Search results

The primary purpose of this study is to illustrate a practical approach for industrial work process design that, in an integrative manner, captures essential concerns from different parties associated with manufacturing. It aims explicitly to incorporate utility expectation from the perspectives of operational managers, floor workers, and financial planners into the decision making process.

Through a real industrial scenario, the case study illustrates the use of a Bayesian belief network (BBN)‐based expert system and influence diagram in work process design. What‐if analysis is performed. Statistical tests are then used to benchmark and validate the experimental results and actual data.

The results suggest that the proposed BBN framework is effective in modeling and solving the work design problem. The findings can draw meaningful insights into the adoption and capacity of BBN in the fields of ergonomics, worker health management, and performance improvement.

Practically, the industrial problem is to compare the new stand‐up sewing cells against the traditional sit‐down sewing layout while taking into consideration of ergonomic effect (repetitive motion injury (RMI) likelihood), floor space (SF), yield (%), and cost ($). The study illustrates the use of an expert system and influence diagram to evaluate different alternatives for ergonomic work design in production process.

The results of this study can potentially improve health safety management and worker ergonomics.

The paper is among the few systematic studies that have applied BBN and influence diagram to production ergonomics and worker health management. A methodological framework utilizing these probabilistic reasoning techniques are developed. This new framework can capture essential concerns from different parties in manufacturing.

Presents, from a systemic perspective, an examination and discussion of performance measurement, performance indicators and associated improvement initiatives, as typically applied in public sector organisations. Such mechanisms are usually implemented as a causal loop which is established between perceived performance and resulting actions, thereby constituting a form of feedback control. Within this context a two‐dimensional matrix model is postulated in which the independent dimensions are the source of control and the nature of the resultant control‐action. The paper examines the implications revealed by this model within the context of performance management and system dynamics. The potential role of influence diagrams and dynamic simulation models is thereby introduced as a potential means of unravelling the complex behaviour which can often arise in the presence of such interactive cause‐effect loops. A number of typical examples, drawn from within the public sector, are invoked to illustrate the discussion.

An extensive search has shown that no business process reengineering (BPR) method specifically addresses the issue of selecting business processes for reengineering based on the processes’ impact on the firm’s strategic objectives. Focusing on strategic business units (SBUs) within the electronics and electrical components industry, the research reported in this paper develops a generic set of SBU business processes which is used, in conjunction with an existing set of generic strategic objectives, to create a decision model that assesses the performance and improvement potential of each business process with respect to the SBU’s collective strategic objectives. The decision model, which contains both deterministic and stochastic elements, is based upon the concepts of decision tree analysis and influence diagramming. Validation of both the set of business processes and the decision support system has been conducted through field studies at electronics and electrical components companies. The results from these studies have been very promising.

This paper demonstrates the value of a systems approach in considering performance management at an operational level in the hospitality sector. Systems concepts and techniques are applied in a hospitality situation, a hotel, to describe and analyse influences between subsystems. An operations management analysis framework is then used to consider the design of operating systems with specific reference to performance measures which drive, and perhaps support an organization’s competitive stance based on competitive factors. The paper promotes the importance of having meaningful and appropriate performance measures, related to service delivery system design, which create perception of organizational service quality.

This paper aims to identify how companies implemented shared value strategies to reconcile profitability and social-environmental welfare and explain through an interactive methodology the main elements and their relationships that compose a shared value creation system.

The authors use the interactive qualitative analysis (IQA) method to conduct a qualitative study in the sustainability field of investigation. Participants are both data sources and analysts which brings a different perspective to data analysis. Results emerged from the interaction between the researchers and the participants. The method mixes qualitative and quantitative protocols to bring robustness to the research.

Relevant findings are (1) a shared value creation system is composed of nine elements which are business results, social-environmental results, ecosystem, impact, materiality matrix, profitability, purpose-driven leadership, social-environmental welfare and sustainable economic development; (2) the system's primary driver is purpose-driven leadership; (3) The use of renewable materials and the reduction in the use of natural resources in the value chain are the main criteria companies employed to meet business and societal objectives simultaneously; (4) the IQA method enabled the consolidation of a Shared Value Creation System Diagram which other scientists may use to replicate the study.

The research investigated a specific country context. Other researchers may use the shared value system diagram to replicate the study with companies in other countries.

Findings show that the knowledge about shared value creation system elements and their cause-effect relationships guides business leaders in developing strategic objectives to reconcile profitability and social-environmental welfare. This is essential knowledge, especially in a context in which companies are increasingly required to assume their social and environmental responsibilities. Besides, a management challenge in the stakeholder-oriented approach is still how strategies can be implemented.

The research design is innovative in using the IQA method in the sustainability field of investigation. The method procedures and protocols allowed for a deeper understanding of the subject, revealing its richness and its potential for replicability in other contexts.

In continuous improvement (CI) projects, cause-and-effect diagrams are used to qualitatively express the relationship between a given problem and its root causes. However, when data collection activities are limited, and advanced statistical analyses are not possible, practitioners need to understand causal relationships. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this research, the authors present a framework that combines cause-and-effect diagrams with Bayesian belief networks (BBNs) to estimate causal relationships in instances where formal data collection/analysis activities are too costly or impractical. Specifically, the authors use cause-and-effect diagrams to create causal networks, and leverage elicitation methods to estimate the likelihood of risk scenarios by means of computer-based simulation.

