Triangular Linguistic Fuzzy based performance measurement model for supply chain to assess leanness attributes

Increasing global competitiveness worldwide has forced manufacturing organizations to produce high-quality products more quickly and at a competitive cost. In order to reach these goals, they need good quality components from suppliers at optimum price and lead time. This actually forced all the companies to adapt different improvement practices such as lean manufacturing, Just in Time (JIT) and effective supply chain management. Applying new improvement techniques and tools cause higher establishment costs and more Information Delay (ID). On the contrary, these new techniques may reduce the risk of stock outs and affect supply chain flexibility to give a better overall performance. But industry people are unable to measure the overall affects of those improvement techniques with a standard evaluation model .So an effective overall supply chain performance evaluation model is essential for suppliers as well as manufacturers to assess their companies under different supply chain strategies. However, literature on lean supply chain performance evaluation is comparatively limited. Moreover, most of the models assumed random values for performance variables. The purpose of this paper is to propose an effective supply chain performance evaluation model using triangular linguistic fuzzy numbers and to recommend optimum ranges for performance variables for lean implementation. The model initially considers all the supply chain performance criteria (input, output and flexibility), converts the values to triangular linguistic fuzzy numbers and evaluates overall supply chain performance under different situations. Results show that with the proposed performance measurement model, improvement area for each variable can be accurately identified.

Quality management system and construction performance

This paper discusses the level of effectiveness of quality principles and quality management system implementation and the relationship with performance of ISO9000 certified Indonesian contractors. It also discusses the statistical relationship between quality management systems (QMSs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) amongst a large sample of Indonesian construction companies. Data collected is from questionnaire surveys involving Quality Managers, Managers, and Project and Site Engineers representing 77 different companies. Results indicate that even though some contractors have not yet effectively implemented an effective QMS, most of the KPIs of respondent companies are still at the level of high performance. The statistical results show that the relationship between variables of ISO9000 QMS principles and contractors’ KPIs is significant. These results suggest that an increment in the implementation level of QMS principles can increase KPIs, however that much effort is still required for Indonesian contractors to fully effectively implement QMS principles and thus substantially improve performance against KPIs.

Measuring neighbourhood sustainability performance: an indexing model for Gold Coast City, Australia

The aim of this research is to develop an indexing model to evaluate sutainability performance of urban settings, in order to assess environmental impacts of urban development and to provide planning agencies an indexing model as a decision support tool to be used in curbing negative impacts of urban development. Indicator-based sustainability assessment is embraced as the method. Neigbourhood-level urban form and transport related indicators are derived from the literature by conducting a content analysis and finalised via a focus group meeting. The model is piloted on three suburbs of Gold Coast City, Australia. Final neighbourhood level sustainability index score was calculated by employing equal weighting schema. The results of the study show that indexing modelling is a reasonably practical method to measure and visualise local sustainability performance, which can be employed as an effective communication and decision making tool.

A conceptual model for manufacturing performance improvement

Purpose: Important performance objectives manufacturers sought can be achieved through adopting the appropriate manufacturing practices. This paper presents a conceptual model proposing relationship between advanced quality practices, perceived manufacturing difficulties and manufacturing performances. Design/methodology/approach: A survey-based approach was adopted to test the hypotheses proposed in this study. The selection of research instruments for inclusion in this survey was based on literature review, the pilot case studies and relevant industrial experience of the author. A sample of 1000 manufacturers across Australia was randomly selected. Quality managers were requested to complete the questionnaire, as the task of dealing with the quality and reliability issues is a quality manager’s major responsibility. Findings: Evidence indicates that product quality and reliability is the main competitive factor for manufacturers. Design and manufacturing capability and on time delivery came second. Price is considered as the least important factor for the Australian manufacturers. Results show that collectively the advanced quality practices proposed in this study neutralize the difficulties manufacturers face and contribute to the most performance objectives of the manufacturers. The companies who have put more emphasize on the advanced quality practices have less problem in manufacturing and better performance in most manufacturing performance indices. The results validate the proposed conceptual model and lend credence to hypothesis that proposed relationship between quality practices, manufacturing difficulties and manufacturing performances. Practical implications: The model shown in this paper provides a simple yet highly effective approach to achieving significant improvements in product quality and manufacturing performance. This study introduces a relationship based ‘proactive’ quality management approach and provides great potential for managers and engineers to adopt the model in a wide range of manufacturing organisations. Originality/value: Traditional ways of checking product quality are different types of testing, inspection and screening out bad products after manufacturing them. In today’s manufacturing where product life cycle is very short, it is necessary to focus on not to manufacturing them first rather than screening out the bad ones. This study introduces, for the first time, the idea of relationship based advanced quality practices (AQP) and suggests AQPs will enable manufacturers to develop reliable products and minimize the manufacturing anomalies. This paper explores some of the attributes of AQP capable of reducing manufacturing difficulties and improving manufacturing performances. The proposed conceptual model contributes to the existing knowledge base of quality practices and subsequently provides impetus and guidance towards increasing manufacturing performance.

