published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

<p>Nowadays, companies are facing several competitive pressures, which push them to seek for new and better ways to conduct their internal processes.</p><p>One of this ways is throughout processes innovations that allow the company to establish and maintain competitive advantages; one example of this new trend is the emergence of eProcurement, an electronic system aimed to automate purchasing processes in organizations, which, if it is properly implemented, will derive in processes cost reduction and efficiency improvement on those same procedures.</p><p>This study is focused on identifying the propeller factors that make companies to engage in this kind of ventures; as well as studying which are the outcomes generated inside the organizations once the electronic system has been implemented.</p><p><strong>Purpose</strong></p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to identify the elements that trigger automation of procurement processes in organizations; as well as describing the implications derived from automation during and after such implementation. The study was conducted through interviews with managers and final user from two Mexican companies which are currently using Oracle as their eProcurement tool.</p><p><strong>Conclusions</strong></p><p>The study found that depending on how well organizations prepare themselves and their staff for the upcoming change, different results may be obtained in terms of benefits and acceptability from final users.</p><p>In order to avoid potential pitfalls, firms must bear in mind that, both operational and social awareness are key factors for a successful implementation.</p><p>If a company takes into consideration their internal operational needs and staff opinions to base their decision of engaging on eProcurement, it will be more likely to obtain benefits related to cost reduction, improved efficiency and final user satisfaction.</p>

The Tendertips Company (TTC) is an asparagus growing a packing business which has a problem. Not enough New Zealanders are willing to manually harvest asparagus. Samoan workers are being employed through the recognised seasonal employer (RSE) scheme which incurs a large cost to TTC. This scheme is also susceptible to a change in government policy at any time. Automated asparagus harvesters have been designed in the past however they inflict too much damage to asparagus plants and the paddocks in which they grow. Several research projects have also been undertaken to minimise this damage while robotically harvesting asparagus however no solutions currently exist. In this project a low-cost system was designed and constructed to determine the feasibility of selectively harvesting asparagus without inflicting damage to asparagus plants or the paddock. The most technical component in this system was identified, accurately identifying and locating asparagus spears to be harvested. A camera and lighting system, along with an asparagus data logging system was designed and tested, with the assumption that if this system succeeded, the development of an automated asparagus harvester would have a very high chance of success. The system proved that individual asparagus spears can be located accurately enough so as not to inflict damage on other spears during the harvesting process: • 96.8% of asparagus spears were located. • Average location error of 3.0mm. The measurement of the size and height of asparagus spears was not very accurate due to the lighting system, however this is expected to be fixed with a design change. A global positioning system (GPS) successfully saved the calculated size of the asparagus spear with its global location to allow for analysis of the asparagus paddocks using the Google Earth application. The cost of robotically harvesting asparagus is forecast to be much less than manual harvesting: • Manual harvesting cost $1.40 per kilogram • Forecast robotic harvesting cost $0.41 per kilogram. If one other investor was obtained to create a new business, which developed an automated asparagus harvester before harvesting asparagus in New Zealand and California, the forecast financials are: • Net present value (NPV) of $1.613 million after ten years. • Internal rate of return (IRR) of 33% after ten years. • Maximum accumulated investment from TTC of $449,000 four years after development first begins. The forecast income is through harvesting asparagus only as selling the machines or leasing the intellectual property is not viable. A guiding document was created to guide TTC with the development of an automated asparagus harvester if it aligns with their business model. The development of an automated harvester: • Is technically viable. • Will lower harvesting costs. • Will ensure all of TTC’s asparagus is harvested when required. • Will return sustainable profits to the child business that TTC should create. The project management techniques adopted in this project ensured the project was completed on the planned day of completion, while remaining on budget: • Budgeted cost of work scheduled $24,478.21 • Budgeted cost of work performed $24,027.54

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The components involved in an immunoassay were investigated in order to improve the detection limits of the ELISA and to make the assay adaptable to a flow injection analysis (FIA) configuration. The goal being the total automation of the ELISA procedure which is long, tedious and has high standard deviation. The antibody purification and cleavage methods were studied with special emphasis on obtaining products with highest immunological activity. The antibody-enzyme coupling reactions using homobifunctional reagents and heterobifunctional reagents were studied in order to attempt the preparation of highly characterized reagents. The fragments of IgG were coupled to polymeric supports via the hinge thiol groups to retain the maximum immunological activity. This method was found to be superior to those methods involving coupling via amino group. These reagents were used in the development of a sandwich ELISA for bovine IgG. The range of assay was in the 20-1000 femtomole range with a linear dynamic range of 2 orders of magnitude and an accuracy of 2-5%. A competitive ELISA based on the use of immobilized anti-human IgG Fab' fragments was developed. The linear dynamic range for this assay was found to be less than one order of magnitude. The detection limit was in the low picomole range with an accuracy of 2-5%. Based on the principle used in the two assays an enzyme immobilization scheme was developed for the reversible immobilization of these enzymes. Which was subsequently utilized in the determination of substrate in the picomole range in a reagent less FIA technique. The goals of this research project were realized in that the FIA system utilized in this work was capable of carrying out totally automated ELISA assays with an accuracy far surpassing the conventional plate ELISA assays.

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In order to develop a better understanding of the process of development and deployment of automated systems, this thesis examines aspects of project execution and knowledge transfer in the context of a large automation project. <br /><br /> Background issues of project execution are examined, including the challenges of knowledge sharing in project development, as well as a brief discussion of measures of project success. The lifecycle of a large automation project is presented, including aspects of development and the development team, as well as design challenges inherent in the development process of a successful automation project which consisted of approximately 11,000 hours of combined effort by vendor and customer development teams. <br /><br /> Human factors aspects of large automation projects are explored, including an investigation of the workings of a large project team, by examining the cognitive aspects of the project team, as well as ecological aspects of the automation development process. <br /><br /> Using an interview methodology that can be termed the "echo method", project team members were interviewed in order to elicit helpful and unhelpful behaviours exhibited by other team members throughout the project. The results of these interviews are categorized and examined in the context of both knowledge management and social networks. Common themes in interview comments are identified, and related to both the areas of knowledge management and social networks. <br /><br /> Results indicated that team member experience and availability affect overall team performance. However, overlapping capabilities within a team were found to allow the team to adapt to changing circumstances, as well as to overcome weaknesses in team member availability. Better understanding of team interactions and capabilities supports improvements in project performance, ultimately delivering higher quality automation and streamlining the development process.

The European process industry is in need of modernization if it shall retain its competitiveness on the growing global market and at the same time reduce the environmental impact that the industrial activities have. The concept behind industrial automation has been very successful in increasing the efficiency for the material handling process, but some industries still have a lack in the field of automation. One of these industries is the mining industry. ABB is currently working within the EU-funded project DISIRE in order to increase the amount of traceability and therefore also the potential of automation in the mining industry by introducing a flow simulation over the mine infrastructure. But one of the largest inherited problems that this industry has over other process industries is that the flow partly consists of a batch structure where the continuous flows of the product only takes place between bunkers and buffer zones. ABB has developed a Matlab simulation where these bunkers are modelled by a simple queue algorithm which does not take the blending or time delays of the ore into account. The main task of this master thesis was to investigate which different modelling approaches that could increase the accuracy of the simulation. The Cellular Automata (CA) were found to be most suitable modelling approach due to its simplicity and a Matlab toolbox were developed and implemented based on the theories behind CA. The results were partly evaluated with the results of an ongoing experiment at Luleå university and by comparison to theories of granular media movement. The CPU-time for the silo flow with 10.000 particles in a flat silo using a MacBook Pro 2.26GHz was about 8 seconds.