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11 – 20 of over 104000This paper details the benefits that integrated systems offer facility managers and owners who seek to improve security – and overall building performance – despite limited…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper details the benefits that integrated systems offer facility managers and owners who seek to improve security – and overall building performance – despite limited resources. And it provides a general roadmap for making integration a reality.
Design/methodology/approach
Combining real‐life examples with general industry knowledge, this paper examines how facility managers and owners can integrate technology like surveillance cameras, access control readers and smart card technology to improve security and the company's bottom line. Additionally, it explains organizational steps needed to successfully integrate these technologies, and tie them into core building functions and enterprise systems.
Findings
There is innovative technology emerging in the security market that offers significant improvements for facilities and security managers, as well as end users. But the real power lies within managing these technologies as part of an integrated security and building solution. With an integrated system, silos are eliminated, information is shared between departments and important building functions can be centralized – increasing safety and improving efficiency.
Practical implications
An informative paper that gives facility managers and owners a general understanding of integration and its associated benefits, and the necessary elements to make it happen.
Originality/value
While the concept of integration is not new, institutional practices often prevent companies from implementing and taking advantage of an integrated system. This paper goes beyond explaining the general features and benefits of integration, and informs the reader how to assess organizational needs and successfully make the transition.
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Joscha Krieglsteiner, Peter Horst and Carsten Schmidt
A novel development process aims at finding solutions for lightweight stiffened shell structures and their efficient production. To respect the strong interdependency of…
Abstract
Purpose
A novel development process aims at finding solutions for lightweight stiffened shell structures and their efficient production. To respect the strong interdependency of structural design and production planning, particularly observed for composite structures, it is of high interest to start considering production effects in early development phases. This integrated approach requires an integrated representation of structure and production. The purpose of this study is to investigate the scope of relevant data and to find a structure for its representation.
Design/methodology/approach
The development task is analyzed and a system of so-called solution dimensions is presented, which covers all important aspects of stiffened shell structures and their production. An integrated product data model is developed to cover all of the solution dimensions.
Findings
The product data model consists of five coherent partial models. It is explained how these models are defined and how they are connected to each other. An academic example of an aircraft fuselage panel is used to demonstrate the definition process. It is shown how even complex structural concepts are defined systematically.
Practical implications
It is explained how this integrated product data model is used in a software project for the development of aircraft fuselage structures.
Originality/value
The presented approach for the definition and representation of stiffened shell structures enables the developer, e.g. of aircraft fuselage, to respect the crucial criterion of manufacturability from early development phases on. Further, new design approaches, e.g. as inspired by topology optimization, can be considered.
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Enterprise integration is considered to be of great strategic significance in the support of organisations to achieve a competitive advantage. Traditional approaches to…
Abstract
Enterprise integration is considered to be of great strategic significance in the support of organisations to achieve a competitive advantage. Traditional approaches to integration such as electronic data interchange (EDI) have provided a wide range of benefits but have not managed to fully automate and integrate business processes and applications. In addressing many of the limitations of EDI to piece together disparate systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions introduced an alternative approach to integration. Although ERP systems overcome significant integration problems, they have failed to adequately support intra and inter‐organisational integration. There has been a great demand by organisations to overcome integration problems and become more competitive. In this respect, enterprise application integration (EAI) has emerged to address intra and inter‐organisational integration in a more flexible and maintainable way. The normative literature remains limited regarding this emerging area and there is consequently a need for further research and contribution in identifying influential factors for EAI adoption. In addressing this relative void in the literature, this paper proposes a model for the justification and evaluation of EAI adoptions. The proposed model can be used by organisations as a tool for decision making when considering the adoption of EAI.
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Vahid Hajipour, Hamidreza Amouzegar and Sajjad Jalali
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) offers a streamlined system architecture to feed businesses with beneficial information in the current intense global competition. The primary…
Abstract
Purpose
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) offers a streamlined system architecture to feed businesses with beneficial information in the current intense global competition. The primary concern of ERP is how to integrate different functional units to facilitate a unified flow of information. This paper aims at providing a non-trivial practice of integrating the quality control (QC) system into the core ERP processes of a real large-scaled case study.
