Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-21T13:45:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 7.pdf: 1105115 bytes, checksum: fe5180e8f2e04c10f744f723b58c7b95 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-05T22:38:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 7.pdf.txt: 142101 bytes, checksum: 1874a7bad804f5a04371681db5d8c8a1 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) 7.pdf: 1105115 bytes, checksum: fe5180e8f2e04c10f744f723b58c7b95 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto de Tecnologia em Fármacos/Farmanguinhos. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. / A busca por técnicas de gestão que possibilitem um melhor aproveitamento da capacidade instalada de plantas produtivas é o desafio constante de todos os gestores. A utilização da Teoria das Restrições (TDR) como ferramenta de gestão no ambiente produtivo deste estudo possibilitou evidenciar o uso racional dos equipamentos do parque fabril a partir da identificação dos gargalos dos processos produtivos dos produtos mapeados. O dimensionamento dos pulmões de proteção da restrição e de espaço demonstrou como é possível manter o fluxo constante de produção sem a necessidade de elevados estoques em processo entre os centros de trabalho que compõem os sistemas produtivos. A análise da capacidade global do sistema pode evidenciar os centros de trabalho com restrição de capacidade frente à demanda posta. / The quest for management techniques that enable a better utilization of productive capacity of plants is the constant challenge for all managers. Using the Theory of Constraints (TOC) as a management tool in the production environment of this study highlight the possible rational use of the equipment of the industrial park from the identification of “bottlenecks” of the production processes of products mapped. The sizing of the lungs to protect the space restriction and demonstrated how you can keep a steady flow of production without the need for high in-process inventories between the work centers that compose the productive systems. The analysis of the overall capacity of the system can highlight the work centers capacity constraint put forward the demand.

La investigación está orientada al diseño e implementación de un Modelo Integrado de Gestión de la Producción para la fabricación de llaves de cerradura, este modelo integra la teoría de restricciones para resolver los cuellos de botella y utiliza algunas herramientas de Lean Manufacturing para eliminar los desperdicios que se generan en los procesos que generan los cuellos de botella. El objetivo de la aplicación del modelo es el mejorar la productividad de la línea de fabricación de llaves de cerradura, la reducción de costos mediante la mejora de la eficiencia de sus procesos que permitan a la empresa ser más competitiva en el mercado. The research is focused on the design and implementation of an integrated management of production for the manufacture of keys lock model, this model integrates the theory of constraints to solve bottlenecks and used some tools of lean manufacturing to eliminate waste that is generated in the processes that create bottlenecks. The purpose of applying the model is to improve the productivity of the manufacturing line lock keys, reducing costs by improving the efficiency of their processes that enable the company to be more competitive in the market.

Business Process Improvement (BPI) is a challenge for most companies facing challenges in finding temporary solutions to immediate problems. An increased intertwining between the digital and the physical world leads to new ways of customer interaction. Today's digitalized society placing high demands on the digitalization of companies and insurance companies is no exception. The insurance industry is considered behind for what is required for digitization leading to unnecessarily long processing times and arbitrary assessments. A digital solution for insurance management is expected to reduce processing times and be more in line with customers' expectations. The purpose of the work is to evaluate how process improvements in claims management can be achieved via a digital customer portal. The research includes a case study at a well-established insurance company where a current situation of a claims process is mapped and evaluated through interviews and workshops. A prototype of a digital customer portal is developed and evaluated in a theoretical applicability test. Important factors for BPI are developed with the help of previous research and the study's result analyzes based on these factors. The primary result showed that BPI were generated via the digital customer portal through the factors lead times, automation, bottlenecks, quality assurance of information and value creation. Thus, the customer portal proved to be a theoretical way of being able to live up to customers' expectations of digitalization, contribute with competitiveness, customer loyalty and improved customer experience and customer service. Finally, companies can acquire knowledge about the importance of customer centering and the development of digital customer portals for BPI and which factors to consider for BPI. / Förbättring av affärsprocesser (eng. Business Process Improvement, BPI) är en utmaning för de flesta företag som ständigt står inför utmaningen att hitta tillfälliga lösningar på omedelbara problem. En ökad sammanflätning mellan den digitala och den fysiska världen leder till nya sätt för kundinteraktion. Dagens digitaliserade samhälle ställer höga krav på digitaliseringen hos företag och försäkringsbolagen är inget undantag. Försäkringsbranschen anses ligga efter vad gäller digitalisering vilket kan leda till onödigt långa handläggningstider och godtyckliga bedömningar. En digital lösning för försäkringshandläggning förväntas kunna effektivisera handläggningstider och leva upp till kundernas förväntningar. Syftet med arbetet är att utvärdera hur processförbättringar inom försäkringshandläggning kan uppnås via en digital kundportal. Arbetet omfattar en fallstudie på ett väletablerat försäkringsbolag där ett nuläge av en skadeprocess kartläggs för att sedan utvärderas genom intervjuer och workshops. En prototyp av en digital kundportal utvecklas och utvärderas i ett teoretiskt applicerbarhetstest. Viktiga faktorer för BPI tas fram med hjälp av tidigare forskning och studiens resultat analyseras utifrån dessa faktorer. Det primära resultatet var att BPI förväntades kunna uppnås via den digitala kundportalen med hänsyn till faktorerna ledtider, automatisering, flaskhalsar, kvalitetssäkring av information samt värdeskapande. Kundportalen visade sig också teoretiskt sätt kunna leva upp till kundernas förväntan av digitalisering, bidra med konkurrenskraft, kundlojalitet samt förbättrad kundupplevelse och kundservice. Avslutningsvis kan företag utifrån arbetet inhämta kunskap om kundcentreringens och utvecklingen av digitala kundportalers betydelse för BPI samt vilka faktorer att ta hänsyn till vid BPI.

