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The aim of this study is to provide a holistic analysis of all possible maritime business logistics processes related to import and export shipments in a fuzzy environment through a case study of a maritime logistics company based on the as-is and to-be models within business process management (BPM).

The analyses considered the following perspectives: (i) in the stage of the process identification, the definition of the problem was carried out; (ii) in the stage of the process discovery, ocean department was divided into ocean export/import operation departments; ocean export/import operation were divided into freight collect/prepaid operation processes; ocean export/import logistics activity groups were broken down into sub-activities for freight collect/prepaid operation; the logistics activity groups and their sub-activities were defined; each sub-activity as either operation or documentation process group was classified; the durations of sub-activities were evaluated by decision-makers (DMs) as fuzzy sets (FSs); the monthly total jobs activities were estimated by DMs as FSs; the applied to monthly jobs activities of total shipments were estimated by DMs as FSs; the durations of each sub-activities were aggregated; the duration of the logistics activity groups and the sub-activities for per job were calculated; the cumulative workload of logistics activity groups and sub-activities were calculated; the duration of sub-activities for per job as operation or documentation departments were calculated, (iii) in the stage of the process analysis, cumulative ocean export/import workload as operation or documentation for freight collect/prepaid were calculated; duration of activity groups and sub-activities for per job as operation or documentation were calculated; cumulative workload activity groups and sub-activities as operation or documentation were calculated, (iv) in the stage of the process redesign, cumulative workload, process cycle time as operation and documentation group and required labor force were calculated; the process cycle time of the theoretical, the as-is model and the to-be model were calculated: (i) the theoretical minimum process cycle time without resource were calculated by the critical path method (CPM), (ii) the process cycle time of the as-is model perspective with the 1 person resource constraint and (iii) the process cycle time of the to-be model perspective with the 2-person resource constraint were calculated by the resource constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) method.

The methodology for analyzing the ocean department operation process was successfully implemented in a real-life case study. It is observed that the results of the to-be model can be applicable for the company. The BPM-proposed methodology is applicable for the maritime logistics industry in the present study; however, it can be applied to other companies in maritime logistics as well as other industries.

This study contributes to research using BPM methodology in maritime logistics. This is the first study the logistics process analyses were carried out in terms of including all operation processes for a company. All processes were analyzed by using BPM methodology in maritime logistics. This study demonstrated the application of the BPM as-is and to-be models to maritime logistics. The as-is and the to-be models of the BPM methodology were applied in maritime logistics.

This methodology applied in this study can enable organizations operating in the time-urgent maritime logistics sector to manage their logistics processes more efficiently, increase customer satisfaction, reduce the risks of customer loss due to poor operational performance and increase profits in the long term. Through the use of these methodologies utilizing FSs, the CPM and the RCPSP methods, this study is expected to make contributions to the BPM literature and provide original insights into the field. Furthermore, this study will undertake a comprehensive analysis of maritime logistics with respect to BPM to deliver noteworthy contributions to the maritime logistics literature and provide original perspectives into the field.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the performance of maintenance in a solar power plant by implementing the proactive maintenance (PaM) strategy, measured by the availability and the total maintenance workload.

The prior maintenance strategy was reviewed, and then the strategy was adjusted to focus on PaM. Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) was a tool for analyzing the severity and occurrence of the failure modes and effects. Then, the Why‒Why analysis was used for investigating the root causes of failures. The countermeasures were drawn, and the preventive maintenance (PM) plan was revised and carried out. The total maintenance, the PaM and reactive maintenance workload, was obtained, and then the improvements were determined. The values of availability were also obtained.

Previously, the appeared maintenance strategy was not clearly defined. It seemed to have reactive maintenance coupled with PM; it was checked once a year, and corrective actions were made when something wrong was found. Then the management team observed an increase in the reactive maintenance workload, whereas the values of availability were not consistent and tended to drop. After implementing the new maintenance strategy, PaM, the total maintenance workload decreased 14 percent in one year. The average availability of the solar power plant improved from 0.9943 to 0.9969, and the values of availability had better consistency.

The PaM can be applied to solar power plant without limiting the prior maintenance strategy and the complexity of production or machinery. The solar power plant is a quite simple production, and most machines consist of electrical equipment and electrical circuits. The PaM supports to analyze the failure modes, the consequence of the failure events and failure effects, and to decide what should be done. Importantly, PaM can reduce total maintenance workload while the value of availability is higher and consistent.

