Minimizing the makespan on single-machine scheduling with aging effect and variable maintenance activities

This paper considers a single-machine scheduling with a position-dependent aging effect described by a power function under maintenance activities and variable maintenance duration considerations simultaneously. We examine two models of the maintenance duration in this study. The objective is to find jointly the optimal maintenance frequency, the optimal maintenance positions, and the optimal job sequences to minimize the makespan of all jobs. We provided polynomial time solution algorithms for all the studied problems.     

Critical evaluation of simulation studies in maintenance systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how far simulation studies of maintenance systems are neglecting simulation-related statistical issues. This negligence may leave simulation results suspicious and hard to explain. Several simulation factors are used to identify the strength of executed simulation experiments and to evaluate the level of clarity and reliability of the simulation models. The factors includes purpose of simulation, simulation model, model assumptions, distribution and random variables, simulation languages and computers, program verification and model validation, design of experiment, and analysis of the output. For this purpose, the literature is reviewed and subjected to the evaluation. It is observed that most papers define clearly their objectives, simulation languages, and model performance measures. However, verification, validation, experimental design, and output analysis are the most unclear factors.     

Stress and coping in US organizations: The role of the Employee Assistance Programme

The organizational role of the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is evaluated with particular respect to managerial and human resources policies and practices. Attention is given to models of the EAP, and an ideal-typical model is discussed. A synoptic view is taken covering the scope of the EAP, the sectors of application, the selection criteria for the EAP, as well as patterns of introduction-all within a contingency framework. A critical analysis is made of the roles of participants within the EAP process, as well as of problematic ethical and professional dimensions which the EAP introduces into organizational functioning. A final section treats the future forms of development which the EAP may follow to satisy both organizational and professional imperatives.     

Stress and coping in US organizations: The role of the Employee Assistance Programme

Abstract

The organizational role of the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is evaluated with particular respect to managerial and human resources policies and practices. Attention is given to models of the EAP, and an ideal-typical model is discussed. A synoptic view is taken covering the scope of the EAP, the sectors of application, the selection criteria for the EAP, as well as patterns of introduction-all within a contingency framework. A critical analysis is made of the roles of participants within the EAP process, as well as of problematic ethical and professional dimensions which the EAP introduces into organizational functioning. A final section treats the future forms of development which the EAP may follow to satisy both organizational and professional imperatives.     

预防性建言背景下领导-下属交换关系和员工主动性对防御沉默的影响

通过设定一个虚拟的员工可能针对上级提出预防性建言的背景,考察了此背景下领导-下属交换关系和员工主动性对员工对上级防御沉默的影响.研究结果表明,领导-下属交换关系会显著降低防御沉默;员工主动性对防御沉默的影响不显著;员工主动性会调节领导-下属交换关系和防御沉默之间的关系.此外,当员工主动性较高时,领导-下属交换关系和防御沉默的负向关系更强.研究结论丰富了员工建言和员工沉默的相关理论,也有利于企业采取针对性措施降低员工对上级的防御沉默.     

Short-term Perceptions,Corporate Governance and the Management of R & D in Italian Companies

The aim of this paper was tomeasure the short-term perceptions of FinanceDirectors and how managers react to pressuresfrom the financial and corporate governancesystems in the management of R and Dexpenditure and innovation. The studyreplicates Demirag's U.K. study.Results do not support the proposition that thefinancial and governance systems behave in ashort-term manner in general. The bankingsystem in Italy tends to be neutral as regardsthe firm's decision making and management hasthe freedom to steer the firm forward in aframework of long-term profitability andgrowth. Italian firms are not perceived asbeing possible candidates for take-overoperations, which might exacerbate the problemof pressure to deliver short-term profits atthe expense of long-term R and D investments.However, in some sectors and under certain sizeand ownership structure conditions short-termpressures are felt more strongly: they aremainly science-based sectors as well as sometraditional sectors (engineering and constructions).In higher-pressured firms (HPFs) managementtends to place more emphasis on costs than onproduct innovation and is more likely to view Rand D as an overhead that has to be trimmedduring a recession. Moreover, the controlmechanisms tend toward short-term accountingmeasures. In addition, the prevalent sources ofshort-term pressures – where they are present– are interestingly different in Italy than inthe U.K.: while in the Anglo-Saxon context theyare perceived to come from the market andfinancial institutions, in Italy they areperceived to come from the firm ownersthemselves.     