The diploma thesis is focused on proposal of workplace modification according to the lean manufacturing methodology (DMAIC). The target is to minimize the wasting and to increase the production efficiency based on LEAN tools implementation. The theoretical part of the thesis defines the basic terms, such as primarily lean production, DMAIC, wasting. In the practical part there is at problem analysis using the DMAIC method, then the proposal for improvement is solved, that contains reduction of wasting, process of the project, timetable, costs and implantation of the solution, finally there is evaluated the benefit.

Software development is an area in which companies not only need to keep up with the latest technology, but they additionally need to continuously increase their productivity to stay competitive in the industry. One company currently facing these challenges is Storytel - one of the strongest players on the Swedish audiobook market - with about a fourth of all employees involved with software development, and a rapidly growing workforce. With the purpose of understanding how the Storytel Tech Department is performing, this thesis maps Storytel’s productivity defined through the Four Key Metrics - Deployment Frequency, Delivery Lead Time, Mean Time To Restore and Change Fail Rate. A classification is made into which performance category (Low, Medium, High, Elite) the Storytel Tech Department belongs to through a deep-dive into the raw system data existing at Storytel, mainly focusing on the case management system Jira. A survey of the Tech Department was conducted, to give insights into the connection between human and technical factors influencing productivity (categorized into Culture, Environment, and Process) and estimated productivity. Along with these data collections, interviews with Storytel employees were performed to gather further knowledge about the Tech Department, and to understand potential bottlenecks and obstacles. All Four Key Metrics could be determined based on raw system data, except the metric Mean Time To Restore which was complemented by survey estimates. The generalized findings of the Four Key Metrics conclude that Storytel can be minimally classified as a ‘medium’ performer. The factors, validated through factor analysis, found to have an impact on the Four Key Metrics were Generative Culture, Efficiency (Automation and Shared Responsibility) and Number of Projects. Lastly, the major bottlenecks found were related to Architecture, Automation, Time Fragmentation and Communication. The thesis contributes with interesting findings from an expanding, middle-sized, healthy company in the audiobook streaming industry - but the results can be beneficial for other software development companies to learn from as well. Performing a similar study with a greater sample size, and additionally enabling comparisons between teams, is suggested for future research.

Cloud datacenters comprise hundreds or thousands of disparate application services, each having stringent performance and availability requirements, sharing a finite set of heterogeneous hardware and software resources. The implication of such complex environment is that the occurrence of performance problems, such as slow application response and unplanned downtimes, has become a norm rather than exception resulting in decreased revenue, damaged reputation, and huge human-effort in diagnosis. Though causes can be as varied as application issues (e.g. bugs), machine-level failures (e.g. faulty server), and operator errors (e.g. mis-configurations), recent studies have attributed capacity-related issues, such as resource shortage and contention, as the cause of most performance problems on the Internet today. As cloud datacenters become increasingly autonomous there is need for automated performance diagnosis systems that can adapt their operation to reflect the changing workload and topology in the infrastructure. In particular, such systems should be able to detect anomalous performance events, uncover manifestations of capacity bottlenecks, localize actual root-cause(s), and possibly suggest or actuate corrections. This thesis investigates approaches for diagnosing performance problems in cloud infrastructures. We present the outcome of an extensive survey of existing research contributions addressing performance diagnosis in diverse systems domains. We also present models and algorithms for detecting anomalies in real-time application performance and identification of anomalous datacenter resources based on operational metrics and spatial dependency across datacenter components. Empirical evaluations of our approaches shows how they can be used to improve end-user experience, service assurance and support root-cause analysis. / Cloud Control (C0590801)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the conveyancing process in South Africa with a view to identify how the process might be improved in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness. Land is an asset and still remains a valuable factor in production, even in the modern knowledge economy. In many parts of the world, land is a limited resource, therefore, in most countries, custodianship and ownership of land and landed properties generally tend to be guarded through the meticulous capturing, recording and storage of appropriate data and information. Legislative provisions for the transfer of custodianship and/or ownership require the involvement of a variety of role players in the conveyancing processes that culminate in the registration of land and associated immovable property. In some countries, the conveyancing processes tend to be complex and cumbersome. The study provides a conceptual framework for conveyancing processes based on a content-based review of land and immovable property registration systems in five countries, namely, Barbados, the Netherlands, Australia, Taiwan and South Africa. The study further investigates the South African conveyancing processes. Quantitative questionnaires were completed by six respondent groups from the conveyancing service chain, and qualitative interviews were conducted with two of the four major banks in South Africa. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. The findings were used to develop a de-bottlenecking framework for South African conveyancing. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

