Hybrid genetic algorithm based on bin packing strategy for the unrelated parallel workgroup scheduling problem

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.In this paper we focus on an unrelated parallel workgroup scheduling problem where each workgroup is composed of a number of personnel with similar work skills which has eligibility and human resource constraints. The most difference from the general unrelated parallel machine scheduling with resource constraints is that one workgroup can process multiple jobs at a time as long as the resources are available, which means that a feasible scheduling scheme is impossible to get if we consider the processing sequence of jobs only in time dimension. We construct this problem as an integer programming model with the objective of minimizing makespan. As it is incapable to get the optimal solution in the acceptable time for the presented model by exact algorithm, meta-heuristic is considered to design. A pure genetic algorithm based on special coding design is proposed firstly. Then a hybrid genetic algorithm based on bin packing strategy is further developed by the consideration of transforming the single workgroup scheduling to a strip-packing problem. Finally, the proposed algorithms, together with exact approach, are tested at different size of instances. Results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid genetic algorithm shows the effective performance

A Case Study Exploring Organizational Development and Performance Management in the Operational Infrastructure of a Professional Working Organization, Using Academic Constructs

Curriculum, as a concept, has been historically associated with traditional schooling, but the reality is that its application extends to many arenas beyond academia. Through the case study lens, this dissertation utilized the ideologies of curricular theorists John Dewey, John Franklin Bobbitt, and Ralph Tyler to explore how intended, enacted, and assessed curricula phases can integrate into a professional working organization’s comprehensive functionality and materialize into the planning and implementation of its operational infrastructure. Following content analysis of a selected institution’s operational system, using closed codes, a descriptive comprehensive curriculum was designed to address the research purpose of understanding employee performance and organizational outcomes. Findings indicated that curricular phases are inherently embedded into the organizational development and performance management of nonacademic spaces; moreover, the framework of an organization’s operational infrastructure consists largely of curriculum elements. The primary research implication invokes being able to manage the efficiency and effectiveness levels of (a) personnel unit performance and (b) the workplace environment, through curriculum analysis and prescription

When Perceptions Aren\u27t Shared and Relationships Aren\u27t Parallel: The Curious Case of Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSB)

Perspectives which extend study of work-nonwork interface from the individual level of analysis to the workgroup level are dominated by homologous assumptions. These homologous assumptions are characterized by (a) shared perceptions within workgroups and (b) parallel relationships similar in direction and magnitude across levels. I return to the basics of multilevel theory to consider these assumptions more closely, specifically in the context of family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). Across three chapters, I present the FSSB Separation Framework. Chapter 1 develops theory to explain not only why within-group variation (i.e., a separation in or relative lack of shared perceptions) regarding FSSB should be expected, but also how this presents a boundary condition to the applicability of the tenets of multilevel theory. Chapter 2 considers both between-group variation and within-group variation to explain why relationships at the workgroup level are not homologous. The most notable finding is that of an inverse, U-shaped curvilinear relationship involving workgroup-level FSSB, suggesting that moderate—as opposed to low—levels of FSSB are most problematic for workgroup-related outcomes. Chapter 3 further uncovers a potential, unintended downside of FSSB, emphasizing the importance of within-group variation regarding FSSB perceptions by identifying it as a focal predictor which contributes to relationship conflict within workgroups. Overall, the FSSB Separation Framework presents a paradigm shift by challenging current thinking and developing new, multilevel theory for the work-nonwork interface

An Analysis of Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity among Air Force Information Management Professionals

The role of enlisted Air Force Information Management professionals has been expanded beyond traditional boundaries to include a new area of responsibility called workgroup management. Workgroup management duties include front-line support for the life-cycle management of information, maintenance of desktop computers and networks, development and management of web pages, performance of initial system diagnostics, and management of client workstation configuration and software. Anecdotal evidence suggested the new, broader role of workgroup manager, combined with the fact that the majority of these individuals are assigned to positions in non communications units, may promulgate role conflict and role ambiguity. Role theory literature indicated that role conflict and role ambiguity lead to increased tension, decreased job satisfaction, and a higher propensity to leave (Kahn et al., 1964; Bedeian & Armenakis, 1981). A previously tested model that incorporated the influences of role conflict and role ambiguity on tension, job satisfaction, and propensity to leave was tested among workgroup managers. Furthermore, an additional construct, perceived role, which addressed perceptions surrounding the workgroup manager role, was introduced into the model. Results supported the addition of this construct into the model. Results partially supported the proposed relationships and warrant further research. Furthermore, findings suggest workgroup managers assigned to non communications units experience more role ambiguity, a higher degree of perceived role, and a lower degree of job satisfaction than those assigned to communications units. Therefore, additional research should be conducted in this area to further explore these findings

