The Effect of Knowledge Sharing Using Customer Relationship Management Systems in Manufacturing Companies

This study assesses the influence on knowledge sharing among workers within Polish manufacturing enterprises. The study focuses on those workers who are involved within a company in a New Product Development (NPD) Process and who share their knowledge using the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. The outcome based on the data obtained from Polish enterprises suggests that the use of the following functionalities of CRM system by workers: the Customer Profitability Database, the daily/weekly/monthly Customer Contact Database and the Customer Requirement Database focusing on services, affects knowledge sharing and increase the creation of new products. This case study investigates how useful that knowledge is which has been achieved using CRM systems and it clarifies its effect in Polish manufacturing enterprises

COMPUTER AIDED TEAM BUILDING FOR RESEARCH AND DESIGN PROJECTS

Building teams has a fundamental impact for execution of research and development projects. Often the success of the project depends on the competence of employees implementing these projects. Therefore, it be-comes essential to build the team where skills complement each other in terms of knowledge, personality and practical skills. On the other hand an important element is the process of assessing the candidate. The person dealing with recruitment often bases its decisions on intuition / subjective impression and they tend to be unreliable. The article presents a proposal to use Fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS methods in team building for R&D projects on the basis of employees skills using for this process the most well-known tool, namely spreadsheet

Ocena stężeń OPG, RANKL i markerów obrotu kostnego w surowicy oraz BMD u pacjentek leczonych z powodu osteoporozy pomenopauzalnej ranelinianem strontu i ibandronianem

  Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate quantitative changes in OPG and RANKL proteins after treatment with strontium ranelate (SR) and ibandronate in patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis. Material and methods: A total of 89 women with postmenopausal osteoporosis (PO), aged 51-85 years, patients of the Outpatient Clinic of Osteoporosis of the Military Teaching Hospital in Lodz, were enrolled in the study. The patients were randomly assigned to different therapies: ibandronate and (SR). Patients of the control group received only calcium and vitamin D3 supplements. The patients’ visits were repeated after three and six months. Measurements of beta-CTX (C-terminal Telopeptide of type 1 collagen), osteocalcin, RANKL, osteoprotegerin (OPG), alkaline phosphatase concentrations in serum, as well as of total 24-hour calcium and phosphate levels in serum and urine, were carried out in material collected at baseline and after three and six months of therapy. Left hip and lumbar spine densitometry was done twice (at baseline visit and after six months). Results: In all three groups there were no significant differences noted in the concentrations of OPG and RANKL serum protein levels during the study period. Both negative and positive correlations or tendencies of correlations were found between OPG serum concentrations and BMD changes in the SR group. Conclusions: Both ibandronate and SR do not seem to cause any significant changes in OPG and RANKL protein serum levels during the first six months of treatment. OPG may play a role in osteoclast activity suppression in the course of treatment with ibandronate in patients with PO. OPG may play an important role in the mechanism of SR therapy and may be viewed as a potentially valuable parameter for monitoring and predicting the course of treatment with SR in PO. (Endokrynol Pol 2016; 67 (2): 174–184)    Wstęp: Celem badania była ocena ilościowych zmian stężeń białek OPG i RANKL po leczeniu ranelinianem strontu (RS) i ibandronianem u pacjentek z osteoporozą pomenopauzalną. Materiał i metody: Do badania zakwalifikowano 89 kobiet z osteoporozą pomenopauzalną (OP), w wieku 51–85, będących pacjentkami Poradni Leczenia Osteoporozy Uniwersyteckiego Szpitala Klinicznego im. WAM w Łodzi. Pacjentki losowo przydzielono do dwóch grup terapeutycznych, otrzymujących RS i ibandronian. Pacjentki z grupy kontrolnej otrzymywały tylko wapń i witaminę D. Chore odbywały wizyty w ośrodku w chwili rozpoczęcia badania, po 3 i 6 miesiącach, w trakcie których oznaczano stężenia: b-CTX (C-terminalny telopeptyd kolagenu typu I), osteokalcyny, osteoprotegeryny, RANKL, fosfatazy alkalicznej w surowicy, a ponadto wapnia oraz fosforanów zarówno w surowicy, jak i w moczu całodobowym. Badanie densytometryczne biodra i odcinka lędźwiowego kręgosłupa przeprowadzano przed włączeniem terapii oraz po 6 miesiącach leczenia. Wyniki: W żadnej z grup nie stwierdzono istotnych statystycznie zmian stężeń OPG i RANKL w surowicy. Jednakże w grupie leczonej SR, zaobserwowano liczne dodatnie i ujemne korelacje oraz trendy statystyczne, pomiędzy stężeniami OPG a zmianami BMD. Wnioski: Zarówno ibandronian, jak i SR wydają się nie powodować istotnych zmian stężeń OPG i RANKL w surowicy, w trakcie pierwszych 6 miesięcy terapii. W hamowaniu aktywności osteoklastów OPG może odgrywać istotną rolę, w trakcie terapii ibandronianem u pacjentek z OP. Może też pełnić ważną funkcję w mechanizmie działania RS i w związku z tym, może być rozpatrywana jako wartościowy parameter w monitorowaniu i przewidywaniu efektów leczenia RS w OP. (Endokrynol Pol 2016; 67 (2): 174–184)

