On-Line Analytical Processing of Inventory Turnover

Operatiivisen tiedon tuottaminen loppukäyttäjille analyyttistä tarkastelua silmällä pitäen aiheuttaa ongelmia useille yrityksille. Diplomityö pyrkii ratkaisemaan ko. ongelman Teleste Oyj:ssä. Työ on jaettu kolmeen pääkappaleeseen. Kappale 2 selkiyttää On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP)- käsitteen. Kappale 3 esittelee muutamia OLAP-tuotteiden valmistajia ja heidän arkkitehtuurejaan sekä tyypillisten sovellusalueiden lisäksi huomioon otettavia asioita OLAP käyttöönoton yhteydessä. Kappale 4, tuo esille varsinaisen ratkaisun. Teknisellä arkkitehtuurilla on merkittävä asema ratkaisun rakenteen kannalta. Tässä on sovellettu Microsoft:n tietovarasto kehysrakennetta. Kappaleen 4 edetessä, tapahtumakäsittelytieto muutetaan informaatioksi ja edelleen loppukäyttäjien tiedoksi. Loppukäyttäjät varustetaan tehokkaalla ja tosiaikaisella analysointityökalulla moniulotteisessa ympäristössä. Vaikka kiertonopeus otetaan työssä sovellusesimerkiksi, työ ei pyri löytämään optimaalista tasoa Telesten varastoille. Siitä huolimatta eräitä parannusehdotuksia mainitaan.

Tehdasalueiden liikenneturvallisuutta kehittävä malli

Työn tavoitteena oli antaa tietoa tehdasalueiden turvallisuuteen vaikuttavista tekijöistä ja luoda malli tehdasalueen liikenteen turvallisuuden parantamiseen päätöksenteon tukivälineitä apuna käyttäen. Työ sai alkunsa todellisen turvallisuutta parantavan investoinnin analysointi-tarpeesta. Aluksi työssä perehdytään yleisesti tehdasalueiden turvallisuuteen tarkastelemalla työturvallisuuden, riskienhallinnan ja turvallisuusjohtamisen asemaa, mittaamista ja taloudellisia vaikutuksia yrityksen toiminnalle. Yleiskatsaus tehdasalueiden turvallisuuteen antaa kuvan, millaiseen toimintaympäristöön turvallisuutta parantavaa mallia ollaan kehittämässä. Malli koostuu viidestä vaiheesta, joita voidaan käyttää kokonaisuutena tai toisistaan erillään. Ensin selvitään tutkittavan alueen kulkuväylät ja liikenne sekä mallinnetaan se. Tämän jälkeen kartoitetaan ongelmakohdat ja etsitään sopivia vaihtoehtoja niiden turvallisuuden parantamiseksi. Vaihtoehtoja analysoidaan SWOT-menetelmän avulla. Turvallisuutta parantavien investointien arvioimiseen esitetään muutamia mittareita, joita voidaan käyttää hankintojen arvioimiseen. Viimeisessä vaiheessa tutustutaan päätöksenteon tukisysteemeihin ja esitetään tietokoneavusteinen päätöksentekomenetelmä AHP. Käytännön soveltaminen on esitetty esimerkein mallin eri vaiheiden yhteydessä.Malli on tarkoitettu suunnittelijoiden, johdon ja työsuojelun työkaluksi, jonka avulla voidaan parantaa tehdasympäristön liikenteen tehokkuutta ja turvallisuutta sekä tutustuttaa käyttäjä päätöksentekomenetelmiin.

SQualTrack: A Tool for Robust Fault Detection

One of the techniques used to detect faults in dynamic systems is analytical redundancy. An important difficulty in applying this technique to real systems is dealing with the uncertainties associated with the system itself and with the measurements. In this paper, this uncertainty is taken into account by the use of intervals for the parameters of the model and for the measurements. The method that is proposed in this paper checks the consistency between the system's behavior, obtained from the measurements, and the model's behavior; if they are inconsistent, then there is a fault. The problem of detecting faults is stated as a quantified real constraint satisfaction problem, which can be solved using the modal interval analysis (MIA). MIA is used because it provides powerful tools to extend the calculations over real functions to intervals. To improve the results of the detection of the faults, the simultaneous use of several sliding time windows is proposed. The result of implementing this method is semiqualitative tracking (SQualTrack), a fault-detection tool that is robust in the sense that it does not generate false alarms, i.e., if there are false alarms, they indicate either that the interval model does not represent the system adequately or that the interval measurements do not represent the true values of the variables adequately. SQualTrack is currently being used to detect faults in real processes. Some of these applications using real data have been developed within the European project advanced decision support system for chemical/petrochemical manufacturing processes and are also described in this paper

