Development of outsourcing decision models for small and medium sized manufacturing companies

Global markets are continuously developing and becoming extremely competitive. The manufacturing organisations are improving their capabilities and responsiveness to satisfy their customer demands. Due to this dynamic change, most of the developed countries, particularly the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States have witnessed a sharp increase in outsourcing. A literature search revealed weakness in outsourcing, due to the lack of suitable decision models and frameworks. However, limited research has been carried out in the area of outsourcing of manufacturing in small and medium sized companies. The main aims of this research are formulating appropriate decision models for small and medium sized companies; in particular, those that have been outsourcing, or planning to outsource, their manufacturing activities. The outsourcer's criteria for outsourcee selection for small and medium sized manufacturing companies are chosen after analysing the data obtained through the literature survey, questionnaire survey and personal interviews. Next, a model is formulated for numerical evaluation of outsourcer's criteria for outsourcee selection. Then, a second model for outsourcee (supplier) selection is formulated. The model comprises analytical hierarchy process, cluster analysis and criteria scoring of outsourcee. In the selection process of the most appropriate outsourcee, three elements has to be considered; the previously defined i) vector of important criteria resulted from the information analysis of literature survey, questionnaire and interviews, ii) the specific criteria ranking scoring identified by a particular outsourcer company and iii) the fulfilment of both general criteria (business / market) and specific criteria (outsourcer company) by the potential outsourcees. The outsourcee that achieves the highest total score based on the priority weights of each criterionand sub-criterion in the model may be considered the most suitable. The numerical results of the second model are compared against the empirical outcome of a test case is satisfactory. The developed method is consistent, faster and objective. A further model for drawing up and implementing a manufacturing level agreement was formulated, based on the information collected through the literature survey, questionnaire survey and interviews. The above models were presented to the managers of the companies and are found to be useful according to the feedback provided by them. They will be using the models in stages, subject to the resource availability.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The distributed author and the poetics of complexity : a comparative study of the sagas of Icelanders and Serbian epic poetry

The thesis brings together Íslendingasögur and srpske junačke pesme, two historically and culturally unrelated heroic literatures, literatures that had, nevertheless, converged upon a similar kind of realism. This feature in which they diverge from the earlier European epics - Beowulf, Nibelungenlied, La Chanson de Roland, is the focal point of this study. Rather than examining it solely in terms of verisimilitude and historicism with which it is commonly associated, I am approaching it as an emergent feature (emergent realism) of the non-linear, evolutionary dynamics of their production (i.e. their networked, negotiated authorship), the dynamics I call the distributed author. Although all traditional narratives develop in accordance with this dynamics, their non-linearity is often compromised by Bakhtinian 'centripetal forces' (e.g. centralised state, Church) with an effect of directedness akin to the authorial agency of an individual. The peculiar weakness of such forces in the milieus in which the sagas/Serbian epics grew, encouraged their distributed nature. As a result, they come across as indexes of their own coming into being, preserving, meshing and contrasting the old and the new, the general and the more idiosyncratic perspectives on past events and characters. In so doing they fail to arouse in the recipient the feeling of being addressed and possibly manipulated by an all encompassing organising authority. As a consequence, they also impress as believable. While chapters one and two of this study deal with theoretical and aesthetic implications of the two literatures' distributed authorship and their emergent realism, chapters three and four illustrate the ways in which these are manifested in the rich texture of the past and the complex make-up of the characters. The final chapter summarises major points of the thesis and suggests the poetics of complexity as a term particularly suitable to encapsulate the two literatures' common creative principles.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo