Research on Cloud Enterprise Resource Integration and Scheduling Technology Based on Mixed Set Programming

With the development of Industry 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing, aiming at the incompatibility of heterogeneous manufacturing resource interfaces and the low efficiency of collaborative scheduling of manufacturing resources among enterprises，we proposed the resource integration and scheduling strategy among enterprises based on Mixed Set Programming [1]. By using the metadata and ontology modeling methods, we were able to realize a standardized model description of manufacturing resources. At last, an enterprise application case was discussed to verify the resources integration and scheduling strategy based on Mixed Set Programming is effective to optimize and improve the efficiency of the collaborative scheduling of resources among enterprises. The resources integration and scheduling strategy based on Mixed Set Programming could be applied to promote the optimal allocation of manufacturing resources

Group technology: amalgamation with design of organisational structures

Group technology has been studied extensively from an ‘industrial engineering’ perspective (layout, scheduling, workflow, etc.), but less often from an organisational design viewpoint. To study this implication of group technology, the approach of applied systems theory for the design of organisational structures was used as framework for analysis in three empirical cases. To increase the reliability of findings from the analysis of these three empirical cases, five more cases were drawn from archival search. Cluster analysis and product flow analysis were the methods used for forming groups of machines and employees in manufacturing cells, whereas the coding of parts was not employed to this end. Furthermore, the results indicate that the implementation of group technology generally meets shifts in performance requirements caused by competitive pressures, particularly flexibility and responsiveness, albeit the companies considered group technology only when under pressure of ‘poor’ business performance. However, group technology is not always a solution to challenges that companies experience; one empirical case shows that defunctionalisation and scheduling with virtual groups was more beneficial. Nevertheless, when the introduction of group technology is feasible, it also allows firms to consider delegating responsibility for production planning and scheduling to lower levels in the hierarchy and semi-autonomous groups as an alternative to ‘complex’ software applications (a socio-technical approach). Whereas the current study sheds light on the relationship between group technology and design of organisational structures, further research is necessary into the design of these structures and their relationship to group technology

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty two papers which were presented on the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY ’08 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments, held in Ofir, Portugal, from 25th to 27th of June, 2008. The main motive of the meeting was the growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily the companies and their businesses. From this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Concerning the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participativeness, the Conference Organisation provided the broadcasting over Internet of the Conference sessions, dialogical and formal presentations, for all authors’ and participants’ institutions, as an innovative Conference feature. In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 97 authors from 10 countries, namely from Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Sweden and United Kingdom. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope and would like that this book will be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the second of which is planned for year 2011.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty papers which were presented in the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY 2011 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments , held in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, from 22ndto 24thof June, 2011.The main motive of the meeting was growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, and creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily companies and their businesses. Due to this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability 2.0” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Also, the notation“2.0” is to promote the publication as a step further from our previous publication – “Business Sustainability I” – as would be for a new version of software. Concerning the Second International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participation, in accordance with the Conference's assumed mission to promote Proactive Generative Collaborative Learning, the Conference Organisation shares/puts open to the community the papers presented in this book, as well as the papers presented on the previous Conference(s). These papers can be accessed from the conference webpage (http://labve.dps.uminho.pt/bs11). In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 107 authors from 11 countries, namely from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Switzerland, and United States of America. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope, and would like, that this book to be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the third of which is planned for year 2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

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Outsourcing in Healthcare Through Process Modularization - A Lean Perspective

Looking for efficiency, quality and profitability gains, healthcare organizations are adopting outsourcing solutions in the attempt of “doing more with less”. Seeking for cost reduction, risk mitigation, adapting to quick changes without compromising internal resources, these organizations also take big risks in control and flexibility variables. In order to understand how healthcare organizations find the best value equation combining internal and external resources in a modular service conception, a case study on a start‐up Long‐term Care unit with innovative format, great levels of customization and following an outsourcing strategy, was carried out. The main conclusion, among others, is that in ambitious start‐ups, having speed of entrance as the conditioning factor, a process orientation and management approach may offer a clear view of the gains related with trade‐off decisions regarding time and cost (agility) and cost and quality (Leanness) ie, decisions under the “leagile” paradigm. This study contributes for a wider understanding of the “leagile” concept associated to an outsourcing operational strategy. Additionally, it also provides new insights to the concept of modularity in services settings in a complex service as healthcare