This paper states how to successfully implement the PaM for the solar power plant. Previously, the plant did not have a clearly defined maintenance strategy; it was checked once a year, and it was corrected when abnormalities were detected. The PaM strategy provides tools and processes for failures and effects analysis. Although there was a more workload of PM, the total maintenance workload decreased, even in the first year.

This study developed new measures of the routine and non-routine task contents of managerial, professional, technical, and clerical occupations from a workload perspective. Here, we present a comparative analysis of the workload structures of state and industrial sector employees.

Our method involves detailed descriptions of work processes and an element-wise time study. We collected and analysed data to obtain a workload structure that falls within three conceptual task categories: (i) non-routine analytic tasks, (ii) non-routine interactive tasks and (iii) routine cognitive tasks. A total of 2,312 state and industrial sector employees in Kazakhstan participated in the study. The data were collected using a proprietary web application that resembles a timesheet.

The study results are consistent with the general trend reported by previous studies: the higher the job level, the lower the occupation’s routine task content. In addition, the routine cognitive task contents of managerial, professional, technical, and clerical occupations in the industrial sector are higher than those in local governments. The work of women is also more routinary than that of men. Finally, vthe routine cognitive task contents of occupations in administrative units are higher than those of occupations in substantive units.

Our study sought to address the challenges of using the task-based approach associated with measuring tasks by introducing a new measurement framework. The main advantage of our task measures is a direct approach to assessing workloads consisting of routine tasks, which allows for an accurate estimation of potential staff reductions due to the automation of work processes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the workload and shared workload awareness in a staff performing command and control (C2) work during a planned major incident (MI) empirical case in Sweden.

Data on workload and shared awareness were collected during live C2-work using qualitative observations and in-situ interviews mixed with quantitative questionnaires.

A content analysis of the qualitative data revealed categories of workload sources. Quantified workload estimates showed changes in workload levels over time and staff roles, which were also contextualized using the results of the qualitative data. Data on shared awareness indicated that team workload awareness shifted over time according to common patterns. This study demonstrates a promising methodology to study C2-related factors during live EMS work.

The observed variations in workload imply that research that relies only on post-task measurements of workload may be inaccurate. Future research could use this method to investigate the connection between workload and performance during different types of MIs.

The results can be used to inform future Göteborgsvarvet C2-teams in terms of when, why, and for whom task load changes, which would support predictive allocation of resources.

Workload is a critical concept in the evaluation of performance and quality in healthcare systems, but its definition relies on the perspective (e.g. individual clinician-level vs unit-level workload) and type of available metrics (e.g. objective vs subjective measures). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of objective measures of workload associated with direct care delivery in tertiary healthcare settings, with a focus on measures that can be obtained from electronic records to inform operationalization of workload measurement.

Relevant papers published between January 2008 and July 2018 were identified through a search in Pubmed and Compendex databases using the Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research Type framework. Identified measures were classified into four levels of workload: task, patient, clinician and unit.

Of 30 papers reviewed, 9 used task-level metrics, 14 used patient-level metrics, 7 used clinician-level metrics and 20 used unit-level metrics. Key objective measures of workload include: patient turnover (n=9), volume of patients (n=6), acuity (n=6), nurse-to-patient ratios (n=5) and direct care time (n=5). Several methods for operationalization of these metrics into measurement tools were identified.

This review highlights the key objective workload measures available in electronic records that can be utilized to develop an operational approach for quantifying workload. Insights gained from this review can inform the design of processes to track workload and mitigate the effects of increased workload on patient outcomes and clinician performance.

Over the past few years, mathematical and computational models of organizations have attracted a great deal of interest in various fields of scientific research (see Lin & Carley, 1993 for review). The mathematical models have focused on the problem of quantifying the structural (mis)match between organizations and their tasks. The notion of structural congruence has been generalized from the problem of optimizing distributed decision-making in structured decision networks (Pete, Pattipati, Levchuk, & Kleinman, 1998) to the multi-objective optimization problem of designing optimal organizational structures to complete a mission, while minimizing a set of criteria (Levchuk, Pattipati, Curry, & Shakeri, 1996, 1997, 1998). As computational models of decision-making in organizations began to emerge (see Carley & Svoboda, 1996; Carley, 1998; Vincke, 1992), the study of social networks (SSN) continued to focus on examining a network structure and its impact on individual, group, and organizational behavior (Wellman & Berkowitz, 1988). Most models, developed under the SSN, combined formal and informal structures when representing organizations as architectures (e.g., see Levitt et al., 1994; Carley & Svoboda, 1996). In addition, a large number of measures of structure and of the individual positions within the structure have been developed (Roberts, 1979; Scott, 1981; Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Wellman, 1991).

