Sistema de controlo de processo e de organização numa empresa metalomecânica

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Mecatrónica (área de especialização de Tecnologia de Manufatura)

Redução do tempo de montagem final de transformadores CORE através da aplicação de ferramentas LEAN

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Industrial

Modelação de processos num serviço de uma organização de ensino superior

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial

Implementação de Kata de melhoria em serviços administrativos

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Industrial

Implementation of the I.S. EN 16001:2009 energy management standard into GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Ltd, Cork

As manufacturers face an increasingly competitive environment, they seek out opportunities to reduce production costs without negatively affecting the yield or the quality of their finished products. The challenge of maintaining high product quality while simultaneously reducing production costs can often be met through investments in energy efficient technologies and energy efficiency practices. Energy management systems can offer both technological and best practice efficiencies in order to achieve substantial savings. A strong energy management system provides a solid foundation for an organisation to reduce production costs and improve site efficiency. The I.S EN16001 energy management standard specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving an energy management system and represents the latest best practice for energy management in Ireland. The objective of the energy management system is to establish a systematic approach for improving energy performance continuously. The I.S EN16001 standard specifies the requirements for continuous improvement through using energy more efficiently. The author analysed how GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Cork implemented the I.S. EN16001 energy management system model, and defined how energy saving opportunities where identified and introduced to improve efficiency performance. The author performed an extensive literature research in order to determine the current status of the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland, the processes involved in pharmaceutical manufacturing, the energy users required for pharmaceutical manufacturing and the efficiency measures that can be applied to these energy users in order to reduce energy consumption. The author then analysed how energy management standards are introduced to industry and critically analysed the driving factors for energy management performance in Ireland through case studies. Following an investigation as to how the I.S. EN16001 energy management standard is operated in GSK, a critical analysis of the performance achieved by the GSK energy management system is undertaken in order to determine if implementing the I.S EN16001 standard accelerates achieving energy savings. Since its introduction, the I.S. EN16001 model for energy management has enabled GSK to monitor, target and identify energy efficiency opportunities throughout the site. The model has put in place an energy management system that is continuously reviewed for improvement and to date has reduced GSK’s site operations cost by over 30% through technical improvements and generating energy awareness for smarter energy consumption within the GSK Cork site. Investment in I.S. EN16001 has proved to be a sound business strategy for GSK especially in today's manufacturing environment.

IPH Response to draft Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Mr Phil Hogan has launched a draft Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland for public consultation. The objectives of the draft Framework are to identify and prioritise policy areas and mechanisms where a sustainable development approach will add value and enable continuous improvement of quality of life for current and future generations and set out clear measures, responsibilities and timelines in an implementation plan.

Paper 3: EUROCAT data quality indicators for population-based registries of congenital anomalies.

The European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies (EUROCAT) network of population-based congenital anomaly registries is an important source of epidemiologic information on congenital anomalies in Europe covering live births, fetal deaths from 20 weeks gestation, and terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomaly. EUROCAT's policy is to strive for high-quality data, while ensuring consistency and transparency across all member registries. A set of 30 data quality indicators (DQIs) was developed to assess five key elements of data quality: completeness of case ascertainment, accuracy of diagnosis, completeness of information on EUROCAT variables, timeliness of data transmission, and availability of population denominator information. This article describes each of the individual DQIs and presents the output for each registry as well as the EUROCAT (unweighted) average, for 29 full member registries for 2004-2008. This information is also available on the EUROCAT website for previous years. The EUROCAT DQIs allow registries to evaluate their performance in relation to other registries and allows appropriate interpretations to be made of the data collected. The DQIs provide direction for improving data collection and ascertainment, and they allow annual assessment for monitoring continuous improvement. The DQI are constantly reviewed and refined to best document registry procedures and processes regarding data collection, to ensure appropriateness of DQI, and to ensure transparency so that the data collected can make a substantial and useful contribution to epidemiologic research on congenital anomalies.