Outsourcing in healthcare through process modularization: a lean perspective

Looking for efficiency, quality and profitability gains, healthcare organizations are adopting outsourcing solutions in the attempt of "doing more with less". Seeking for cost reduction, risk mitigation, adapting to quick changes without compromising internal resources, these organizations also take big risks in control and flexibility variables. In order to understand how healthcare organizations find the best value equation combining internal and external resources in a modular service conception, a case study on a start-up Long-term Care unit with innovative format, great levels of customization and following an outsourcing strategy, was carried out. The main conclusion, among others, is that in ambitious start-ups, having speed of entrance as the conditioning factor, a process orientation and management approach may offer a clear view of the gains related with trade-off decisions regarding time and cost (agility) and cost and quality (Leanness) ie, decisions under the "leagile" paradigm. This study contributes for a wider understanding of the "leagile" concept associated to an outsourcing operational strategy. Additionally, it also provides new insights to the concept of modularity in services settings in a complex service as healthcare

High-Performance Cloud Computing: A View of Scientific Applications

Scientific computing often requires the availability of a massive number of computers for performing large scale experiments. Traditionally, these needs have been addressed by using high-performance computing solutions and installed facilities such as clusters and super computers, which are difficult to setup, maintain, and operate. Cloud computing provides scientists with a completely new model of utilizing the computing infrastructure. Compute resources, storage resources, as well as applications, can be dynamically provisioned (and integrated within the existing infrastructure) on a pay per use basis. These resources can be released when they are no more needed. Such services are often offered within the context of a Service Level Agreement (SLA), which ensure the desired Quality of Service (QoS). Aneka, an enterprise Cloud computing solution, harnesses the power of compute resources by relying on private and public Clouds and delivers to users the desired QoS. Its flexible and service based infrastructure supports multiple programming paradigms that make Aneka address a variety of different scenarios: from finance applications to computational science. As examples of scientific computing in the Cloud, we present a preliminary case study on using Aneka for the classification of gene expression data and the execution of fMRI brain imaging workflow.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, conference pape

Efficiency and Collaboration in Hardware Development: A Lean Approach : Case Study

Companies strive towards perfection in their product development processes and want to stay as competitive as possible. In order to achieve that objective, emphasis needs to be put on streamlining the process. Therefore, this thesis explores the Lean methodology from a product development perspective and showcases the effectiveness of the value stream mapping (VSM) and design structure matrix (DSM). The research is executed at a company specialising in energy and marine power solutions and is outlined as a case study. Several research angles have been utilised, which enabled the recognition of diversity in the collected data and information. The methodology is divided into two primary elements: 1) analysing a case project from a component functionality and managerial perspective, and 2) executing a value stream analysis of the hardware development process, which is utilised to develop automation components for complex power solutions. The qualitative research focuses on achieving a holistic understanding of a hardware development process (HWDP) through VSM and DSM. Quantitative data can mainly be seen in the case project analysis, where the output is formed on historical data from an application lifecycle management system and Internal documentation platform. In line with the methodology, the thesis aimed to answer the following research questions: RQ1: How can the process be streamlined by identifying inefficiencies and proposing improvements? RQ2: How can cooperation and collaboration be improved to reduce overall development lead time? The results of the thesis are categorised based on the research methodology’s two primary elements. The project analysis and current state findings have identified the challenges related to outsourcing, communication, collaboration, and technological knowledge gaps. A cross-functional VSM allowed for capturing the information flow between the departments and identifying the wastes and bottlenecks in the process. A value assessment resulted in 47 VA, 16 RNVA, and 8 NVA activities. The NVA activities were analysed, and improvement suggestions were generated, focusing on stakeholder communication, supplier relationships, testing processes, change management, release meetings, and field testing. The DSM enabled the visualisation of dependencies between tasks and structural changes with partitioning. Based on simulations comparing the structural changes between the two DSMs, a 50 % decrease in lead time was identified. However, the implementation feasibility of the new structure is unclear, and further evaluation must be carried out in collaboration with the stakeholders. The thesis uncovered five managerial implications related to holistic process overview, effective outsourcing, improved in-house expertise, robust project planning and scheduling, and continuous improvement. This comprehensive efficiency analysis of the HWDP can be considered a success as it has pinpointed the crucial aspects that can be utilised to achieve an optimal future state of the process