An Approach to Supporting the Selection of Maintenance Experts in the Context of Industry 4.0

(1) Background: In recent years, many studies regarding the issues of improving the management and effectiveness of the maintenance department of manufacturing companies, in the context Industry 4.0, have been published. This makes it necessary to establish a research gap in the approach to obtaining support in realising management tasks in the maintenance area in the selection of appropriate employees to perform the given activities. (2) Methods: This article uses literature studies and empirical research results from manufacturing companies, in order to determine the approach in supporting the selection of maintenance experts. In the approach, the method used—which is based on rules should there be future any formalisation of the data—is also the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP), which analyses the importance of a given competence, within a manufacturing resource, to undertake repairs. (3) Results: The innovative approach towards the selection of expert workers in a maintenance department is created, in part, in the form of an implemented web-application. The novelty of the “maintenance expert selection map", so-called, is the provision of formal procedures for describing the competence of each maintenance worker and defining the best “state of nature”. (4) Conclusions: In the research that is presented here, the practicality for maintenance managers in the “maintenance expert selection map" was established. This map describes the competence of workers for selecting them for repair work within a given manufacturing resource; the scope of employee training was also determined in this research

A Study on Improving the Effectiveness of a Manufacturing Company in the Context of Knowledge Management – Research Results

This paper presents the relationship between the various kinds of knowledge that should be acquired, created, accumulated, shared, and transferred within a manufacturing company in order to improve organizational effectiveness. It is based on the data obtained from 85 Polish and German manufacturing companies from the cross-border cooperation region of Lubuskie/Poland - Brandenburg/ Germany. This is followed by a discussion of the results of empirical studies and of the supporting literature

The innovation capacity of Polish small and medium-sized enterprises

The innovation capacity of Polish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) implies their development in the knowledge-based economy. While having been the object of numerous studies, the link between used information technology and innovation capacity in SMEs still requires understanding. The article seeks to define a model for the assessment of the impact of used information technology on the growth of the innovation capacity of Polish SMEs in four perspectives: organizational, process, product, and marketing. This model is tested empirically with survey data from 300 Polish SMEs. The results confirm that innovation capacity is not mediated by the used information technology

An analysis of the operating parameters of the vacuum furnace with regard to the requirementsof predictive maintenance

The Industry 4.0 Concept assumes that the majority of industry’s resources will be able to self-diagnose; this will, therefore, enable predictive maintenance. Numerically controlled machines and devices involved in technological processes should, especially, have the facility to predict breakdown. In the paper, the concept of a predictive maintenance system for a vacuum furnace is presented. The predictive maintenance system is based on analysis of the operating parameters of the system and on the algorithms for identifying emergency states in the furnace. The algorithms will be implemented in the monitoring sub-system of the furnace. Analysis of the operating parameters of vacuum furnaces, recorded in the Cloud will lead to increased reliability and reduced service costs. In the paper, the research methodology for identification of the critical parameters of the predictive maintenance system is proposed. Illustrated examples of the thermographic investigation of a vacuum furnace are given

Sustainable Business Model integrated with the Enterprise Resource Planning system: SBM-ERP

Increasing the role of sustainable production benefits in transforming manufacturing towards the sustainable organisation. The proposed model integrates two dimensions, namely, the Sustainable Business Model (SBM) and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, and defines it as the SBM-ERP. This paper focuses attention on determining SBM-ERP based on the literature research, Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (F-AHP) method and the results of the analysis on the experiences with the implementation of the ERP system in manufacturing. It was determined that the proprietary approach allows the company’s sustainable manufacturing activities to be organised and monitored, based on real-time data and information, as updated and included in the ERP system. We also emphasized the practicality of the proposed approach for managers of manufacturing companies with an implemented ERP system