Design/methodology/approach
To satisfy the purpose of the current study, a large-scale steel making holding, inclusive of 27 business units being dispersed over a wide area, has been targeted. In our research methodology, a sample of four business units is selected as the pilot cases to be investigated at first. The output results of such investigations are further extended to the other units. In light of the investigation, the existing QC working conditions of the pilot cases are assessed through the As-Is model. The To-Be models are derived based on the best practices and the integration scope is then bordered.
Findings
The findings show that the integrated QC solution has enabled the following features: the smooth interconnection between QC and other functional units like purchase and manufacturing, the ease of generating real-time performance report of QC unit, the sack of tracing the quality of any available item in the system and the root-cause of defects, and the straightforwardness of the qualitative assessment of the suppliers.
Research limitations/implications
There is almost no similar practice for designing a large-sized integrated system from scratch in the target region associated with our case study while the off-the-shelf products are prohibitively expensive.
Practical implications
This paper includes implications for providing a standard practice on integrating a substantial module of ERP down to the smallest detail.
Originality/value
The value of the current paper is associated with fulfilling a critical research gap in the context of studying the QC integration into an enterprise solution. In fact, despite the importance of the QC module and its plethora of interconnection with other functional units, the literature review shows a centric lack of considering such integration in a real case study, particularly the large-scale one. Further, this paper works as a valuable study in the literature owing to not only focusing on the design and development of an integrated QC solution but also considering the deployment facet of such a practice.
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Amir Khiabani, Alireza Rashidi Komijan, Vahidreza Ghezavati and Hadi Mohammadi Bidhandi
Airline scheduling is an extremely complex process. Moreover, disruption in a single flight may damage the entire schedule tremendously. Using an efficient recovery scheduling…
Abstract
Purpose
Airline scheduling is an extremely complex process. Moreover, disruption in a single flight may damage the entire schedule tremendously. Using an efficient recovery scheduling strategy is vital for a commercial airline. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated aircraft and crew recovery plans to reduce delay and prevent delay propagation on airline schedule with the minimum cost.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed to formulate an integrated aircraft and crew recovery problem. The main contribution of the model is that recovery model is formulated based on individual flight legs instead of strings. This leads to a more accurate schedule and better solution. Also, some important issues such as crew swapping, reassignment of aircraft to other flights as well as ground and sit time requirements are considered in the model. Benders’ decomposition approach is used to solve the proposed model.
Findings
The model performance is also tested by a case including 227 flights, 64 crew, 56 aircraft and 40 different airports from American Airlines data for a 24-h horizon. The solution achieved the minimum cost value in 35 min. The results show that the model has a great performance to recover the entire schedule when disruption happens for random flights and propagation delay is successfully limited.
Originality/value
The authors confirm that this is an original paper and has not been published or under consideration in any other journal.
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Wojciech Jerzy Miksa and Tomasz Goetzendorf-Grabowski
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of solving an integrated flight scheduling, fleet assignment and crew pairing problem for an on-demand service using a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of solving an integrated flight scheduling, fleet assignment and crew pairing problem for an on-demand service using a small, up to 19-seater, aircraft.
Design/methodology/approach
Evolutionary algorithm is developed to solve the problem. Algorithm design assumes indirect solution representation that allows to evaluate partially feasible solutions only and speed up calculations. Tested algorithm implementation takes advantage of the graphic processing unit.
Findings
Performed tests confirm that the algorithm can successfully solve the defined integrated scheduling problem.
Practical implications
The presented algorithm allows to optimise on-demand transport service operation within minutes.
Social implications
Optimisation of operation cost contributes to better accessibility of transport.
Originality/value
The presented integrated formulation allows to avoid sub optimal solutions that are results of solving sequential sub problems. Indirect representation and evaluation strategy can be applied to speed up calculations in other problems as well.
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Tajinder Pal Singh Toor and Teena Dhir
The purpose of this paper is to highlight benefits of integrated business planning, forecasting, and process management. The paper focuses on need of advanced business…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight benefits of integrated business planning, forecasting, and process management. The paper focuses on need of advanced business intelligence and the crucial role of integrated business planning, forecasting, and process management. Various case studies are used to highlight benefits.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper focuses on need of advanced business intelligence and the crucial role of integrated business planning, forecasting, and process management. Various case studies are used to highlight benefits.
