Search results

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

Since imprecision, vagueness and ambiguity are often innate in human semantics, a flexible and tolerant method is needed to decode the voice of customer (VoC), so that the essential customer requirements can be identified and duly addressed. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a well‐known methodology for projecting the customer requirements onto the relevant design and production requirements and actions plan. This paper proposes an intelligent approach which extends the applications of QFD beyond its conventional boundary. The fuzzy inference technique is adopted to accommodate the possible imprecision and vagueness during VoC interpretation. The resulting model maps the customer requirements onto the relevant product attributes, taking into consideration their relationships and correlation during the inference process. The sub‐conclusions drawn from the fuzzy inference process are aggregated and defuzzified to yield the crisp design targets which can be used to guide the downstream manufacturing planning and control activities.

This paper introduces a generic performance measurement methodology for identifying and dimensioning the user requirements of laboratory information systems with a view to evaluating and improving their overall user satisfaction. The dynamic Web‐based laboratory information system (known as IntraMEL) for the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratories (MEL) in the City University of Hong Kong is used as a case study for formulating, testing and implementing the methodology. The proposed model takes an analytical approach to assess the performance of an information system using psychometric concepts. Through the experience gained from applying the methodology on IntraMEL, a set of performance evaluation guidelines can be established. These evaluation guidelines will be applicable to the information systems in other laboratories and service centres.

This paper aims to develop a genetic algorithm (GA)‐based process knowledge integration system (GA‐PKIS) for generalizing a set of nearly optimal fuzzy rules in quality enhancement based on the extracted fuzzy association rules in a supply chain network.

The proposed methodology provides all levels of employees with the ability to formulate nearly optimal sets of fuzzy rules to identify possible solutions for eliminating the number of defect items.

The application of the proposed methodology in the slider manufacturer has been studied. After performing the spatial analysis, the results obtained indicate that it is capable of ensuring the finished products with promising quality.

In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, only some processes within the supply chain are chosen. Future studies can advance this research by applying the proposed approach in different industries and processes.

Because of the complexity of the logistics operations along the supply chain, the traditional quality improvement approaches cannot address all the quality problems automatically and effectively. This newly developed GA‐based approach can help to optimize the process parameters along the supply chain network.

Purpose: Technological innovations and frameworks that provide a framework for unification have evolved to improve information exchange across organisational units and information security. These integration technologies share and communicate information using defined protocols and different data. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a significant emerging approach that enables modular design solution construction.

Methodology: These designs are beneficial when many apps operating on different architectures and networks need to connect. A well-defined strategy and company-specific guidelines are essential for ensuring the firm’s systematic adoption of such an architecture. The critical components of MASSOASCM ‘(Multi-Agent System Service Oriented Architecture Supply Chain Management’ are a multi-agent system (MAS), a service-oriented structure, and supplier management. The MASSOASCM model has been made, and a production unit has been made to show how it works.

Findings: It has been stated that it saves development costs, and inventory management, all of which are critical concerns in any company. Our goal is to create an inventory control approach that relies on MAS and SOA but also a simulation that demonstrates how it works and may enhance Supply Chain Management (SCM) productivity in a production plant.

Practical Implications: The SCM implementation comprises three different services: SCM, SOA, and MAS. These facilities are constructed, maintained, planned, and implemented individually before being brought together collectively using MAS and SOA techniques.

It is not uncommon that a multi‐branch firm has all its branches maintaining the same group of machines from a maintenance department. Clearly there are potential opportunities to reduce costs by coordinating the joint maintenance among the branches. The purpose of this paper is to optimally coordinate the maintenance schedule of machines of multi‐branch firms to save the maintenance cost incurred.

A search algorithm is proposed that proceeds the searching through the junction points within the lower and upper bounds of the search range. An example is given to illustrate the method.

The optimality structure of this problem is explored and it is asserted that the optimal cost is piece‐wise convex. Based on theoretical results, an effective search algorithm is derived that can efficiently determine the maintenance frequencies for a family of machines of multi‐branch firm.

A well‐planned maintenance schedule can not only bring down the cost but also raise the utilization rate of a family of machines. Numerical results show that the whole maintenance system can obtain significant cost savings from the coordination policy.

