Search results for "Simulation."
showing 10 items of 4779 documents
Combining system dynamics modelling and management control systems to support strategic learning processes in SMEs: a Dynamic Performance Management …
2015
Traditional management control systems, mainly centred on accounting-based measures, are widely recognized as useful tools to support Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) managers and entrepreneurs in steering business development. However, due to the increasing turbulence and dynamic complexity that characterize today’s competitive arenas, such systems need to be combined with simulation-based methodologies in order to improve entrepreneurial learning processes and, as a result, better detect possible crisis symptoms and weak signals of change—emerging from the business environment—to promptly react. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to show how a combination of traditional management con…
Supporting public sector management through simulation-based methods: a dynamic performance management approach
2018
AbstractThough it draws a number of precursors, simulation-based techniques applied to traditional performance management frameworks constitute a novel approach to support public sector institutions in framing organizational performance dynamics and, as a result, improving public service delivery. This paper aims at contributing to the improvement of the outcomes achievable from the use of traditional performance management systems in the public sector by combining them with a simulation-based method named System Dynamics modeling. Such an approach is called Dynamic Performance Management.
Modeling and Analysis of a New Process for Pyruvate Production
2005
Early process development is crucial for the economic and environmental performance of a final production process. A new process for the production of pyruvate is presented as a case study to show how process modeling and an analysis of the results regarding economic and environmental aspects improves the understanding of the process, its cost structure, and its environmental impact. It also enables the quantification of process improvements and the comparison of alternative designs. The model of the pyruvate production shows how strain and fermentation improvements propagate through the process and affect its economic and environmental performance. The comparison of two alternative purific…
Developing a customizable process modelling environment: Lessons learnt and future prospects
1998
MetaCASE environments are design environments with customisable method support. Currently these environments are shifting from individual production support towards multi-user design environments. When adapting such an environment, the organisational context becomes important. We must focus on and improve the infrastructure (procedures and policies) and support (guidelines, help). Part of organisational support in design environments is process modelling: process models facilitate understanding and communication, process support gives guidance and helps enforcing procedures and policies. In a customisable design environment improvement is seen as a shift, a relatively gradual change that th…
Modelling the transient behaviour of a MED-TVC plant for coupling with CSP
2015
In this paper a dynamic model for the MED-TVC process has been developed and valided by a comparison with data from a real plant situated in Trapani, Italy, composed by 12 effects with parallel-feed configuration and equipped with a medium-pressure steam vapour ejector.
Simulation of a regeneration plant for spent pickling solutions via spray roasting
2015
Nowadays, pyrohydrolysis techniques are widely applied for regeneration of spent pickling liquors providing an excellent environmental and economical strategy to the problem of waste disposal/recovery, also thanks to the high acid recovery efficiencies (>99%) achieved1. In fact, in these processes, iron chlorides are converted into iron oxides and hydrogen chloride at high temperature in spray roasting or fluidized bed reactors2. Though the state-of-the-art technologies have been successfully applied only to large scale plants, the development of small scale units, able to perform a delocalized regeneration of spent solutions where these latter are actually produced, would be strongly ne…
Application and assessment of IDEF3‐process flow description capture method
1995
The IDEF techniques have been developed in projects sponsored by the US Air Force in order to describe, specify and model manufacturing systems in a structured graphical form. These techniques can be classified in two categories: the “modelling” and the “descriptive” varieties. Compares two IDEF methods (one of the modelling type and one of the descriptive type) in order to represent (model or describe) two different aspects of an industrial organization. The methods compared are IDEF0, function modelling method, and IDEF3, process flow description capture method. Concludes that when considering the sequencing of the activities in process, aiming at highlighting their eventual simultaneity,…
Sensitivity analysis of efficiency and Malmquist productivity indices: An application to Spanish savings banks
2008
Hypothesis testing and statistical precision in the context of non-parametric efficiency and productivity measurement have been investigated since the early 1990s. Recent contributions focus on this matter through the use of resampling methods-i.e., bootstrapping techniques. However, empirical evidence is still practically non-existent. This gap is more noticeable in the case of banking efficiency studies, where the literature is immense. In this work, we explore productivity growth and productive efficiency for Spanish savings banks over the (initial) post-deregulation period 1992-1998 using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and bootstrapping techniques. Results show that productivity growth…
Comparing three experiential learning methods and their effect on medical students' attitudes to learning communication skills.
2012
Background: Despite numerous studies exploring medical students’ attitudes to communication skills learning (CSL), there are apparently no studies comparing different experiential learning methods and their influence on students’ attitudes. Aims: We compared medical students’ attitudes to learning communication skills before and after a communication course in the data as a whole, by gender and when divided into three groups using different methods. Method: Second-year medical students (n ¼ 129) were randomly assigned to three groups. In group A (n ¼ 42) the theatre in education method, in group B (n ¼ 44) simulated patients and in group C (n ¼ 43) role-play were used. The data were gathere…
On the dynamics of eco-efficiency performance in the European Union
2016
This paper evaluates the evolution of environmental performance in the context of the European Union (EU), over the period 1993–2010. The context is particularly relevant, due to the traditionally high concerns of the EU about these issues, which has triggered off several initiatives and regulations on environmental protection. In this setting, we conduct a two-stage analysis which develops environmental performance indicators in the first stage for each pair country-year, and evaluates its evolution in the second. More specifically, in the first stage we estimate specific efficiencies for three air-pollutants (CO2e, SO2, NOx), along with an eco-efficiency indicator, for which we use the sl…