<p>  </p> <p>Evolution is the foundation for all of biology. However, our approaches and understanding of evolution—simply, the change of allele frequencies from one generation to the next—have themselves evolved over time. In this dissertation I explore multiple approaches to understand evolution and the consequences of evolution across variable scales and study organisms. First, I use meta-analytic techniques and Bayesian hierarchical models to investigate the phenotypic consequences of two forms of cryptic local adaptation, co- and countergradient variation, by leveraging a decades-old quantitative genetics approach (Chapter 1). I find large effects for both co- and countergradient variation, however they are obscured in natural settings by concurrent large environmental effects. I also show that these large effects are ubiquitous across phenotypic traits, organisms, and environmental gradients, suggesting that while similar phenotypes may be the evolutionary end point, the mechanisms to achieve those phenotypes likely vary. In the following chapter I explore the rapid evolution of a unique and understudied species introduction, pink salmon (<em>Oncorhynchus gorbuscha</em>) in the Great Lakes. Pink salmon were introduced into Lake Superior in a single introduction event and have broken two obligate life histories, anadromy (though they treat the Great Lakes like surrogate oceans) and their fixed two-year life cycle, making them ripe subjects for contemporary evolution. Using whole-genome sequence data, I first investigate the effects of a genetic drift in the form of a bottleneck at introduction and characterize the subsequent loss of genetic diversity (Chapter 2). I show that despite a large loss of genetic diversity, pink salmon also rapidly adapted to their novel environment based on signals of putative selection across numerous regions of the genome, particularly in a period gene associated with their daily circadian clock (<em>per2</em>). Next, I explore how genome structure likely aided adaptation by pink salmon to the Great Lakes, providing evidence that a supergene (~29 Mbp) containing an inversion on chromosome 10 swept to near fixation in the Great Lakes (Chapter 3) and likely aided in osmoregulatory adaptation to this novel environment. Finally, I end with a short perspective chapter (Chapter 4) where I highlight potential future research directions for each of the previous chapters. Together, this research investigates the drivers and consequences of evolution across multiple scales and shows the powerful effect of genetic drift and genetic adaptation in shaping the genomic and phenotypic attributes of populations.</p>

När ett tillverkande företag vill öka sin marknadsandel behöver de i allmänhet öka sin produktion. För att kunna göra detta på ett kostnadseffektivt sätt är det viktigt att veta vilka faktorer som begränsar produktionssystemet, dessa benämns ofta som flaskhalsar. Ett produktionssystem är dock inte ett statiskt system vilket innebär att flaskhalsarna i ett system inte heller är statiska. De kan flytta på sig på både lång och kort sikt.   Syftet med denna fallstudie är att undersöka flaskhalsarna i ett produktionssystem och hur dessa förflyttar sig, vilka förbättringar som kan göras för att förbättra flödet i produktionssystemet. Data om produktionssystemet har samlats in med studier av databas, tidsstudie och samtal/intervjuer. Dessa data har nyttjats i en simuleringsmodell som framtagits med hjälp av FACTS-analyzer. Denna modell har studerats samt använts för att genomföra experiment. Bland annat har flermålsoptimering med SCORE metoden använts för att hitta systemets primära och sekundära flaskhalsar.   Studien visade att en station på svetsavdelningen var den huvudsakliga flaskhalsen i produktionssystemet och att den sekundära flaskhalsen i systemet låg i avdelningen efter, måleriavdelningen. Studien tog också fram en optimerad förbättrings plan för fabriken upp till 260 tillverkade båtar på ett år. / When a manufacturing company intends to increase their market share, they generally need to increase their production as well. In order to achieve this in a cost-effective manner they must be aware of which factors are limiting the production system, these factors are generally known as bottlenecks. A production system is however not a static system, this means that the bottlenecks won’t be static either. They can move both in the long term and short term.   The aim of this case study is to examine the bottlenecks in a system and their movement. As well as which improvements could be applied in order to improve the flow in the production system. Data concerning the production system has been collected through studies of internal databases, time studies and interviews. This data has been used in a simulation which has been constructed with FACTS-analyzer. The model has been studied and used for experimentation, for example, multigoal-optimization with the SCORE-method, which has been used in order to find the primary and secondary bottlenecks of the system.   The study shows that a station in the welding department was the main bottleneck in the productions system and the secondary bottleneck is in the department after, the paint shop. The study also found an optimized improvement plan for the factory up to 260 boats produced each year

