Aplicação da metodologia de “lean management” no processo de desenvolvimento de produto

O presente trabalho de dissertação teve como objetivo a implementação de metodologias de Lean Management e avaliação do seu impacto no processo de Desenvolvimento de Produto. A abordagem utilizada consistiu em efetuar uma revisão da literatura e levantamento do Estado da Arte para obter a fundamentação teórica necessária à implementação de metodologias Lean. Prosseguiu com o levantamento da situação inicial da organização em estudo ao nível das atividades de desenvolvimento de produto, práticas de gestão documental e operacional e ainda de atividades de suporte através da realização de inquéritos e medições experimentais. Este conhecimento permitiu criar um modelo de referência para a implementação de Lean Management nesta área específica do desenvolvimento de produto. Após implementado, este modelo foi validado pela sua experimentação prática e recolha de indicadores. A implementação deste modelo de referência permitiu introduzir na Unidade de Desenvolvimento de Produto e Sistemas (DPS) da organização INEGI, as bases do pensamento Lean, contribuindo para a criação de um ambiente de Respeito pela Humanidade e de Melhoria Contínua. Neste ambiente foi possível obter ganhos qualitativos e quantitativos nas várias áreas em estudo, contribuindo de forma global para um aumento da eficiência e eficácia da DPS. Prevê-se que este aumento de eficiência represente um aumento da capacidade instalada na Organização, pela redução anual de 2290 horas de desperdício (6.5% da capacidade total da unidade) e pela redução significativa em custos operacionais. Algumas das implementações de melhoria propostas no decorrer deste trabalho, após verificado o seu sucesso, extravasaram a unidade em estudo e foram aplicadas transversalmente à da organização. Foram também obtidos ganhos qualitativos, tais como a normalização de práticas de gestão documental e a centralização e agilização de fluxos de informação. Isso permitiu um aumento de qualidade dos serviços prestados pela redução de correções e retrabalho. Adicionalmente, com o desenvolvimento de uma nova ferramenta que permite a monitorização do estado atual dos projetos a nível da sua percentagem de execução (cumprimento de objetivos), prazos e custos, bem como a estimação das datas de conclusão dos projetos possibilitando o replaneamento do projeto bem como a detecção atempada de desvios. A ferramenta permite também a criação de um histórico que identifica o esforço horário associado à realização das atividades/tarefas das várias áreas de Desenvolvimento de Produto e desta forma pode ser usada como suporte à orçamentação futura de atividades similares. No decorrer do projeto, foram também criados os mecanismos que permitem o cálculo de indicadores das competências técnicas e motivações intrínsecas individuais da equipa DPS. Estes indicadores podem ser usados na definição por parte dos gestores dos projetos da composição das equipas de trabalho, dos executantes de tarefas individuais do projeto e dos destinatários de ações de formação. Com esta informação é expectável que se consiga um maior aproveitamento do potencial humano e como consequência um aumento do desempenho e da satisfação pessoal dos recursos humanos da organização. Este caso de estudo veio demonstrar que o potencial de melhoria dos processos associados ao desenvolvimento de produto através de metodologias de Lean Management é muito significativo, e que estes resultam em ganhos visíveis para a organização bem como para os seus elementos individualmente.

Reactive power management strategies in future smart grids

The reactive power management in distribution network with large penetration of distributed energy resources is an important task in future power systems. The control of reactive power allows the inclusion of more distributed recourses and a more efficient operation of distributed network. Currently, the reactive power is only controlled in large power plants and in high and very high voltage substations. In this paper, several reactive power control strategies considering a smart grids paradigm are proposed. In this context, the management of distributed energy resources and of the distribution network by an aggregator, namely Virtual Power Player (VPP), is proposed and implemented in a MAS simulation tool. The proposed methods have been computationally implemented and tested using a 32-bus distribution network with intensive use of distributed resources, mainly the distributed generation based on renewable resources. Results concerning the evaluation of the reactive power management algorithms are also presented and compared.