The Theory of Risk Homeostasis: Implications for Safety and Health

No strategy for countermeasure design or future directions of research in the areas of human behavior which leads to traffic accidents or lifestyle-related diseases can be rationally developed without an acceptable working theory of human behavior in these domains. For this purpose, an attempt has been made to conceptually integrate the available evidence with respect to the role of human behavior in the causation of road accidents. From this integrative effort it would seem that the accident rate is ultimately dependent on one factor only, the target level of risk in the population concerned which acts as the reference variable in a homeostatic process relating accident rate to human motivation. Various policy tactics for the purpose of modifying this target level of risk have been pointed out and the theory of risk homeostasis has been speculatively extended to the areas of lifestyle-dependent morbidity and mortality.     

Shop floor characteristics influencing the use of advanced planning and scheduling systems

The purpose of this article is to investigate how the manufacturing process, the shop type and the data quality, i.e. the shop floor characteristics, influence the use of advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems in production activity and control (PAC). The methodology implemented is a multiple case study at three case companies. Each company has different shop floor characteristics, but all use a scheduling module in an APS system, which supports production scheduling. A theoretical framework is developed suggesting how APS system are used in the PAC activities, and which major aspect to consider. The case analysis shows that the scheduling module in APS system, foremost supports sequencing and dispatching. In particular, the shop type is influenced by the decision of how often the APS runs and what freedom is given to the shop floor. The manufacturing process influences how the dispatch list is created. Contrary to the literature presuming that APS systems are most suitable in job shop processes, it is found that the manufacturing process is not a crucial factor when deciding whether APS systems are an appropriate investment. It is found that the level of data quality needed in the APS system depends to a large extent on how the dispatch list is used. For example, is the dispatch list used as a guideline, not a regulation, the need for accurate data in the module is reduced. This article extends the previous literature concerning APS systems by analysing how APS systems influence PAC as a whole and increase the understanding of the challenges of using APS systems in PAC.     

Optimal timing of investments in advanced manufacturing systems under competition

Large initial investment in advanced manufacturing systems (AMS) makes it imperative to develop economic justification methods. Once the new system has been properly justified, a critical issue facing the firm is the optimal timing of the installation in an industry. In this paper we use a game-theoretic model by which the optimal timing of the investments in AMSs is analysed. The existence of timing equilibria is demonstrated and simple decision rules of optimal strategy are provided. Economic interpretations of the decision rules are subsequently made clear. Finally, illustrative examples are used to demonstrate the correctness and usefulness of the analysis.     

基于工作投入与核心自我评价视角的辱虐管理与员工主动行为研究

基于自我决定理论和行为弹性理论,深入研究了辱虐管理为何以及怎样影响员工的主动行为.研究结果表明,主管的辱虐管理对员工的主动行为具有显著的负向影响,而工作投入在辱虐管理与主动行为的关系中起着完全中介作用,即辱虐管理会降低员工在工作中的投入,继而减少了主动行为.同时,核心自我评价会削弱辱虐管理的直接效应和工作投入的间接效应,即相对于低核心自我评价的员工,高核心自我评价的员工较少因为主管的辱虐管理而降低其工作投入,进而较少减少主动行为.     

Dual Sourcing Inventory Systems: On Optimal Policies and the Value of Costless Returns

We study dual sourcing inventory systems with backordering and with stationary, stochastic demands. The two supply sources differ in their unit prices and lead times. We focus on the option of making costless returns to the cheaper, longer leadtime supplier. We show that the value of this option is zero. Our analysis leading to this result includes the derivation of several structural properties of the optimal policies for dual sourcing systems with and without the return option.     

论当代中国饭店管理理念与实践中的人文导向

随着旅游需求的变迁、科技的发展和新型人力资源的引入,世纪之交的中国饭店业的管理理念和管理实践正在发生一系列的变化。人文导向则是把握这些变化的核心内核,并将主导未来一个时期中国饭店业的创新与发展。在对饭店管理理念进行解说的基础上,本文重点阐述了人文导向的若干载体性事件:管理制度的理性化、对员工的关注、经济型饭店的兴起、绿色饭店等等。     

On the Benefits of Risk Pooling in Inventory Management

We analyze the benefits of inventory pooling in a multi‐location newsvendor framework. Using a number of common demand distributions, as well as the distribution‐free approximation, we compare the centralized (pooled) system with the decentralized (non‐pooled) system. We investigate the sensitivity of the absolute and relative reduction in costs to the variability of demand and to the number of locations (facilities) being pooled. We show that for the distributions considered, the absolute benefit of risk pooling increases with variability, and the relative benefit stays fairly constant, as long as the coefficient of variation of demand stays in the low range. However, under high‐variability conditions, both measures decrease to zero as the demand variability is increased. We show, through analytical results and computational experiments, that these effects are due to the different operating regimes exhibited by the system under different levels of variability: as the variability is increased, the system switches from the normal operation to the effective and then complete shutdown regimes; the decrease in the benefits of risk pooling is associated with the two latter stages. The centralization allows the system to remain in the normal operation regime under higher levels of variability compared to the decentralized system.     

