Abstract: Managing a capital group is a complex and specific process. It creates special conditions for the introduction of team work organization of managers. The selection of a manager employment form is a problem which gets complicated in case of management teams. The considered possibilities are an employment-based and non-employment managerial contract, which can be based on a thorough action or on formulating definite expectations regarding the results of a manager’s work. The problem of selection between individual and collegiate settlement of managers’ work has been pointed out. The deliberations were based on the assumptions of chosen company management theories, including transactional cost, agency theory, nexus of contracts theory, stewardship theory and theories referring directly to management teams, i.e. Upper echelons theory.
Abstract: Knowledge is increasingly recognised in this, the
knowledge era, as a strategic resource, by public sector organisations,
in view of the public sector reform initiatives. People and knowledge
play a vital role in attaining improved organisational performance
and high service quality. Many government departments in the public
sector have started to realise the importance of knowledge
management in streamlining their operations and processes. This
study focused on knowledge management in the public healthcare
service organisations, where the concept of service provider
competitiveness pales to insignificance, considering the huge
challenges emanating from the healthcare and public sector reforms.
Many government departments are faced with challenges of
improving organisational performance and service delivery,
improving accountability, making informed decisions, capturing the
knowledge of the aging workforce, and enhancing partnerships with
stakeholders.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the knowledge
management practices of the Gauteng Department of Health in South
Africa, in order to understand how knowledge management practices
influence improvement in organisational performance and healthcare
service delivery. This issue is explored through a review of literature
on dominant views on knowledge management and healthcare service
delivery, as well as results of interviews with, and questionnaire
responses from, the general staff of the Gauteng Department of
Health. Web-based questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and
organisational documents were used to collect data. The data were
analysed using both the quantitative and qualitative methods. The
central question investigated was: To what extent can the conditions
required for successful knowledge management be observed, in order
to improve organisational performance and healthcare service
delivery in the Gauteng Department of Health.
The findings showed that the elements of knowledge management
capabilities investigated in this study, namely knowledge creation,
knowledge sharing and knowledge application, have a positive,
significant relationship with all measures of organisational
performance and healthcare service delivery. These findings thus
indicate that by employing knowledge management principles, the
Gauteng Department of Health could improve its ability to achieve its
operational goals and objectives, and solve organisational and
healthcare challenges, thereby improving organisational performance
and enhancing healthcare service delivery in Gauteng.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to simulate the production process of a metal stamping industry and to evaluate the utilization of the production line by using ARENA simulation software. The process time and the standard time for each process of the production line is obtained from data given by the company management. Other data are collected through direct observation of the line. There are three work stations performing ten different types of processes in order to produce a single product type. Arena simulation model is then developed based on the collected data. Verification and validation are done to the Arena model, and finally the result of Arena simulation can be analyzed. It is found that utilization at each workstation will increase if batch size is increased although throughput rate remains/is kept constant. This study is very useful for the company because the company needs to improve the efficiency and utilization of its production lines.
Abstract: The planning in manufacturing system is becoming complicated day by day due to the expanding networks and shortage of skilled people to manage change. Consequently, faster lead time and rising demands for eco-efficient evaluation of manufacturing products and processes need exploitation of new and intelligent knowledge management concepts for manufacturing planning. This paper highlights motivation for incorporation of new features in the manufacturing planning system. Furthermore, it elaborates requirements for the development of intelligent knowledge management concept to support planning related decisions. Afterwards, the derived concept is presented in this paper considering two case studies. The first case study is concerned with the automotive ramp-up planning. The second case study specifies requirements for knowledge management system to support decisions in eco-efficient evaluation of manufacturing products and processes
Abstract: This paper reviewed the relationships between the Knowledge Management (KM) activities and its perceived benefits in the knowledge based organisations. KM activities include: knowledge identification, knowledge acquisition, knowledge application, knowledge sharing, knowledge creation and knowledge preservation. And the perceived benefits of KM are fast customer responsiveness, operation excellence and high innovative intensity. Based on the above review, a conceptual framework for KM implementation in retail business organisations has been proposed. Finally the paper forwarded some limitations of the framework and based on which, directions for future research had been suggested.
