Search results for "Operations"
showing 10 items of 1692 documents
Decoding the Japanese Lean Production System according to a Viable Systems Perspective
2012
The increase in the complexity and variability of the business environment, due to constant and rapid changes in markets, calls for more flexible and effective production systems. Of the most valuable production systems, the Japanese lean production system (LPS) is the best known and studied, but is still not the most widely applied with success outside Japan. The reason for the low level of success of lean production outside its native country is the lack of understanding of the strong interactions which hold between enterprises and business systems. In order to fill this gap in our knowledge, we investigate the systemic interactions according to the Viable System View. To develop our anal…
Foot Print Towards Green Village - A Case on TARAGRAM
2012
This case is basically focused on particular villages of Bundelkhand region which are tending towards the self empowerment. It is about the down to earth solutions using concept of science and technology. It is about the synergistic approaches and about converting latent needs into demand. It is not compromising on quality and about increasing the productivity of all our resources within constrains of the environment to maintain ecological balance. The Development Alternatives Group, not for profit organization realized in the year of 1995 and in order to improve local economic conditions to meet basic needs, solutions were needed to respond to the needs based on local resource regeneration…
Strengthening Safety Compliance in Nuclear Power Operations: A Role-Based Approach
2014
Safety compliance is of paramount importance in guaranteeing the safe running of nuclear power plants. However, it depends mostly on procedures that do not always involve the safest outcomes. This article introduces an empirical model based on the organizational role theory to analyze the influence of legitimate sources of expectations (procedures formalization and leadership) on workers' compliance behaviors. The sample was composed of 495 employees from two Spanish nuclear power plants. Structural equation analysis showed that, in spite of some problematic effects of proceduralization (such as role conflict and role ambiguity), procedure formalization along with an empowering leadership s…
Decision making in energy planning: The electre multicriteria analysis approach compared to a fuzzy-sets methodology
1998
Every planning activity generally requires to make some choices. After a preliminary analysis of the sector under examination, a forecast of trends of input-output items, the planner must define an action plan voted to arrange all the strategies and specific interventions able to fit demand and supply during the planned time. The redaction of an action plan implies a strong effort in order to synthesize either suggestions coming from the analysis phases either all the constraints linked to technical choices. In the same time, a large number of "external" variables plays a role in orienting decision making. Some of these can be handled by numerical models (economic cost-benefit analyses, mar…
Forms and Functions of the Real Estate Market of Palermo (Italy). Science and Knowledge in the Cluster Analysis Approach
2016
The analysis of the housing market of a city requires suitable approaches and tools, such as data mining models, to represent its complexity which derives on many elements, e.g. the type of capital asset-house is a common good and an investment good as well, the heterogeneity of the urban areas—each of them has own historical and representative values and different urban functions—and the variability of building quality. The housing market of the most densely populated area of Palermo (Italy), corresponding to ten districts, is analyzed to verify the degree of its inner homogeneity and the relations between the quality of the characteristics and the price of the properties. Five hundred set…
Note: Critical Factors in Opening Pharmaceutical Packages: a Usability Study among Healthcare Workers, Women with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Elderly Wo…
2016
This cross-sectional study compared the usability of pharmaceutical packages to determine the critical factors involved in packages with different opening mechanisms. Four packaging types (a bottle with a screw cap, a box with a pill plate, disposable plastic droppers with a container and a jar with a hinge cap) were evaluated by 45 women (nurses, older women and women with rheumatoid arthritis). Usability was evaluated for subjective measures related to the ease of opening and for objective measures related to the time needed to open the packaging, electrical muscular activity (electromyography, EMG) and ranges of motion of the upper extremities. Of the arthritic women, 13% were unable to …
How to derive the analytical capacity model for not-conventional urban roundabouts
2008
The inapplicability of current methods for analyzing operations of urban not-conventional roundabouts (i.e. not referable to standard schemes) hampers seriously the assessment of their operational performances. Moreover, local constraints and the road network structure have produced lots of geometric layouts that make hard to propose an only framework to explain performances of not-conventional roundabouts. Also for these intersections it is hoped to have scientifically based methods to analyze operations with a proper reliability. Starting from these considerations, the paper shows the conceptual path followed to analyze operations at not-conventional roundabouts along an arterial of Paler…
Into the world of e-waste: mobility among e-scrappers in Nigeria
2017
AbstractIn the management of e-waste, mobility of e-scrappers plays a pivotal role, especially in e-waste acquisition and sales of extracted materials. This research examines the relationship between e-scrappers and the locations of their work by analysing the influence of environmental and social factors on their mobility behaviour in Nigeria. A qualitative analysis of video material collected from 29 male e-scrappers in Nigeria between 2014 and 2015 reveals that e-waste has inherent properties that intermittently mobilise e-scrappers to search for recyclable and valuable electronic trash. Applying the new mobilities paradigm and the new materialism theory, we present that e-scrappers’ mob…
Relationship between employee involvement and lean manufacturing and its effect on performance in a rigid continuous process industry
2015
Relationship between employee involvement and lean manufacturing and its effect on performance in a rigid continuous process industry DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2014.975852 Juan A. Marin-Garciaa* & Tomas Bonaviab Received: 1 Aug 2013 Accepted: 30 Sep 2014 Published online: 04 Nov 2014 This research aims to empirically test the effect of employee involvement on lean manufacturing (LM), and the effect of LM on production outcomes. Employee involvement is operationalised through four related variables: empowerment, training, contingent remuneration and communication. The effects are tested by recording management perceptions in a different industrial sector from those usually studied in previous re…
Ambizioni e insuccessi di alcune politiche di sviluppo locale per il Mezzogiorno. Patti territoriali e Programmi integrati territoriali (Pit)
2008
In 1997 a “new programming” was launched in Italy by the Department of development and cohesion policies in Rome. One of the key features of this new phase was the emphasis on “endogenous” local development, i.e. a development which is mainly based on local actors and productive specializations. The new programming strikingly failed to deliver its expected results. Some wrong expectations were fostered with regard to local political elites (§§ 1). A certain concept of local development is inherently flawed (§§ 2). The first failure was that of “territorial agreements” (patti territoriali), but there is a remarkable reluctancy to admit it (§§ 3). Another experience of “local” development who…