Department of Health & Children: Statement of Strategy 2008 - 2010

During the period covered by our last Statement of Strategy, fundamental changes were made to the structures and organisation of our health services. Most notably, the Health Service Executive (HSE) was established, and given statutory responsibility to use the resources available to it in the most beneficial, effective, and efficient manner to improve, promote and protect the health and welfare of the public. The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) was established to help drive continuous improvement in Ireland's health and social care services. Click here to download PDF 464kb

Redefinición de indicadores y planificación del proceso de recogida de datos de la Biblioteca Virtual de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Pre-print.

Redefinición de indicadores y planificación del proceso de recogida de datos de la Biblioteca Virtual de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Pre-print.

Three essays in control, entrepreneurship and innovation

One of the key emphases of these three essays is to provide practical managerial insight. However, good practical insight, can only be created by grounding it firmly on theoretical and empirical research. Practical experience-based understanding without theoretical grounding remains tacit and cannot be easily disseminated. Theoretical understanding without links to real life remains sterile. My studies aim to increase the understanding of how radical innovation could be generated at large established firms and how it can have an impact on business performance as most businesses pursue innovation with one prime objective: value creation. My studies focus on large established firms with sales revenue exceeding USD $ 1 billion. Usually large established firms cannot rely on informal ways of management, as these firms tend to be multinational businesses operating with subsidiaries, offices, or production facilities in more than one country. I. Internal and External Determinants of Corporate Venture Capital Investment The goal of this chapter is to focus on CVC as one of the mechanisms available for established firms to source new ideas that can be exploited. We explore the internal and external determinants under which established firms engage in CVC to source new knowledge through investment in startups. We attempt to make scholars and managers aware of the forces that influence CVC activity by providing findings and insights to facilitate the strategic management of CVC. There are research opportunities to further understand the CVC phenomenon. Why do companies engage in CVC? What motivates them to continue "playing the game" and keep their active CVC investment status. The study examines CVC investment activity, and the importance of understanding the influential factors that make a firm decide to engage in CVC. The main question is: How do established firms' CVC programs adapt to changing internal conditions and external environments. Adaptation typically involves learning from exploratory endeavors, which enable companies to transform the ways they compete (Guth & Ginsberg, 1990). Our study extends the current stream of research on CVC. It aims to contribute to the literature by providing an extensive comparison of internal and external determinants leading to CVC investment activity. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the influence of internal and external determinants on CVC activity throughout specific expansion and contraction periods determined by structural breaks occurring between 1985 to 2008. Our econometric analysis indicates a strong and significant positive association between CVC activity and R&D, cash flow availability and environmental financial market conditions, as well as a significant negative association between sales growth and the decision to engage into CVC. The analysis of this study reveals that CVC investment is highly volatile, as demonstrated by dramatic fluctuations in CVC investment activity over the past decades. When analyzing the overall cyclical CVC period from 1985 to 2008 the results of our study suggest that CVC activity has a pattern influenced by financial factors such as the level of R&D, free cash flow, lack of sales growth, and external conditions of the economy, with the NASDAQ price index as the most significant variable influencing CVC during this period. II. Contribution of CVC and its Interaction with R&D to Value Creation The second essay takes into account the demands of corporate executives and shareholders regarding business performance and value creation justifications for investments in innovation. Billions of dollars are invested in CVC and R&D. However there is little evidence that CVC and its interaction with R&D create value. Firms operating in dynamic business sectors seek to innovate to create the value demanded by changing market conditions, consumer preferences, and competitive offerings. Consequently, firms operating in such business sectors put a premium on finding new, sustainable and competitive value propositions. CVC and R&D can help them in this challenge. Dushnitsky and Lenox (2006) presented evidence that CVC investment is associated with value creation. However, studies have shown that the most innovative firms do not necessarily benefit from innovation. For instance Oyon (2007) indicated that between 1995 and 2005 the most innovative automotive companies did not obtain adequate rewards for shareholders. The interaction between CVC and R&D has generated much debate in the CVC literature. Some researchers see them as substitutes suggesting that firms have to choose between CVC and R&D (Hellmann, 2002), while others expect them to be complementary (Chesbrough & Tucci, 2004). This study explores the interaction that CVC and R&D have on value creation. This essay examines the impact of CVC and R&D on value creation over sixteen years across six business sectors and different geographical regions. Our findings suggest that the effect of CVC and its interaction with R&D on value creation is positive and significant. In dynamic business sectors technologies rapidly relinquish obsolete, consequently firms operating in such business sectors need to continuously develop new sources of value creation (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Qualls, Olshavsky, & Michaels, 1981). We conclude that in order to impact value creation, firms operating in business sectors such as Engineering & Business Services, and Information Communication & Technology ought to consider CVC as a vital element of their innovation strategy. Moreover, regarding the CVC and R&D interaction effect, our findings suggest that R&D and CVC are complementary to value creation hence firms in certain business sectors can be better off supporting both R&D and CVC simultaneously to increase the probability of generating value creation. III. MCS and Organizational Structures for Radical Innovation Incremental innovation is necessary for continuous improvement but it does not provide a sustainable permanent source of competitiveness (Cooper, 2003). On the other hand, radical innovation pursuing new technologies and new market frontiers can generate new platforms for growth providing firms with competitive advantages and high economic margin rents (Duchesneau et al., 1979; Markides & Geroski, 2005; O'Connor & DeMartino, 2006; Utterback, 1994). Interestingly, not all companies distinguish between incremental and radical innovation, and more importantly firms that manage innovation through a one-sizefits- all process can almost guarantee a sub-optimization of certain systems and resources (Davila et al., 2006). Moreover, we conducted research on the utilization of MCS along with radical innovation and flexible organizational structures as these have been associated with firm growth (Cooper, 2003; Davila & Foster, 2005, 2007; Markides & Geroski, 2005; O'Connor & DeMartino, 2006). Davila et al. (2009) identified research opportunities for innovation management and provided a list of pending issues: How do companies manage the process of radical and incremental innovation? What are the performance measures companies use to manage radical ideas and how do they select them? The fundamental objective of this paper is to address the following research question: What are the processes, MCS, and organizational structures for generating radical innovation? Moreover, in recent years, research on innovation management has been conducted mainly at either the firm level (Birkinshaw, Hamel, & Mol, 2008a) or at the project level examining appropriate management techniques associated with high levels of uncertainty (Burgelman & Sayles, 1988; Dougherty & Heller, 1994; Jelinek & Schoonhoven, 1993; Kanter, North, Bernstein, & Williamson, 1990; Leifer et al., 2000). Therefore, we embarked on a novel process-related research framework to observe the process stages, MCS, and organizational structures that can generate radical innovation. This article is based on a case study at Alcan Engineered Products, a division of a multinational company provider of lightweight material solutions. Our observations suggest that incremental and radical innovation should be managed through different processes, MCS and organizational structures that ought to be activated and adapted contingent to the type of innovation that is being pursued (i.e. incremental or radical innovation). More importantly, we conclude that radical can be generated in a systematic way through enablers such as processes, MCS, and organizational structures. This is in line with the findings of Jelinek and Schoonhoven (1993) and Davila et al. (2006; 2007) who show that innovative firms have institutionalized mechanisms, arguing that radical innovation cannot occur in an organic environment where flexibility and consensus are the main managerial mechanisms. They rather argue that radical innovation requires a clear organizational structure and formal MCS.