An analytic approach to distribution logistics strategic management

Logistics management is increasingly being recognised by many companies to be of critical concern. The logistics function includes directly or indirectly many of the new areas for achieving or maintaining competitive advantage that companies have been forced to develop due to increasing competitive pressures. The key to achieving a competitive advantage is to manage the logistics function strategically which involves determining the most cost effective method of providing the necessary customer service levels from the many combinations of operating procedures in the areas of transportation, warehousing, order processing and information systems, production, and inventory management. In this thesis, a comprehensive distribution logistics strategic management process is formed by integrating the periodic strategic planning process with a continuous strategic issues management process. Strategic planning is used for defining the basic objectives for a company and assuring co operation and synergy between the different functions of a company while strategic issues management is used on a continuous basis in order to deal with environmental and internal turbulence. The strategic planning subprocess consists of the following main phases: (1) situational analyses, (2) defining the vision and strategic goals for the logistics function, (3) determining objectives and strategies, (4) drawing up tactical action plans, and (5) evaluating the implementation of the plans and making the needed adjustments. The aim of the strategic issues management subprocess is to continuously scan the environment and the organisation for early identification of the issues having a significant impact on the logistics function using the following steps: (1) the identification of trends, (2) assessing the impact and urgency of the identified trends, (3) assigning priorities to the issues, and (4) planning responses to the, issues. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a systematic procedure for structuring any problem. AHP is based on the following three principles: decomposition, comparative judgements, and synthesis of priorities. AHP starts by decomposing a complex, multicriteria problem into a hierarchy where each level consists of a few manageable elements which are then decomposed into another set of elements. The second step is to use a measurement methodology to establish priorities among the elements within each level of the hierarchy. The third step in using AHP is to synthesise the priorities of the elements to establish the overall priorities for the decision alternatives. In this thesis, decision support systems are developed for different areas of distribution logistics strategic management by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The areas covered are: (1) logistics strategic issues management, (2) planning of logistic structure, (3) warehouse site selection, (4) inventory forecasting, (5) defining logistic action and development plans, (6) choosing a distribution logistics strategy, (7) analysing and selecting transport service providers, (8) defining the logistic vision and strategic goals, (9) benchmarking logistic performance, and (10) logistic service management. The thesis demonstrates the potential of AHP as a systematic and analytic approach to distribution logistics strategic management.

Päätöksentekomenetelmien hyödyntäminen pientalon lämmitysjärjestelmän valinnassa

Tämän diplomityön tavoitteena on valita sopiva lämmitysjärjestelmä case taloon käyttäen apuna päätöksentekoprosessia ja eri vaiheissa sovellettavia menetelmiä. Työn avulla pyritään selvittämään kuinka hyvin päätöksentekomenetelmät sopivat lämmitysjärjestelmän valintaan ja mitä hyötyjä se tuo tullessaan. Prosessissa selvitetään lämmitysjärjestelmiin liittyviä asiakastarpeita, arvioidaan lämmitysjärjestelmien ominaisuuksia ja tehdään valinta näiden tietojen pohjalta. Kymmenhenkinen kuluttajaryhmä teki lopullisen päätöksen valittavasta lämmitysjärjestelmästä. Menetelmien avulla saatiin luotua kattava kuva erilaisista asiakastarpeista, jotka otettiin huomioon valinnassa. Ryhmä valitsi case taloon seitsemästä yleisestä lämmitysjärjestelmästä maalämmön. Työssä käytetyt menetelmät toimivat hyvin yhteistyössä toistensa kanssa. Menetelmien käyttö mahdollisti kaikkien kriteereiden huomioimisen ja tuloksien lähemmän tarkastelun. Työssä saatuja tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää lämmitysjärjestelmän valinnassa ottaen huomioon erilaiset lähtötilanteet. Herkkyysanalyyseissa maalämpö kesti monien kriteerien painotuksien muuttamista ja osoittautui tällä tavoin sopivimmaksi järjestelmäksi.

