Evidence-based business process management: Using digital opportunities to drive organizational innovation

Process improvement and innovation are risky endeavors, like swimming in unknown waters. In this chapter, I will discuss how process innovation through BPM can benefit from Research-as-a-Service, that is, from the application of research concepts in the processes of BPM projects. A further subject will be how innovations can be converted from confidence-based to evidence-based models due to affordances of digital infrastructures such as large-scale enterprise soft-ware or social media. I will introduce the relevant concepts, provide illustrations for digital capabilities that allow for innovation, and share a number of key takeaway lessons for how organizations can innovate on the basis of digital opportunities and principles of evidence-based BPM: the foundation of all process decisions in facts rather than fiction.

Investigation of drive-train dynamics of mechanical transmissions incorporating cycloidal drives

Cycloidal drives are compact, high-ratio gear transmission systems used in a wide range of mechanical applications from conveyor drives to articulated robots. This research hypothesises that these drives can be successfully applied in dynamic loading situations and thereby focuses on the understanding of differences between static and dynamic loading conditions where load varies with time. New methods of studying the behaviour of these drives under static and dynamic loading circumstances were developed, leading to novel understanding and knowledge. A new model was developed to facilitate research and development on Cycloidal drives with potential benefits for manufacturing, robotics and mechanical-process-industries worldwide.

Time, place and space – student group collaboration using Google Drive

Virtual working environments are intrinsic to the contemporary workplace and collaborative skills are a vital graduate capability. To develop students’ collaborative skills, first year medical laboratory science students undertake a group poster project, based on a blended learning model. Learning is scaffolded in lectures, workshops in collaborative learning spaces, practitioner mentoring sessions, and online resources. Google Drive provides an online collaborative space for students to realise tangible outcomes from this learning. A Google Drive document is created for each group and shared with members. In this space, students assign tasks and plan workflow, share research, progressively develop poster content, reflect and comment on peer contributions and use the messaging functions to ‘talk’ to group members. This provides a readily accessible, transparent record of group work, crucial in peer assessment, and a communication channel for group members and the lecturer, who can support groups if required. This knowledge creation space also augments productivity and effectiveness of face-to-face collaboration. As members are randomly allocated to groups and are often of diverse backgrounds and unknown to each other, resilience is built as students navigate the uncertainties and complexities of group dynamics, learning to focus on the goal of the team task as they constructively and professionally engage in team dialogue. Students are responsible and accountable for individual and group work. The use of Google Drive was evaluated in a survey including Likert scale and open ended qualitative questions. Statistical analysis was carried out. Results show students (79%) valued the inclusion of online space in collaborative work and highly appreciated (78%) the flexibility provided by Google Drive, while recognising the need for improved notification functionality. Teaching staff recognised the advantages in monitoring and moderating collaborative group work, and the transformational progression in student collaborative as well as technological skill acquisition, including professional dialogue.

Characteristics of on-road driving by persons with central vision loss: Learning to drive with a bioptic telescope

There is limited research on the driving performance and safety of bioptic drivers and even less regarding the driving skills that are most challenging for those learning to drive with bioptic telescopes. This research consisted of case studies of five trainee bioptic drivers whose driving skills were compared with those of a group of licensed bioptic drivers (n = 23) while they drove along city, suburban, and controlled-access highways in an instrumented dual-brake vehicle. A certified driver rehabilitation specialist was positioned in the front passenger seat to monitor safety and two backseat evaluators independently rated driving using a standardized scoring system. Other aspects of performance were assessed through vehicle instrumentation and video recordings. Results demonstrate that while sign recognition, lane keeping, steering steadiness, gap judgments and speed choices were significantly worse in trainees, some driving behaviors and skills, including pedestrian detection and traffic light recognition were not significantly different to those of the licensed drivers. These data provide useful insights into the skill challenges encountered by a small sample of trainee bioptic drivers which, while not generalizable because of the small sample size, provide valuable insights beyond that of previous studies and can be used as a basis to guide training strategies.

Criminal histories of crash and non-crash involved Queensland speeding offenders: Evidence supporting the idea that we drive as we live

Evidence increasingly suggests that our behaviour on the road mirrors our behaviour across other aspects of our life. The idea that we drive as we live, described by Tillman and Hobbs more than 65 years ago when examining off-road behaviours of taxi drivers (1949), is the focus of the current paper. As part of a larger study examining the impact of penalty changes on a large cohort of Queensland speeding offenders, criminal (lifetime) and crash history (10 year period) data for a sub-sample of 1000 offenders were obtained. Based on the ‘drive as we live’ maxim, it was hypothesised that crash-involved speeding offenders would be more likely to have a criminal history than non-crash involved offenders. Overall, only 30% of speeding offenders had a criminal history. However, crash-involved offenders were significantly more likely to have a criminal history (49.4%) than non-crash involved offenders (28.6%), supporting the hypothesis. Furthermore, those deemed ‘most at fault’ in a crash were the group most likely to have at least one criminal offence (52.2%). When compared to the non-crash involved offenders, those deemed ‘not most at fault’ in a crash were also more likely to have had at least one criminal offence (46.5%). Therefore, when compared to non-crash involved speeding offenders, those offenders involved in a crash were more likely to have been convicted of at least one criminal offence, irrespective of whether they were deemed ‘most at fault’ in that crash. Implications for traffic offender management and policing are discussed.