Energy-aware task mapping onto heterogeneous platforms using DVFS and sleep states

Heterogeneous multicore platforms are becoming an interesting alternative for embedded computing systems with limited power supply as they can execute specific tasks in an efficient manner. Nonetheless, one of the main challenges of such platforms consists of optimising the energy consumption in the presence of temporal constraints. This paper addresses the problem of task-to-core allocation onto heterogeneous multicore platforms such that the overall energy consumption of the system is minimised. To this end, we propose a two-phase approach that considers both dynamic and leakage energy consumption: (i) the first phase allocates tasks to the cores such that the dynamic energy consumption is reduced; (ii) the second phase refines the allocation performed in the first phase in order to achieve better sleep states by trading off the dynamic energy consumption with the reduction in leakage energy consumption. This hybrid approach considers core frequency set-points, tasks energy consumption and sleep states of the cores to reduce the energy consumption of the system. Major value has been placed on a realistic power model which increases the practical relevance of the proposed approach. Finally, extensive simulations have been carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. In the best-case, savings up to 18% of energy are reached over the first fit algorithm, which has shown, in previous works, to perform better than other bin-packing heuristics for the target heterogeneous multicore platform.

Perception of organizational politics and the effect of authenticity and affective commitment on deviance and task performance in contact centers

This study aimed to understand employees’ reactions to organizational politics in Contact Centers. Drawing from a sample of 187 supervisor-employee dyads, we studied the relationship between employees’ perceptions of organizational politics and supervisor-rated task performance and deviance, and mediation effects by authenticity at work and affective commitment. Results indicate that workers tend to react to workplace politics with deviant behavior and worse task performance. We found that the relationship between perceived politics and task performance was mediated by authenticity. The relationship between perceived politics and supervisor-rated deviance was mediated by affective commitment to the organization. Implications for management are discussed.

ESCMID* guideline for the diagnosis and management of Candida diseases 2012: developing European guidelines in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases.

The process to develop a guideline in a European setting remains a challenge. The ESCMID Fungal Infection Study Group (EFISG) successfully achieved this endeavour. After two face-to-face meetings, numerous telephone conferences, and email correspondence, an ESCMID task force (basically composed of members of the Society's Fungal Infection Study Group, EFISG) finalized the ESCMID diagnostic and management/therapeutic guideline for Candida diseases. By appreciating various patient populations at risk for Candida diseases, four subgroups were predefined, mainly ICU patients, paediatric, HIV/AIDS and patients with malignancies including haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Besides treatment recommendations, the ESCMID guidelines provide guidance for diagnostic procedures. For the guidelines, questions were formulated to phrase the intention of a given recommendation, for example, outcome. The recommendation was the clinical intervention, which was graded by a score of A-D for the 'Strength of a recommendation'. The 'level of evidence' received a score of I-III. The author panel was approved by ESCMID, European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation, European Society of Intensive Care Medicine and the European Confederation of Medical Mycology. The guidelines followed the framework of GRADE and Appraisal of Guidelines, Research, and Evaluation. The drafted guideline was presented at ECCMID 2011 and points of discussion occurring during that meeting were incorporated into the manuscripts. These ESCMID guidelines for the diagnosis and management of Candida diseases provide guidance for clinicians in their daily decision-making process.

Relating leadership, thinking styles, self-concept, motivation and stress management in education

