This thesis discusses the role of agriculture in the economic development of Taiwan. Chapters I and n present and discuss the indicators of economic growth in Taiwan , particularly in the post World War n era. Chapter ill analyses Taiwan's natural conditions and the part played by Japan prior to the great war. Chapters IV and V discuss agriculture and its role in Taiwan's march to development. Chapter VI talks about American aid that was provided and Chapter Vll presents the expectations and hopes for the future under the newest five year plan.

No description available.

No / This paper presents a practical methodology for developing a process-based knowledge management system (KMS) for supporting continuous improvement (CI) and asset management. An action research methodology was used to develop a KMS to support CI in a manufacturing company. The KMS is evaluated through application in the case study company. This methodology ensures a consistent approach to carrying out all improvement initiatives. The final part of the methodology addresses the construction of an intranet-based knowledge warehouse. This contains several searchable areas such as existing information on assets, new knowledge generated from projects, details of expertise in the business and links to the key business drivers through the corporate intranet. The KMS is shown to support CI initiatives through the utilization of available data already held within the company's management databases (production, quality and maintenance) including consideration of corporate strategic plans. Process models trigger the application of improvement tools and projects in a true CI environment. This methodology acknowledges both tacit and explicit knowledge within the company, and it represents an appropriate environment to promote and develop a true learning organization. The system developed is shown to be flexible and has been implemented in a manufacturing environment. Financial benefits are presented.

The research reported in this dissertation investigates the impact that accountability systems have on the design and development of student centered learning environments. The nature of student-centered learning environments (SCLEs) in this study is framed theoretically by cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). The investigation itself occurred within a specific practice context: an urban charter school serving elementary-aged children. The efforts to design and develop SCLEs in the school focused on the use of improvement inquiry by groups of stakeholders organized into a developing human ecology in educational contexts called networked improvement communities. The research sought to determine (1) how accountability systems influenced instructional practices within the school and (2) how practicing teachers perceived the assessments embedded within the accountability systems. Data were collected via surveys, interviews, and a focus group. The data from the surveys and interviews informed the work for the focus group. The work from the focus group generated a stakeholder-generated “theory of practice improvement” in the form of an illustrative driver diagram. The driver diagram contributed an empirically generated proposal for how improved instructional practices might be pursued at the school. The investigation concluded with recommendations for implementing the plan within the school and recommendations to the broader field of education to engage more deeply in improvement inquiry. / School of Education; / Professional Doctorate in Educational Leadership (ProDEL) / EdD; / Dissertation;

Thesis (M.A.)--B.Y.U. Dept. of Church History and Doctrine.

The purpose of the study was to describe the process of simultaneous implementation of the Indistar model of school improvement and the University of Virginia School Turnaround model of school improvement and how those models influenced school improvement practices in a rural Southwest Virginia school system. Best practices from each of the school improvement models were identified and adopted, which led to the establishment of a hybrid model of school improvement. The study documents how and why the practices were adopted and used in the hybrid model. The paper includes a literature review which examines the evolution of school improvement in the U.S. The description of the historical development of school reform sets the context for in-depth reviews of five current research studies. The studies selected for review, as well as the research study, focus on the role of the central office in school improvement. A synthesis of the studies' findings provided evidence that further research was needed. Data sources for the study include an individual interview of the superintendent, focus group interviews of central office administration and school leadership teams, archival records, and documents. The focus group interviews were conducted to describe the process of implementation of the two school improvement models and to identify school improvement practices that were adopted by the division. This study identifies the practices that were adopted and implemented throughout the rural Southwest Virginia school system. Best practices that are used in the hybrid model of school improvement are Professional Learning Communities, acceleration teams, 90-day school improvement plans, and a tiered remediation program. Barriers to implementation of school improvement were time, the initial lack of support in the Indistar model, involvement, and the understanding of data and data analysis. The themes of professional development, external and internal supports, and sustainability of school improvement are discussed in Chapter 5. Recommendations for practice and future research are presented. / Ed. D.

The content of this diploma thesis includes description of different methods of improvement in business. It focuses on incremental improvements over time and also on breakthrough improvement - so called radical innovation. On the basis of knowledge gained while studying literature for the theoretical part, I have analyzed in the practical part the states of three selected improvement methods in the company Robert Bosch Ltd. Chosen areas were: the application of the 5S method in the company, the conduct of regular satisfaction surveys and the process of submission and evaluation of improvement. The 3rd mentioned area - the area of improvement proposals, is characterized in detail in the practical part and gradually leads to the application of my own improvement proposal into practice which is considered as the main contribution of this thesis. My own proposal deals with the optimization of warehouse management. It is focused on the external warehouse of Robert Bosch Ltd. in order to supply material to the company's production lines more efficiently. It concerns the rearranging of the storage of key material items and their transfer to more suitable rack positions within the warehouse. The calculations are based on the number of stock removals per quarter for each item. Due to the outputs of the data analysis processed in my own improvement proposal, it was possible to decide in which rack positions it would be appropriate to store individual material items so that their subsequent transfer into production would be as efficient as possible in terms of time and, therefore, in terms of financial costs. The amount of time taken to transfer material items into production was crucial for the results of this thesis because their more efficient placement reduces the handling time so that it is possible to quantify the time and therefore financial savings of the project. The data analysis was focused on material items placed on unsuitable rack positions due to their number of stock removals per quarter. The aim was to suggest which materials would be better to transfer to a more appropriate type of rack positions, with an emphasis on the key items that affect the process of removal into production the most and represent a considerable financial costs.