Measuring the Impact of Training in the Implementation of Project Management Information Systems

Organizations can use training to maximize the benefits realized through the implementation of project, program, and portfolio management software. However, the relationship between Project Management Information System (PMIS) training and the creation of organizational value is not well understood. The goal of the research is to create a better understanding of current industry project management software training practices and outcomes. This research investigates training utilization and outcomes in the PMIS industry, the prevalence, relative effectiveness and efficiency of several commonly used training delivery methods at increasing PMIS outcomes, and the relationships of individual and organizational characteristics on outcomes. An expansive multi-disciplinary review of existing scholarly literature was undertaken to develop a framework for the measurement of project management software training outcomes. Expert input from a panel of 9 practitioners averaging 16.7 years of professional experience related to PM, and 15.1 years of years of professional experience related to PM software usage was used to objectively select a small number of the best-scoring elements of the proposed framework for inclusion in a survey to be administered to practitioners. In total, 1,021 completed surveys were collected and analyzed using statistical methods. Research findings suggest statistically significant differences in consumption rates, effectiveness and efficiency among the examined training delivery methods. This research may contribute to training that is more effective and more efficient, based on the unique requirements of each individual and organization, at a reasonable cost. The methodologies and findings of this research have immediate implications in improving the planning, delivery, and measurement of PMIS training

INFORMATION SYSTEM CONTEXTUAL DATA QUALITY: A CASE STUDY

This dissertation describes a case study comparing the effectiveness of twoinformation systems that assess the quality of surgical care, the National SurgicalQuality Improvement Program (NSQIP) and the University HealthSystemConsortium Clinical Database (UHCCD). For the comparison, it develops aframework for assessing contextual data quality (CDQ) from the decision maker\u27sperspective. The differences in quality assessment systems to be studied areposited to be due to the differing contexts in which the data is encoded,transformed and managed impacting data quality for the purpose of surgicalquality assessment.Healthcare spending in the United States has risen faster than the rate of inflationfor over a decade and currently stands at about fifteen percent of the GrossDomestic Product. This has brought enormous pressures on the healthcareindustry to reduce costs while maintaining or improving quality. Numeroussystems to measure healthcare quality have been, and are being, developedincluding the two being studied. A more precise understanding of the differencesbetween these two systems\u27 effectiveness in the assessment of surgical healthcarequality informs decisions nationally regarding hospital accreditation and qualitybasedreimbursements to hospitals.The CDQ framework elaborated is also applicable to executive informationsystems, data warehouses, web portals, and other information systems that drawinformation from disparate systems. Decision makers are more frequently havingdata available from across functional and hierarchical areas within organizationsand data quality issues have been identified in these systems unrelated to thesystem performance from which the data comes.The propositions explored and substantiated here are that workgroup contextinfluences data selection and definition, the data entry and encoding process,managerial control and feedback, and data transformation in information systems.These processes in turn influence contextual data quality relative to a particulardecision model.The study is a cross-sectional retrospective review of archival quality datagathered on 26,322 surgical patients at the University of Kentucky Hospital alongwith interviews of process owners in each system. The quality data includepatient risk/severity factors and outcome data recorded in the National SurgeryQuality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database and the UniversityHealthSystem Consortium Clinical Database (UHCCD)

The relationship between psychological climate and work motivation in a retail setting

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among work motivation and the components of psychological climate in the retail environment. The sample consisted of 295 management employees of a major southeastern retailer with management employees divided into three groups. The survey research method was used. The self-administered questionnaire included three sections: Work Motivation, Psychological Climate, and Demographics. Data analysis procedures used were coefficients of correlation, regression analysis, analysis of variance and analysis of covariance. In testing the relationship between the 13 subscales of psychological climate and work motivation (Hypotheses 1), results indicated that Job Importance, Organizational Identification, and Leader Goal Emphasis were significantly positively related to work motivation

Timely Justice: Improving JDAI Results Through Case Processing Reforms

This JDAI practice guide offers practical steps that all juvenile justice systems can take to implement case processing reforms as a means for safely and equitably reducing the use of juvenile detention. This publication makes the case that with a renewed focus on how cases move through the juvenile justice system, jurisdictions could lower their use of juvenile detention and positively affect racial and ethnic disparities, rearrest and court appearance rates, program participation in detention alternatives and system costs, to name a few. System professionals will learn effective approaches to achieving more timely justice and overcoming common obstacles and challenges to case processing reform

