Towards Holonic Academia: The theoretical framework and literature review

The author is interested to develop a holonic model for the management of higher learning institutions. Though the idea of holons or holonic systems introduced by Arthur Koestler in 1967 has been adopted into many fields of study over these decades, it is still rarely attempted on educational management. Such a remarkable gap in past research motivates the author to come up with a practical model called “Holonic Academia” (HOLACA) that can help enhance university processes to survive the greatly challenging industry of higher education. By and large, the major processes within a university encompass strategic planning, operational management, academic research, teaching, and learning. There are four academic facets to be brought together in this particular research, namely psychology, pedagogy, rationality, and relations (2P2R). At the very outset of constructing the HOLACA, a critical review of literature is needed so as to map out the theoretical framework. Keywords: higher education, holonic model, literature revie

A Holonic Workforce Sizing Model Based on Demand Trend and Disturbance Rate in Job-shop Production

This paper presents a job-shop workforce sizing method developed in the light of Holonic Manufacturing System (HMS). As one of the management paradigms gaining attention worldwide, HMS represents a novel methodology that integrates computers, machines, and humans into a single function unit capable to cope with dynamics in the business environment. Over the decades, the concepts of holons and holonic systems have been adopted in many research fields, but they are scarcely attempted on labour planning. A literature gap exists, thus motivating the author to come up with a holonic model that uses exponential smoothing to forecast some quantitative variables in labour-intensive production. These varying parameters include the machine utilisation that reflects the demand and the worker absenteeism and turnover that constitute the disturbance. Collective equations are formulated to periodically compute the number of workers required. For model validation purpose, twenty-four-month data analysis is conducted on a mock-up basis

The effects of culture on manufacturing organisation in Zimbabwe

Less Industrialised Countries (LICs) are faced with globalisation of Manufacturing and business organisations, a reorganisation that requires use of new manufacturing systems and business organisation concepts like Agile corporation, Virtual organisation, Networks of Business Structures, Holonic and Bionic manufacturing organisation, just to name a few, all taking advantage of developments in electronic communication systems, computers and transportation networks which have reduced the distance between the customer, supplier and the manufacturer. LICs are likely to remain the candidates of further underdevelopment if manufacturing and business organisations ignore these necessary changes. It is therefore the aim and objective of this research to investigate the influence of culture on manufacturing and business organisation and propose ways and procedures where possible for the LICs to take advantage of these modem manufacturing systems and technologies, which seem to offer their advantages at lower capital costs as compared to what AMTs used to offer. [Continues.

Does Employee retention affect Organizational Competence?

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that affect employee retention and to analyze the relationship between the factors of employee retention and organizational competence. Approach: A model is proposed that illustrates the factors as rewards. Career development opportunities, work environment and supervisor support affects employee retention in organizations and also demonstrates the relationship between factors affecting employee retention and the organizational competence. Findings: Results illustrates that rewards, career development opportunities, supervisor support and work environment have a positive relationship with employee retention as well as the development of organizational competence by retaining employees. Keywords: employee retention, competencies, organizational competencies

Life Cycle Engineering 4.0: A Proposal to Conceive Manufacturing Systems for Industry 4.0 Centred on the Human Factor (DfHFinI4.0)

Engineering 4.0 environments are characterised by the digitisation, virtualisation, and connectivity of products, processes, and facilities composed of reconfigurable and adaptive socio-technical cyber-physical manufacturing systems (SCMS), in which Operator 4.0 works in real time in VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) contexts and markets. This situation gives rise to the interest in developing a framework for the conception of SCMS that allows the integration of the human factor, management, training, and development of the competencies of Operator 4.0 as fundamental aspects of the aforementioned system. The present paper is focused on answering how to conceive the adaptive manufacturing systems of Industry 4.0 through the operation, growth, and development of human talent in VUCA contexts. With this objective, exploratory research is carried, out whose contribution is specified in a framework called Design for the Human Factor in Industry 4.0 (DfHFinI4.0). From among the conceptual frameworks employed therein, the connectivist paradigm, Ashby's law of requisite variety and Vigotsky's activity theory are taken into consideration, in order to enable the affective-cognitive and timeless integration of the human factor within the SCMS. DfHFinI4.0 can be integrated into the life cycle engineering of the enterprise reference architectures, thereby obtaining manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 focused on the human factor. The suggested framework is illustrated as a case study for the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture (PERA) methodology, which transforms it into PERA 4.0

