The aim of this research is to present and discuss the development and deployment of Lean thinking models and techniques applied to improve the decision-making within the planning and design processes of new infrastructures, within a healthcare organisation. In the UK, healthcare organisations are responsible for planning, designing, building and managing their own infrastructures, through which their services are delivered to the local population (Kagioglou & Tzortzopoulos, 2010). These processes are long and complex, involving a large range of stakeholders who are implicated within the strategic decision-making. It is understood that the NHS lacks models and frameworks to support the decision-making associated with their new infrastructure development and that ad-hoc methods, used at local level, lead to inefficiencies and weak performances, despite the contractual efforts made throughout the PPP and PFI schemes (Baker & Mahmood, 2012; Barlow & Koberle-Gaiser, 2008). This is illustrated by the long development cycle time – it can take up to 15 years from conception to completion of new infrastructure. Hence, in collaboration with an NHS organisation, an empirical action research embedded within a mixed-methodology approach, has been designed to analyse the root-cause problems and assess to what extent Lean thinking can be applied to the built environment, to improve the speed and fitness for purpose of new infrastructures. Firstly, this multiphase research establishes the main issues responsible for the weak process performances, via an inductive-deductive cycle, and then demonstrates how Lean thinking inspired techniques: Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) using ER and AHP, Benchmarking and Quality Function Deployment (QFD), have been implemented to optimise the decision-making in order to speed up the planning and design decision-making processes and to enhance the fitness for purpose of new infrastructures. Academic literatures on Lean thinking, decision theories and built environment have been reviewed, in order to establish a reliable knowledge base of the context and to develop relevant solutions. The bespoke models developed have been tested and implemented in collaboration with a local healthcare organisation in UK, as part of the construction of a £15 million health centre project. A substantial set of qualitative and quantitative data has been collected during the 450 days, which the researcher was granted full access, plus a total of 25 sets of interviews, a survey (N=85) and 25 experimental workshops. This mixed-methodology research is composed of an exploratory sequential design and an embedded-experiment variant, enabling the triangulation of different data, methods and findings to be used to develop an innovative solution, thus improving the new infrastructure development process. The emerging developed conceptual model represents a non-prescriptive approach to planning and designing new healthcare infrastructures, using Lean thinking principles to optimise the decision-making and reduce the complexity. This Partial & Bespoke Lean Construction Framework (PBLCF) has been implemented as good practice by the healthcare organisation, to speed up the planning phases and to enhance the quality of the design and reduce the development cost, in order to generate a competitive edge. It is estimated that a reduction of 22% of the cycle time and 7% of the cost is achievable. This research makes a contribution by empirically developing and deploying a partial Lean implementation into the healthcare‟s built environment, and by providing non-prescriptive models to optimise the decision-making underpinning the planning and design of complex healthcare infrastructure. This has the potential to be replicated in other healthcare organisations and can also be adapted to other construction projects.

Outsourcing within the logistics and supply chain sector is perceived as a method to save money and improve client service levels. The outsourcing process exists within a highly stratified market of service provision and high value commercial arrangements may extend over many years. The client has a responsibility to define the strategy for their supply chain and agree distribution channel objectives which support the wider organisation’s brand delivery. There is a variety of solutions to satisfy these objectives of which outsourcing is one and should be accompanied by clear success criteria as well as a governance structure in order to yield a long term successful commercial arrangement. It is perceived that organisations may not follow an iterative approach towards outsourcing and that failing to adhere to these principles results in a lack of satisfaction for both parties evidenced by high contract turnover rates. This Phd thesis has investigated the issue of solution design within outsourced logistics amongst a group of 400 senior logistics managers through case studies, interviews and a three round Delphi survey. The hypothesis for this investigation was ‘the length and stability of an outsourcing relationship is directly related to the amount of effort expended by the customer in designing their logistics solution’. It was found that clients develop logistics strategy in varying degrees and over varying timescales. Clients measure the cost of supply chain activities with varying frequencies and few follow a straight forward method to define the parameters of a successful supply chain. Within outsourcing arrangements, governance and the management of change were poorly interpreted and executed. The current and future stratifications of logistics service offerings relied on a degree of collaboration between the pursuant parties and it was difficult to determine the effectiveness of these approaches when the balance of power between the parties was so unequal. Both clients and service providers were found to be poorly prepared to grasp the opportunities presented by the rising costs of energy and the future demands of reducing carbon intensity within the sector. Contributions were defined in terms of service level stratification and likely risk, behaviours and a toolkit for clients to observe when working within the outsourced environment as well as the opportunities presented by the changes currently influencing the sector. In conclusion, the hypothesis was found to be valid and the important role the client has to play in specifying and managing their logistics service provision was applicable across the logistics and supply chain industry.