Contribución al diseño de GNSS-SDR, un receptor GNSS de código abierto

[ANGLÈS] This project introduces GNSS-SDR, an open source Global Navigation Satellite System software-defined receiver. The lack of reconfigurability of current commercial-of-the-shelf receivers and the advent of new radionavigation signals and systems make software receivers an appealing approach to design new architectures and signal processing algorithms. With the aim of exploring the full potential of this forthcoming scenario with a plurality of new signal structures and frequency bands available for positioning, this paper describes the software architecture design and provides details about its implementation, targeting a multiband, multisystem GNSS receiver. The result is a testbed for GNSS signal processing that allows any kind of customization, including interchangeability of signal sources, signal processing algorithms, interoperability with other systems, output formats, and the offering of interfaces to all the intermediate signals, parameters and variables. The source code release under the GNU General Public License (GPL) secures practical usability, inspection, and continuous improvement by the research community, allowing the discussion based on tangible code and the analysis of results obtained with real signals. The source code is complemented by a development ecosystem, consisting of a website (http://gnss-sdr.org), as well as a revision control system, instructions for users and developers, and communication tools. The project shows in detail the design of the initial blocks of the Signal Processing Plane of the receiver: signal conditioner, the acquisition block and the receiver channel, the project also extends the functionality of the acquisition and tracking modules of the GNSS-SDR receiver to track the new Galileo E1 signals available. Each section provides a theoretical analysis, implementation details of each block and subsequent testing to confirm the calculations with both synthetically generated signals and with real signals from satellites in space.