Efficiency of research performance of Australian universities : a reappraisal using a bootstrap truncated regression approach

The motivation of the study stems from the results reported in the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2010 report. The report showed that only 12 universities performed research at or above international standards, of which, the Group of Eight (G8) universities filled the top eight spots. While performance of universities was based on number of research outputs, total amount of research income and other quantitative indicators, the measure of efficiency or productivity was not considered. The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, to provide a review of the research performance of 37 Australian universities using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) bootstrap approach of Simar and Wilson (2007). Second, to determine sources of productivity drivers by regressing the efficiency scores against a set of environmental variables.

Hydrogen gas sensing performance of a Pt/graphene/SiC device

In this work, we present the development of a Pt/graphene/SiC device for hydrogen gas sensing. A single layer of graphene was deposited on 6H-SiC via chemical vapor deposition. The presence of graphene C-C bonds was observed via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis. Current-voltage characteristics of the device were measured at the presence of hydrogen at different temperatures, from 25°C to 170°C. The dynamic response of the device was recorded towards hydrogen gas at an optimum temperature of 130°C. A voltage shift of 191 mV was recorded towards 1% hydrogen at −1 mA constant current.

Introduction to the First International Workshop on Empirical Research in Business Process Management (ER-BPM 2009)

Providing effective IT support for business processes has become crucial for enterprises to stay competitive. In response to this need numerous process support paradigms (e.g., workflow management, service flow management, case handling), process specification standards (e.g., WS-BPEL, BPML, BPMN), process tools (e.g., ARIS Toolset, Tibco Staffware, FLOWer), and supporting methods have emerged in recent years. Summarized under the term “Business Process Management” (BPM), these paradigms, standards, tools, and methods have become a success-critical instrument for improving process performance.

An exploration of feature detector performance in the thermal-infrared modality

Thermal-infrared images have superior statistical properties compared with visible-spectrum images in many low-light or no-light scenarios. However, a detailed understanding of feature detector performance in the thermal modality lags behind that of the visible modality. To address this, the first comprehensive study on feature detector performance on thermal-infrared images is conducted. A dataset is presented which explores a total of ten different environments with a range of statistical properties. An investigation is conducted into the effects of several digital and physical image transformations on detector repeatability in these environments. The effect of non-uniformity noise, unique to the thermal modality, is analyzed. The accumulation of sensor non-uniformities beyond the minimum possible level was found to have only a small negative effect. A limiting of feature counts was found to improve the repeatability performance of several detectors. Most other image transformations had predictable effects on feature stability. The best-performing detector varied considerably depending on the nature of the scene and the test.

Enhancing Chinese TEFL academics' research performance : necessity and urgency

China’s increasing participation in world affairs and the growing popularity of English as a lingua franca have made significant impact on Chinese society, culture and education. As such, considerable research topics in relation to English require TEFL researchers’ attentions. Additionally, higher education reform in China has created higher demand on academics by stressing research as an important element in academics’ assessment. Recurrent rhetoric in the field of TEFL also calls on practitioners to theorise their practice. All these practical needs and theoretical arguments point to the necessity and significance of TEFL academics’ engagement in research. To find out whether Chinese TEFL academics’ research meet the new demand on them, a survey of TEFL academics at three Chinese higher institutions was conducted. One hundred eighty two of them provided valid responses which were analysed using SPSS. It was found that TEFL academics’ research productivity in each category of research products was quite low. Large percentages of them did not produce any item in the investigated categories of research. They were least productive in conference papers and research products at the national level. However for these least productive categories, there were highly-productive TEFL academics. The categories of research where the TEFL academics were found relatively productive were non-core journal articles and provincial projects. The findings suggest that it is necessary and urgent for Chinese TEFL academics to enhance their research productivity to be able to meet the demand that new era has rendered.

