Osavalmistukseen investoimisen ja ulkoistamisen kustannusvertailu metalliteollisuusyrityksessä

Työn tarkoituksena oli vertailla laiteinvestointeja ja ulkoistamista toimenpidevaihtoehtoina Kaso Oy:n ohutlevyosavalmistuksen kehittämisessä. Lopuksi on annettu suositus jatkotoimenpiteistä. Työ suoritettiin selvittämällä ensin osavalmistuksen laiteinvestointien ja ulkoistamisen kustannusvaikutuksia laitevalmistajien ja alihankkijoiden budjettitarjousten pohjalta. Budjettitarjousten vaikutukset arvioitiin osavalmistuksen valmistamien osien hintoihin. Tämän jälkeen vaihtoehdot muunnettiin yhteismitallisiksi erityisen osahintakorin avulla. Koriin oli kerätty osavalmistuksen valmistamia osia niin, että koriin valitut osat kuvaisivat mahdollisimman hyvin osavalmistuksen tuottamien osien koko kirjoa. Lopuksi suoritettiin vertailu. Vertailun lopputuloksena todettiin, että investointivaihtoehto tuo paremman lopputuloksen taloudellisesti. Vaihtoehtoja vertailtiin toisiinsa myös herkkyysanalyysin keinoin ja löydettiin tuotannon taso, jolla ulkoistaminen tuo laiteinvestointeja paremman taloudellisen lopputuloksen.

Are Evaluation of ICTs Investment Using Decision Support Systems:Case Applications from Distributor's and End User's Perspective Group Decision

The evaluation of investments in advanced technology is one of the most important decision making tasks. The importance is even more pronounced considering the huge budget concerning the strategic, economic and analytic justification in order to shorten design and development time. Choosing the most appropriate technology requires an accurate and reliable system that can lead the decision makers to obtain such a complicated task. Currently, several Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) manufacturers that design global products are seeking local firms to act as their sales and services representatives (called distributors) to the end user. At the same time, the end user or customer is also searching for the best possible deal for their investment in ICT's projects. Therefore, the objective of this research is to present a holistic decision support system to assist the decision maker in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) - working either as individual decision makers or in a group - in the evaluation of the investment to become an ICT's distributor or an ICT's end user. The model is composed of the Delphi/MAH (Maximising Agreement Heuristic) Analysis, a well-known quantitative method in Group Support System (GSS), which is applied to gather the average ranking data from amongst Decision Makers (DMs). After that the Analytic Network Process (ANP) analysis is brought in to analyse holistically: it performs quantitative and qualitative analysis simultaneously. The illustrative data are obtained from industrial entrepreneurs by using the Group Support System (GSS) laboratory facilities at Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland and in Thailand. The result of the research, which is currently implemented in Thailand, can provide benefits to the industry in the evaluation of becoming an ICT's distributor or an ICT's end user, particularly in the assessment of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programme. After the model is put to test with an in-depth collaboration with industrial entrepreneurs in Finland and Thailand, the sensitivity analysis is also performed to validate the robustness of the model. The contribution of this research is in developing a new approach and the Delphi/MAH software to obtain an analysis of the value of becoming an ERP distributor or end user that is flexible and applicable to entrepreneurs, who are looking for the most appropriate investment to become an ERP distributor or end user. The main advantage of this research over others is that the model can deliver the value of becoming an ERP distributor or end user in a single number which makes it easier for DMs to choose the most appropriate ERP vendor. The associated advantage is that the model can include qualitative data as well as quantitative data, as the results from using quantitative data alone can be misleading and inadequate. There is a need to utilise quantitative and qualitative analysis together, as can be seen from the case studies.

Evaluation of Implementation of BSc IT Curriculum at Tumaini University

In Tanzania computer knowledge is vital to supplement the pace fast growing economic and development activities, which demands high and reliable level of expertise in com- puting field. In 2006, a research carried out at Tumaini University with purpose to design and implement a contextualized curriculum that can supplement for such needs hence facilitate development in Tanzanian context. A contextualized curriculum took advantage of six principles namely curriculum contex- tualization, projects, practical, interdisciplinary orientation, international recognition and continuous research for the program’s formative and development. Implementation of the curriculum followed the CATI (Contextualize, Apply, Transfer, and Import) model with emphasis on students to identify societal expectations at the early stage in learning process, in which case the graduates will potentially cater for societal expertise needs on ICT. This study adopts an emergent exploratory cross-section research design, while employ- ing a qualitative approach. This study was conducted at Tumaini University in Iringa where by purposeful sampling was used to obtain participants such as students, teach- ers, administrators and employers who participated in several focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and participant observation. The study reveals that six principles are satisfactorily met,despite of bottlenecks such as incompatibility in pedagogical thinking and technology availability for e-learning, learning attitudes, insufficient experts with actual skills and experience,in academic field among the others. The study recommends that iterative longitudinal study should be car- ried out to design for proper intervention in response to these problems which will help in improving and stabilize the curriculum.