Dynamic job quoting system for printed circuit board fabrication

This research deals with the development of a dynamic job quotation system for printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication, which can estimate the price and completion time of a job based on customer preference and current capacity of the shop floor. The primary purpose of building a dynamic quotation system is to maximize the company's profit by quoting optimum lead-time and competitive price for the day-to-day orders received from different customers and original equipment manufacturers. The system was developed using MS-Access relational database. Evaluating the output of the system it was observed that the dynamic system provided more reliable estimation of the lead-time needed for fabricating new jobs. The overall price quoted by the system was competitive with higher profit margin when compared to traditional static systems. This system would therefore provide a vital link between the job quoting and scheduling system of the firm enabling better utilization of the available resources.

Perceptions of job worth

The present study was conducted to evaluate perceptions of the importance of various factors that may determine the wage or salary level in jobs. Items describing various job characteristics reflecting the factors of Skill, Effort, Responsibility, Working Conditions, and Organizational characteristics were rated by 510 subjects from a variety of organizations. Results indicated that the items did not cluster into the five categories noted above. Instead, three factors were identified and labeled Job Complexity, Accountability, and Work Context. There were few gender or occupational differences in the ratings of the items. The implications of the results for the development of equitable wage and salary systems are discussed.

Analytical Approximations to Predict Performance Measures of Manufacturing Systems with Job Failures and Parallel Processing

Parallel processing is prevalent in many manufacturing and service systems. Many manufactured products are built and assembled from several components fabricated in parallel lines. An example of this manufacturing system configuration is observed at a manufacturing facility equipped to assemble and test web servers. Characteristics of a typical web server assembly line are: multiple products, job circulation, and paralleling processing. The primary objective of this research was to develop analytical approximations to predict performance measures of manufacturing systems with job failures and parallel processing. The analytical formulations extend previous queueing models used in assembly manufacturing systems in that they can handle serial and different configurations of paralleling processing with multiple product classes, and job circulation due to random part failures. In addition, appropriate correction terms via regression analysis were added to the approximations in order to minimize the gap in the error between the analytical approximation and the simulation models. Markovian and general type manufacturing systems, with multiple product classes, job circulation due to failures, and fork and join systems to model parallel processing were studied. In the Markovian and general case, the approximations without correction terms performed quite well for one and two product problem instances. However, it was observed that the flow time error increased as the number of products and net traffic intensity increased. Therefore, correction terms for single and fork-join stations were developed via regression analysis to deal with more than two products. The numerical comparisons showed that the approximations perform remarkably well when the corrections factors were used in the approximations. In general, the average flow time error was reduced from 38.19% to 5.59% in the Markovian case, and from 26.39% to 7.23% in the general case. All the equations stated in the analytical formulations were implemented as a set of Matlab scripts. By using this set, operations managers of web server assembly lines, manufacturing or other service systems with similar characteristics can estimate different system performance measures, and make judicious decisions - especially setting delivery due dates, capacity planning, and bottleneck mitigation, among others.

Job satisfaction of dietitians in South Florida

The purpose of this study was to examine job satisfaction of dietitians in South Florida and to identify significant differences in job satisfaction between dietitians working in traditional versus non-traditional settings. A job satisfaction questionnaire was developed, validated, and mailed to dietitians in Palm Beach, Broward, Dade, and Monroe counties. Out of 600 questionnaires mailed, 203 surveys were returned and 187 were valid and analyzed statistically. Seventy three percent of subjects practiced in traditional and 17% in non-traditional settings. Eighteen percent of 187 subjects surveyed reported feeling dissatisfied with their jobs and 59% reported feeling satisfied. There was no significant difference in satisfaction due to practice settings (traditional versus non-traditional). The subjects reported satisfaction with co-workers and supervisors. The two major areas where dissatisfaction was reported were compensation and professional recognition. The results showed that the majority of dietitians in South Florida are, in general, satisfied with their jobs. Although dietitians' salaries have increased by approximately 80% since 1982, compensation was still viewed as inadequate by 48% of the subjects, given dietitians' education, skills and experience. Because legislation to approve reimbursement of medical nutrition therapy is pending, increase in dietitians' knowledge of reimbursement issues is recommended. Dietitians must also promote assertively their valuable contribution to wellness, health, and the treatment of disease.

Design and implementation of a web based shop floor control system to maintain schedule feasibility in a dynamic job shop environment

The effective control of production activities in dynamic job shop with predetermined resource allocation for all the jobs entering the system is a unique manufacturing environment, which exists in the manufacturing industry. In this thesis a framework for an Internet based real time shop floor control system for such a dynamic job shop environment is introduced. The system aims to maintain the schedule feasibility of all the jobs entering the manufacturing system under any circumstance. The system is capable of deciding how often the manufacturing activities should be monitored to check for control decisions that need to be taken on the shop floor. The system will provide the decision maker real time notification to enable him to generate feasible alternate solutions in case a disturbance occurs on the shop floor. The control system is also capable of providing the customer with real time access to the status of the jobs on the shop floor. The communication between the controller, the user and the customer is through web based user friendly GUI. The proposed control system architecture and the interface for the communication system have been designed, developed and implemented.