Abstract: In this paper, a low-power digital controller for DC-DC power conversion was presented. The controller generates the pulse-width modulated (PWM) signal from digital inputs provided by analog-to-digital converter (ADC). An efficient and simple design scheme to develop the control unit was discussed. This method allows minimization of the consumed resources of the chip and it is based on direct digital design approach. In this application, with the proposed scheme, nearly half area and two-third of the power consumption was saved compared to the conventional schemes. This work illustrates the possibility of implementing low-power and area-efficient power management circuit using direct digital design based approach.
Abstract: Customer audits are generally used to ensure customer
that supplier is continuously able to meet his requirements while
supplying him required products and services. However, customer
audits can be considered as a very useful quality control tool for
suppliers as well. In our paper, we analyzed the process of customer
audits realized in Czech companies from both perspectives: a
supplier´s viewpoint and customer´s viewpoint. At the end, we tried
to emphasize some areas that should not be omitted during the audit
process.
Abstract: In this paper, we present a comparative study of the
genetic algorithms and Hessian-s methods for optimal research of the
active powers in an electric network of power. The objective function
which is the performance index of production of electrical energy is
minimized by satisfying the constraints of the equality type and
inequality type initially by the Hessian-s methods and in the second
time by the genetic Algorithms. The results found by the application
of AG for the minimization of the electric production costs of power
are very encouraging. The algorithms seem to be an effective
technique to solve a great number of problems and which are in
constant evolution. Nevertheless it should be specified that the
traditional binary representation used for the genetic algorithms
creates problems of optimization of management of the large-sized
networks with high numerical precision.
Abstract: This paper outlines the application of Knowledge Management (KM) principles in the context of Educational institutions. The paper caters to the needs of the engineering institutions for imparting quality education by delineating the instruction delivery process in a highly structured, controlled and quantified manner. This is done using a software tool EDULOGIC+. The central idea has been based on the engineering education pattern in Indian Universities/ Institutions. The data, contents and results produced over contiguous years build the necessary ground for managing the related accumulated knowledge. Application of KM has been explained using certain examples of data analysis and knowledge extraction.
Abstract: Malaysia has successfully applied economic planning
to guide the development of the country from an economy of
agriculture and mining to a largely industrialised one. Now, with its
sights set on attaining the economic level of a fully developed nation
by 2020, the planning system must be made even more efficient and
focused.
It must ensure that every investment made in the country, contribute
towards creating the desirable objective of a strong, modern,
internationally competitive, technologically advanced, post-industrial
economy. Cities in Malaysia must also be fully aware of the enormous
competition it faces in a region with rapidly expanding and
modernising economies, all contending for the same pool of potential
international investments.
Efficiency of urban governance is also fundamental issue in
development characterized by sustainability, subsidiarity, equity,
transparency and accountability, civic engagement and citizenship, and
security. As described above, city competitiveness is harnessed
through 'city marketing and city management'.
High technology and high skilled industries, together with finance,
transportation, tourism, business, information and professional
services shopping and other commercial activities, are the principal
components of the nation-s economy, which must be developed to a
level well beyond where it is now. In this respect, Kuala Lumpur being
the premier city must play the leading role.
Abstract: Recent environmental turbulence including financial
crisis, intensified competitive forces, rapid technological change and
high market turbulence have dramatically changed the current
business climate. The managers firms have to plan and decide what
the best approaches that best fit their firms in order to pursue superior
performance. This research aims to examine the influence of strategic
reasoning and top level managers- individual characteristics on the
effectiveness of organizational improvisation and firm performance.
Given the lack of studies on these relationships in the previous
literature, there is significant contribution to the body of knowledge
as well as for managerial practices. 128 responses from top
management of technology-based companies in Malaysia were used
as a sample. Three hypotheses were examined and the findings
confirm that (a) there is no relationship between intuitive reasoning
and organizational improvisation but there is a link between rational
reasoning and organizational improvisation, (b) top level managers-
individual characteristics as a whole affect organizational
improvisation; and (c) organizational improvisation positively affects
firm performance. The theoretical and managerial implications were
discussed in the conclusions.