Detta examensarbete är en del av utbildningen Högskoleingenjör inom Maskinteknik, Industriell Ekonomi &amp; Produktion i Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan. Målet och syftet med detta examensarbete är förbättra ergonomi och arbetssätt i Verkstaden X genom framställning av två nya verkstadslayouter. Detta ska lösa deras problem gällande flaskhalsar och belastningsskador vilket ger upphov till långa leveranstider och arbetsskador. För att framställa förbättringsförslag på deras nuvarande problem kommer en implementering av LEAN- filosofin samt ergonomiläran att utföras i den nya verkstadslayouten. För att lyckas med detta studerades flera tidigare forskningsartiklar, iakttagelser, intervjuer samt litteraturstudier. De som intervjuades var anställda och arbetsledare i Verkstaden X där de bidrog med att identifiera och analysera deras nuvarande problem hos den studerande avdelningen samt vad som gav upphov till flaskhalsar och belastningsskador. Genom datainsamling framställdes två nya verkstadslayouter som främjar LEAN- filosofier och ergonomi i verkstadens arbetsflöde och arbetssätt. Verkstadslayouter utformades som 2D ritning där arbetsflödet och anställdas arbetsuppgifter beskrivs, samt kartläggning av arbetsstationer och förflyttningen av varor samt order. Verkstaden X har flera slöserier vilket leder till att de besitter en kapacitet som inte kan förhålla sig till den efterfrågan som finns, som är dötider mellan och i arbetsstationer, ineffektiva arbetssätt och brist på instruktioner. Skribenterna i denna rapport konstaterar att Verkstaden X arbetsflöde kan förhålla sig till den efterfrågan som finns genom de förbättringsförslag som framhävts i detta examensarbete. De förbättringsförslag är nya arbetsrutiner, vilket innebär att sorteraren ska använda handdatorer och att paketerare ska använda sig av nya arbetsbänkar som ger mått på vilka kartongen som ska användas, dessa nya utrustningar förändrar arbetsrutiner. Även bättre kommunikation mellan arbetsledare och anställd var ett av lösningsförslagen, där arbetsledaren kontor flyttas in i avdelningen för att arbetsledaren ska kunna ha större närvaro. / This thesis project is part of a bachelor’s program in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Economics &amp; Production at the Royal Institute of Technology. The goal and purpose of this thesis is to improve ergonomics and working methods in Verkstaden X by producing two new workshop layouts. This is meant to solve their problems regarding bottlenecks and repetitive strain damage, which gives rise to long delivery times and work injuries. In order to make suggestions for improvement on their current problems, an implementation of the LEAN philosophy and the ergonomics theory will be carried out in the new workshop layout. To succeed in this, several previous research articles, observations, interviews, and literature studies were studied. The interviewees were employees and supervisors in Verkstaden X where they helped to identify and analyze their current problems in the student department and what gave rise to bottlenecks and strain injuries. Through data collection, two new workshop layouts were produced that promote LEAN philosophies and ergonomics in the workshop's workflow and working methods. Workshop layouts were designed as a 2D drawing where the workflow and employees' tasks are described, as well as mapping of workstations and the movement of goods and orders. Verkstaden X has several wastes, which means that they have a capacity that cannot relate to the demand that exists, which is downtime between and in workstations, inefficient working methods, and lack of instructions. Then the two layout proposals were compared with each other with Pugh matrix, where Layoutsförlag 2 was considered the best layout proposal, and which was recommended to Verkstaden X. The authors of this report state that Verkstaden X workflow can relate to the demand that exists through the improvement proposals highlighted in this thesis. The suggestions for improvement are new work routines, which means that the sorter must use PDAs and that the packer must use new workbenches that provide measurements of which packages to use, this means that the new equipments change the work routines. Better communication between supervisor and employee was also one of the solution proposals, where the supervisors office is moved into the department to ensure more presence.