Money and Journal of Organizational Behavior Management Interventions: A Review

Practitioners and business leaders can use monetary data to quantify the financial outcomes of interventions in organizational behavior management (OBM). The primary purpose of this review was to investigate the occurrence and classification of monetary data in the OBM literature. Other purposes were to demonstrate ways in which such data contribute to the measurement of value and to provide recommendations for its reporting and publication. Accordingly, a review was conducted of publications in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. Cumulative yearly results showed that cost data were reported more often than cost plus benefit data, and cost plus benefit data were reported more often than benefit data alone. More cost than benefit data were reported, most often with social validity, followed by institutionalization, then maintenance measures. However, more cost plus benefit data were reported than either cost or benefit data with a maintenance measure. It is concluded that reporting cost and benefit data would be beneficial to the field of OBM.     

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.     

On the Relation Between Trust and Fairness in Environmental Risk Management

In this study, we empirically examine the relations between trust, fairness, and cooperation within two environmental risk management contexts, one in which the focal issue is of high personal moral importance and the other in which the focal issue is of low moral importance. Using an experimental design embedded in two parallel survey questionnaires, one mailed to residents of Washington State, the other to German‐speaking residents of Switzerland, we either manipulated or constructed three factors, issue importance (high/low), procedural fairness (fair/unfair), and policy outcome (risk averse/risk accepting). This design enabled us to compare the predictions of the standard account of procedural fairness, that trust and cooperation are determined by judgments of fairness, with the predictions of an alternative account, that trust and cooperation will be determined by judgments of procedural fairness only when the issue involved is not morally important. Results for the American case showed that under conditions of high issue importance, policy outcome affected judged fairness, trust, and cooperation. Under conditions of low issue importance, policy outcome had no effect on judged fairness or trust but did have a moderate impact on cooperation. Analyses also showed that when issue importance was high, procedural fairness had no effects. When issue importance was low, procedural fairness had moderate effects on judged fairness and trust. Results for the Swiss case replicated the main findings for the American case. Together, these results support the alternative model of the relation between trust and fairness, suggesting that the efficacy of fair procedures is strictly limited.     

The role of advanced start and dominance rules in simulated annealing for parallel processor scheduling problems

Simulated annealing (SA) has been widely used to solve hard combinatorial optimization problems during the last decade. The application of SA requires the initialization of certain parameters and an initial solution to start the search with. An emphasis in the application of SA has been on the determination of the best initial values of the parameters, however, the starting solution has traditionally been randomly generated. In this paper, we study the effects of the quality of the starting solution and the use of dominance rules on the performance of SA. We show that the better the initial solution used by the SA, the better the final solution produced by it, i.e. the level of improvement achieved by the SA is dependent on the quality of the initial solution. This is demonstrated using various parallel processor scheduling problems. We have also found that dominance rules (applied in conjunction with SA) may in some cases lead to further improved solutions, but their inclusion in an SA scheme must be determined during the preliminary experimentation, in parallel to the determination of the best SA-parameter values. These findings have a long-term impact, as they suggest that the performance of SA schemes that are currently available in the literature can be further improved by starting from a good solution, if available, or by implementing SA in a sequential manner, i.e. several times, by starting from the best solution found in the previous run.     

On the Compatibility of Organizational Behavior Management and BACB Certification

The number of practicing behavior analysts who hold Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) certification has substantially increased in the past decade. Some have mistakenly interpreted the BACB’s certification requirements as being specific to the autism and intellectual disabilities practice area. We present key BACB requirements, describe how they are practice-area neutral, and provide specific examples of their relevance to organizational behavior management.     

道本管理论：中西方管理哲学融和的视角

道本管理,就是以道为本的管理,是建立在客观规律基础上的管理,是在管理经历了"神本"、"物本"、"资本"与"人本"等阶段后提出的新的管理思想.道本管理的目标是解放人而不是控制人,是促进人的发展而不是为了经济发展而牺牲人的发展,是要激活企业发展的动力系统来实现企业的可持续发展,并通过破解管理的悖论来缔造先进的企业管理文明.这一管理理论的认知命题包括社会系统建构认知命题、服务-内在动力系统认知命题与主体价值认知命题.