Random Pooling Designs Under Various Structures

Balding et al. (1995) showed that randomizing over the k-set space yields much better pooling designs than the random pooling design without the k-restriction. A natural question arises as to whether a smaller subspace, i.e., a space with more structure, will yield even better results. We take the random subset containment design recently proposed by Macula, which randomizes over a subspace of the k-set space, as our guinea pig to compare with the k-set space. Unfortunately the performance of the subset containment design is hard to analyze and only approximations are given. For a set of parameters, we are able to produce either an exact analysis or very good approximations. The comparisons under these parameters seem to favor the k-set space.     

Challenges in Development and Implementation of Health‐Risk‐Based Soil Quality Guidelines: Turkey's Experience

Management of contaminated sites is a critical environmental issue around the world due to the human health risk involved for many sites and scarcity of funding. Moreover, clean‐up costs of all contaminated sites to their background levels with existing engineering technologies may be financially infeasible and demand extended periods of operation time. Given these constraints, to achieve optimal utilization of available funds and prioritization of contaminated sites that need immediate attention, health‐risk‐based soil quality guidelines should be preferred over the traditional soil quality standards. For these reasons, traditional soil quality standards are being replaced by health‐risk‐based ones in many countries and in Turkey as well. The need for health‐risk‐based guidelines is clear, but developing these guidelines and implementation of them in contaminated site management is not a straightforward process. The goal of this study is to highlight the problems that are encountered at various stages of the development process of risk‐based soil quality guidelines for Turkey and how they are dealt with. Utilization of different definitions and methodologies at different countries, existence of inconsistent risk assessment tools, difficulties in accessing relevant documents and reports, and lack of specific data required for Turkey are among these problems. We believe that Turkey's experience may help other countries that are planning to develop health‐risk‐based guidelines achieve their goals in a more efficient manner.     

Multicriteria Decision Analysis: A Comprehensive Decision Approach for Management of Contaminated Sediments

Contaminated sediments and other sites present a difficult challenge for environmental decisionmakers. They are typically slow to recover or attenuate naturally, may involve multiple regulatory agencies and stakeholder groups, and engender multiple toxicological and ecotoxicological risks. While environmental decision-making strategies over the last several decades have evolved into increasingly more sophisticated, information-intensive, and complex approaches, there remains considerable dissatisfaction among business, industry, and the public with existing management strategies. Consequently, contaminated sediments and materials are the subject of intense technology development, such as beneficial reuse or in situ treatment. However, current decision analysis approaches, such as comparative risk assessment, benefit-cost analysis, and life cycle assessment, do not offer a comprehensive approach for incorporating the varied types of information and multiple stakeholder and public views that must typically be brought to bear when new technologies are under consideration. Alternatively, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) offers a scientifically sound decision framework for management of contaminated materials or sites where stakeholder participation is of crucial concern and criteria such as economics, environmental impacts, safety, and risk cannot be easily condensed into simple monetary expressions. This article brings together a multidisciplinary review of existing decision-making approaches at regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe and synthesizes state-of-the-art research in MCDA methods applicable to the assessment of contaminated sediment management technologies. Additionally, it tests an MCDA approach for coupling expert judgment and stakeholder values in a hypothetical contaminated sediments management case study wherein MCDA is used as a tool for testing stakeholder responses to and improving expert assessment of innovative contaminated sediments technologies.     

Maintaining the calibration of an information system

The design and operation of an information system requires assumptions on the values of parameters which characterize the behavior of pertinent random processes. If these parameters remain constant over time at design values, system performance will be as specified. Otherwise, performance will vary from design and cost and service penalties will arise. A control chart procedure is introduced for monitoring system parameters and introducing appropriate action to reset them to design values as indicated. The control system is set so that the expected cost of monitoring is a minimum. A table of control system settings over a broad set of a priori assumptions is provided. Examples describing the procedure and use of the table are given.     

Environmental Concerns in the Marcellus Shale

Hydraulic fracturing used to remove natural gas from the Marcellus Shale has raised environmental concerns in the region both in terms of air and water pollution. This article will examine those concerns and how the natural gas industry has responded to them. After discussing the issues related to groundwater contamination and air quality. I discuss industry responses and how the costs and harm associated with fracking could be reduced, with the knowledge that despite opposition from environmental groups, fracking will continue. The hope is that more drillers will begin to operate in a socially responsible manner that will allow companies to be profitable while limiting harm to the environment and to individuals living near drilling sites.     