An analysis of NSW rural property market : 1990-2010

Rural property in Australia has seen significant market resurgence over the past 3 years, with improved seasonal conditions in a number of states, improved commodity prices and a greater interest and purchase of rural land by major international corporations and investment institutions. Much of this change in perspective in relation to rural property as an asset class can be linked to the food shortage of 2007 and the subsequent interest by many countries in respect to food security. This paper will address the total and capital return performance of a major agricultural area and compare these returns on the basis of both location of land and land use. The comparison will be used to determine if location or actual land use has a greater influence on rural property capital and income returns. This performance analysis is based on over 40,000 rural sales transactions. These transactions cover all market based rural property transactions in New South Wales, Australia for the period January 1990 to December 2010. Correlation analysis and investment performance analysis has also been carried out to determine the possible relationships between location and land use and subsequent changes in rural land capital values.

Performance and scalability assessment for non-certificate-based public key management in VANETS

Current research in secure messaging for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) appears to focus on employing a digital certificate-based Public Key Cryptosystem (PKC) to support security. The security overhead of such a scheme, however, creates a transmission delay and introduces a time-consuming verification process to VANET communications. This paper proposes a non-certificate-based public key management for VANETs. A comprehensive evaluation of performance and scalability of the proposed public key management regime is presented, which is compared to a certificate-based PKC by employing a number of quantified analyses and simulations. Not only does this paper demonstrate that the proposal can maintain security, but it also asserts that it can improve overall performance and scalability at a lower cost, compared to the certificate-based PKC. It is believed that the proposed scheme will add a new dimension to the key management and verification services for VANETs.

Investigation of cooling energy performance of commercial building in sub-tropical climate through the application of green roof and living wall

This paper investigates cooling energy performance of commercial building before and after green roof and living wall application based on integrated building heat gain model developed from Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV) of building wall and steady state heat transfer process of roof in sub-tropical climate. Using the modelled equation and eQUEST energy simulation tool, commercial building envelope parameters and relevant heat gain parameters have been accumulated to analyse the heat gain and cooling energy consumption of commercial building. Real life commercial building envelope and air-conditioned load data for the sub-tropical climate zone have been collected and compared with the modelled analysis. Relevant temperature data required for living wall and green roof analysis have been collected from experimental setup comprised of both green roof and west facing living wall. Then, Commercial building heat flux and cooling energy performance before and after green roof and living wall application have been scrutinized.

Re-engaging marginalized youth through digital music production: performance, audience and evaluation

This paper presents two case studies of marginalised youth experimenting with digital music production in flexible education settings. The cases were drawn from a three-year study of alternative assessment in flexible learning centres that enrol 650+ students who have left formal schooling in Queensland, Australia. The cases are framed in reference to the literature on cultural studies approaches to education and the digital arts. Each case describes the student’s histories, cultural background and experiences, music productions, evidence of learning and re-engagement with education. Findings document how digital music production can re-engage and extend participation among students who have left formal education. They do so by theorising the online judgements and blog comments about the digital music production as a social field of exchange. It also raises critical questions about the adequacy of current approaches to evaluating and accounting for the learning and development of such youth, especially where this has occurred through creative arts and digital production.

The Impact of Information Technology Investments on Firm Processes and Performance

This book provides the much needed international dimension on the payoffs of information technology investments. The bulk of the research on the impact of information technology investments has been undertaken in developed economies, mainly the United States. This research provides an alternative dimension - a developing country perspective on how information technology investments impacts organizations. Secondly, there has been much debate and controversy on how we measure information technology investment payoffs. This research uses an innovative two-stage model where it proposes that information technology investments will first impact the process and improvement in the processes will then impact the performance. In doing so, it considers sectors of information technology investment rather than taking it as one. Finally, almost all prior studies in this area have considered only the tangible impact of information technology investments. This research proposes that one can only better understand the benefits by looking at both the tangible and intangible benefits.

ACE research vignette 010 : when do sales and employment grow together?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team and other international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Professor Per Davidsson considers some of the dynamics associated with firm growth.