Outsourcing: guidelines for a structured approach

Outsourcing is a management approach by which an organization delegates some noncore functions to specialized and ef®cient service providers. In the era of ªglobal marketº and ªe-economyº, outsourcing is one of the main pillars of the new way to conceive the relationships among companies. Despite outsourcing large diffusion, huge business cases and big deals of documentation available on network or press, there is no structured procedure able to support the govern of the evolution of a generic outsourcing process. In accordance with the principles of total quality management, this paper describes a proposal of a new approach for managing outsourcing processes. The model, which can be easily adapted to different application ®elds, has been conceived with the main aim of managing strategic decisions, economic factors and human resources. The approach is supported by different decision and analysis tools, such as benchmarking techniques, multiple criteria decision aiding (MCDA) methods, cost analysis, and other process-planning methodologies. An application of the method to a real case is also provide

Puzzling choices in hard times: Union ideologies of social concertation in the Great Recession

Using the cases of Ireland and Portugal during the post-2008 Great Recession, we argue that unions' ideological formations around social concertation are central in aiding them to navigate their options about whether to engage in concessionary bargaining with government under crisis conditions. Building on Hyman's triangle of union identity, we show how an ideational perspective can complement interest-based accounts of unions' strategies to explain their engagement with policymakers or their opposition in the macro-management of the economy

The SLAC Polarized Electron Source

The SLAC PES, developed in the early 1990s for the SLC, has been in continuous use since 1992, during which time it has undergone numerous upgrades. The upgrades include improved cathodes with their matching laser systems, modified activation techniques and better diagnostics. The source itself and its performance with these upgrades will be described with special attention given to recent high-intensity long-pulse operation for the E-158 fixed-target parity-violating experiment.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Workshop on Polarized Electron Sources and Polarimeters (PESP 2002), September 4-6, 2002, Danvers, M

Asymptotic defectiveness of manufacturing plants: an estimate based on process learning curves

The paper describes a method for a preliminary estimation of asymptotic defectiveness of a manufacturing plant based on the prediction of its learning curve estimated during a p-chart setting up. The proposed approach provides process managers with the possibility of estimating the asymptotic variability of the process and the period of revision of p-chart control limits. An application of the method is also provided

Accurate coil springs axial and transverse stiffness measurements with multicomponent testing machines

Accurate characterization of coil springs, typically in terms of axial and transverse stiffness, is crucial in many applications, in particular in automotive engineering, such as suspensions, vibration reduction, seating, exhaust valves, gear engagement controls, transmission hose, fuel panels, car trunks, and engine hoods. These measurements are usually performed in spring testing machines along the vertical axis in quasi-static conditions. However, when springs are stressed along the main vertical axis, side forces, bending and torsion moments are generated, thus have to be evaluated. For this reason, a hexapod-shaped multicomponent force and moment transducer has been recently devised, realized and integrated into standard spring testing machines capable to measure the displacement along the main and transverse axes. In this way, forces, moments and displacement components generated by the springs can be measured and axial and transverse stiffness derived. In this work, two multicomponent spring testing machines with the hexapod-shaped force and moment transducer are described and measurements on different large coil springs are presented

Measurement strategy impact on dimensional inspection by portable camera-based measuring systems

In dimensional inspection of large objects, portable measuring systems are greatly involved in a wealth of applications, such as automotive, motorsports and aerospace industries. Metris K-series Optical CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) system is one of the metrology solutions with relatively high accuracy and flexibility. This paper focuses on measurement strategy via repeatedly measuring a length using Metris K610 camera system. The paper proposes a link between measurement strategy and the system performance that can be achieved. The result of the statistical analysis are also given based on the uncertainty propagation of the CMM

Do children with uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition need antibiotics? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Current (1999) World Health Organization guidelines recommend giving routine antibiotics (AB) for all children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM), even if they have uncomplicated disease with no clinically obvious infections. We examined the evidence behind this recommendation

FMECA methodology applied to two pathways in an orthopaedic hospital in Milan.

INTRODUCTION: Adverse events pose a challenge to medical management: they can produce mild or transient disabilities or lead to permanent disabilities or even death; preventable adverse events result from error or equipment failure. METHODS: IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi implemented a clinical risk management program in order to study the epidemiology of adverse events and to improve new pathways for preventing clinical errors: a risk management FMECA-FMEA pro-active analysis was applied either to an existing clinical support pathway or to a new process before its implementation. RESULTS: The application of FMEA-FMECA allowed the clinical risk unit of our hospital to undertake corrective actions in order to reduce the adverse events and errors on high-risk procedure used inside the hospitals