Operations management

Operations management deals with the management of the creation of goods and the delivery of services to the customer. It plays an essential role in the success of any organization. In this book, Andrew Greasley provides a clear and accessible introduction to this important area of study, focusing on all key areas of operations in both manufacturing and service industries. Operations Management, Second Edition covers the main areas of operations strategy, the design of the operations system and the management of operations over time. Yet, its concise nature of the text means students are not overwhelmed by the amount of material presented. This new edition also features: New content in such areas such as the quality gap model, enterprise systems and business process management. Expanded case studies, to include more global and European cases and longer cases at the end of each chapter. Greater clarity in chapter material organization. Worked Examples providing a step–by–step guide to the procedure to solve quantitative problems. Visual redesign in full colour. More support material for students and lecturers, including an interactive WileyPLUS course. All lecturers can access supporting resources on the companion website at www.wiley.com/college/greasley including an Instructor’s Manual with suggested solutions for all case study questions and end of chapter exercises, a Test Bank and PowerPoint slides for each chapter. Students will find multiple–choice test quizzes, web–links and an online glossary. Operations Management is essential reading for all students studying operations management, whether on undergraduate, postgraduate or continuing professional development courses.

Creation of relational assets through the 'library of equipment' model:an industrial modernization approach of Japan's local technology centres

SMEs with a weak internal R&D capacity show the tendency to shy away from using external sources of technical expertise. The tendency deters providers of industrial modernization services from supporting such structurally weak SMEs. This paper examines how Japan's local technology centres - kosetsushi - remove the bottleneck and reach out to a significant proportion of SMEs with a weak R&D capacity in their localities. Kosetsushi centres sustain habitual interactions with client firms through 'low information gap' services solving immediate needs and lead the clients to a riskier and longer path toward innovation capacity building. This gives kosetsushi centres a position distinct from universities and consultancies in the regional innovation system. While long-term relationships between kosetsushi centres and their client firms can increase switching costs and produce lock-in effects, a case study of two kosetsushi centres illustrates the importance of 'low-information gap' services and relational assets created thereby to the modernization of SMEs with a weak internal R&D capacity. The paper calls for long-term commitment by the public sector if it addresses the issue through modernization services.

PCIM:a project control and inhibiting‐factors management model

In construction projects, the aim of project control is to ensure projects finish on time, within budget, and achieve other project objectives. During the last few decades, numerous project control methods have been developed and adopted by project managers in practice. However, many existing methods focus on describing what the processes and tasks of project control are; not on how these tasks should be conducted. There is also a potential gap between principles that underly these methods and project control practice. As a result, time and cost overruns are still common in construction projects, partly attributable to deficiencies of existing project control methods and difficulties in implementing them. This paper describes a new project cost and time control model, the project control and inhibiting factors management (PCIM) model, developed through a study involving extensive interaction with construction practitioners in the UK, which better reflects the real needs of project managers. A set of good practice checklist is also developed to facilitate implementation of the model. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Designing a model for a corpus-driven dictionary of academic English

University students encounter difficulties with academic English because of its vocabulary, phraseology, and variability, and also because academic English differs in many respects from general English, the language which they have experienced before starting their university studies. Although students have been provided with many dictionaries that contain some helpful information on words used in academic English, these dictionaries remain focused on the uses of words in general English. There is therefore a gap in the dictionary market for a dictionary for university students, and this thesis provides a proposal for such a dictionary (called the Dictionary of Academic English; DOAE) in the form of a model which depicts how the dictionary should be designed, compiled, and offered to students. The model draws on state-of-the-art techniques in lexicography, dictionary-use research, and corpus linguistics. The model demanded the creation of a completely new corpus of academic language (Corpus of Academic Journal Articles; CAJA). The main advantages of the corpus are its large size (83.5 million words) and balance. Having access to a large corpus of academic language was essential for a corpus-driven approach to data analysis. A good corpus balance in terms of domains enabled a detailed domain-labelling of senses, patterns, collocates, etc. in the dictionary database, which was then used to tailor the output according to the needs of different types of student. The model proposes an online dictionary that is designed as an online dictionary from the outset. The proposed dictionary is revolutionary in the way it addresses the needs of different types of student. It presents students with a dynamic dictionary whose contents can be customised according to the user's native language, subject of study, variant spelling preferences, and/or visual preferences (e.g. black and white).

Asymptotically exact probability distribution for the Sinai model with finite drift

We obtain the exact asymptotic result for the disorder-averaged probability distribution function for a random walk in a biased Sinai model and show that it is characterized by a creeping behavior of the displacement moments with time, similar to v(mu n), where mu <1 is dimensionless mean drift. We employ a method originated in quantum diffusion which is based on the exact mapping of the problem to an imaginary-time Schrodinger equation. For nonzero drift such an equation has an isolated lowest eigenvalue separated by a gap from quasicontinuous excited states, and the eigenstate corresponding to the former governs the long-time asymptotic behavior.

