose but often succumbs in time to organizational silos, teaming for the sake of teaming, and the obstacle course of organizational learning. The result is that organizations, be they in the form of hierarchies, markets, or networks (or, gradually more, hybrids of these), fail to create the right value for the right people at the right time. In the 21st century, most organizations are in any event lopsided and should be redesigned to serve a harmonious mix of economic, human, and social functions. In libraries as elsewhere, the three Ss of Strategy—Structure—Systems must give way to the three Ps of Purpose—Processes—People. Thence, with entrepreneurship and knowledge behaviors, data and web specialists can synergize in mutually supportive relationships of shared destiny

Innovation in Isolation: Labor-Management Partnerships in the United States

In the United States, as in other advanced industrial countries, worker participation in management has taken on increasing importance, placing pressures on employers and unions to change how they deal with employees/members, and with each other. This paper examines two of the most impressive cases in the U.S.: the partnerships between General Motors (G.M.) and the United Autoworkers union (U.A W.) at Saturn and between BellSouth and the Communication Workers union (C.W.A.). We outline the evolution and the basic features of these innovations, as well as highlighting certain ongoing problems. These problems, we argue, confront the parties to employment relations in the U.S. more generally, reflecting profound ambivalence about such experiments, and their continued isolation as ‘islands of excellence ’. As such, these cases both illustrate the vast potential for labor-management partnerships as well as the dampening effect of the employment relations context in the U.S

Centralized vs. decentralized computing : organizational considerations and management options

The long-standing debate over whether to centralize or decentralize computing is examined in terms of the fundamental organizational and economic factors at stake. The traditional debate is examined and found to focus predominantly on issues of efficiency vs. effectiveness, with solutions based on a rationalistic strategy of optimizing in this tradeoff. A more behavioralistic assessment suggests that the driving issues in the debate are the politics of organization and resources, centering on the issue of control. The economics of computing deployment decisions is presented as an important issue, but one that often serves as a field of argument that is based on more political concerns. The current situation facing managers of computing, given the advent of small and comparatively inexpensive computers, is examined in detail, and a set of management options for dealing with this persistent issue is presented