Seventy-five principals and vice-.wincipals from public elementary and secondary schools in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada participated in this study. Participants provided ,information concerning their thinking styles, motivations, and the physical effects of stress. This information was examined to find out how satisfaction-oriented, and how security-oriented the thinking styles of the participants were. Second, the data were analysed to see how the thinking style orientations related to life style habits and the effects of stress. The satisfaction-oriented thinking styles scored higher than all of the security-oriented thinking styles by a wide margin with a small preference for the satisfaction-people-oriented styles labelled humanistic-helpful, and affiliative as opposed to the satisfaction-task-oriented styles labeled achievement, and self-actualizing. Although all eight of the security-oriented thinking styles scored well below all of the satisfaction-oriented thinking styles on the Life Styles Inventory, the perfectionistic style scored higher than all of the security-oriented styles by an impressive margin. The next highest scores were recorded by a cluster of three passive-defensive people-oriented thinking styles labeled approval, conventional, and dependent. The competitive style scored lower, and the styles labeled avoidance, oppositional, and power scored the lowest of all the defensive-security-oriented styles. These findings suggest that principals and vice-principals see themselves as relaxed, flexible, and satisfied with their ability to adapt to the stress levels they experience in their lives; however, there was some support for medical research findings that suggest that specific security-oriented thinking styles are associated with emotional stresses that contribute to the development of specific lifestyle habits, physical symptoms, and illnesses. Although the number of females in this study provides very limited generalizability, the findings of this study suggest that high achieving females tend to develop satisfaction-growth styles to a higher level than males, and they tend to use security-oriented styles to a lesser degree than males.

Integrated Environment for Launch Vehicle Telemetry Data Management

The telemetry data processing operation intended for a given mission are pre-defined by an onboard telemetry configuration, mission trajectory and overall telemetry methodology have stabilized lately for ISRO vehicles. The given problem on telemetry data processing is reduced through hierarchical problem reduction whereby the sequencing of operations evolves as the control task and operations on data as the function task. The function task Input, Output and execution criteria are captured into tables which are examined by the control task and then schedules when the function task when the criteria is being met.

Modellbasiertes Service Level Management verteilter Anwendungssysteme

Zur Senkung von Kosten werden in vielen Unternehmen Dienstleistungen, die nicht zur Kernkompetenz gehören, an externe Dienstleister ausgelagert. Dieser Prozess wird auch als Outsourcing bezeichnet. Die dadurch entstehenden Abhängigkeiten zu den externen Dienstleistern werden mit Hilfe von Service Level Agreements (SLAs) vertraglich geregelt. Die Aufgabe des Service Level Managements (SLM) ist es, die Einhaltung der vertraglich fixierten Dienstgüteparameter zu überwachen bzw. sicherzustellen. Für eine automatische Bearbeitung ist daher eine formale Spezifikation von SLAs notwendig. Da der Markt eine Vielzahl von unterschiedlichen SLM-Werkzeugen hervorgebracht hat, entstehen in der Praxis Probleme durch proprietäre SLA-Formate und fehlende Spezifikationsmethoden. Daraus resultiert eine Werkzeugabhängigkeit und eine limitierte Wiederverwendbarkeit bereits spezifizierter SLAs. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Ansatz für ein plattformunabhängiges Service Level Management entwickelt. Ziel ist eine Vereinheitlichung der Modellierung, so dass unterschiedliche Managementansätze integriert und eine Trennung zwischen Problem- und Technologiedomäne erreicht wird. Zudem wird durch die Plattformunabhängigkeit eine hohe zeitliche Stabilität erstellter Modelle erreicht. Weiteres Ziel der Arbeit ist, die Wiederverwendbarkeit modellierter SLAs zu gewährleisten und eine prozessorientierte Modellierungsmethodik bereitzustellen. Eine automatisierte Etablierung modellierter SLAs ist für eine praktische Nutzung von entscheidender Relevanz. Zur Erreichung dieser Ziele werden die Prinzipien der Model Driven Architecture (MDA) auf die Problemdomäne des Service Level Managements angewandt. Zentrale Idee der Arbeit ist die Definition von SLA-Mustern, die konfigurationsunabhängige Abstraktionen von Service Level Agreements darstellen. Diese SLA-Muster entsprechen dem Plattformunabhängigen Modell (PIM) der MDA. Durch eine geeignete Modelltransformation wird aus einem SLA-Muster eine SLA-Instanz generiert, die alle notwendigen Konfigurationsinformationen beinhaltet und bereits im Format der Zielplattform vorliegt. Eine SLA-Instanz entspricht damit dem Plattformspezifischen Modell (PSM) der MDA. Die Etablierung der SLA-Instanzen und die daraus resultierende Konfiguration des Managementsystems entspricht dem Plattformspezifischen Code (PSC) der MDA. Nach diesem Schritt ist das Managementsystem in der Lage, die im SLA vereinbarten Dienstgüteparameter eigenständig zu überwachen. Im Rahmen der Arbeit wurde eine UML-Erweiterung definiert, die eine Modellierung von SLA-Mustern mit Hilfe eines UML-Werkzeugs ermöglicht. Hierbei kann die Modellierung rein graphisch als auch unter Einbeziehung der Object Constraint Language (OCL) erfolgen. Für die praktische Realisierung des Ansatzes wurde eine Managementarchitektur entwickelt, die im Rahmen eines Prototypen realisiert wurde. Der Gesamtansatz wurde anhand einer Fallstudie evaluiert.