Strategic control of factory automation

This article identifies strategic control as an unexpected difficulty in implementing the ‘factory of the future’ and as a major stumbling block to firms in their automation efforts. The concept of strategic control is discussed and an example is given. The results of a study in this area are then described and used to explain how managers have unknowingly relinquished control of the manufacturing operation. The article concludes with advice for managers in setting up strategic control systems in their firms that will facilitate rather than hinder the progress of factory automation.     

Industrial harm to an ecological dream

We have inherited past industrial pollution, but can business change the future and introduce sustainable solutions? This article focuses on how a small business can improve its internal barriers to environmental efficiency. Bovince Limited is working on a strategy of integrating ISO 9002, ISO 14001, EMAS, Kaizen, Investors in People systems to promote cyclic activity. We have been working on this strategy for improvement since the early 1990's, to ensure the continuous progression of our systems. The transparency of systems and strategies are seen as being of fundamental importance to business sustainability. Going beyond normal business activity and looking at how the impacts of people development and behaviorism affect strategic outcomes.Looking at these broader based concepts and their impact on day-to-day business is seen as the way forward. Bovine believe that quality of product or service cannot happen unless environmental considerations are linked into the process. Environmental systems and the reporting of them will not mean anything unless people are involved in their improvement. People will be unable to perform to their full potential unless developed.     

Sustainable supply chain management and the transition towards a circular economy: Evidence and some applications

In the last decades, green and sustainable supply chain management practices have been developed, trying to integrate environmental concerns into organisations by reducing unintended negative consequences on the environment of production and consumption processes. In parallel to this, the circular economy discourse has been propagated in the industrial ecology literature and practice. Circular economy pushes the frontiers of environmental sustainability by emphasising the idea of transforming products in such a way that there are workable relationships between ecological systems and economic growth. Therefore, circular economy is not just concerned with the reduction of the use of the environment as a sink for residuals but rather with the creation of self-sustaining production systems in which materials are used over and over again.Through two case studies from different process industries (chemical and food), this paper compares the performances of traditional and circular production systems across a range of indicators. Direct, indirect and total lifecycle emissions, waste recovered, virgin resources use, as well as carbon maps (which provide a holistic visibility of the entire supply chain) are presented. The paper asserts that an integration of circular economy principles within sustainable supply chain management can provide clear advantages from an environmental point view. Emerging supply chain management challenges and market dynamics are also highlighted and discussed.     

Fostering Innovation in Contaminated Sediments Management Through Multicriteria Technology Assessment and Public Participation

Management of contaminated sediments is problematic and costly. Several new technologies are under development that may in some cases reduce costs and environmental or ecological impacts. However, there are significant barriers to implementing new technologies, including the increased management complexity, the potential for introducing antagonistic or incommensurate objectives that are unfamiliar to stakeholders or regulators, and the difficulty of capturing private, commercial benefits from environmental improvements that may primarily benefit the public. This article identifies several innovative contaminated sediments technologies, discusses the difficulty of proving or quantifying the benefits of new technologies, and presents an agenda for research that would foster partnerships between scientific, government, and public communities of interest for the purpose of improving innovative technology assessment and environmental decision making.     

Information technology: the next wave. Clinician acceptance of information technology

Information systems have yet to make a significant inroad at the interface between clinicians and patients. The obstacles to implementing information systems at the clinical level are formidable. As these systems have begun to mature and marketplace pressures have created changing needs for clinicians and the integrated delivery systems they are working in, the need for these systems has increased. Understanding the pressures that managed care brings to bear on clinical processes will facilitate clinicians' acceptance of these technologies.     