Abstract: Knowledge sharing culture contributes to a positive
working environment. Currently, there is no platform for the Faculty
of Industrial Information Technology (FIIT), Unisel academic staff to
share knowledge among them. As it is done manually, the sharing
process is through common meeting or by any offline discussions.
There is no repository for future retrieval. However, with open
source solution the development of knowledge based application may
reduce the cost tremendously. In this paper we discuss about the
domain on which this knowledge portal is being developed and also
the deployment of open source tools such as JOOMLA, PHP
programming language and MySQL. This knowledge portal is
evidence that open source tools also reliable in developing
knowledge based portal. These recommendations will be useful to
the open source community to produce more open source products in
future.
Abstract: Synchronous cooperative systems (SCS) bring together users that are geographically distributed and connected through a network to carry out a task. Examples of SCS include Tele- Immersion and Tele-Conferences. In SCS, the coordination is the core of the system, and it has been defined as the act of managing interdependencies between activities performed to achieve a goal. Some of the main problems that SCS present deal with the management of constraints between simultaneous activities and the execution ordering of these activities. In order to resolve these problems, orderings based on Lamport-s happened-before relation have been used, namely, causal, Δ-causal, and causal-total orderings. They mainly differ in the degree of asynchronous execution allowed. One of the most important orderings is the causal order, which establishes that the events must be seen in the cause-effect order as they occur in the system. In this paper we show that for certain SCS (e.g. videoconferences, tele-immersion) where some degradation of the system is allowed, ensuring the causal order is still rigid, which can render negative affects to the system. In this paper, we illustrate how a more relaxed ordering, which we call Fuzzy Causal Order (FCO), is useful for such kind of systems by allowing a more asynchronous execution than the causal order. The benefit of the FCO is illustrated by applying it to a particular scenario of intermedia synchronization of an audio-conference system.
Abstract: Any use of energy in industrial productive activities is combined with various environment impacts. Withintransportation,
this fact was not only found among land transport, railways and maritime transport, but also in the air transport industry. An effective climate protection requires strategies and measures for reducing all
greenhouses gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide, and must
take into account the economic, ecologic and social aspects. It seem simperative now to develop and manufacture environmentally
friendly products and systems, to reduce consumption and use less
resource, and to save energy and power. Today-sproducts could
better serve these requirements taking into account the integration of
a power management system into the electrical power system.This
paper gives an overview of an approach ofpower management with
load prioritization in modernaircraft. Load dimensioning and load
management strategies on current civil aircraft will be presented and
used as a basis for the proposed approach.
Abstract: Decentralized Tuple Space (DTS) implements tuple
space model among a series of decentralized hosts and provides the
logical global shared tuple repository. Replication has been introduced
to promote performance problem incurred by remote tuple access. In
this paper, we propose a replication approach of DTS allowing
replication policies self-adapting. The accesses from users or other
nodes are monitored and collected to contribute the decision making.
The replication policy may be changed if the better performance is
expected. The experiments show that this approach suitably adjusts the
replication policies, which brings negligible overhead.
Abstract: The move from cash accounting to accrual accounting, or rule-based to principle-based accounting, by many governments is part of an ongoing efforts in promoting a more business-like and performance-focused public sector. Using questionnaire responses from preparers of financial statements of public universities in Malaysia, this study examines the implementation challenges and benefits of principle-based accounting. Results from these responses suggest that most respondents perceived significant costs would be incurred in relation to staff training and recruitment of staffs with relevant technical knowledge. In addition, most respondents also perceived that there will be significant changes in the current accounting system and structure in order to comply with the principle-based accounting requirements. However, most respondents perceived that these changes might not result in significant benefits for management purposes, for example, financial management, budgeting and allocation of resources. Nevertheless, most respondents perceived that principle-based accounting information would facilitate the monitoring function of the board. The general perception is that adoption of principle-based accounting information is not significantly useful than rule-based accounting information is expected to change over time as preparers of the financial statements gradually understand and appreciate the benefits of principle-based accounting information. This infers that the perceived usefulness of different accounting system is a function of familiarity by the preparers.