In response to branches adopting coordinated maintenances, the maintenance manager providing the maintenances to the branches faces a scheduling problem of how to minimize its total costs. This is an area that has received little attention in the literature. By utilizing the theoretical results, an efficient search algorithm that solves the optimal solution for this problem is proposed.

The author aims to review the fundamental concept of quality function deployment and to discuss the facts that the road to success for new product development is the identification of customers' requirements and their conversion into engineering design requirements. Thereafter, the author seeks to present an in‐depth review of the subject and to study five new cases on the topic of quality function deployment.

The paper discusses the key elements of quality function deployment and the fact that the vision for the development of a comprehensive quality system can be built on the principles of quality function deployment taking customer requirements into consideration and relating them to design requirements.

To make the product development task successful and bring competitive advantages to the core business, management must be committed to the needs of customers through marketing surveys and implementing these in the process of product development by converting them into engineering design requirements.

This article reviews quality function deployment and its extensions such as fuzzy QFD, AHP and QFD, statistically extended QFD, dynamic QFD, and other extensions. In addition, cases covering the topics of a ship of quality, cost‐design parameter modeling, an enhanced version of quality function development, financial factors and uncertainties in the product design process with fuzzy formulation, and a model for prioritizing and designing rule changes for the game of soccer, are also reviewed.

Analyses the environment and characteristics of an advanced manufacturing system (AMS). It is an open system with a multi‐layer structure and a self‐organizing ability capable of responding to a continuous changing and unpredictable environment in this information age. Based on the analysis, summarizes the requirements of decision processes in a typical AMS, and presents a framework of a decision‐support system (DSS) in an advanced manufacturing enterprise. Outlines the conceptual modelling of the system, explains the work carried out by an inter‐disciplinary team composed of researchers from the 863/CIMS/I‐MADIS, a national hi‐tech R&D programme in China and a joint research programme in computer integrated manufacturing management between the City University of Hong Kong and Tsinghua University, Beijing. 863/CIMS is one of the subject themes under the auspices of automation technology of the National High Technology Research and Development Programme of China launched by the government in March 1986.

Recognizing the fundamental role of quality as a means to differentiate service organizations, the purpose of this paper is to propose a strategic decision making framework for service organizations, which prioritizes performance improvement strategies that are rooted to customer requirements, organizational goals and constrained by organizational resources.

The proposed framework is realized through the implementation of two stages and four distinct phases mirroring the combination of enhanced quality function deployment (first stage), and zero-one goal programming (second stage). It proposes the utilization of a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, and the collection of data from multiple sources including customers, middle, and top management.

The application and validation of the proposed framework utilizes information from both customers and employees in the bank services sector. Overall, results from the specific study revealed that a combination of “reengineering” and “expansion” strategies was more appropriate corresponding to customer priorities, organizational goals and effective utilization of available resources.

The paper presents a novel two stage strategic framework for service organizations. It utilizes a balanced mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods in an effort to capture and delineate elusive customer requirements and design characteristics of services, allowing the assessment of different combinations of quality improvement strategies in response to management objectives.

The paper aims to review the fundamental concept of quality function deployment (QFD) and discusses the fact that a road to success for a new product development is the identification of customers' requirements and their conversion into engineering design requirements. Thereafter, it seeks to review the subject and to study four new cases on the topic of QFD.

The paper discusses key elements of QFD and the fact that the vision for the development of a comprehensive quality system can be built upon the principles of QFD taking customer requirements into consideration and relating that to the design requirements.

To make product development task successful and bringing competitive advantages to the core business, management must be committed to the needs of the customers through marketing surveys and implementing that into the process of product development by converting them into engineering design requirements.

The method has been used successfully in practice in areas such as: facility locations, marketing strategies, robot selection, ERP selection, software development, and sports.

The paper reviews QFDs, and its extensions such as fuzzy QFD, analytic hierarchy process, analytic network process and QFD, statistically extended QFD, dynamic QFD, and other extensions of that. In addition to that, cases covering topics of: ship of quality, cost‐design parameter modeling, enhanced version of the quality function development, financial factors and uncertainties in the product design process with fuzzy formulation, and a model for prioritizing and designing rule changes for the game of soccer, are also reviewed.