The role of social and intellectual capital in achieving competitive advantage through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software merges a firm's data, information flows and business processes into a single package. Vendors argue that ERP provides an extremely useful strategic resource to enhance competitiveness and make it possible for a firm to leverage its other resources more effectively and efficiently. In addition, they allege that ERP encourages a system-wide perspective that is a basis for collaboration and a systems orientation. However, an examination of ERP systems using criteria established in research on resource-based views of the firm and chaos/complexity theory indicates that these claims are overstated. Observation suggests that even if ERP is necessary to coordinate complicated, multifaceted operations, it is far from sufficient to promote a strong competitive position over the long term. Moreover, ERP systems fit best within mechanistic, clockwork organizations dominated by routine, highly programmed technologies and operations, yet it is the non-routine learning and change processes found in complex, self-organizing systems that enable firms to create distinctive competitive advantages from ERP outputs. ERP makes possible deep changes in relationships, culture, and behaviors that can be crucial sources of advantage in the knowledge economy, but the structures and cultures most able to achieve this level of change are a poor fit with ERP requirements. To reconcile this paradox, we propose a dual-core, loosely coupled organization that views ERP as an enabling technology to build and augment social and intellectual capital, rather than as an information technology (IT) solution for organizational inefficiencies. Propositions for using ERP as a foundation for social and intellectual capital formation are introduced. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Environmental Performance as a Basis for Competitive Strategy: Opportunities and Threats

Increasingly, companies are considering environmental differentiation as a basis for their competitive strategy. As they formulate and implement their strategy, these companies must decide upon an appropriate device to signal a superior environmental performance to consumers and other stakeholders. This article examines three of these devices: Corporate environmental reports (CER), eco-labeling programs, and the ISO 14001 environmental management systems (EMS) standard. Specific challenges and limits associated with their use are discussed and insight into ways to overcome potential barriers are offered. One of these challenges relates to skepticisms, whereas another resides with the risk of imitation from competitors. Hence, companies must both build trusting relationships, and continuously maintain and develop resources and competencies that will enable them to sustain their competitive advantage over competitors.     

Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and qualitative evaluation of successful redesign heuristics

To implement business process redesign several best practices can be distinguished. This paper gives an overview of heuristic rules that can support practitioners to develop a business process design that is a radical improvement of a current design. The emphasis is on the mechanics of the process, rather than on behavioral or change management aspects. The various best practices are derived from a wide literature survey and supplemented with experiences of the authors. To evaluate the impact of each best practice along the dimensions of cost, flexibility, time and quality, a conceptual framework is presented that synthesizes views from areas such as information systems development, enterprise modeling and workflow management. The best practices are thought to have a wide applicability across various industries and business processes. They can be used as a “check list” for process redesign under the umbrella of diverse management approaches such as Total Cycle Time compression, the Lean Enterprise and Constraints Management.     

Optimal Policies for Selling New and Remanufactured Products

Because of environmental and economic reasons, an increasing number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) nowadays sell both new and remanufactured products. When both products are available, customers will buy the one that gives them a higher (and non‐negative) utility. Thus, if the firm does not price the products properly, then product cannibalization may arise and its revenue may be adversely impacted. In this paper, we study the pricing problem of a firm that sells both new and remanufactured products over a finite planning horizon. Customer demand processes for both new and remanufactured products are random and price‐sensitive, and product returns (also called cores) are random and remanufactured upon receipt. We characterize the optimal pricing and manufacturing policies that maximize the expected total discounted profit. If new products are made‐to‐order (MTO), we show that when the inventory level of remanufactured product increases, the optimal price of remanufactured product decreases while the price difference between new and remanufactured products increases; however, the optimal selling price of new product may increase or decrease. If new products are made to stock (MTS), then the optimal manufacturing policy is of a base‐stock policy with the base‐stock level decreasing in the remanufactured product inventory level. To understand the potential benefit in implementing an MTO system, we study the difference between the value functions of the MTO and MTS systems, and develop lower and upper bounds for it. Finally, we study several extensions of the base model and show that most of our results extend to those more general settings.     

DESIGNING INSPECTION STRATEGIES FOR UNCERTAIN ENVIRONMENTS

This paper considers the problems of designing inspection strategies for production systems terms in the presence of environmental uncertainty. The framework for determining information priorities to support inspection system planning is presented in the contaxt of a generic production system that encompasses the characteristics of many real-world serial production systems. The impact on the design decision of five key variables is considered: quality of producton processes, quality of inspection procedures, penalty cost for undetected defective units, relative cost of improving process vs. inspection, and shape of the cost functions for process and inspection enhancement. The framework for analysis involves varying factors over two or three orders of magnitude to determine optimal inspection strategies across a wide range of environments These results are used to compare design decisions made in the presence of environmental uncertainty using expected-opportunity-cost and minimization-of-maximum-opportunity-cost approaches. Design strategies are identified for situations ranging from complete lack of knowledge about the environment through increasing levels of information. Information-gathering priorities are established, and the impact on the design decision of this additional information is assayed.     

