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This paper aims to improve operational efficiency and minimize accident frequency in cold storage facilities through adopting an effective occupational safety and health program. The hidden knowledge can be extracted from the warehousing operations to create the comfortable and safe workplace environment.

A fuzzy association rule-based knowledge management system is developed by integrating fuzzy association rule mining (FARM) and rule-based expert system (RES). FARM is used to extract hidden knowledge from real operations to establish the relationship between safety measurement, personal constitution and key performance index measurement. The extracted knowledge is then stored and adopted in the RES to establish an effective occupational and safety program. Afterwards, a case study is conducted to validate the performance of the proposed system.

The results indicate that the aforementioned relationship can be built in the form of IF-THEN rules. An appropriate safety and health program can be developed and applied to all workers, so that they can follow instructions to prevent cold induced injuries and also improve the productivity.

Because of the increasing public consciousness of occupational safety and health, it is important for the workers in cold storage facilities where the ambient temperature is at/below 10°C. The proposed system can address the social problem and promote the importance of occupational safety and health in the society.

This study contributes to the knowledge management system for improving the occupational safety and operational efficiency in the cold storage facilities.

Since the handling of environmentally sensitive products requires close monitoring under prescribed conditions throughout the supply chain, it is essential to manage specific supply chain risks, i.e. maintaining good environmental conditions, and ensuring occupational safety in the cold environment. The purpose of this paper is to propose an Internet of Things (IoT)-based risk monitoring system (IoTRMS) for controlling product quality and occupational safety risks in cold chains. Real-time product monitoring and risk assessment in personal occupational safety can be then effectively established throughout the entire cold chain.

In the design of IoTRMS, there are three major components for risk monitoring in cold chains, namely: wireless sensor network; cloud database services; and fuzzy logic approach. The wireless sensor network is deployed to collect ambient environmental conditions automatically, and the collected information is then managed and applied to a product quality degradation model in the cloud database. The fuzzy logic approach is applied in evaluating the cold-associated occupational safety risk of the different cold chain parties considering specific personal health status. To examine the performance of the proposed system, a cold chain service provider is selected for conducting a comparative analysis before and after applying the IoTRMS.

The real-time environmental monitoring ensures that the products handled within the desired conditions, namely temperature, humidity and lighting intensity so that any violation of the handling requirements is visible among all cold chain parties. In addition, for cold warehouses and rooms in different cold chain facilities, the personal occupational safety risk assessment is established by considering the surrounding environment and the operators’ personal health status. The frequency of occupational safety risks occurring, including cold-related accidents and injuries, can be greatly reduced. In addition, worker satisfaction and operational efficiency are improved. Therefore, it provides a solid foundation for assessing and identifying product quality and occupational safety risks in cold chain activities.

The cold chain is developed for managing environmentally sensitive products in the right conditions. Most studies found that the risks in cold chain are related to the fluctuation of environmental conditions, resulting in poor product quality and negative influences on consumer health. In addition, there is a lack of occupational safety risk consideration for those who work in cold environments. Therefore, this paper proposes IoTRMS to contribute the area of risk monitoring by means of the IoT application and artificial intelligence techniques. The risk assessment and identification can be effectively established, resulting in secure product quality and appropriate occupational safety management.

Efficient manpower planning has been recognized as a critical aspect for the development of an economy. In 2001, the Works Bureau of the Hong Kong SAR Government (predecessor of Environment, Transport and Works Bureau) commissioned an HKPolyU consultancy team to develop a computer‐based model to estimate the demand for different categories of construction personnel. This article presents the concept and features of the manpower demand‐forecasting model developed for the construction industry of Hong Kong. The forecasting model is formulated on the basis of the labour multiplier approach by deriving the relationship between the number of workers required and the project expenditure in the given project duration. Multipliers for 61 project types were derived for 38 labour trades using completed project data. The labour demand by occupation for each project can then be estimated by multiplying the corresponding multipliers and the estimated project expenditure. Several unique features of the model have been developed, including “normalization” and “contract cost adjustment factor”. Normalizing the labour multipliers can facilitate the prediction of occupational labour requirements at different stages of a construction project. The adjustment factor is introduced to eliminate the discrepancy between the original estimates and final contract values so as to enhance the estimation accuracy. The model can also be used to predict the number of jobs created for a given level of investment. The government can apply this model to check and compare which project types will generate most jobs before committing public money. This model could be easily adopted and adapted by foreign construction authorities while planning manpower.

A corporation’s global supply chain usually consists of enterprises and manufacturers that are graphically dispersed around the world, whereby each company is involved in a wide variety of supply chain activities such as order fulfilment, international procurement, acquisition of information technology, manufacturing, and customer service. Therefore, continuously tracking performance of suppliers and an appropriate selection mechanism is one of the crucial activities in supply chain management. This paper presents an intelligent generic supplier management tool (GSMT) using the case‐based reasoning (CBR) technique for outsourcing to suppliers and automating the decision making process when selecting them. The development of GSMT and how the CBR technique is applied is then given, followed by an application of GSMT in Honeywell Consumer Products (Hong Kong) Limited.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an Internet of medical things (IoMT)-based geriatric care management system (I-GCMS), integrating IoMT and case-based reasoning (CBR) in order to deal with the global concerns of the increasing demand for elderly care service in nursing homes.