Transformationale Führung als Erfolgsfaktor des Interim Management

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde untersucht, wie Führung zur Bewältigung von Unternehmenskrisen und Umsetzung von Veränderungen im Kontext des Interim Management beitragen kann. Dazu wurde die Theorie transformationaler Führung um aufgabenbezogene und indirekte Führung und den Einsatz von Positionsmacht ergänzt. Damit wurden diese erfolgskritischen Führungsdimensionen erstmals in einem gemeinsamen theoretischen Rahmen verbunden und die Auswirkungen einer kombinierten Anwendung untersucht. Dieser neue Ansatz wurde als „Total Range of Leadership“ bezeichnet. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung konnten neue Erkenntnisse zum Kontext und den Erfolgsfaktoren des Interim Management sowie zu den Auswirkungen und Wirkungsmechanismen transformationaler Führung und des Total Range of Leadership gewonnen werden. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Interim Management ein hoch effektives Veränderungsinstrument ist. Als erfolgsrelevante Rahmenbedingungen wurden die Ausstattung der Interim Manager mit umfassenden Vollmachten sowie die Unterstützung durch die Auftraggeber, als wichtigster Erfolgsfaktor des Interim Management aber eindeutig die Anwendung transformationaler Führung und des Total Range of Leadership identifiziert. Die Anwendung transformationaler Führung im Rahmen des Total Range of Leadership wirkt sich positiv auf Persönlichkeit, Einstellungen, Kompetenz und Verhalten der Mitarbeiter sowie Organisationsstruktur, Unternehmenskultur, organisationale Lernfähigkeit und finanziellen und marktbezogenen Erfolg von Unternehmens aus. Dabei erzielt transformationale Führung die bei Weitem größte Wirkung aller Führungsdimensionen. Es konnte aufgezeigt werden, dass transformationale Führung diese Wirkung nur in Verbindung mit der kompetenten Anwendung von transaktionaler, aufgabenbezogener und indirekter Führung entfalten kann. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse deuten außerdem darauf hin, dass eine transformationale Führungsbeziehung nur dann entstehen kann, wenn die Mitarbeiter Vertrauen in die professionelle Kompetenz und die Integrität ihrer Führungskraft fassen. Als normative Grundlagen transformationaler Führung wurden die Gewährleistung der Wohlfahrt und des Nutzens der Geführten sowie der Bezug auf und die Berücksichtigung von geteilten und allgemein akzeptierte Werten, insbesondere der distributiven und prozeduralen Gerechtigkeit, identifiziert. Insgesamt deuten die Erkenntnisse der Untersuchung darauf hin, dass mit dem Total Range of Leadership ein ganzheitlicher Führungsansatz entwickelt wurde, der alle aktiven und positiven Führungsverhaltensweisen umfasst, die zur Bewältigung von Krisen und Durchführung von Veränderungen in Unternehmen sowie für effektive Führung überhaupt erforderlich sind.