The long drive home: Control beliefs and commuting intentions of mine workers

Purpose: It is relatively common for many mine workers in Australia to drive an average of 250 kilometers to and from work following long shifts and shift blocks. Despite the long distances travelled following long shifts of 12- to 14-hours, there is evidence to suggest that these workers are not engaging in a break following their shift prior to driving home. This naturally raises issues of fatigue and sleepiness when driving. There is limited research in respect to commuting behaviours of mine workers and little is known about the factors that influence these workers to leave site immediately following their shift. Using the theory of planned behaviour, this paper examines individual control beliefs that encourage or prevent workers from leaving the site immediately following their shift block. Method: Data was collected using a cross-sectional survey. The survey instrument was developed following a series of in-depth interviews with workers from a Queensland coal mine (n=37). The quantitative written survey sample (n=461) was drawn from the same coal mine and consisted of workers from all levels of the organisation. Results: The results examine workers intentions to leave the work site and drive home immediately following a shift block. The results show differences in control beliefs between workers finishing night shifts compared with those finishing day shifts. Implications: An understanding of these control beliefs may potentially inform more targeted intervention strategies in the attempt to encourage a safer approach to driving home following shift blocks.

Load-Commutated SCR Current-Source-Inverter-Fed Induction Motor Drive With Sinusoidal Motor Voltage and Current

Current source inverter (CSI) is an attractive solution in high-power drives. The conventional gate turn-off thyristor (GTO) based CSI-fed induction motor drives suffer from drawbacks such as low-frequency torque pulsation, harmonic heating, and unstable operation at low-speed ranges. These drawbacks can be overcome by connecting a current-controlled voltage source inverter (VSI) across the motor terminal replacing the bulky ac capacitors. The VSI provides the harmonic currents, which results in sinusoidal motor voltage and current even with the CSI switching at fundamental frequency. This paper proposes a CSI-fed induction motor drive scheme where GTOs are replaced by thyristors in the CSI without any external circuit to assist the turning off of the thyristors. Here, the current-controlled VSI, connected in shunt, is designed to supply the volt ampere reactive requirement of the induction motor, and the CSI is made to operate in leading power factor mode such that the thyristors in the CSI are autosequentially turned off. The resulting drive will be able to feed medium-voltage, high-power induction motors directly. A sensorless vector-controlled CSI drive based on the proposed configuration is developed. The experimental results from a 5 hp prototype are presented. Experimental results show that the proposed drive has stable operation throughout the operating range of speeds.

A Dual Seven-Level Inverter Supply for an Open-End Winding Induction Motor Drive

This paper develops a seven-level inverter structure for open-end winding induction motor drives. The inverter supply is realized by cascading four two-level and two three-level neutral-point-clamped inverters. The inverter control is designed in such a way that the common-mode voltage (CMV) is eliminated. DC-link capacitor voltage balancing is also achieved by using only the switching-state redundancies. The proposed power circuit structure is modular and therefore suitable for fault-tolerant applications. By appropriately isolating some of the inverters, the drive can be operated during fault conditions in a five-level or a three-level inverter mode, with preserved CMV elimination and DC-link capacitor voltage balancing, within a reduced modulation range.

A Current Source Inverter Fed Induction Motor Drive with Power Factor Angle Control Using Microprocessor

This paper describes a method of adjusting the stator power factor angle for the control of an induction motor fed from a current source inverter (CSI) based on the concept of space vectors (or park vectors). It is shown that under steady state, if the torque angle is kept constant over the entire operating range, it has the advantage of keeping the slip frequency constant. This can be utilized to dispose of the speed feedback and simplify the control scheme for the drive, such that the stator voltage integral zero crossings alone can be used as a feedback for deciding the triggering instants of the CSI thyristors under stable operation of the system. A closed-loop control strategy is developed for the drive based on this principle, using a microprocessor-based control system and is implemented on a laboratory prototype CSI fed induction motor drive.

A DC-link Capacitor Voltage Balancing with CMV Elimination using only the Switching State Redundancies for a Reduced Switch Count Multi-Level Inverter fed IM Drive

Common mode voltage (CMV) variations in PWM inverter-fed drives generate unwanted shaft and bearing current resulting in early motor failure. Multilevel inverters reduce this problem to some extent, with higher number of levels. But the complexity of the power circuit increases with an increase in the number of inverter voltage levels. In this paper a five-level inverter structure is proposed for open-end winding induction motor (IM) drives, by cascading only two conventional two-level and three-level inverters, with the elimination of the common mode voltage over the entire modulation range. The DC link power supply requirement is also optimized by means of DC link capacitor voltage balancing, with PWM control., using only inverter switching state redundancies. The proposed power circuit gives a simple power bits structure.