Business-driven IT Management

Business-driven IT management (BDIM) aims at ensuring successful alignment of business and IT through thorough understanding of the impact of IT on business results, and vice versa. In this dissertation, we review the state of the art of BDIM research and we position our intended contribution within the BDIM research space along the dimensions of decision support (as opposed of automation) and its application to IT service management processes. Within these research dimensions, we advance the state of the art by 1) contributing a decision theoretical framework for BDIM and 2) presenting two novel BDIM solutions in the IT service management space. First we present a simpler BDIM solution for prioritizing incidents, which can be used as a template for creating BDIM solutions in other IT service management processes. Then, we present a more comprehensive solution for optimizing the business-related performance of an IT support organization in dealing with incidents. Our decision theoretical framework and models for BDIM bring the concepts of business impact and risk to the fore, and are able to cope with both monetizable and intangible aspects of business impact. We start from a constructive and quantitative re-definition of some terms that are widely used in IT service management but for which was never given a rigorous decision: business impact, cost, benefit, risk and urgency. On top of that, we build a coherent methodology for linking IT-level metrics with business level metrics and make progress toward solving the business-IT alignment problem. Our methodology uses a constructive and quantitative definition of alignment with business objectives, taken as the likelihood – to the best of one’s knowledge – that such objectives will be met. That is used as the basis for building an engine for business impact calculation that is in fact an alignment computation engine. We show a sample BDIM solution for incident prioritization that is built using the decision theoretical framework, the methodology and the tools developed. We show how the sample BDIM solution could be used as a blueprint to build BDIM solutions for decision support in other IT service management processes, such as change management for example. However, the full power of BDIM can be best understood by studying the second fully fledged BDIM application that we present in this thesis. While incident management is used as a scenario for this second application as well, the main contribution that it brings about is really to provide a solution for business-driven organizational redesign to optimize the performance of an IT support organization. The solution is quite rich, and features components that orchestrate together advanced techniques in visualization, simulation, data mining and operations research. We show that the techniques we use - in particular the simulation of an IT organization enacting the incident management process – bring considerable benefits both when the performance is measured in terms of traditional IT metrics (mean time to resolution of incidents), and even more so when business impact metrics are brought into the picture, thereby providing a justification for investing time and effort in creating BDIM solutions. In terms of impact, the work presented in this thesis produced about twenty conference and journal publications, and resulted so far in three patent applications. Moreover this work has greatly influenced the design and implementation of Business Impact Optimization module of HP DecisionCenter™: a leading commercial software product for IT optimization, whose core has been re-designed to work as described here

A Taxonomy of workgroup Computing Applications

The goal of workgroup computing is to help individuals and groups efficiently perform a wide range of functions on networked computer systems (Ellis, Gibbs, & Rein, 1991). Early workgroup computing tools were designed for limited functionality and group interaction (Craighill, 1992). Current workgroup computing applications do not allow enough control of group processes and they provide little correlation between various workgroup computing application areas (Rodden and Blair, 1991). An integrated common architecture may produce more effective workgroup computing applications. Integrating common support functions into a common framework will avoid duplication of these functions for each workgroup computing application (Pastor & Jager, 1992). Over 50 research and commercial workgroup computing applications were analyzed to understand and discover their distinctive characteristics and fundamental structure. Using the specified methods, a detailed section of a workgroup computing taxonomy was synthesized for each of 11 workgroup computing functional areas. The detailed taxonomy was the consolidation of all the hierarchical structures. The taxonomy formed the basis for developing an integrated workgroup computing architecture and a set of workgroup computing Application Programming Interface (API) specifications. The results of this study support the hypothesis that the available workgroup computing literature and application documentation would provide sufficient information to develop a comprehensive workgroup computing taxonomy. By comparing workgroup tasks with workgroup computing functional areas, it was possible to derive a common set of workgroup computing management and support tasks that were based on the detailed workgroup computing taxonomy. Common workgroup computing management and support tasks formed the basis for a1! Integrated workgroup computing architecture. Finally, 86 new API specifications were written for common workgroup computing management and support functions. This study can be used by workgroup application developers to determine which common workgroup computing functions should be integrated into future workgroup applications. Implementing the results of this study in future workgroup computing systems will lead to flexible and integrated systems that are easier to use and more transparent to workgroup members. Workgroup computing researchers can use this study to identify workgroup computing functions that should be included in their research areas