A four-factor user interaction model for content-based image retrieval

In order to bridge the “Semantic gap”, a number of relevance feedback (RF) mechanisms have been applied to content-based image retrieval (CBIR). However current RF techniques in most existing CBIR systems still lack satisfactory user interaction although some work has been done to improve the interaction as well as the search accuracy. In this paper, we propose a four-factor user interaction model and investigate its effects on CBIR by an empirical evaluation. Whilst the model was developed for our research purposes, we believe the model could be adapted to any content-based search system.

Microwave properties of an inhomogeneous optically illuminated plasma in a microstrip gap

The optical illumination of a microstrip gap on a thick semiconductor substrate creates an inhomogeneous electron-hole plasma in the gap region. This allows the study of the propagation mechanism through the plasma region. This paper uses a multilayer plasma model to explain the origin of high losses in such structures. Measured results are shown up to 50 GHz and show good agreement with the simulated multilayer model. The model also allows the estimation of certain key parameters of the plasma, such as carrier density and diffusion length, which are difficult to measure by direct means. The detailed model validation performed here will enable the design of more complex microwave structures based on this architecture. While this paper focuses on monocrystalline silicon as the substrate, the model is easily adaptable to other semiconductor materials such as GaAs.

Development of a technological innovation capability assessment model:a case study of manufacturing SMEs in Sialkot, Pakistan

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important part in the economy of any country. Initially, a flat management hierarchy, quick response to market changes and cost competitiveness were seen as the competitive characteristics of an SME. Recently, in developed economies, technological capabilities (TCs) management- managing existing and developing or assimilating new technological capabilities for continuous process and product innovations, has become important for both large organisations and SMEs to achieve sustained competitiveness. Therefore, various technological innovation capability (TIC) models have been developed at firm level to assess firms‘ innovation capability level. These models output help policy makers and firm managers to devise policies for deepening a firm‘s technical knowledge generation, acquisition and exploitation capabilities for sustained technological competitive edge. However, in developing countries TCs management is more of TCs upgrading: acquisitions of TCs from abroad, and then assimilating, innovating and exploiting them. Most of the TIC models for developing countries delineate the level of TIC required as firms move from the acquisition to innovative level. However, these models do not provide tools for assessing the existing level of TIC of a firm and various factors affecting TIC, to help practical interventions for TCs upgrading of firms for improved or new processes and products. Recently, the Government of Pakistan (GOP) has realised the importance of TCs upgrading in SMEs-especially export-oriented, for their sustained competitiveness. The GOP has launched various initiatives with local and foreign assistance to identify ways and means of upgrading local SMEs capabilities. This research targets this gap and developed a TICs assessment model for identifying the existing level of TIC of manufacturing SMEs existing in clusters in Sialkot, Pakistan. SME executives in three different export-oriented clusters at Sialkot were interviewed to analyse technological capabilities development initiatives (CDIs) taken by them to develop and upgrade their firms‘ TCs. Data analysed at CDI, firm, cluster and cross-cluster level first helped classify interviewed firms as leader, follower and reactor, with leader firms claiming to introduce mostly new CDIs to their cluster. Second, the data analysis displayed that mostly interviewed leader firms exhibited ‗learning by interacting‘ and ‗learning by training‘ capabilities for expertise acquisition from customers and international consultants. However, these leader firms did not show much evidence of learning by using, reverse engineering and R&D capabilities, which according to the extant literature are necessary for upgrading existing TIC level and thus TCs of firm for better value-added processes and products. The research results are supported by extant literature on Sialkot clusters. Thus, in sum, a TIC assessment model was developed in this research which qualitatively identified interviewed firms‘ TIC levels, the factors affecting them, and is validated by existing literature on interviewed Sialkot clusters. Further, the research gives policy level recommendations for TIC and thus TCs upgrading at firm and cluster level for targeting better value-added markets.

A model for the modular evolution of rna addressing open questions on the origin of life

A main unsolved problem in the RNA world scenario for the origin of life is how a template-dependent RNA polymerase ribozyme emerged from short RNA oligomers generated by random polymerization of ribonucleotides (Joyce and Orgel 2006). Current estimates establish a minimum size about 165 nt long for such a ribozyme (Johnston et al. 2001), a length three to four times that of the longest RNA oligomers obtained by random polymerization on clay mineral surfaces (Huang and Ferris 2003, 2006). To overcome this gap, we have developed a stepwise model of ligation-based, modular evolution of RNA (Briones et al. 2009) whose main conceptual steps are summarized in Figure 1. This scenario has two main advantages with respect to previous hypotheses put forward for the origin of the RNA world: i) short RNA....