Service Performance Assessment: A PI Toolset Methodology for VEs

Part 2: Knowledge-Based ServicesInternational audienceNowadays service sector is becoming more and more relevant in building successful collaborative economies. In this environment Virtual Enterprises (VEs) are forcing a change in the way traditional manufacturing systems are managed. Therefore measuring service performances plays an important role in turning company strategic goals into reality. Performance Indicators (PIs) consist in a supporting tool to assess service efficiency and effectiveness. Consequently, determining the most significant activities which need to be controlled and measured through proper PIs becomes essential. Within this paper, a PI Toolset is going to be presented and tested through industrial use case. The PI Toolset has been developed to support VEs in selecting significant activities, to manage governance processes and to support the design and implementation of specific PIs related to the precise use case objectives. Finally, a lesson learnt approach has been adopted so to stress strengths and weaknesses of both proposed methodology and tools

Non-stationary demand forecasting by cross-sectional aggregation

In this paper the relative effectiveness of top-down (TD) versus bottom-up (BU) approaches is compared for cross-sectionally forecasting aggregate and sub-aggregate demand. We assume that the sub-aggregate demand follows a non-stationary Integrated Moving Average (IMA) process of order one and a Single Exponential Smoothing (SES) procedure is used to extrapolate future requirements. Such demand processes are often encountered in practice and SES is one of the standard estimators used in industry (in addition to being the optimal estimator for an IMA process). Theoretical variances of forecast error are derived for the BU and TD approach in order to contrast the relevant forecasting performances. The theoretical analysis is supported by an extensive numerical investigation at both the aggregate and sub-aggregate level, in addition to empirically validating our findings on a real dataset from a European superstore. The results demonstrate the increased benefit resulting from cross-sectional forecasting in a non-stationary environment than in a stationary one. Valuable insights are offered to demand planners and the paper closes with an agenda for further research in this area. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

A Governance Framework for Mitigating Risks and Uncertainty in Collaborative Business Processes

International audienceThe development of collaborative business process relies mostly on software services spanning multiple organizations. Therefore, uncertainty related to the shared assets and risks of Intellectual Property infringement form major concerns and hamper the development of inter-enterprise collaboration. This paper proposes a governance framework to enhance trust and assurance in such collaborative context, coping with the impacts of Cloud infrastructure. First, a collaborative security requirements engineering approach analyzes assets sharing relations in business process, to identify risks and uncertainties and, therefore, elicits partners’ security requirements and profiles. Then, a ‘due usage’ aware policy model supports negotiation between asset provider’s requirements and consumer’s profiles. The enforcement mechanism adapts to dynamic business processes and Cloud infrastructures to provide end-to-end protection on shared assets

Should a Sentinel Node Biopsy Be Performed in Patients with High-Risk Breast Cancer?

A negative sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy spares many breast cancer patients the complications associated with lymph node irradiation or additional surgery. However, patients at high risk for nodal involvement based on clinical characteristics may remain at unacceptably high risk of axillary disease even after a negative SLN biopsy result. A Bayesian nomogram was designed to combine the probability of axillary disease prior to nodal biopsy with customized test characteristics for an SLN biopsy and provides the probability of axillary disease despite a negative SLN biopsy. Users may individualize the sensitivity of an SLN biopsy based on factors known to modify the sensitivity of the procedure. This tool may be useful in identifying patients who should have expanded upfront exploration of the axilla or comprehensive axillary irradiation

Product service value analysis: two complementary points of view

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityProduct Service System is an innovation strategy, used by manufacturers to increase their competitiveness, while satisfying specific customer needs. Here the focus is on the additional services associated to products and precisely on their value to determine their position in firms’ portfolio and by extension their legitimacy to reach the implied objective of profitability. The study rests on the use of the value analysis methodology and compares the value of the offer for the manufacturer taking account of its expected benefits and the value of the same offer for customers defined by the way of expected quality criteria.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Compan

PI Toolset Methodology for Virtual Enterprise Performance Assessment and Governance

Part 16: Performance Measurement SystemsInternational audienceThis paper aims at describing a proposed Performance Indicators (PIs) Toolset, which has been developed to provide useful methodologies and tools to enterprises, especially Virtual Manufacturing Enterprises (VMEs), in order to support the management and evaluation of their service systems. Particularly, the identified PI Toolset helps VMEs to understand how well they are performing and contributing to their strategic goals and objectives.Indeed, determining which activities should be monitored, controlled and measured through proper PIs is essential for a VME. In this context the proposed PI Toolset helps to select the significant activities, to manage governance processes, and to support the design and implement the specific PIs related to the precise use case objectives. Finally, the proposed Toolset defined a set of PIs that can be used to evaluate business processes related to governance issues