Multidimensional Adaptations for Open Learning Management Systems

Our work is focused on alleviating the workload for designers of adaptive courses on the complexity task of authoring adaptive learning designs adjusted to specific user characteristics and the user context. We propose an adaptation platform that consists in a set of intelligent agents where each agent carries out an independent adaptation task. The agents apply machine learning techniques to support the user modelling for the adaptation process

Visual management of sags and incidents gathered in distribution substations for power quality management

Monitor a distribution network implies working with a huge amount of data coining from the different elements that interact in the network. This paper presents a visualization tool that simplifies the task of searching the database for useful information applicable to fault management or preventive maintenance of the network

Management of industrial wastewater discharges in river basins through agents'argumentation

La gestió de l'aigua residual és una tasca complexa. Hi ha moltes substàncies contaminants conegudes però encara moltes per conèixer, i el seu efecte individual o col·lgectiu és difícil de predir. La identificació i avaluació dels impactes ambientals resultants de la interacció entre els sistemes naturals i socials és un assumpte multicriteri. Els gestors ambientals necessiten eines de suport pels seus diagnòstics per tal de solucionar problemes ambientals. Les contribucions d'aquest treball de recerca són dobles: primer, proposar l'ús d'un enfoc basat en la modelització amb agents per tal de conceptualitzar i integrar tots els elements que estan directament o indirectament involucrats en la gestió de l'aigua residual. Segon, proposar un marc basat en l'argumentació amb l'objectiu de permetre als agents raonar efectivament. La tesi conté alguns exemples reals per tal de mostrar com un marc basat amb agents que argumenten pot suportar diferents interessos i diferents perspectives. Conseqüentment, pot ajudar a construir un diàleg més informat i efectiu i per tant descriure millor les interaccions entre els agents. En aquest document es descriu primer el context estudiat, escalant el problema global de la gestió de la conca fluvial a la gestiódel sistema urbà d'aigües residuals, concretament l'escenari dels abocaments industrials. A continuació, s'analitza el sistema mitjançant la descripció d'agents que interaccionen. Finalment, es descriuen alguns prototips capaços de raonar i deliberar, basats en la lògica no monòtona i en un llenguatge declaratiu (answer set programming). És important remarcar que aquesta tesi enllaça dues disciplines: l'enginyeria ambiental (concretament l'àrea de la gestió de les aigües residuals) i les ciències de la computació (concretament l'àrea de la intel·ligència artificial), contribuint així a la multidisciplinarietat requerida per fer front al problema estudiat. L'enginyeria ambiental ens proporciona el coneixement del domini mentre que les ciències de la computació ens permeten estructurar i especificar aquest coneixement.

Reviewing the EU ETS review? Report of the CEPS TAsk Force on "Does the ETS market produce the 'right' price signal"? CEPS Task Force Report, 12 November 2012

Drawing on discussions within a CEPS Task Force on the revised EU emissions trading system, this report provides a comprehensive assessment of the pros and cons of the various measures put forward by different stakeholders to address the level and stability of the price of carbon in the EU. It argues that the European Commission, the member states, the European Parliament and other stakeholders need to give serious consideration to introducing some kind of ‘dynamic’ adjustment provision to address the relatively inelastic supply. The report also suggests that there is a need to improve communication of market-sensitive information, for example by leaving the management of the ETS to a specialised body.

A management architecture for active networks

In this paper we present an architecture for network and applications management, which is based on the Active Networks paradigm and shows the advantages of network programmability. The stimulus to develop this architecture arises from an actual need to manage a cluster of active nodes, where it is often required to redeploy network assets and modify nodes connectivity. In our architecture, a remote front-end of the managing entity allows the operator to design new network topologies, to check the status of the nodes and to configure them. Moreover, the proposed framework allows to explore an active network, to monitor the active applications, to query each node and to install programmable traps. In order to take advantage of the Active Networks technology, we introduce active SNMP-like MIBs and agents, which are dynamic and programmable. The programmable management agents make tracing distributed applications a feasible task. We propose a general framework that can inter-operate with any active execution environment. In this framework, both the manager and the monitor front-ends communicate with an active node (the Active Network Access Point) through the XML language. A gateway service performs the translation of the queries from XML to an active packet language and injects the code in the network. We demonstrate the implementation of an active network gateway for PLAN (Packet Language for Active Networks) in a forty active nodes testbed. Finally, we discuss an application of the active management architecture to detect the causes of network failures by tracing network events in time.