During the last decades, the dependency on software has increased. Many of today’s modern devices embed software to control their functions. The increasing dependency has also taken part in shaping the software development process to produce better quality software. Many researchers and practitioners have spent large investments to improve the software development process. A research area within software engineering that addresses the assessment and improvement issues in development processes is called Software Process Improvement (SPI). One of the essential aspects in software process improvement is measuring the outcome of the implemented changes. The measurement and evaluation of software process improvement provides the means for the organization to articulate the achievement level of their goals. Although the importance of measuring and evaluating the outcome of software process improvement is paramount, there exist no common guidelines or systematic methods of measuring and evaluating the improvement. This condition evokes difficulties for practitioners to implement software process improvement measurement programs. This issue has raised the challenge to develop and implement an effective framework for measuring and evaluating the outcome of software process improvement initiatives. This thesis presents a measurement and evaluation framework for software process improvement. SPI-MEF provides guidelines in the form of systematic steps to evaluate the outcome of software process improvement. The framework is based on key concepts which were elaborated in previous work. In this thesis, a validation of SPI-MEF is also conducted by involving representatives from academia and industry. The validation is aimed to judge the frameworks’ usability, applicability and usefulness. Finally, a refinement of the framework is carried out based on the input from the validation.

Although most organisations want to improve quality and reduce costs, the deployment and implementation of continuous improvement methodologies is commonly viewed as a daunting journey. Many organisations fail to properly structure and/or support continuous improvement initiatives, which ultimately doom them to failure. South African Banks are not adopting Lean and/or Six-sigma to the point where it is going to make any sort of significant difference to the bottom line over a significantly meaningful period of time. So where are they going wrong? Often it comes down to key issues that are not addressed effectively as part of the deployment. The research objectives are: • The primary objective is to establish what the mission critical success factors for Lean and/or Six-sigma implementation in South African Banking are. • The secondary objective is to define a list of the sources of benefits for Lean and/or Six-sigma implementations in South African Banking. The research questions/problems to be addressed are: • What are the mission critical success factors for Lean and/or Six-sigma implementations in South African Banking? • How do South African Banks prioritise these critical success factors? • How do South African Banks that are already on the Lean and/or Six-sigma journey perform against these critical success factors? • What are the gaps between the importance’s of the critical success factors versus the banks actual performance against these, and how is this gap impacting on the benefits that the banks are experiencing? • What sources of benefits are South African Banks experiencing? • Can generic guidelines be provided to the South African Banks for successful Lean and/or Six-sigma implementation?

Currently, UK healthcare is encountering an unprecedented quality crisis, especially considering the overwhelming challenge of improving patient care in the face of growing demands and limited resources. Although past efforts to adopt Total Quality Management (TQM) initiatives have failed to produce desired results, this thesis investigates the limitations of TQM applicability and explores the development of an innovative Quality Improvement model germane to a healthcare context. By integrating TQM with concepts from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Complexity Theory (CT) and Knowledge Management (KM) a novel TQM conceptual framework, called EALIM—Ethical, Adaptive, Learning and Improvement Model—was devised. Using an Action Research (AR) study, EALIM was implemented within a private healthcare firm by working collaboratively with organisational members over a period of eighteen months. The study included gathering qualitative data in three AR cycles: 1) pre-implementation, 2) implementation and 3) post-implementation. The first cycle involved gathering data to form a baseline assessment of the organisation, which was used to provide feedback to top management on areas for improvement. In the second cycle, an action plan was developed with top managers and EALIM’s implementation was examined. In the third cycle, further data were gathered and findings were evaluated against the baseline assessment from the first cycle to identify the overall impact of EALIM on the organisation. Findings indicated that EALIM’s adoption generated a moral perception of the organisation, a learning culture, increased organisational commitment and an improvement in patient self-advocacy and independence. Factors that contributed to these outcomes were top management commitment, employee empowerment, the use of trans-disciplinary groups and practice-based training. However, other findings indicated that poor leadership and staff nurses’ use of managerial control created variability in service quality. These findings suggest that while EALIM can lead to organisational improvement, the commitment of all internal stakeholders is required to achieve sustainable quality patient care.