Work systems in heavy engineering: the role of national culture and national institutions in multinational corporations

This paper is based on an Anglo-German research project of two research groups in both countries. It is based on data collected by qualitative research in the three largest multinational corporations (MNCs) in the lift and escalator industry. The headquarters (HQs) of the three corporations are based in the United States, Finland and Germany, respectively, and all three MNCs each have subsidiaries in Germany and Britain. Our main objects of analysis were change processes in the work systems of these three MNCs.We chose the lift and escalator industry as an example because it has been characterized by strong concentration processes during the last 10 years. Most of these corporations have grown by acquisition and there are strong tendencies in the market towards standardized, globally uniform products.National cultures and institutions, first of all play a role on the HQ level. Important areas were the standardization of products and production technology, the design of management systems and location and relocation decisions for R&D and manufacturing. Second, MNCs take differences in national cultures into account and deliberately “use” them in allocating resources and investment within the multinational group. National cultures and institutions massively shape the very formulation of manufacturing strategies within the multinational groups, as well as the R&D strategies—a particular important field in an industry still relying heavily on small-batch and unit production. National cultures also play a significant role in implementing the global strategies of MNCs in different host countries. Our data reveal striking differences on this level.     

Seeing systems in health care organizations

"Systems" in health care organizations are difficult to visualize and understand by people across the organization. Systems exist as behaviors that have reasons and consequences rather than strict, linear cause and effect relationships. Learn how to sketch and see the systems at work in health care, and how to change them to help end the blame game.     

The new management competencies: a global perspective

How will tighter controls over health expenditures, an increased supply of qualified doctors, and clinical acumen becoming more critical in allocating health resources under market-driven, capitated payment-type plans affect physicians? Throughout the world, they will play a greater role in the management of health facilities and services. To train doctors to provide leadership in these new, more market driven environments, education should focus more on the integration and coordination of clinical and managerial processes, an approach outside the scope of most curricula now offered. New managerial competencies will be required by the paradigm shift away from simply delivering quality health services to tighter cost containment efforts. Physicians will play an increasing role in how medical facilities and services are organized and financed--the blending of clinical and managerial-financial-information science processes will be paramount in these educational pursuits.     

A Decision Theory Perspective on the Disposal of High-Level Radioactive Waste

In this paper the problem of high-level nuclear waste disposal is viewed as a five-stage, cascaded decision problem. The first four of these decisions having essentially been made, the work of recent years has been focused on the fifth stage, which concerns specifics of the repository design. The probabilistic performance assessment (PPA) work is viewed as the outcome prediction for this stage, and the site characterization work as the information gathering option. This brief examination of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository through a decision analysis framework resulted in three conclusions: (1) A decision theory approach to the process of selecting and characterizing Yucca Mountain would enhance public understanding of the issues and solutions to high-level waste management; (2) engineered systems are an attractive alternative to offset uncertainties in the containment capability of the natural setting and should receive greater emphasis in the design of the repository; and (3) a strategy of waste management should be adopted, as opposed to waste disposal, as it allows for incremental confirmation and confidence building of a permanent solution to the high-level waste problem.     

企业动态能力及其功效:环境不确定性的影响

当前关于动态能力的维度及其功效还存在较大分歧,有些学者甚至认为动态能力毫无价值,应该摒弃动态能力研究.本文从战略过程视角,依据相关文献与访谈调查,将动态能力分解为组织意会能力、柔性决策能力及动态执行能力,探讨了动态能力与持续优势的关系及环境不确定性在其中的影响作用.通过对中国地区217家企业的实证研究发现,动态能力确实对持续优势有显著的正向影响,环境不确定性是动态能力的驱动因素而非调节变量,环境动态性对企业持续优势有显著的正向影响,敌对性则对持续优势有显著的负向影响.本研究的结论澄清了动态能力的价值前提,探明了环境不确定性的影响机理,对理论研究与实践操作都有一定的启发意义.