Liiketoiminta-analytiikka osana yritysten päätöksentekoa

Liiketoiminta-analytiikka on yksi yritysten suorituskyvyn johtamisen osa-alue, joka on viime aikoina noussut vahvasti esille yritysten kilpailuedun mahdollistavana avaintekijänä. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli kartoittaa yritysten liiketoiminta-analytiikan nykytila ja tarpeet Suomessa. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan kvalitatiivinen vertaileva tutkimus. Tutkimuksen empiirinen aineisto kerättiin kahden menetelmän yhdistelmänä. Liiketoiminta-analytiikan hyödyntämisessä edistyneempien yrityksien asiantuntijoille toteutettiin haastattelut. Lisäksi toteutettiin sähköpostitse lomakemuotoinen kyselytutkimus, jotta saavutettaisiin kattavampi näkemys analytiikan markkinoista. Tutkimuksessa on kartoitettu, miten Suomessa ymmärretään liiketoiminta- analytiikan käsite eri yrityksien analytiikan asiantuntijoiden toimesta, sekä minkälaisissa päätöksentekotilanteissa liiketoiminta-analytiikkaa hyödynnetään ja minkälaisilla tavoilla. Lisäksi on selvitetty, miten liiketoiminta-analytiikan kehittämistä ja analytiikan kyvykkyyksiä hallitaan yrityksissä. Liiketoiminta-analytiikka on Suomessa tietyillä toimialoilla erittäin kehittynyttä, mutta yleisesti ollaan jäljessä alan edelläkävijöitä ja esimerkiksi Ruotsia. Liiketoiminta-analytiikan hyödyntäminen ja tarpeet ovat pitkälti kohdistuneet päätöksentekotilanteisiin, joissa yritys kohtaa asiakkaansa. Suurin yksittäinen este liiketoiminta-analytiikan hyödyntämiselle on resurssi- ja osaamisvaje.

Model of Big Data Failure: Review of Information System Failure

In the new age of information technology, big data has grown to be the prominent phenomena. As information technology evolves, organizations have begun to adopt big data and apply it as a tool throughout their decision-making processes. Research on big data has grown in the past years however mainly from a technical stance and there is a void in business related cases. This thesis fills the gap in the research by addressing big data challenges and failure cases. The Technology-Organization-Environment framework was applied to carry out a literature review on trends in Business Intelligence and Knowledge management information system failures. A review of extant literature was carried out using a collection of leading information system journals. Academic papers and articles on big data, Business Intelligence, Decision Support Systems, and Knowledge Management systems were studied from both failure and success aspects in order to build a model for big data failure. I continue and delineate the contribution of the Information System failure literature as it is the principal dynamics behind technology-organization-environment framework. The gathered literature was then categorised and a failure model was developed from the identified critical failure points. The failure constructs were further categorized, defined, and tabulated into a contextual diagram. The developed model and table were designed to act as comprehensive starting point and as general guidance for academics, CIOs or other system stakeholders to facilitate decision-making in big data adoption process by measuring the effect of technological, organizational, and environmental variables with perceived benefits, dissatisfaction and discontinued use.

Model of Big Data Failure: Review of Information System Failure

In the new age of information technology, big data has grown to be the prominent phenomena. As information technology evolves, organizations have begun to adopt big data and apply it as a tool throughout their decision-making processes. Research on big data has grown in the past years however mainly from a technical stance and there is a void in business related cases. This thesis fills the gap in the research by addressing big data challenges and failure cases. The Technology-Organization-Environment framework was applied to carry out a literature review on trends in Business Intelligence and Knowledge management information system failures. A review of extant literature was carried out using a collection of leading information system journals. Academic papers and articles on big data, Business Intelligence, Decision Support Systems, and Knowledge Management systems were studied from both failure and success aspects in order to build a model for big data failure. I continue and delineate the contribution of the Information System failure literature as it is the principal dynamics behind technology-organization-environment framework. The gathered literature was then categorised and a failure model was developed from the identified critical failure points. The failure constructs were further categorized, defined, and tabulated into a contextual diagram. The developed model and table were designed to act as comprehensive starting point and as general guidance for academics, CIOs or other system stakeholders to facilitate decision-making in big data adoption process by measuring the effect of technological, organizational, and environmental variables with perceived benefits, dissatisfaction and discontinued use.

