Evaluating and Selecting a Property Management System

In his study - Evaluating and Selecting a Property Management System - by Galen Collins, Assistant Professor, School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, Northern Arizona University, Assistant Professor Collins states briefly at the outset: “Computerizing a property requires a game plan. Many have selected a Property Management System without much forethought and have been unhappy with the final results. The author discusses the major factors that must be taken into consideration in the selection of a PMS, based on his personal experience.” Although, this article was written in the year 1988 and some information contained may be dated, there are many salient points to consider. “Technological advances have encouraged many hospitality operators to rethink how information should be processed, stored, retrieved, and analyzed,” offers Collins. “Research has led to the implementation of various cost-effective applications addressing almost every phase of operations,” he says in introducing the computer technology germane to many PMS functions. Professor Collins talks about the Request for Proposal, its conditions and its relevance in negotiating a PMS system. The author also wants the system buyer to be aware [not necessarily beware] of vendor recommendations, and not to rely solely on them. Exercising forethought will help in avoiding the drawback of purchasing an inadequate PMS system. Remember, the vendor is there first and foremost to sell you a system. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the adjectives unreliable and unethical are on the table, but do be advised. Professor Collins presents a graphic outline for the Weighted Average Approach to Scoring Vendor Evaluations. Among the elements to be considered in evaluating a PMS system, and there are several analyzed in this essay, Professor Collins advises that a perspective buyer not overlook the service factor when choosing a PMS system. Service is an important element to contemplate. “In a hotel environment, the special emphasis should be on service. System downtime can be costly and aggravating and will happen periodically,” Collins warns. Professor Collins also examines the topic of PMS system environment; of which the importance of such a factor should not be underestimated. “The design of the computer system should be based on the physical layout of the property and the projected workloads. The heart of the system, housed in a protected, isolated area, can support work stations strategically located throughout the property,” Professor Collins provides. A Property Profile Description is outlined in Table 1. The author would also point out that ease-of-operation is another significant factor to think about. “A user-friendly software package allows the user to easily move through the program without encountering frustrating obstacles,” says Collins. “Programs that require users to memorize abstract abbreviations, codes, and information to carry out standard routines should be avoided,” he counsels.

A new stepwise carbon cycle data assimilation system using multiple data streams to constrain the simulated land surface carbon cycle

Acknowledgements. This work was mainly funded by the EU FP7 CARBONES project (contracts FP7-SPACE-2009-1-242316), with also a small contribution from GEOCARBON project (ENV.2011.4.1.1-1-283080). This work used eddy covariance data acquired by the FLUXNET community and in particular by the following networks: AmeriFlux (U.S. Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research, Terrestrial Carbon Program; DE-FG02-04ER63917 and DE-FG02-04ER63911), AfriFlux, AsiaFlux, CarboAfrica, CarboEuropeIP, CarboItaly, CarboMont, ChinaFlux, Fluxnet-Canada (supported by CFCAS, NSERC, BIOCAP, Environment Canada, and NRCan), GreenGrass, KoFlux, LBA, NECC, OzFlux, TCOS-Siberia, USCCC. We acknowledge the financial support to the eddy covariance data harmonization provided by CarboEuropeIP, FAO-GTOS-TCO, iLEAPS, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, National Science Foundation, University of Tuscia, Université Laval and Environment Canada and US Department of Energy and the database development and technical support from Berkeley Water Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Microsoft Research eScience, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of California-Berkeley, University of Virginia. Philippe Ciais acknowledges support from the European Research Council through Synergy grant ERC-2013-SyG-610028 “IMBALANCE-P”. The authors wish to thank M. Jung for providing access to the GPP MTE data, which were downloaded from the GEOCARBON data portal (https://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/geodb/projects/Data.php). The authors are also grateful to computing support and resources provided at LSCE and to the overall ORCHIDEE project that coordinate the development of the code (http://labex.ipsl.fr/orchidee/index.php/about-the-team).

Expanding a Global Company Management System to An Integrated Coverage of Several Standards

This Master’s thesis examines the implementation of management system standard requirements as integrated in the organization. The aim is to determine how requirements from management system standards ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 9001:2015 can be integrated and implemented into the existing ISO 9001:2008 compliant management system. Research was executed as action research by utilizing an operating model about the integrated use of management system standards created by the International Organization for Standardization. Phases of the operating model were applied to the target organization. The similarity and integration potential of relevant standards were assessed by using comparative matrices. Allocation of the requirements and conformity assessment of the processes was executed by gap analysis. The main results indicate that the requirements of the relevant standards are principally equivalent or have the same kind of purpose. The results also show the most important processes of the target organization in terms of requirement compliance, as well as the requirements which affect the process the most. Prioritizing the compliance achievement of the most important processes and implementation of those requirements that have the most effect create an opportunity for organizations to implement the integrated requirements effectively.