No description available.

The method of understanding and managing diversity within a business is at the heart of the reasoning behind the concept of „supply chain segmentation‟. The overarching principle is to find economic segments within the diverse product and customer mix and to match differentiated strategies accordingly. The aim is to prioritise resource to the products and customers which contribute the highest proportion of sales and to reduce operational costs to those that contribute the lowest proportion of sales, whilst matching service level requirements. In essence this strategy balances supply chain costs for individual products against their value to the business. As a result overall costs are reduced and subsequently profits are increased. This research study pulls together the extensive documentation which is available regarding many supply chain concepts and principles into a single approach. A critical evaluation of the current research is undertaken which concludes that the majority of supply chain segmentation is currently focused within the area of supply chain design and has parallels with the established lean and agile concepts. It is shown that supply chain segmentation can be considered a holistic supply chain strategy and by following a structured framework can be applied to all planning levels, strategic, tactical and operational. The drive of the research was to consider which factors can be used to segment both products and customers. This was tested within an operational environment and it is shown how different strategies can be applied accordingly to each segment. It is proposed by Smith and Slater (2001) that products can be assigned inventory strategies depending on which one of six segments they fall within. The results of a variability index and volume calculations are the determining factors for the segmentation process. It is proposed within this study that an added dimension of lead time variability and a coefficient correlation calculation to determine the level of variability will produce a more accurate inventory model. A segmentation strategy, which combines different supply chain and research methodologies, was applied to a company called Newey and Eyre, which operates within the electrical industry. This is presented within the case study chapter. The practical research programme was designed as three separate research projects and these represent the different planning levels of the business. The first and second research project was carried out within the South West region of the business, where changes were made to the design of the supply chain and to the design and layout of a regional distribution centre (RDC) based at Avonmouth respectively. The third research project is based upon analysis which was undertaken of the company‟s purchasing and inventory system. A discrete event simulation (DES) model of this system was created and this provided the platform to test a number of segmentation strategies against the current system of operation.

Ports compete through providing high quality services at the right price. Ports require reliable performance measurement systems so that their daily operations can be effectively managed, their port assets efficiently utilised, and cargo dwell and standing times minimised. Port performance studies have been approached from strategic, operational, functional, financial and managerial perspectives. Findings in the literature have concluded that the measurement systems currently used are limited because the focus is on measuring efficiency, especially for containerised cargo and terminals. Often, key variables have been ignored and there is focus on improving productivity rather than performance. This research addresses the issue of how current performance measurement systems can be developed to measure the performance of ports more effectively. The research has been designed to contribute to knowledge through conceptualising the needs of developing effective measurement systems in ports by using relevant measures and quantifying those key predictors that influence a port’s performance. Quantitative methods are traditionally used for assessing port performance. This research commences with a discussion of supply chain performance measurement systems in relation to ports. It investigates different supply chain measurement designs, categories and characteristics within each category and examines the effectiveness of the current measurement system applied in Damietta port, Egypt. Findings show that Damietta port currently has no formal measurement system and would benefit from the implementation of a performance measurement system. Data have been collected according to the four types of handled cargoes in Damietta port, namely general cargo, dry bulk, liquid bulk and containers. Data have been collected on a monthly basis. For each type of cargo, data have been edited and keyed and a categorisation scheme has been set up to cover those operations at terminals. The Damietta Port Performance Measurement System (DAPEMS) has been developed using three measures, including: time, revenue and flexibility measures. Initially the system was developed using time measures, where key determinants were discussed and multiple regression analyses applied. Relevant predictor variables were selected and incorporated into the regression models with varying degrees of significance. Following this, DAPEMS has been extended using revenue measures, where revenues resulted from operations time, clearance time and the time a ship stays in a port. The final measure considered was flexibility. This helps to cope with the complexity of operations and uncertainty at ports. DAPEMS has been tested for two months in Damietta Port. In addition, the system’s features, including: reliability, applicability and flexibility have been analysed. The system was tested for two months at Damietta port. The port managers reported the benefits of using DAPEMS as there is no system currently applied in the port. Using additional variables, understanding the relationship between variables, providing information about port revenue and providing managers with estimated future performance were appreciated by the port director and a top manager as this helps them and the port planners in a decision-making process. It is concluded that applying DAPEMS was highly appreciated for providing useful visibility about the port's performance. However, some limitations are addressed and suggestions are proposed to be carried out for future research.