A model of Distributed Ayurvedic Diagnosis and Therapy System for Hridroga Using Agents

Diagnosis of Hridroga (cardiac disorders) in Ayurveda requires the combination of many different types of data, including personal details, patient symptoms, patient histories, general examination results, Ashtavidha pareeksha results etc. Computer-assisted decision support systems must be able to combine these data types into a seamless system. Intelligent agents, an approach that has been used chiefly in business applications, is used in medical diagnosis in this case. This paper is about a multi-agent system named “Distributed Ayurvedic Diagnosis and Therapy System for Hridroga using Agents” (DADTSHUA). It describes the architecture of the DADTSHUA model .This system is using mobile agents and ontology for passing data through the network. Due to this, transport delay can be minimized. It is a system which will be very helpful for the beginning physicians to eliminate his ambiguity in diagnosis and therapy. The system is implemented using Java Agent DEvelopment framework (JADE), which is a java-complaint mobile agent platform from TILab.

Soil organic carbon management for sustainable land use in Sudano-Sahelian West Africa

Judged by their negative nutrient balances, low soil cover and low productivity, the predominant agro-pastoral farming systems in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa are highly unsustainable for crop production intensification. With kaolinite as the main clay type, the cation exchange capacity of the soils in this region, often less than 1 cmol_c kg^-1 soil, depends heavily on the organic carbon (Corg) content. However, due to low carbon sequestration and to the microbe, termite and temperature-induced rapid turnover rates of organic material in the present land-use systems, Corg contents of the topsoil are very low, ranging between 1 and 8 g kg^-1 in most soils. For sustainable food production, the availability of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) has to be increased considerably in combination with an improvement in soil physical properties. Therefore, the adoption of innovative management options that help to stop or even reverse the decline in Corg typically observed after cultivating bush or rangeland is of utmost importance. To maintain food production for a rapidly growing population, targeted applications of mineral fertilisers and the effective recycling of organic amendments as crop residues and manure are essential. Any increase in soil cover has large effects in reducing topsoil erosion by wind and water and favours the accumulation of wind-blown dust high in bases which in turn improves P availability. In the future decision support systems, based on GIS, modelling and simulation should be used to combine (i) available fertiliser response data from on-station and on-farm research, (ii) results on soil productivity restoration with the application of mineral and organic amendments and (iii) our present understanding of the cause-effect relationships governing the prevailing soil degradation processes. This will help to predict the effectiveness of regionally differentiated soil fertility management approaches to maintain or even increase soil Corg levels.

Adaptive business intelligence for an open negotiation environment

Engineering of negotiation model allows to develop effective heuristic for business intelligence. Digital ecosystems demand open negotiation models. To define in advance effective heuristics is not compliant with the requirement of openness. The new challenge is to develop business intelligence in advance exploiting an adaptive approach. The idea is to learn business strategy once new negotiation model rise in the e-market arena. In this paper we present how recommendation technology may be deployed in an open negotiation environment where the interaction protocol models are not known in advance. The solution we propose is delivered as part of the ONE Platform, open source software that implements a fully distributed open environment for business negotiation

SQualTrack: A Tool for Robust Fault Detection

One of the techniques used to detect faults in dynamic systems is analytical redundancy. An important difficulty in applying this technique to real systems is dealing with the uncertainties associated with the system itself and with the measurements. In this paper, this uncertainty is taken into account by the use of intervals for the parameters of the model and for the measurements. The method that is proposed in this paper checks the consistency between the system's behavior, obtained from the measurements, and the model's behavior; if they are inconsistent, then there is a fault. The problem of detecting faults is stated as a quantified real constraint satisfaction problem, which can be solved using the modal interval analysis (MIA). MIA is used because it provides powerful tools to extend the calculations over real functions to intervals. To improve the results of the detection of the faults, the simultaneous use of several sliding time windows is proposed. The result of implementing this method is semiqualitative tracking (SQualTrack), a fault-detection tool that is robust in the sense that it does not generate false alarms, i.e., if there are false alarms, they indicate either that the interval model does not represent the system adequately or that the interval measurements do not represent the true values of the variables adequately. SQualTrack is currently being used to detect faults in real processes. Some of these applications using real data have been developed within the European project advanced decision support system for chemical/petrochemical manufacturing processes and are also described in this paper

A Negotiation Style Recommender Based on Computational Ecology in Open Negotiation Environments