Tuotteen valmistuksen kehittäminen kaizen-projektin avulla

Diplomityön tavoitteena oli laatia Abloy Oy:n ovensuljinyksikölle malli kaizenprojektille sekä toteuttaa yksi tällainen kehitysprojekti. Kaizen on japania ja tarkoittaa suomeksi jatkuvaa parantamista. Kaizen on pienin askelin tapahtuvaa jatkuvaa kehittämistä, joka perustuu vanhan osaamisen tehokkaampaan hyväksikäyttöön. Teoriaosuudessa tutustutaan kirjallisuuden perusteella lean- ja JOT-teorioihin, jotka ovat osa Abloy Oy:n yrityksen strategiaa. Niiden lähestymistapa on hyvin asiakaslähtöinen. Kaizen-projekteilla pystytään kehittämään omaa toimintaa parantaen samalla asiakaspalvelua. Kaizen-projektin tavoitteena oli poistaa mahdollisimman paljon lisäarvoa tuottamattomia toimintoja aukipitolaitteen DC191 valmistuksesta ja saada tuotteen kokonaisläpimenoaikaa lyhyemmäksi. Tavoitteena oli myös lisätilan järjestäminen mahdollisesti tuleville kokoonpanopöydille. Projektin avulla aukipitolaitteen DC191 valmistuksesta poistettiin paljon turhia työvaiheita.Lisäksi selvitettiin ja ratkaistiin valmistuksen pahimmat ongelmat.

Tuotannonohjauksen kehittäminen levytuotetehtaassa

Tämän diplomityön tavoitteena oli selvittää ohutlevytuotteita valmistavan yrityksen tuotannonohjauksen nykytila ja kehitystä vaativat kohteet sekä laatia kehitysehdotuksia. Yrityksessävalmisteltiin samaan aikaan tutkimuksen aikana huomattavia tuotannonohjaukseen liittyviä kehitystoimia. Tutkimus käsitteli toiminnanohjaukseen sisältyviä aiheita, kuten tuotannonohjausta, tuotannon ohjattavuutta, varastoja ja organisaation kehittämistä. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että yrityksen on otettava käyttöön jatkuvan kehittämisen kulttuuri ja panostettava erityisesti suomalaiselle ohutlevyalalle tärkeisiin asioihin lukuisien

Prosessijohtamisella konsernin taloushallintoprosessien kehittämiseen Case: Rakennesuunnittelualan asiantuntijakonsernin emoyritys

Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää, miten konsernin taloushallintoprosesseja voidaan kehittää prosessijohtamisen avulla.Kehityksellä haetaan toimintojen tehokkuuden parantamista, kustannussäästöjä sekä yritysten välistä yhteneväisyyttä. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on luoda kehittämismalli, jonka avulla konsernin taloushallintoprosessien kehittäminen ja yhtenäistäminen voidaan toteuttaa. Tutkimuksen teoria pohjautuu prosessijohtamiseen, jonka avulla tutkimuksen empirian kohteena olevat taloushallintoprosessit dokumentoidaan ja analysoidaan. Mittaamisen ja benchmarkingin jälkeen, ehdotetaan kehitysideoita kehittämään ja yhtenäistämään prosesseja. Tärkeimmät kehitysideat tulevat olemaan sähköinen ostolaskujärjestelmä, järjestelmien koulutus ja linkitykset,kontrollien ja käsikirjan luonti, tilikartan yhtenäistäminen ja raportoinnin kehittäminen.