A SIMULATION ANALYSIS OF THE JAPANESE JUST-IN-TIME TECHNIQUE (WITH KANBANS) FOR A MULTILINE,MULTISTAGE PRODUCTION SYSTEM

The Japanese “just-in-time with kanban” technique reduces in-process inventory to absolute minimal levels, in concert with the Japanese belief that inventory is an unnecessary evil. Due to the success of Japanese firms that employ this type of system, American firms would like to import this technique and emulate Japanese successes. But this Japanese success may be attributable not only to the just-in-time with kanban technique but also to the production environment in which the technique is employed. This paper simulates the just-in-time with kanban technique for a multiline, multistage production system in order to determine its adaptability to an American production environment that might include such characteristics as variable processing times, variable master production scheduling, and imbalances between production stages. The results have practical implications for those firms considering adoption of the Japanese technique.     

An Alternative Model of the Formation of Political Coalitions

Most models of the formation of political coalitions use either Euclidean spaces or rely purely on game theory. This limits their applicability. In this article, a single model is presented which is more broadly applicable. In principle any kind of set can be used as a policy space. The model is also able to incorporate different kinds of party motivations: both rent-seeking and idealism. The model uses party preferences and power to identify stable coalitions and predict government policy as well as to indicate which member of the opposition will be able to break up the governing coalition if no stable coalition exists. In the latter case it will also indicate on which issue the government is likely to split. Parties may have preferences over issues such as the composition of cabinet and/or the governing coalition as well as the more traditional issues of government formation. The model also provides a rationale for log-rolling.     

A tractable method to measure utility and loss aversion under prospect theory

This paper provides an efficient method to measure utility under prospect theory. Our method minimizes both the number of elicitations required to measure utility and the cognitive burden for subjects, being based on the elicitation of certainty equivalents for two-outcome prospects. We applied our method in an experiment and were able to replicate the main findings on prospect theory, suggesting that our method measures what it is intended to. Our data confirmed empirically that risk seeking and concave utility can coincide under prospect theory. Utility did not depend on the probability used in the elicitation, which offers support for the validity of prospect theory.

Delivery of Devolve Social Services: Its Contributions to the Socio-economic Conditions of Women in Columbio Sultan Kudarat

This is an evaluative study on the delivery of devolved programs in health, agriculture and social welfare. It aimed to identify the major devolved programs/projects implemented by the LGU of Columbio, Sultan Kudarat; the responsiveness of the actual delivery of devolve services in terms of human resources, facilities and fund allocation; the status of devolve services implemented if it was effective and efficient; and the inadequacies encountered. The “expose facto” method of research was used. There were 49 implementers and 132 beneficiaries of the various devolved programs. There were 181 total respondents. A four-part questionnaire was constructed and the gathered data were supplemented by information extracted through interviews with Key Informants, Focus Group Discussions and document analysis. There were three departments implementing the devolved social services programs such as the Municipal Health Office with 6 devolved health programs; the Municipal Agriculturist Office with 6 devolved agricultural projects; and the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office with 7 devolved social welfare programs. The respondents rated the implementation of devolve services in health, agriculture and social welfare programs between rank 5 to 9 for the aspects of human resources, facilities and fund allocations. The respondents assessed the implementation of devolved programs as Very Efficient and Most Responsive programs to the needs of the people specially the children, youths and women. The study also found some inadequacies observed during the implementation of devolved social services programs which were Agreed by the majority of the respondents. These findings implied that the implementation of various devolved social services for several years has made a significant difference in the lives of the people of the Municipality of Columbio, Sultan Kudarat, the Local Government of Columbio and program implementers with their commitment and solidarity to serve the people especially the marginalized is a manifestation of their unselfish dedication to uplift the socio-economic condition and well-being of the people. Hence, continuing projects should further be strengthened and supported to ensure the sustainability of the projects even if the support of different institutions has been terminated.     

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Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Das Karriereplateau

The career-plateau as challenge to enterprises, employees and consultantsThe authors intend to link life-span-psychology to career-research in order to make understand the phenomenon of career-plateau and how individuals and organisations can deal with it. People take stock in the middle of their lives and assess their personal or professional targets. This process often relates to a personal crisis, especially when the success rate of a job is an important part of the self-concept and hierarchical development has stopped simultaneously. Nevertheless, the desire for a career continues to exist. On top of that what makes it even harder is that the individual has to work at least 20 more years because of demographic reasons. We assume that the way how to manage this crisis has a big influence on performance motivation and that life-span-orientated management development can help the individual to overcome the crisis or even prevent it.     

Coaching von Schlaganfallpatienten Ein integratives Beratungs- und Trainingskonzept

Coaching of patients after apoplexy — an integrative model of counselling and trainingIn contrast to common assessments of medical professionals, improvements in rehabilitation of patients after an apoplexy are possible even after a greater time interval. The progresses are small, but they improve gradually the quality of life of the patients. The author presents an integrative model of counselling and training for this clientele, in order to accompany the way of the patients to a successful professional rehabilitation and to a new conduct of life.     

Führung aus neuer Perspektive

New perspectives on leadership. Reflecting and constructing realities in the surplus reality of psychodramaThe authors show how the psychodramatic concept of surplus reality can be used as a frame of reference for action-oriented, experiential interventions in leadership coaching. The concept is shown to have four different facets: surplus reality as a term for (1) the intangible dimensions of reality, (2) the non-verbal dimensions of reality, (3) the action space of psychodrama, (4) human imagination. The use of mental imagery and metaphors is shown to be a realization of the surplus reality principle. Case studies and practical hints for leadership coaches illustrate how surplus reality can be used to open up new ways of learning.     

Beheimatungsprozesse begleiten — ein Werkstattbericht

Supporting processes of belonging in supervision and coachingThe contemporary employee has to cope with frequent changes. Not only does he lose his familiar environment, he also has to find ways to familiarize himself with new places and to develop a fresh sense of belonging. This process can be understood and facilitated by interpreting the German concept of “Heimat“ as something we have to create ourselves. First experiences demonstrate the usefulness of this approach in coaching processes.     

Sensitivity of the Optimum to Perturbations of the Profit or Weight of an Item in the Binary Knapsack Problem

In the binary single constraint Knapsack Problem, denoted KP, we are given a knapsack of fixed capacity c and a set of n items. Each item j, j = 1,...,n, has an associated size or weight w_j and a profit p_j. The goal is to determine whether or not item j, j = 1,...,n, should be included in the knapsack. The objective is to maximize the total profit without exceeding the capacity c of the knapsack. In this paper, we study the sensitivity of the optimum of the KP to perturbations of either the profit or the weight of an item. We give approximate and exact interval limits for both cases (profit and weight) and propose several polynomial time algorithms able to reach these interval limits. The performance of the proposed algorithms are evaluated on a large number of problem instances.