In situations where the crew is reduced, the optimization of crew task allocation and sequencing (CTAS) can significantly enhance the operational efficiency of the man-machine system by rationally distributing workload and minimizing task completion time. Existing related studies exhibit a limited consideration of workload distribution and involve the violation of precedence constraints in the solution process. This study proposes a CTAS method to address these issues.

The method defines visual, auditory, cognitive and psychomotor (VACP) load balancing objectives and integrates them with workload balancing and minimum task completion time to ensure equitable workload distribution and task execution efficiency, and then a multi-objective optimization model for CTAS is constructed. Subsequently, it designs a population initialization strategy and a repair mechanism to maintain sequence feasibility, and utilizes them to improve the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm III (NSGA-III) for solving the CTAS model.

The CTAS method is validated through a numerical example involving a mission with a specific type of armored vehicle. The results demonstrate that the method achieves equitable workload distribution by integrating VACP load balancing and workload balancing. Moreover, the improved NSGA-III maintains sequence feasibility and thus reduces computation time.

The study can achieve equitable workload distribution and enhance the search efficiency of the optimal CTAS scheme. It provides a novel perspective for task planners in objective determination and solution methodologies for CTAS.

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As a key component of a World Bank‐financed Administrative Reform Programme, the Government of Jamaica began a phased implementation of performance Budgeting in 1985–86. Under the leadership of the Finance Ministry's Budget Division. Just under 70 per cent of the Government's 50 appropriation units will have applied performance budgeting during the 1988/89 financial year. The remaining units are scheduled for conversion in 1989–90. Expressing the Government's determination to establish productivity‐oriented managerial environments throughout its administrative service, 1,000 front line supervisors have been assigned the basic responsibility for the formulation and execution of performance budgets. These “cost centre managers”, most of whom had no responsibility for budgeting in the traditional system, are going through a management skills development programme, embracing classroom instruction, practice and on‐the‐job technical assistance. Significant institutional changes are also involved including: (1) the reorientation of the Budget Division, (2) the development of Ministry budget functions, (3) the reorganisation of accounting practices to provide required support for performance budgeting, (4) the development of management services support for cost centre managers and, (5) the establishment of productivity‐oriented training programmes.

The volumes of international containerized trade substantially increased over the past years. In the meantime, marine container terminal (MCT) operators are facing congestion issues at their terminals because of the increasing number of large-size vessels, the lack of innovative technologies and advanced handling equipment and the inability of proper scheduling of the available resources. This study aims to propose a novel memetic algorithm with a deterministic parameter control to facilitate the berth scheduling at MCTs and minimize the total vessel service cost.

A local search heuristic, which is based on the first-come-first-served policy, is applied at the chromosomes and population initialization stage within the developed memetic algorithm (MA). The deterministic parameter control strategy is implemented for a custom mutation operator, which alters the mutation rate values based on the piecewise function throughout the evolution of the algorithm. Performance of the proposed MA is compared with that of the alternative solution algorithms widely used in the berth scheduling literature, including a MA that does not apply the deterministic parameter control strategy, typical evolutionary algorithm, simulated annealing and variable neighborhood search.

Results demonstrate that the developed MA with a deterministic parameter control can obtain superior berth schedules in terms of the total vessel service cost within a reasonable computational time. Furthermore, greater cost savings are observed for the cases with high demand and low berthing capacity at the terminal. A comprehensive analysis of the convergence patterns indicates that introduction of the custom mutation operator with a deterministic control for the mutation rate value would provide more efficient exploration and exploitation of the search space.

This study does not account for uncertainty in vessel arrivals. Furthermore, potential changes in the vessel handling times owing to terminal disruptions are not captured.

The developed solution algorithm can serve as an efficient planning tool for MCT operators and assist with efficient berth scheduling for both discrete and continuous berthing layout cases.

The majority of studies on berth scheduling rely on the stochastic search algorithms without considering the specific problem properties and applying the guided search heuristics. Unlike canonical evolutionary algorithms, the developed algorithm uses a local search heuristic for the chromosomes and population initialization and adjusts the mutation rate values based on a deterministic parameter control strategy for more efficient exploration and exploitation of the search space.