Findings
Benefits of integrated business planning, forecasting, and process management. Case studies are used to highlight benefits.
Practical implications
Benefits of integrated business planning, forecasting, and process management.
Originality/value
The value of the paper is that there is very little published writing on benefits of integrated business planning, forecasting, and process management stressed upon by the use of case studies.
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Yang Zou, Arto Kiviniemi and Stephen W. Jones
The purpose of this paper is to address the current theoretical gap in integrating knowledge and experience into Building Information Model (BIM) for risk management of bridge…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the current theoretical gap in integrating knowledge and experience into Building Information Model (BIM) for risk management of bridge projects by developing a tailored Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) and formalising an active link between the resulting RBS and BIM.
Design/methodology/approach
A three-step approach is used in this study to develop a tailored RBS for bridge projects and a conceptual model for the linkage between the RBS and BIM. First, the integrated bridge information model is in concept separated into four levels of contents (LOCs) and six technical systems based on analysis of the Industry Foundation Classes specification, a critical review of previous studies and authors’ project experience. The second step develops a knowledge-based risk database through an extensive collection of risk data, a process of data mining, and further assessment and translation of data. A critical analysis is conducted in the last step to determine on which level the different risks should be allocated to bridge projects and to propose a conceptual model for linking the tailored RBS to the four LOCs and six technical systems of BIM.
Findings
The findings suggest that the traditional method and BIM can be merged as an integrated solution for risk management by establishing the linkage between RBS and BIM. This solution can take advantage of both the traditional method and BIM for managing risks. On the one hand, RBS enables risk information to be stored in a formal structure, used and communicated effectively. On the other hand, some features of BIM such as 3D visualisation and 4D construction scheduling can facilitate the risk identification, analysis, and communication at an early project stage.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation is that RBS is a qualitative technique and only plays a limited role in quantitative risk analysis. As a result, when implementing this proposed method, further techniques may be needed for assisting quantitative risk analysis, evaluation, and treatment. Another limitation is that the proposed method has not yet been implemented for validation in practice. Hence, recommendations for future research are to: improve the quantitative risk analysis and treatment capabilities of this proposed solution; develop computer tools to support the solution; integrate the linkage into a traditional workflow; and test this solution in some small and large projects for validation.
Practical implications
Through linking risk information to BIM, project participants could check and review the linked information for identifying potential risks and seeking possible mitigation measures, when project information is being transferred between different people or forwarded to the next phase.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the theoretical development for aligning traditional methods and BIM for risk management, by introducing a new conceptual model for linking RBS to BIM.
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Julie A. Pirsch, Stacy Landreth Grau and Michael Jay Polonsky
The aim of this paper is to outline key social marketing issues apparent in deceptive weight‐loss advertising, from the perspective of government policy‐makers, manufacturers, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to outline key social marketing issues apparent in deceptive weight‐loss advertising, from the perspective of government policy‐makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers. The purpose is to examine the complexity of one aspect of the obesity battle and provide a framework for coordinated and integrated social marketing initiatives from a multiple stakeholder perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The results of deceptive weight‐loss advertising are framed using the harm chain model, and the paper offers recommended solutions based on a framework of marketing, education and policy changes across the network of stakeholders.
Findings
This paper concludes that a resolution to the harm created by deceptive weight‐loss advertising can be achieved by the creation of a more holistic, system‐wide solution to this important health and policy issue. This networked approach must involve all aspects of harm in a multi‐stakeholder solution, including both upstream and downstream integration. Specific recommendations are made for policy‐makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers to achieve this goal.
Social implications
From a marketing perspective, analyzing the issue of deceptive weight‐loss advertising using the harm chain allows for the creation of a more holistic, system‐wide solution involving stakeholders in all aspects of harm for this important health and policy issue.
Originality/value
This research examines the problem of obesity and weight‐loss advertising from the unique perspective of the harm chain framework. The authors make unified recommendations for various stakeholders including industry, media, government and consumers, in order to direct integrated social marketing and consumer‐oriented strategies within this industry.
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