Search results

This study analyzed 24 IELTS Task One (data explanation) prompts for task type, diagram type, subject matter, level of critical thought, and geographical references, in order to determine whether Emirati university students’ anecdotal claims of cultural bias on the IELTS academic writing exam (as experienced by the researcher in the past decade of teaching IELTS in the United Arab Emirates) are valid. The analysis found that the majority of the task types (88%) were non-process in nature (i.e. required the description of data in the form of a chart or graph, rather than the description of a process); 40% of the non-process prompts consisted of more than one diagram. The analysis revealed that 33% of the non-process prompts included bar graphs and 29% included line graphs. Pie charts appeared in 25% of the prompts and tables in only 17%. An Emirati student English preparatory program survey indicated the pie chart as the easiest to understand – a finding that may highlight a difference between the most commonly used IELTS prompt and the students’ prompt preference. A content analysis of topics found a high percentage (58%) of subject matter related to the social sciences, with 79% of the geographical references pertaining to Western contexts. An analysis of the amount of critical thought needed for graph interpretation revealed 52% of non-process prompts required some form of critical thought. The study therefore found that the cultural bias perceived by Emirati students has some validity, given the students’ socio-cultural and educational background.

Many problems occur when assigning tasks to work centres, especially in determining the required number of workstations for line balancing which requires a minimum theoretical number of workstations. The most common problem is bottleneck. In this paper, a method is proposed to solve floating tasks problem in single-model line when the actual required number of workstations exceeds the minimum theoretical number, and the standard time of the floating task (work center) exceeds the cycle time. The floating task will represent a critical bottleneck activity in line. The proposed method depends on minimizing the standard time of critical bottleneck and non-critical activities by a minimum free-floating time depends on the average of slack times of the non-critical activities, and it will increase the line efficiency from (77%) to (88%), and balance delay is minimized from (23%) to (12%).

This paper aims to exemplify the use of project management tools in the scheduling of aircraft maintenance activities. This process is known as maintenance, repair and overhaul and it has gained importance within the aeronautical sector due to its expected growth in the coming years; however, it also faces increasing competitiveness in its market. This fact gives rise to the need of acting in maintenance management and seeking lower costs while maintaining the quality of the service provided. The purpose of this paper is to propose the structuring of a procedure that aims to reduce the total maintenance time (downtime) and guarantee the delivery of the aircraft on time.

The paper, through a case study at a Brazilian aircraft maintenance center, used critical path method and critical chain project management, the latter being derived from the theory of constraints, with the purpose of analyzing resources systematically and synchronizing the activities in the precedence network.

As a result, it is shown that downtime can be reduced from 11 to 5 days and improvements are proposed to achieve greater market competitiveness.

This paper demonstrates the competitive advantage that resulted from the application of project management tools in the aircraft maintenance planning and execution.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a system dynamic simulated process model for maintenance work management incorporating the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies.

The extant literature in physical assets maintenance depicts that poor maintenance management is predominantly because of a lack of a clearly defined maintenance work management process model, resulting in poor management of maintenance work. This paper solves this complex phenomenon using a combination of conceptual process modeling and system dynamics simulation incorporating 4IR technologies. A process for maintenance work management and its control actions on scheduled maintenance tasks versus unscheduled maintenance tasks is modeled, replicating real-world scenarios with a digital lens (4IR technologies) for predictive maintenance strategy.

A process for maintenance work management is thus modeled and simulated as a dynamic system. Post-model validation, this study reveals that the real-world maintenance work management process can be replicated using system dynamics modeling. The impact analysis of 4IR technologies on maintenance work management systems reveals that the implementation of 4IR technologies intensifies asset performance with an overall gain of 27.46%, yielding the best maintenance index. This study further reveals that the benefits of 4IR technologies positively impact equipment defect predictability before failure, thereby yielding a predictive maintenance strategy.

The study focused on maintenance work management system without the consideration of other subsystems such as cost of maintenance, production dynamics, and supply chain management.

The maintenance real-world quantitative data is retrieved from two maintenance departments from company A, for a period of 24 months, representing years 2017 and 2018. The maintenance quantitative data retrieved represent six various types of equipment used at underground Mines. The maintenance management qualitative data (Organizational documents) in maintenance management are retrieved from company A and company B. Company A is a global mining industry, and company B is a global manufacturing industry. The reliability of the data used in the model validation have practical implications on how maintenance work management system behaves with the benefit of 4IR technologies' implementation.

This research study yields an overall benefit in asset management, thereby intensifying asset performance. The expected learnings are intended to benefit future research in the physical asset management field of study and most important to the industry practitioners in physical asset management.

This paper provides for a model in which maintenance work and its dynamics is systematically managed. Uncontrollable corrective maintenance work increases the complexity of the overall maintenance work management. The use of a system dynamic model and simulation incorporating 4IR technologies adds value on the maintenance work management effectiveness.

This paper addresses the trade-off between asset investment and food safety in the design of a food catering production plant. It analyses the relationship between the quality decay of cook-warm products, the logistics of the processes and the economic investment in production machines.

A weekly cook-warm production plan has been monitored on-field using temperature sensors to estimate the quality decay profile of each product. A multi-objective optimisation model is proposed to (1) minimise the number of resources necessary to perform cooking and packing operations or (2) to maximise the food quality of the products. A metaheuristic simulated annealing algorithm is introduced to solve the model and to identify the Pareto frontier of the problem.

The packaging buffers are identified as the bottleneck of the processes. The outcome of the algorithms highlights that a small investment to design bigger buffers results in a significant increase in the quality with a smaller food loss.

This study models the production tasks of a food catering facility to evaluate their criticality from a food safety perspective. It investigates the tradeoff between the investment cost of resources processing critical tasks and food safety of finished products.

The methodology applies to the design of cook-warm production. Catering companies use cook-warm production to serve school, hospitals and companies. For this reason, the application of this methodology leads to the improvement of the quality of daily meals for a large number of people.

The paper introduces a new multi-objective function (asset investment vs food quality) proposing an original metaheuristic to address this tradeoff in the food catering industry. Also, the methodology is applied and validated in the design of a new food production facility.

Collaborating with consumers during new product development can provide companies with significant benefits and competitive advantages. Although several studies have been conducted on the design of co-innovation platforms, there is still a need for a more comprehensive understanding of the co-innovation phenomenon. To address this gap, this research aims to identify the critical success factors of co-innovation platforms and provide an extensive analysis of the variables that determine their effectiveness.

This study presents a systematic literature review of co-innovation platforms based on an analysis of 89 articles published in 50 scholarly journals in the disciplines of information systems, marketing and business, covering the years from 2006 to 2022.

The review synthesizes the current state of scientific knowledge and groups prior studies thematically as critical success factors of co-innovation platforms. As a result, eight success factors have been identified in terms of quantity and quality of contributions. These factors include product involvement, perceived fairness, sense of community, interactive environment, employee involvement, participant diversity, assessment structure and task design.

The study consolidates existing research about the critical success of co-innovation platforms. It also provides a research framework that incorporates a diverse set of variables that can be used to assess co-innovation performance in future studies.