Review of the flood risk management system in Germany after the major flood in 2013

Widespread flooding in June 2013 caused damage costs of €6 to 8 billion in Germany, and awoke many memories of the floods in August 2002, which resulted in total damage of €11.6 billion and hence was the most expensive natural hazard event in Germany up to now. The event of 2002 does, however, also mark a reorientation toward an integrated flood risk management system in Germany. Therefore, the flood of 2013 offered the opportunity to review how the measures that politics, administration, and civil society have implemented since 2002 helped to cope with the flood and what still needs to be done to achieve effective and more integrated flood risk management. The review highlights considerable improvements on many levels, in particular (1) an increased consideration of flood hazards in spatial planning and urban development, (2) comprehensive property-level mitigation and preparedness measures, (3) more effective flood warnings and improved coordination of disaster response, and (4) a more targeted maintenance of flood defense systems. In 2013, this led to more effective flood management and to a reduction of damage. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task. Hence, risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals, and risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders.

Skapandet av ett webbaserat ärendehanteringssystem för affärssystemet Pyramid med Scrum : Creation of a web based case management system for the business system Pyramid with Scrum

The business system known as Pyramid does today not provide its user with a reasonable system regarding case management for support issues. The current system in place requires the customer to contact its provider via telephone to register new cases. In addition to this, current system doesn’t include any way for the user to view any of their current cases without contacting the provider.A solution to this issue is to migrate the current case management system from a telephone contact to a web based platform, where customers could easier access their current cases, but also directly through the website create new cases. This new system would reduce the time required to manually manage each individual case, for both customer and provider, resulting in an overall reduction in cost for both parties.The result is a system divided into two different sections, the first one is an API created in Pyramid that acts as a web service, and the second one a website which customers can connect to. The website will allow users to overview their current cases, but also the option to create new cases directly through the site. All the information used to the website is obtained through the web service inside Pyramid. Analyzing the final design of the system, the developers where able to conclude both positive and negative aspects of the systems’ final design. If the platform chosen was the optimal choice or not, and also what can be include if the system is further developed, will be discussed.The development process and the method used during development will also be analyzed and discussed, what positive and negative aspects that where encountered. In addition to this the cause and effect of a development team smaller than the suggested size will also be analyzed. Lastly an analysis of actions that could’ve been made in order to prevent certain issues from occurring will.

Hoshin Kanri – the Japanese way of piloting : An exploratory study of a Japanese strategic management system

Strategy is a highly topical subject among managers and since the world is constantlychanging it is also an important subject for companies’ competitive advantage and survival.At the same time experts in the field of strategic management describe western techniques ascomplex and ineffective while the Japanese techniques have been seen as unambiguous andcharacterized by focus on quality, productivity and teamwork. This calls for greaterknowledge in the Japanese management systems. Hoshin Kanri is a collection of Japanesebest strategic management practices and therefore an interesting target for our study. Thus, onthe one hand this study investigates the theory of Hoshin Kanri in order to give structure to itand provide a way for practitioner into the management system. On the other hand this studyinvestigates Hoshin Kanri in order to reveal how Japanese subsidiaries based in Sweden haveimplemented this strategic management system. This is firstly done by reviewing the existingliterature on the subject and secondly by a collective case study with in-depth interviewsconducted with managers at Japanese owned subsidiaries based in Sweden. There are somelimitations in this study. One is that the results of the study do not include all Japanesesubsidiaries in Sweden as not all companies participated in the study. Moreover, the study islimited by one individuals’ knowledge and perception of Hoshin Kanri in each of the threecompanies. The study contributes to the existing literature on the topic of Hoshin Kanri by;(1) structuring the literature and the existing models under one of two categories, namelycyclical or sequential; (2) providing a model that aims at making it more understandable andattractive for practitioner to apply; (3) initiating the mapping of the spread of Hoshin Kanriamong Japanese subsidiaries in Sweden and (4) providing a Swedish model for theapplication of HK in Japanese subsidiaries.

KE & Science Europe briefing paper: Funding Research Data Management and related infrastructures

Responsible Research Data Management (RDM) is a pillar of quality research. In practice good RDM requires the support of a well-functioning Research Data Infrastructure (RDI). One of the challenges the research community is facing is how to fund the management of research data and the required infrastructure. Knowledge Exchange and Science Europe have both defined activities to explore how RDM/RDI are, or can be, funded. Independently they each planned to survey users and providers of data services and on becoming aware of the similar objectives and approaches, the Science Europe Working Group on Research Data and the Knowledge Exchange Research Data expert group joined forces and devised a joint activity to to inform the discussion on the funding of RDM/RDI in Europe.