The system described herein represents the first example of a recommender system in digital ecosystems where agents negotiate services on behalf of small companies. The small companies compete not only with price or quality, but with a wider service-by-service composition by subcontracting with other companies. The final result of these offerings depends on negotiations at the scale of millions of small companies. This scale requires new platforms for supporting digital business ecosystems, as well as related services like open-id, trust management, monitors and recommenders. This is done in the Open Negotiation Environment (ONE), which is an open-source platform that allows agents, on behalf of small companies, to negotiate and use the ecosystem services, and enables the development of new agent technologies. The methods and tools of cyber engineering are necessary to build up Open Negotiation Environments that are stable, a basic condition for predictable business and reliable business environments. Aiming to build stable digital business ecosystems by means of improved collective intelligence, we introduce a model of negotiation style dynamics from the point of view of computational ecology. This model inspires an ecosystem monitor as well as a novel negotiation style recommender. The ecosystem monitor provides hints to the negotiation style recommender to achieve greater stability of an open negotiation environment in a digital business ecosystem. The greater stability provides the small companies with higher predictability, and therefore better business results. The negotiation style recommender is implemented with a simulated annealing algorithm at a constant temperature, and its impact is shown by applying it to a real case of an open negotiation environment populated by Italian companies

Modelo de gestión del conocimiento para una empresa del sector de insumos químicos para la industria farmacéutica, cosmética y de alimentos: caso Disaromas S.A.

La creación de conocimiento al interior de las organizaciones es visible mediante la dirección adecuada del conocimiento de los individuos, sin embargo, cada individuo debe interactuar de tal manera que forme una red o sistema de conocimiento organizacional que consolide a largo plazo las empresas en el entorno en el que se desenvuelven. Este documento revisa elementos centrales acerca de la gestión de conocimiento visto desde varios autores y perspectivas e identifica puntos clave para diseñar un modelo de gestión de conocimiento para una empresa del sector de insumos químicos para la industria farmacéutica, cosmética y de alimentos de la ciudad de Bogotá.

Desenvolupament d'un sistema expert com a eina per a una millor gestió de la qualitat de les aigües fluvials

Avui en dia no es pot negar el fet que els humans són un component més de les conques fluvials i que la seva activitat afecta enormement la qualitat de les aigües. A nivell europeu, l'elevada densitat de població situada en les conques fluvials ha comportat un increment de la mala qualitat de les seves aigües fluvials. En les darreres dècades l'increment de les càrregues de nutrients en els sistemes aquàtics ha esdevingut un problema prioritari a solucionar per les administracions competents en matèria d'aigua. La gestió dels ecosistemes fluvials no és una tasca fàcil. Els gestors es troben amb què són sistemes molt complexos, donada l'estreta relació existent entre els ecosistemes fluvials i els ecosistemes terrestres que drenen. Addicionalment a la complexitat d'aquests sistemes es troba la dificultat associada de la gestió o control de les entrades de substàncies contaminants tant de fonts puntuals com difoses. Per totes aquestes raons la gestió de la qualitat de les aigües fluvials esdevé una tasca complexa que requereix un enfocament multidisciplinar. Per tal d'assolir aquest enfocament diverses eines han estat utilitzades, des de models matemàtics fins a sistemes experts i sistemes de suport a la decisió. Però, la major part dels esforços han estat encarats cap a la resolució de problemes de reduïda complexitat, fent que molts dels problemes ambientals complexos, com ara la gestió dels ecosistemes fluvials, no hagin estat vertaderament tractats. Per tant, es requereix l'aplicació d'eines que siguin de gran ajuda en els processos de presa de decisions i que incorporin un ampli coneixement heurístic i empíric: sistemes experts i sistemes de suport a la decisió. L'òptima gestió de la qualitat de l'aigua fluvial requereix una aproximació integrada i multidisciplinar, que pot ésser aconseguida amb una eina intel·ligent construïda sobre els conceptes i mètodes del raonament humà. La present tesi descriu la metodologia desenvolupada i aplicada per a la creació i construcció d'un Sistema Expert, així com el procés de desenvolupament d'aquest Sistema Expert, com el principal mòdul de raonament d'un Sistema de Suport a la Decisió Ambiental. L'objectiu principal de la present tesi ha estat el desenvolupament d'una eina d'ajuda en el procés de presa de decisions dels gestors de l'aigua en la gestió de trams fluvials alterats antròpicament per tal de millorar la qualitat de la seva aigua fluvial. Alhora, es mostra el funcionament de l'eina desenvolupada a través de dos casos d'estudi. Els resultats derivats del Sistema Expert desenvolupat, implementat i presentat en la present tesi mostren que aquests sistemes poden ésser eines útils per a millorar la gestió dels ecosistemes fluvials.