Advances in Intelligent Robotics and Collaborative Automation

This book provides an overview of a series of advanced research lines in robotics as well as of design and development methodologies for intelligent robots and their intelligent components. It represents a selection of extended versions of the best papers presented at the Seventh IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications IDAACS 2013 that were related to these topics. Its contents integrate state of the art computational intelligence based techniques for automatic robot control to novel distributed sensing and data integration methodologies that can be applied to intelligent robotics and automation systems. The objective of the text was to provide an overview of some of the problems in the field of robotic systems and intelligent automation and the approaches and techniques that relevant research groups within this area are employing to try to solve them.The contributions of the different authors have been grouped into four main sections:• Robots• Control and Intelligence• Sensing• Collaborative automationThe chapters have been structured to provide an easy to follow introduction to the topics that are addressed, including the most relevant references, so that anyone interested in this field can get started in the area

Collaborative Systems, Operation and Task of the Manufacturing Execution Systems in the 21st Century Industry

Until the first two decades of the 21st century, as part of the Enterprise Resourse Planning (ERP), the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and related systems have undergone development in both complexity and efficiency. In the field of production technology, there are many sources of work nowadays to get a detailed picture of the solutions offered by MES. The purpose of this article is to give a comprehensive overview of the MES solutions that currently used in industry. In addition to the general structure of the systems and Holonic MES are briefly described. Special attencion is paid to various collaborative systems that complement the MES. The additional manufacturing tools for MES is also described shematically in this article

Analysis of a Train-operating Company’s Customer Service System during Disruptions:Conceptual Requirements for Gamifying Frontline Staff Development

This paper provides an account of an action research study into the systemic success factors which help frontline staff react to and recover from a rail service disruption. This study focuses on the effective use of information during a disruption to improve customer service, as this is a priority area for train-operating companies (TOCs) in Great Britain. A novel type of systems thinking, known as Process-Oriented Holonic Modelling (PrOH), has been used to investigate and model the ‘Passenger Information During Disruption’ (PIDD) system. This paper presents conceptual requirements for a gamified learning environment; it describes ‘what’; ‘how’ and ‘when’ these systemic success factors could be gamified using a popular disruption management reference framework known as the Mitigate, Prepare, React and Recover (MPRR) framework. This paper will interest managers of and researchers into customer service system disruptions, as well as those wishing to develop new gamified learning environments to improve customer service systems

Validating Intelligent Power and Energy Systems { A Discussion of Educational Needs

Traditional power systems education and training is flanked by the demand for coping with the rising complexity of energy systems, like the integration of renewable and distributed generation, communication, control and information technology. A broad understanding of these topics by the current/future researchers and engineers is becoming more and more necessary. This paper identifies educational and training needs addressing the higher complexity of intelligent energy systems. Education needs and requirements are discussed, such as the development of systems-oriented skills and cross-disciplinary learning. Education and training possibilities and necessary tools are described focusing on classroom but also on laboratory-based learning methods. In this context, experiences of using notebooks, co-simulation approaches, hardware-in-the-loop methods and remote labs experiments are discussed.Comment: 8th International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems (HoloMAS 2017

The Effect of Role Overload and Work Stress Toward Employee Performance Through Work Motivation (A Study at PT Surya Raya Lestari II in Kabupaten Mamuju Tengah)

Employee performance is an achievement undertaken by employee in completing his/her job. Objectives of this current study are as follow: (1) variable description of role overload, work stress, work motivation and employee performance at PT Surya Raya Lestari II in Kabupaten Mamuju Tengah, (2) direct effect of role overload, work stress, work motivation toward employee performance, (3) indirect effect of role overload and work stress toward employee performance through work motivation. Instrument employed in this present study is regression analysis. Result of this study demonstrates that (a) role overload has significant effect toward employee performance (b) role overload has significant effect toward work motivation (c) role overload through work motivation has significant effect toward employee performance (e) work stress through work motivation has significant effect toward employee performance (f) work motivation has significant effect toward employee performance. Keywords: Role Overload, Work Stress, Work Motivation, Employee Performanc