This thesis introduces and studies new classes of heterogeneous vehicle routing problems with or without location and pollution considerations. It develops powerful evolutionary and adaptive large neighborhood search based metaheuristics capable of solving a wide variety of such problems with suitable enhancements, and provides several important managerial insights. It is structured into five main chapters. After the introduction presented in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 classifies and reviews the relevant literature on heterogeneous vehicle routing problems, and presents a comparative analysis of the available metaheuristic algorithms for these problems. Chapter 3 describes a hybrid evolutionary algorithm for four variants of heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problems with time windows. The algorithm successfully combines several metaheuristics and introduces a number of new advanced efficient procedures. Extensive computational experiments on benchmark instances show that the algorithm is highly competitive with state-of-the art methods for the three variants. New benchmark results on the fourth problem are also presented. In Chapter 4, the thesis introduces the eet size and mix location-routing problem with time windows (FSMLRPTW) which extends the classical location-routing problem by considering a heterogeneous fleet and time windows. The main objective of the FSMLRPTW is to minimize the sum of depot cost, vehicle fixed cost and routing cost. The thesis presents integer programming formulations for the FSMLRPTW, along with a family of valid inequalities and an algorithm based on adaptation of the hybrid evolutionary metaheuristic. The strengths of the formulations are evaluated with respect to their ability to yield optimal solutions. Extensive computational experiments on new benchmark instances show that the algorithm is highly effective. Chapter 5 introduces the fleet size and mix pollution-routing problem (FSMPRP) which extends the previously studied pollution-routing problem (PRP) by considering a heterogeneous vehicle fleet. The main objective is to minimize the sum of vehicle fixed costs and routing cost, where the latter can be defined with respect to the cost of fuel and CO2 emissions, and driver cost. An adaptation of the hybrid evolutionary algorithm is successfully applied to a large pool of realistic PRP and FSMPRP benchmark instances, where new best solutions are obtained for the former. Several analyses are conducted to shed light on the trade-offs between various performance indicators. The benefit of using a heterogeneous fleet over a homogeneous one is demonstrated. In Chapter 6, the thesis investigates the combined impact of depot location, fleet composition and routing decisions on vehicle emissions in urban freight distribution characterized by several speed limits, where goods need to be delivered from a depot to customers located in different speed zones. To solve the problem, an adaptive large neighborhood search algorithm is successfully applied to a large pool of new benchmark instances. Extensive analyses are conducted to quantify the effect of various problem parameters, such as depot cost and location, customer distribution and fleet composition on key performance indicators, including fuel consumption, emissions and operational costs. The results illustrate the benefits of locating depots located in suburban areas rather than in the city centre and of using a heterogeneous fleet over a homogeneous one. The conclusions, presented in Chapter 7, summarize the results of the thesis, provide limitations of this work, as well as future research directions.

No description available.

No description available.

The smuggling of special nuclear material (SNM) has long been a concern. In April 2009, President Obama declared that a terrorist acquiring a nuclear weapon was the most immediate threat to global security. The Second Line of Defense (SLD) initiative was stood up by the National Nuclear Security Administration to deter, detect, and interdict illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials across international borders and maritime shipping. The SLD initiative does not provide for the detection of SNM being carried on small, personal watercraft. Previous work examined the possibility of using active neutron detectors to induce fission in SNM and detect the response. This thesis examines the possibility of detecting SNM using passive 3He neutron detectors. Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) simulations were run to determine the best detector configuration. Detecting sources at increasing depths, detecting moving sources and the effects of waves were also simulated in MCNP. Comparisons with experimental measurements showed that detectors parallel to the surface of water were best at detecting neutron sources below the surface. Additionally, stacking detectors and placing a cadmium sheet between the polyethylene blocks resulted in a greater ability to determine the height of a source by taking the ratio of count rates in the lower and upper detectors. Using this configuration, a source of strength 3.39 x 10^5 n/s could be detected to a depth of 12.00 in below the water surface. Count rates in the presence of waves did not average out to count rates taken above a flat plane of water. Detectors closer to the water performed worse than above a flat plane while detectors placed higher recorded more counts than above a flat plane. Moving sources were also simulated; sources under water, 3.00 ft from the detectors, and moving at 5.8 kts could be detected above background.

Thesis (Master's)--Guo li zheng zhi da xue.