PHC Production Management System Based on RFID

At present, in large precast concrete enterprises, the management over precast concrete component has been chaotic. Most enterprises take labor-intensive manual input method, which is time consuming and laborious, and error-prone. Some other slightly better enterprises choose to manage through bar-code or printing serial number manually. However, on one hand, this is also labor-intensive, on the other hand, this method is limited by external environment, making the serial number blur or even lost, and also causes a big problem on production traceability and quality accountability. Therefore, to realize the enterprise’s own rapid development and cater to the needs of the time, to achieve the automated production management has been a big problem for a modern enterprise. In order to solve the problem, inefficiency in production and traceability of the products, this thesis try to introduce RFID technology into the production of PHC tubular pile. By designing a production management system of precast concrete components, the enterprise will achieve the control of the entire production process, and realize the informatization of enterprise production management. RFID technology has been widely used in many fields like entrance control, charge management, logistics and so on. RFID technology will adopt passive RFID tag, which is waterproof, shockproof, anti-interference, so it’s suitable for the actual working environment. The tag will be bound to the precast component steel cage (the structure of the PHC tubular pile before the concrete placement), which means each PHC tubular pile will have a unique ID number. Then according to the production procedure, the precast component will be performed with a series of actions, put the steel cage into the mold, mold clamping, pouring concrete (feed), stretching, centrifugalizing, maintenance, mold removing, welding splice. In every session of the procedure, the information of the precast components can be read through a RFID reader. Using a portable smart device connected to the database, the user can check, inquire and management the production information conveniently. Also, the system can trace the production parameter and the person in charge, realize the traceability of the information. This system can overcome the disadvantages in precast components manufacturers, like inefficiency, error-prone, time consuming, labor intensity, low information relevance and so on. This system can help to improve the production management efficiency, and can produce a good economic and social benefits, so, this system has a certain practical value.

How essential are Argo observations to constrain a global ocean data assimilation system?

Observing system experiments (OSEs) are carried out over a 1-year period to quantify the impact of Argo observations on the Mercator Ocean 0.25° global ocean analysis and forecasting system. The reference simulation assimilates sea surface temperature (SST), SSALTO/DUACS (Segment Sol multi-missions dALTimetrie, d'orbitographie et de localisation précise/Data unification and Altimeter combination system) altimeter data and Argo and other in situ observations from the Coriolis data center. Two other simulations are carried out where all Argo and half of the Argo data are withheld. Assimilating Argo observations has a significant impact on analyzed and forecast temperature and salinity fields at different depths. Without Argo data assimilation, large errors occur in analyzed fields as estimated from the differences when compared with in situ observations. For example, in the 0–300 m layer RMS (root mean square) differences between analyzed fields and observations reach 0.25 psu and 1.25 °C in the western boundary currents and 0.1 psu and 0.75 °C in the open ocean. The impact of the Argo data in reducing observation–model forecast differences is also significant from the surface down to a depth of 2000 m. Differences between in situ observations and forecast fields are thus reduced by 20 % in the upper layers and by up to 40 % at a depth of 2000 m when Argo data are assimilated. At depth, the most impacted regions in the global ocean are the Mediterranean outflow, the Gulf Stream region and the Labrador Sea. A significant degradation can be observed when only half of the data are assimilated. Therefore, Argo observations matter to constrain the model solution, even for an eddy-permitting model configuration. The impact of the Argo floats' data assimilation on other model variables is briefly assessed: the improvement of the fit to Argo profiles do not lead globally to unphysical corrections on the sea surface temperature and sea surface height. The main conclusion is that the performance of the Mercator Ocean 0.25° global data assimilation system is heavily dependent on the availability of Argo data.

SQMS – A prototype for a supplier quality management system

Within the supply chain, the customer does not simply buy parts or services from suppliers, but also buys supplier capabilities, which results in quality products and services. Having a tool that handles the Inspection as well as the Nonconformance, Complaint, Corrective Action and Concession processes is key to successfully track the supplier performance. Taking as a case study a Supplier Quality Management (SQM) currently in operation in an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for automotive industry, this paper presents a platform to support a Supplier Quality Management System (SQMS), that fits the technical specification ISO/TS 16949 requirements. This prototype is composed by a web platform and a mobile App, having flexibility and mobility as key main characteristics.