A Multilevel Inverter with Hexagonal and 12-sided Polygonal Space Vector Structure for Induction Motor Drive

This paper proposes a multilevel inverter which produces hexagonal voltage space vector structure in lower modulation region and a 12-sided polygonal space vector structure in the over-modulation region. Normal conventional multilevel inverter produces 6n +/- 1 (n=odd) harmonics in the phase voltage during over-modulation and in the extreme square wave mode operation. However, this inverter produces a 12-sided polygonal space vector location leading to the elimination of 6n 1 (n=odd) harmonics in over-modulation region extending to a final 12-step mode operation. The inverter consists of three conventional cascaded two level inverters with asymmetric dc bus voltages. The switching frequency of individual inverters is kept low throughout the modulation index. In the low speed region, hexagonal space phasor based PWM scheme and in the higher modulation region, 12-sided polygonal voltage space vector structure is used. Experimental results presented in this paper shows that the proposed converter is suitable for high power applications because of low harmonic distortion and low switching losses.

Do stakeholders or social obligations drive corporate social and environmental responsibility reporting? Managerial views from a developing country

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore senior managers’ perception and motivations of corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSER) reporting in the context of a developing country, Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach – In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 senior managers of companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. Publicly available annual reports of these companies were also analysed. Findings – The results indicate that senior managers perceive CSER reporting as a social obligation. The study finds that the managers focus mostly on child labour, human resources/rights, responsible products/services, health education, sports and community engagement activities as part of the social obligations. Interviewees identify a lack of a regulatory framework along with socio-cultural and religious factors as contributing to the low level of disclosures. These findings suggest that CSER reporting is not merely stakeholder-driven, but rather country-specific social and environmental issues play an important role in relation to CSER reporting practices. Research limitations/implications – This paper contributes to engagement-based studies by focussing on CSER reporting practices in developing countries and are useful for academics, practitioners and policymakers in understanding the reasons behind CSER reporting in developing countries. Originality/value – This paper addresses a literature “gap” in the empirical study of CSER reporting in a developing country, such as Bangladesh. This study fills a gap in the existing literature to understand managers’ motivations for CSER reporting in a developing country context. Managerial perceptions on CSER issues are largely unexplored in developing countries.

A Pulsewidth Modulated Control of Induction Motor Drive Using Multilevel 12-Sided Polygonal Voltage Space Vectors

In this paper, a novel 12-sided polygonal space vector structure is proposed for an induction motor drive. The space vector pattern presented in this paper consists of two 12-sided concentric polygons with the outer polygon having a radius double the inner one. As compared to previously reported 12-sided polygonal space vector structures, this paper subdivides the space vector plane into smaller sized triangles. This helps in reducing the switching frequency of the inverters without deteriorating the output voltage quality. It also reduces the device ratings and dv/dt stress on the devices to half. At the same time, other benefits obtained from the existing 12-sided space vector structure, such as increased linear modulation range and complete elimination of 5th and 7th order harmonics in the phase voltage, are also retained in this paper. The space vector structure is realized by feeding an open-end induction motor with two conventional three-level neutral point clamped (NPC) inverters with asymmetric isolated dc link voltage sources. The neutral point voltage fluctuations in the three-level NPC inverters are eliminated by utilizing the switching state multiplicities for a space vector point. The pulsewidth modulation timings are calculated using sampled reference waveform amplitudes and are explained in detail in this paper. Experimental verification on a laboratory prototype shows that this configuration may be considered suitable for high power drives.

Outdoor family portrait after the memorial services for Therese Godshaw nee Molling at Hal Godshaws house; Argonne Drive, Kenmore, New York.

Front row from left to right: Robert Godshaw, Wendy Godshaw, Rosel Pick (Anne Godshaw's mother), Debbie Godshaw born Mariner, Hal Godshaaw, Francis Schlosstein; 2nd row from left to right: David Dysert, Mickey Sloan born McMath, Edith Godshaw nee Osterer, baby (probably Gary Godshaw), Anne Godshaw born Pick, Julius Pick (Anne's father), Ursula Schlosstein born Gottschalk, Elizabeth Krakauer nee Gottschalk, Michael Godshaw; back row from left to right: Charles (Karl-Hermann Solomon) Sloan, Gerald Godshaw (partially hidden), unknown (probably Peter Godshaw), Kurt Godshaw, John Krakauer, Donald Godshaw, Tom Krakauer, Ralph Schlosstein, John Schlosstein.

Outdoor family portrait after the memorial services for Therese Godshaw nee Molling at Hal Godshaws house; Argonne Drive, Kenmore, New York.

Front row from left to right: Robert Godshaw, Wendy Godshaw, Rosel Pick (Anne Godshaw's mother), Debbie Godshaw born Mariner, Hal Godshaaw, Francis Schlosstein; 2nd row from left to right: David Dysert, Mickey Sloan born McMath, Edith Godshaw nee Osterer, baby (probably Gary Godshaw), Anne Godshaw born Pick, Julius Pick (Anne's father), Ursula Schlosstein born Gottschalk, Elizabeth Krakauer nee Gottschalk, Michael Godshaw; back row from left to right: Charlie Sloan, Gerald Godshaw (partially hidden), unknown, Kurt Godshaw, John Krakauer, Donald Godshaw, Tom Krakauer, Ralph Schlosstein, John Schlosstein.