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Very limited research has attempted to consider maintenance strategies in the design of MRPII. The manufacturers who need to optimise the return of their assets and facilities using systematic maintenance management will find that the MRPII system is unable to provide them with the solution. Proper design and integration of maintenance management into MRPII enable the manufacturers not only to manage their production planning and scheduling activities but also to analyse their maintenance history, carry out cost analysis and study the failure trends to determine how the available labour and materials in maintenance can be used effectively. In order to overcome the weakness of the MRPII system in the management of maintenance activities, this paper describes some research work that has been carried out using the integrated definition method (IDEF) model to systematically integrate maintenance into MRPII. Moreover, in order to illustrate the methodology, a lamp manufacturing company with a lot of highly automated equipment and facilities which depends on modern maintenance strategies as well as MRPII‐type production planning and control is described.

Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRPII) is recognized as being an effective management system that has an excellent planning and scheduling capability which can offer a dramatic increase in customer service, significant gains in productivity, much higher inventory turns, and a greater reduction in material costs. Many companies world‐wide have attempted to implement MRPII systems. Many of them are now using MRPII with various level of satisfaction. However, failure of MRPII implementation was in fact experienced by other companies. This paper proposes an integrated system design and implementation approach to overcome the difficulties. It aims to formulate a standard process by combining strategic elements, problem definition, MRPII solutions, technical and procedural design, and implementation management in order to minimize the frustration and conflicts commonly found in MRPII implementation as well as to reduce disconnection among different stages of design and implementation. A hierarchical analysis technique using Integrated DEFinition Method (IDEF) is used to support the design and implementation management. The examples illustrated that it provides an invaluable support in the management of MRPII system.

Sustainability considerations are often treated as an add-on to building design, following ad-hoc processes for their implementation. The purpose of this study was to investigate, model and facilitate the early stages of building information modelling (BIM) enabled sustainable building design (SBD) by formalising the ad-hoc working relationships of the best practices in order to standardise the optimal collaboration workflows.

Four stages of data collection were conducted, including a total of 32 semi-structured interviews with industry experts from 17 organisations. Fourteen “best practice” case studies were identified, and roles and responsibilities, resources, information exchanges, interdependencies, timing and sequence of events and critical decisions were examined.

The research classified the critical components of SBD into a framework utilising content and thematic analyses. These components were coordinated explicitly into a systematic process, which followed concurrent engineering (CE) principles utilising Integrated DEFinition (IDEF) 3 structured diagramming technique. Then, Green BIM Box (GBB) workflow management prototype tool was developed to analyse communication and delivery of BIM-enabled SBD in a centralised system.

This study represents an improvement to previous attempts to systematically define the BIM-enabled SBD process for the early stages. The results support the idea that a transparent SBD process, which follows specified communication patterns, can assist in achieving sustainability efficiently in terms of time, cost and effort.

It is estimated that over 100 MRPII systems are available in the market, many of them are mature enough to meet most of the users’ requirements. Manufacturing companies worldwide have attempted to implement these MRPII systems, however, failure is often experienced by many companies. Very often this failure is due to managerial rather than technical issues. In order to overcome this difficulty, this paper proposes an approach to integrate Total Quality Management into the MRPII implementation. In order to guide the implementation, a detail road map is developed which incorporates TQM into the implementation. This road map is designed using a hierarchical analysis technique called Integrated DEFinition Method (IDEF), a systematic manufacturing management and integration modeling tool. The proposed approach is illustrated using a PCB factory and the results indicated successful MRPII implementation to achieve higher productivity and delivery performance.

This paper aims to develop an integrated and comprehensive framework for building and property management (BAPM) for state schools in New Zealand. The results are expected to clarify the complicated process and provide a guide for school boards to manage their property effectively and efficiently. It also seeks to explore the relationship between the key stakeholders and how this impacts the BAPM.

In addition, to review literature, qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with 16 top managers in state schools. The data analysis results were used to develop the framework using the integration definition for process modelling.

The findings contribute to understanding the processes in the BAPM in state schools of school board members by adding input, output, control and mechanism elements in each activity of the processes. The systematic models with main activities and people involved are presented as a guide for school boards in state schools in New Zealand. Challenges and issues in the processes are also identified to draw further study for both school boards and the Ministry of Education.

The research was conducted with the participation of stakeholders who are sampled from top managers in state schools in New Zealand. A larger scale of participants from other schools may generalise the findings further.

The research findings are based on the needs and requirements of the stakeholders to understand, implement and control the BAPM for their schools and aid them to achieve the best value for money spending on the management.

The paper highlights the complexity of the BAPM in schools, presents the roles and responsibilities of the school stakeholders and proposes a systematic framework to assist the school managers in this management process.

The purpose of this paper is to present a brief summary of quality and contractual aspects for the improvement of the warranty management. Together with this, the present work will show also some of the best practices followed by companies in order to manage properly those kinds of issues related to warranty, as well as some indications to assess the implementation degree of such practices in the whole organization. Basically, the global objective of the study is to present to the reader and in few words the importance of taking into account legal and quality aspects, when a company offers a technical service for the warranty assistance of any of its products, together with the maturity level that this company achieves applying some best practices currently available.