This framework enables CI practitioners to leverage qualitative data and expertise to conduct in-depth statistical analysis in the event that data collection activities cannot be fully executed. Furthermore, this allows CI practitioners to identify critical root causes of a given problem under investigation before generating solutions.

This is the first framework that translates qualitative insights from a cause-and-effect diagram into a closed-form relationship between inputs and outputs by means of BBN models, simulation and regression.

The paper seeks to give some reviews of quality function deployment and by using a systems thinking perspective to show how QFD can be a useful and profit‐making tool for business decision making in general.

In order to show that QFD is a tool that brings profit to the organization the paper has designed various loops using systems thinking perspectives and fundamentals theorems for discussion purposes and facts verification.

The task of successful product development must encompass the management commitment in giving value to the voice of the customer by using quality function deployment. This is because this quality function tool can make a significant contribution to business success through profit generation and competiveness enhancement.

This research helps the pros and cons of quality function deployment in getting a better understanding and usefulness of the QFD.

This paper helps management in getting a better understanding of the quality function deployment, its power of profit‐making and productivity enhancement and the role that systems thinking can have in better describing the problem to the middle and top management.

This study aims to investigate how Suzano implemented shared value (SV) strategies to reconcile profitability and social welfare by joining innovation and sustainability.

The authors use an exploratory, descriptive qualitative approach using the interactive qualitative analysis (IQA) method. IQA procedures and protocols were operationalized to get to Suzano's SV system. Primary data were collected through in-depth interviews. Content analyses were conducted with the support of Atlas.ti software.

The most relevant findings of this research are (1) Suzano developed a unique strategy to spread collaborative and innovation mindset throughout the organization called “innovability”; (2) Suzano's effort to understand local community's demands and a collaborative work raised the companies' profitability and enabled prosperity for the community; (3) the IQA procedures and protocols enabled the development of a Suzano's SV system, composed of nine elements and their relationships. They are purpose-driven leadership, materiality matrix, social welfare, profitability, ecosystem, business results, social results, impact and sustainable economic development, (4) purpose-driven leadership is the system's driver.

This study was limited to studying the implementation of the SV as a strategy to reconcile profitability and welfare. Despite the findings about the company's conflicts with local communities and the strategy with small family producers, other studies could evaluate the strategy of different stakeholders, such as the supply chain since Suzano is one of the leading companies of paper sales in Brazil.

By using IQA protocols and the nine elements of this study, other researchers may replicate it to investigate the adoption of SV strategies in other organizations. The SV system developed in this study may be used by business leaders to disseminate the SV policies and practices in their organization.

The company adopts the three forms of SV -reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain and developing clusters with the local community-as strategies for sustainable and collaborative management. Suzano was led to get involved with the problems and conflicts' root causes. By doing so, the company unlocked innovation as a driver to achieve sustainable and responsible management. For them, innovation is in service of sustainability, creating innovability. Both concepts are part of the whole organization culture and practice. Innovability is Suzano's essence, and SV strategies are the means to scale it.

The originality of the paper relies on the method and techniques used to gather and analyze primary data, in which the unit of analysis (Suzano's SV strategy) was considered a system. Major findings were validated with research participants. By using IQA protocols and the nine elements of this study, other researchers may replicate it to investigate the adoption of SV strategies in other organizations.

Brings together some of the empirical findings from a series of action research projects undertaken in a number of engineering companies. Systems concepts were employed with engineers to assist organisational change. The key driver for each programme of change was the implementation of a new company‐wide strategy for increasing competitive edge in the open market. In each instance, senior management recognised that, while their engineers possessed the “hard”, technical skills to fulfil such a strategy, they did not all possess the “soft”, people‐related skills to cope with the cultural aspects of the change. Systems concepts, such as rich pictures and metaphors, were used to generate new perspectives that would stimulate a more holistic approach to organisational change management.

The South African vocational education and training (VET) sector is required by legislation to redefine postsecondary education, advance industrialisation and expand the job market to address unemployment in the country. Yet, VET leaders' heterogenous educational and occupational backgrounds do not enable them to address the needs of the VET sector. Continuous professional development of leaders in the education sector needs to include support structures such as mentoring.

The present study sought to investigate how VET managers in South Africa perceive three different types of mentoring – individual, peer group and expert-based key performance area (KPA) mentoring – during a part-time professional leadership development programme. Using interactive qualitative analysis (IQA), the authors collected and analysed data from focus group discussions (n = 24) and individual interviews (n = 21) from two cohorts of the programme.

The results revealed that individual mentoring represented the most important driving mechanism, followed by peer group mentoring and expert-based KPA mentoring. Participants identified leadership as a prerequisite for their development. Emotions formed the final outcome of the mentoring framework.

Based on the findings, the authors suggest investigating the role played by leaders' interpersonal competences such as emotional competence in the workplace. Additionally, research needs to clarify if and how mentoring can support leaders to develop interpersonal competences in formal and informal settings.

The study offers empirical evidence on a three-pillar mentoring framework adopted in a professional development programme for leaders in VET in South Africa. It highlights the importance of individual, social and emotional factors.