Habilidades políticas, job crafting e innovación en las organizaciones

En la presente investigación se ha analizado la relación que tiene entre sí las habilidades políticas, el job crafting y las conductas de innovación. A partir de la revisión de la literatura actual, se ha presentado un modelo en el que se establecen relaciones positivas entre estas tres variables, y a la vez se asigna al job crafting un papel de mediación en la relación entre las otras dos variables. Se llevó a cabo una investigación con una muestra de 389 trabajadores de distintas empresas a los que se les aplicó los distintos instrumentos de evaluación en tres momentos de recogida de información diferentes. Los resultados obtenidos confirman, de una forma general, el modelo y las hipótesis planteadas, a excepción de la mediación parcial de job crafting. Finalmente se discuten los resultados en relación a la literatura y los modelos teóricos revisados y se plantean medidas prácticas aplicables en contextos organizacionales.

Unemployed job seekers

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Lois Ernst, Business owner and President of Job Opportunities for women in NY

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Women attend job counseling meeting

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Personnel director interviewing job applicant

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

Personnel manager interviews job applicant

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

Personnel director interviewing job applicant

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

The impact of late career job loss on myocardial infarction and stroke: a 10 year follow up using the health and retirement survey.

BACKGROUND: Involuntary job loss is a major life event associated with social, economic, behavioural, and health outcomes, for which older workers are at elevated risk. OBJECTIVE: To assess the 10 year risk of myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke associated with involuntary job loss among workers over 50 years of age. METHODS: Analysing data from the nationally representative US Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to estimate whether workers who suffered involuntary job loss were at higher risk for subsequent MI and stroke than individuals who continued to work. The sample included 4301 individuals who were employed at the 1992 study baseline. RESULTS: Over the 10 year study frame, 582 individuals (13.5% of the sample) experienced involuntary job loss. After controlling for established predictors of the outcomes, displaced workers had a more than twofold increase in the risk of subsequent MI (hazard ratio (HR) = 2.48; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.49 to 4.14) and stroke (HR = 2.43; 95% CI = 1.18 to 4.98) relative to working persons. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that the true costs of late career unemployment exceed financial deprivation, and include substantial health consequences. Physicians who treat individuals who lose jobs as they near retirement should consider the loss of employment a potential risk factor for adverse vascular health changes. Policy makers and programme planners should also be aware of the risks of job loss, so that programmatic interventions can be designed and implemented to ease the multiple burdens of joblessness.

Essays on Job Search and Labor Market Dynamics

This dissertation consists of three separate essays on job search and labor market dynamics. In the first essay, “The Impact of Labor Market Conditions on Job Creation: Evidence from Firm Level Data”, I study how much changes in labor market conditions reduce employment fluctuations over the business cycle. Changes in labor market conditions make hiring more expensive during expansions and cheaper during recessions, creating counter-cyclical incentives for job creation. I estimate firm level elasticities of labor demand with respect to changes in labor market conditions, considering two margins: changes in labor market tightness and changes in wages. Using employer-employee matched data from Brazil, I find that all firms are more sensitive to changes in wages rather than labor market tightness, and there is substantial heterogeneity in labor demand elasticity across regions. Based on these results, I demonstrate that changes in labor market conditions reduce the variance of employment growth over the business cycle by 20% in a median region, and this effect is equally driven by changes along each margin. Moreover, I show that the magnitude of the effect of labor market conditions on employment growth can be significantly affected by economic policy. In particular, I document that the rapid growth of the national minimum wages in Brazil in 1997-2010 amplified the impact of the change in labor market conditions during local expansions and diminished this impact during local recessions.

In the second essay, “A Framework for Estimating Persistence of Local Labor

Demand Shocks”, I propose a decomposition which allows me to study the persistence of local labor demand shocks. Persistence of labor demand shocks varies across industries, and the incidence of shocks in a region depends on the regional industrial composition. As a result, less diverse regions are more likely to experience deeper shocks, but not necessarily more long lasting shocks. Building on this idea, I propose a decomposition of local labor demand shocks into idiosyncratic location shocks and nationwide industry shocks and estimate the variance and the persistence of these shocks using the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) in 1990-2013.

In the third essay, “Conditional Choice Probability Estimation of Continuous- Time Job Search Models”, co-authored with Peter Arcidiacono and Arnaud Maurel, we propose a novel, computationally feasible method of estimating non-stationary job search models. Non-stationary job search models arise in many applications, where policy change can be anticipated by the workers. The most prominent example of such policy is the expiration of unemployment benefits. However, estimating these models still poses a considerable computational challenge, because of the need to solve a differential equation numerically at each step of the optimization routine. We overcome this challenge by adopting conditional choice probability methods, widely used in dynamic discrete choice literature, to job search models and show how the hazard rate out of unemployment and the distribution of the accepted wages, which can be estimated in many datasets, can be used to infer the value of unemployment. We demonstrate how to apply our method by analyzing the effect of the unemployment benefit expiration on duration of unemployment using the data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) in 1996-2007.