The study starts by mentioning some antecedents related to warranty, in order to summarize a reference framework, proposed for proper warranty management, and how the information exchange should be performed among the different departments of a generic company. Then, it will be suggested how to apply this according to a strategic management which is divided in phases, taken from the product life cycle concept: Front‐end, Design and Development, Production, Marketing, and Post‐sale Support. These phases are included in three higher stages considered as Pre‐Launch stage, Launch and Post‐Launch stage, where different decisions play important roles. Afterwards, it will be shown how warranty management is viewed from the contract and legal point of view, in order to link the above mentioned topics on generic management, with those best practices currently presented in actual markets. Finally, once analysed, all those aspects related to best practices and its application on the reference framework, it is required now to quantify how a company manages the warranty assistances by a maturity assessment on warranty management.

The paper observes what today's companies are doing in this field, that is, their best practices in warranty management covering the quality and contractual aspects already mentioned, in order to round off the development of a completed framework for such management.

The paper presents a review, a framework and a practical application of the framework for the management of warranty contracts, including a maturity assessment or evaluation.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the application of UML extensions on the elicitation of the knowledge that is intrinsic to the business processes of electronic government that will be available on digital TV.

Based on the understanding that: knowledge of e‐government is inherent in the applications available to the citizen; these applications aggregate content and services; and business processes result in products or services that are available for the citizen, this study seeks to, through the use of diagrams proposed by Eriksson and Penker, elicit the knowledge intrinsic to business processes, facilitating the development of applications destined to digital TV.

The proposed model facilitates the understanding of business processes and the identification of opportunities for improvement. The application of the BP diagram has enabled the authors to obtain an overview of all elements participating in the process as well as detail the relationship between them in a single diagram to facilitate the understanding of the process as a whole and assist its implementation. The assembly line diagram not only highlighted the interaction between business processes and information objects read and written in the assembly line, but also aided the identification of use cases that support the actors of the system and, consequently, the preparation of the t‐Government application requirements. The activity diagram provided highlights of how the activities that comprise the processes interact among each other and what flow of action is necessary to achieve the goal of the business process.

It is worth mentioning that what is being dealt with here is t‐Government applications accessible via iDTV (a fixed device). It is also understood that such applications are not tied to a specific TV program, since they are treated as resident applications; that is, citizens download them from an STB TV Channel and can interact with them whenever they want, regardless of the program that is being aired at the moment.

The use of unified modeling language (UML) extensions as a technique for knowledge modeling is a domain still little explored in literature. Although UML was originally designed to assist in systems modeling, its application has been extended to business and knowledge modeling.

Improvement of reverse supply chains requires accurate and timely information about the patterns of consumption. In the consumer context, the ways to generate and access such use-visibility data are in their infancy. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how the Internet of Things (IoT) may be operationalised in the domestic setting to capture data on a consumer’s use of products and the implications for reverse supply chains.

This study uses an explorative case approach drawing on data from studies of six UK households. “Horizontal” data, which reveals patterns in consumers’ use processes, is generated by combining “vertical” data from multiple sources. Use processes in the homes are mapped using IDEF0 and illustrated with the data. The quantitative data are generated using wireless sensors in the home, and qualitative data are drawn from online calendars, social media, interviews and ethnography.

The study proposes four generic measurement categories for operationalising the concept of use-visibility: experience, consumption, interaction and depletion, which together address the use of different household resources. The explorative case demonstrates how these measures can be operationalised to achieve visibility of the context of use in the home. The potential of such use-visibility for reverse supply chains is discussed.

This explorative case study is based on an in-depth study of the bathroom which illustrates the application of use-visibility measures (UVMs) but provides a limited use context. Further research is needed from a wider set of homes and a wider set of use processes and contexts.

The case demonstrates the operationalisation of the combination of data from different sources and helps answer questions of “why?”, “how?”, “when?” and “how much?”, which can inform reverse supply chains. The four UVMs can be operationalised in a way that can contribute to supply chain visibility, providing accurate and timely information of consumption, optimising resource use and eliminating waste.

IDEF0 framework and case analysis is used to identify and validate four UVMs available through IoT data – that of experience, consumption, interaction and depletion. The UVMs characterise IoT data generated from a given process and inform the primary reverse flow in the future supply chain. They provide the basis for future data collection and development of theory around their effect on reverse supply chain efficiency.

The design of Quality Control (QC) systems is focused on, with particular attention to the integration of QC systems within Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) systems. A number of principles of good systems design are identified with each being detailed in turn and reference made to the application of these principles to the design of integrated QC systems at Du Pont. Some of the benefits and limitations of adopting such an approach are outlined.

Business process reengineering (BPR) and total quality management (TQM) both emphasise the benefits that a process orientated view of company operations can bring. Acquiring a clear definition of the “as‐is” business process and developing an understanding about how the process may be re‐engineered is a crucial stage in any BPR project. This early phase normally has three objectives: to achieve a full understanding of the process to be re‐engineered so as to clarify its objectives and characteristics; to create a shared vision and understanding among the re‐engineering team; to have a basis for starting the redesign. To support this phase, there is a range of tools: manual, computer supported and computer enabled which are traditionally used to help in the activities of process definition and analysis. This paper describes some of the newer approaches. The product introduction process (PIP) is examined in a general sense, and specific examples from the automotive industry are taken as a basis for evaluation of the available tools and applications. A sample from the process analysis tools identified was used to model the PIP, and from the difficulties and successes an understanding of the attributes required in such an analysis tool was derived.