Public Enterprise Reform in Fiji Islands

Reforming the public sector has been on the agenda of nations throughout the world since the late 1970s. Fiji is no exception. It has embarked on reforming its commercial and industrial enterprises since the late 1980s. The government of Fiji has reformed most of its enterprises with an avowed objective of enhancing profitability, productivity, efficiency and accountability. This paper makes an attempt to share some of the experiences of public enterprise reform process in Fiji. It aims to analyze the background, process, contents and impact of the reform and examine the factors impeding the reform program. It highlights that (a) both internal and external factors were responsible for introducing reforms; (b) the reform efforts have not been able to produce desired results; (c) the structural inadequacies in institutions and organizations have created bottlenecks in the reform process; and (d) uncertainty in the political sphere has contributed further to policy shifts.     

A comparative study of some priority dispatching rules under different shop loads

Priority dispatching rules and shop load affect job-shop performance. This paper evaluates ten different priority dispatching rules with respect to six different performance criteria under light, medium and heavy shop loads. Simulation was used as a tool to determine the rankings of the dispatching rules for a given shop load and performance criteria. A comparative study was conducted to investigate the performance of these rules. Two rules, ‘shortest processing time” and ‘least work remaining’, performed well under criteria related to the processing time. It was found that the rules that perform well in average and r.m.s. tardiness perform poorly under percentage-of-jobs-late criterion. The experimental results are conveyed with critical comments on the performance of the dispatching rules under different loading conditions of the shop.     

Evaluation of a class-based storage scheduling technique applied to dual-shuttle automated storage and retrieval systems

Research to improve the performance of automated storage and retrieval systems has concentrated on developing more effective system designs or scheduling control programs to reduce the time a shuttle spends travelling in a rack. Sarker et al. (1991) showed that a dual-shuttle AS/RS operating under a nearest-neighbour scheduling model would significantly improve system throughput performance over a single-load shuttle system. The study was limited in that it only considered dual-shuttle improvements under the nearest-neighbour model. This research exploits the benefits of a dual-shuttle system by integrating the technology with a more effective scheduling technique, the class-based storage model, for reducing the shuttle travel time. The dual-shuttle, class-based storage model produced a significant reduction in shuttle travel time and thus higher throughput results over the dual-shuttle, nearest-neighbour model. This study further supports the premise that a dual-capacity shuttle is an effective way of improving the productivity of an automated storage and retrieval system.     

Measures of backtracking and bi-directional flow in one dimensional machine location problems

In many modern manufacturing settings, management simplifies the workflow of jobs to the greatest extent possible by avoiding a job-shop structure in favour of a generalized flow line (GFL) in which all jobs flow in a single direction (Conway et al., 1967, Theory of Scheduling (Addison-Wcsley)). Heuristics may be used to assign machines to appropriate locations in the attempt to achieve a GFL. Materials that must be transported upstream in a production line are said to ‘backtrack’. Since no backtracking occurs in a GFL, the relative amount of backtracking that does occur is an indication of the degree to which the ideal (and most productive) case is achieved. Several measures of the backtracking of materials are developed in this paper to assess the degree to which a configuration approaches the GFL. The measure for backtracking is extended to bi-directional flow problems which may occur when a GFL is not achievable because of the job routing.     

An economic approach for finding a time-scaled utilization profile for a bending press shop

Abstract

Finding the utilization of a set of machines in a shop floor of a production system by the ratio delay method is a well-known practice in conventional time and motion studies. In this method, the desired reliability of the study is preset and subsequently the data are collected to achieve that reliability. I do not continuously review the reliability in this method while conducting the study nor do I measure the benefit-cost ratio of the undergoing study. In this paper, I describe a method to determine the utilization of a set of production facilities and continuously review the reliability achieved at the end of each survey period. The random observations about the machine status generate a utilization profile of a set of machines on a continuous time scale. Based on the benefit-cost ratio, this method provides us with an information as to when the study has to be stopped in a real time situation. The study is substantiated with a case study and an indication of further research.     

A survey and critical review of flexibility measures in manufacturing systems

Flexibility of manufacturing systems is currently under intensive study, and the need for objective measurement of this important characteristic is widely expressed. Measurement of manufacturing flexibility is being increasingly discussed in the literature on manufacturing systems. This paper surveys the literature dealing with quantification of certain types of flexibility, analyses the proposed measures, and presents critical views. Approaches to developing flexibility measures are compiled and classified. Discussion on the suitability of specific measures is provided. Requirements of flexibility measures and recommendations for future research in this area are also provided.