Abstract: The Mobile IP Standard has been developed to support mobility over the Internet. This standard contains several drawbacks as in the cases where packets are routed via sub-optimal paths and significant amount of signaling messages is generated due to the home registration procedure which keeps the network aware of the current location of the mobile nodes. Recently, a dynamic hierarchical mobility management strategy for mobile IP networks (DHMIP) has been proposed to reduce home registrations costs. However, this strategy induces a packet delivery delay and increases the risk of packet loss. In this paper, we propose an enhanced version of the dynamic hierarchical strategy that reduces the packet delivery delay and minimizes the risk of packet loss. Preliminary results obtained from simulations are promising. They show that the enhanced version outperforms the original dynamic hierarchical mobility management strategy version.
Abstract: Although women have merit in their jobs, they still
are located very few in the top management in many sectors. There
are many causes of such situation. Such a situation creates obstacles;
especially invisible ones are called “glass ceiling syndrome”. Also,
studies which handle this subject in academic community are very
few. The aim of this research is to reach the results about glass
ceiling obstacles in terms of female teaching staff (academics)
working in higher education institutions. To this end, our study was
performed on female academics working at Selcuk University, Konya
/ Turkey. Our study's main aim can be expressed as to determine
whether there are glass ceiling obstacles for female academics
working at the higher education institution in question, to measure
their glass ceiling perceptions and, thus, to identify what the glass
ceiling barrier components for them to promotion to senior
management positions are.
Abstract: To achieve competitive advantage nowadays, most of
the industrial companies are considering that success is sustained to
great product development. That is to manage the product throughout
its entire lifetime ranging from design, manufacture, operation and
destruction. Achieving this goal requires a tight collaboration
between partners from a wide variety of domains, resulting in various
product data types and formats, as well as different software tools. So
far, the lack of a meaningful unified representation for product data
semantics has slowed down efficient product development. This
paper proposes an ontology based approach to enable such semantic
interoperability. Generic and extendible product ontology is
described, gathering main concepts pertaining to the mechanical field
and the relations that hold among them. The ontology is not
exhaustive; nevertheless, it shows that such a unified representation
is possible and easily exploitable. This is illustrated thru a case study
with an example product and some semantic requests to which the
ontology responds quite easily. The study proves the efficiency of
ontologies as a support to product data exchange and information
sharing, especially in product development environments where
collaboration is not just a choice but a mandatory prerequisite.
Abstract: Time-Cost Optimization "TCO" is one of the greatest challenges in construction project planning and control, since the optimization of either time or cost, would usually be at the expense of the other. Since there is a hidden trade-off relationship between project and cost, it might be difficult to predict whether the total cost would increase or decrease as a result of the schedule compression. Recently third dimension in trade-off analysis is taken into consideration that is quality of the projects. Few of the existing algorithms are applied in a case of construction project with threedimensional trade-off analysis, Time-Cost-Quality relationships. The objective of this paper is to presents the development of a practical software system; that named Automatic Multi-objective Typical Construction Resource Optimization System "AMTCROS". This system incorporates the basic concepts of Line Of Balance "LOB" and Critical Path Method "CPM" in a multi-objective Genetic Algorithms "GAs" model. The main objective of this system is to provide a practical support for typical construction planners who need to optimize resource utilization in order to minimize project cost and duration while maximizing its quality simultaneously. The application of these research developments in planning the typical construction projects holds a strong promise to: 1) Increase the efficiency of resource use in typical construction projects; 2) Reduce construction duration period; 3) Minimize construction cost (direct cost plus indirect cost); and 4) Improve the quality of newly construction projects. A general description of the proposed software for the Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off "TCQTO" is presented. The main inputs and outputs of the proposed software are outlined. The main subroutines and the inference engine of this software are detailed. The complexity analysis of the software is discussed. In addition, the verification, and complexity of the proposed software are proved and tested using a real case study.