The I-GCMS is developed under the IoMT environment to collect real-time biometric data for total health monitoring. When the health of an elderly deteriorates, the CBR is used to revise and generate the customized care plan, and hence support and improve the geriatric care management (GCM) service in nursing homes.

A case study is conducted in a nursing home in Taiwan to evaluate the performance of the I-GCMS. Under the IoMT environment, the time saving in executing total health monitoring helps improve the daily operation effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, the proposed system helps leverage a proactive approach in modifying the content of a care plan in response to the change of health status of elderly.

Considering the needs for demanding and accurate healthcare services, this is the first time that IoMT and CBR technologies have been integrated in the field of GCM. This paper illustrates how to seamlessly connect various sensors to capture real-time biometric data to the I-GCMS platform for responsively supporting decision making in the care plan modification processes. With the aid of I-GCMS, the efficiency in executing the daily routine processes and the quality of healthcare services can be improved.

Many companies that were once centrally involved in the actual manufacture of products, and the delivery of their supporting services, now find themselves primarily engaged in integrating a number of other organizations, some of which they may own but many of which will be independent, each of which goes to make up a particular supply network. Consequently, continuously tracking performance of suppliers and an appropriate selection mechanism is one of the crucial activities in managing this supply network. This paper presents an intelligent generic supplier management tool (GSMT) using the case‐based reasoning (CBR) technique for outsourcing to suppliers and automating the decision‐making process when selecting them. The development of GSMT and how the CBR technique is applied is then given, followed by an application of GSMT in Honeywell Consumer Products (Hong Kong) Limited.

Nowadays businesses tend to compete with rivals by improving capability to meet customer demands. One of the key to improve logistics efficiency of a firm is to select appropriate supplier. In the past, to select the most suitable supplier, most people evaluated performance by using average performance or variance from historical data but did not mentioned skewness. In other words, skewness impact on supplier performance is ignored by researchers and buyers. In fact, supplier with greatest average performance does not confirm to be the most suitable one because of uncertainties which make its performance skew either to the left or right, i.e., lower or higher than expectation. Therefore, this empirical study aims to discover and determine the important role of skewness on supplier selection problem. After identifying influential criteria on supplier selection, we analyze skewness effect on suppliers’ performance in each criterion by surveying real data of suppliers’ performances. Skewness effect can be rated in 3 levels; no effect, moderately effect, and highly effect. The results show that, there is only one criterion with no skewness effect, which is price. Criteria which have high skewed performance, for both of medium-sized and large-sized buyers, are lead time, product quality and reliability, and on-time delivery. Also, skewness has higher effect on suppliers’ performance of medium-sized buyers than large-sized buyers. The conclusion surprisingly shows that, skewness is the best index to distinguish between good and bad suppliers, while mean is the worst index.

Demand forecast methodologies have been studied extensively to improve operations in e-commerce. However, every forecast inevitably contains errors, and this may result in a disproportionate impact on operations, particularly in the dynamic nature of fulfilling orders in e-commerce. This paper aims to quantify the impact that forecast error in order demand has on order picking, the most costly and complex operations in e-order fulfilment, in order to enhance the application of the demand forecast in an e-fulfilment centre.

The paper presents a Gaussian regression based mathematical method that translates the error of forecast accuracy in order demand to the performance fluctuations in e-order fulfilment. In addition, the impact under distinct order picking methodologies, namely order batching and wave picking. As described.

A structured model is developed to evaluate the impact of demand forecast error in order picking performance. The findings in terms of global results and local distribution have important implications for organizational decision-making in both long-term strategic planning and short-term daily workforce planning.

Earlier research examined demand forecasting methodologies in warehouse operations. And order picking and examining the impact of error in demand forecasting on order picking operations has been identified as a research gap. This paper contributes to closing this research gap by presenting a mathematical model that quantifies impact of demand forecast error into fluctuations in order picking performance.

Supplier selection for defence procurement is a crucial function of a Ministry of Defence. The Ministry spends huge amounts of money each year to procure a vast array of equipment, goods and services. The ongoing financial crisis demands less subjective and more cost-saving methods for selecting a supplier. The approach advocated in this article integrates Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Goal Programming (GP) in order to combine conflicting criteria to select the best suppliers and allocate optimum order quantities among them. This paper presents a model close to real-world situations. Findings demonstrate that cost savings is a feasible result along with a viable combination of conflicting criteria in the suppliers' selection area.

In this paper, a server‐based enterprise collaborative management system using enterprise application integration technology is developed for trial implementation at Honeywell Consumer Products (Hong Kong) Limited, in the area of supplier relationship management. The system facilitates supplier selection using an integrative case‐based supplier selection and help desk approach to select the most appropriate suppliers, based on their past performance records from a case‐based warehouse. Discusses a case study to integrate Honeywell's supplier rating system and product coding system by case‐based reasoning technique to select preferred suppliers during the new product development process. Finds that the outsource cycle time from the searching of potential suppliers to the allocation of orders is greatly reduced while performance of suppliers can be monitored simultaneously.