This master thesis is devoted to the elements and principles of management. The master thesis deals with the management of field workers of a selected company and subsequent optimization of this procedure. The main aim of master thesis is to optimize the selected decision problem. Based on the analysis of field workers activities is determined significant managerial decision problem. To solve this decision problem is compiled mathematical model and the individual alternative solutions are determined. Based on the individual steps of managerial decision the final recommendations of variant for solving this decision problem is made. The work is devided into two parts, theoretical and practical part. In the theoretical part we acquaint ourselves with the problems with the help of scientific literature. The practical part deals with the use of the scientific literature in practice in order to optimize decision-making problem and management field workers of a selected company.

The management of health and safety risks in the oil refinery tends to be centred on the collection and simulation of technical data which can then be used to make decisions on the wellbeing of the workforce as well as the refinery installations. While the number crunching in the process is immensely vital, there tends to be a problem of ignoring or, at the very least, side-lining the social-cultural values of the people dealing with health and safety risk assessment processes. The economic driver for the operation of the oil refinery tends to be more important because of the generally huge initial financial outlay, and the eventual high costs of maintenance; hence health and safety risk management should have evidence of ensuring that the installations, as well as the people that work in them, are well catered for. In the Kuwait Gulf Oil Company this problem is more evident in newer installations where lean management processes have been instituted by oil firms so that they can reduce waste in the oil refining process without compromising the occupational health and safety needs of the refinery. Therein lies the initial problem of integrating health and safety risk assessment processes because most approaches concentrate on the technical elements of waste elimination while ignoring the social-cultural factors that impact on the health and safety of the workforce. This is an exploratory piece of research that examines the impact of rational and cognitive decision theories – herein called the psychology of risk – and how they impact on the occupational health and safety systems in the oil and gas refining sector of Kuwait. The research concludes that the application of lean concepts in the oil refining process is noble in itself but it needs to be integrated with the rational and cognitive detection factors that are necessary to incorporate and support the social-cultural tendencies of the workforce. The research recommends a framework for incorporating social-cultural values in the decision making process pertaining to health and safety risk assessment in oil refining process plants. Key Words: occupational health and safety risk assessment; lean management; social-cultural values; rational and cognitive decision making; oil and gas process plants.

This diploma thesis describes the implementation of modern managing methods in a selected company. The aim of the thesis concentrates on helping with its implementation. The lean production plays a dominant role among these methods. The main aim is therefore to create the first sample workplace using modern management methods. The thesis is divided into two main parts, the theoretical one and practical one. In the theoretical part the lean production has been decribed, its individual methods and the principle of the constant improvement. The practical part analyses the present state of production management in a selected company. It further contains the proposals of possible solutions under the terms of lean production methods and as well as the own implementation of individual proposals. It is primarily the use of visualization and the 5S methods. The formation of the first sample workplace is desribed in detail which uses the Kanban system. At the end of the thesis other proposals and recommendations for increasing of company's productivity have been introduced.

Annotation: Lean Management as an Ethical Problem Business management methods are mainly depended on what the company is doing. One of the management options is lean management which is typical for the automotive industry, but is used for its efficiency in other industries as well. It is a method of management that maximizes labor productivity, reduces the financial burden in the production process, and reduces human errors. The main goal of this thesis is focused on explaining the basic concepts of economics and ethics focused on the way of business management. It includes a description of a specific case of the implementation of lean management in a particular company. An ethical reflection follows, which focuses on comparing the described implementation with the presented company values. Second point is the reflection of lean management with the theory Stakeholder. The work concludes with a description of the consequences of the implementation of systems focused primarily on efficiency and profit with possible solution points. Key words: lean management, ethical management of a company, manager, employee, corporate culture, efficiency, profit, key indicators, corporate values, code of ethics, stress.

The diploma thesis deals with the introduction of lean management of selected processes. In these processes is looking for a suitable setting to eliminate waste to reduce the cost of material procurement logistics. Based on the analysis in the company is created a proposal, including its costs and benefits, after implementation in the selected company the set goals are achieved.

The work is focused on improving the concept of lean management in a selected engineering company, where analyzes are performed with the help of selected methods and tools to reveal current problems. The data are then processed and based on them, measures for change are proposed with an emphasis on minimizing the rate of waste of time and costs and increasing production efficiency.

The U.S. health care delivery system faces serious challenges such as an increasing demand for services due to an aging population, unhealthy lifestyles, growth in the number of uninsured individuals, and an increase in chronic diseases. At the same time, the system has to cope with a limited supply of money, physicians, and nurses inferior quality of care delivered by U.S. hospitals. While the U.S. hospital industry is adapting to address these issues, not much progress in improving the quality of care delivered has been made over the last decade. However, theories exist that management systems, organizational traits, and leadership are key factors for hospitals to improve quality of care outcomes. This study takes a holistic look at these factors to identify and analyze critical drivers for better quality of care outcomes of U.S. hospitals. The study also aims to identify differences between chief executive officers' (CEOs) leadership traits among lean (mediocre performance), high (top 20th percentile), and low performing (bottom 20th percentile) U.S. hospitals in regards to their quality of care measures. Two separate online surveys were conducted. The first online survey was targeted at all 4,697 U.S. hospitals that are required to disclose quality of care measures to the Federal government. Results of this first survey revealed that two management system factors drive quality of care outcomes of U.S. hospitals. Furthermore, findings also show that critical access hospitals have a lower quality of care performance than acute care hospitals. Thus, based on the results from this survey, we concluded that management system factors are main drivers of hospital performance, whereas organizational trait and leadership factors did not significantly contribute to hospital performance. A second survey to CEOs and CEO followers in 9 selected hospitals found significant differences between CEO traits leading lean and low performing hospitals, and, to a lesser degree, significant differences among high and low performing hospitals. However, the study did not find any significant differences in CEO traits between lean and high performing hospitals. Findings also include that some management system factors differed significantly between lean and high performing hospitals, but no evidence for such differences could be found between lean and high and high and low performing hospitals, respectively. These results suggest that management systems and CEO leadership traits play an important role in determining U.S. hospital performance as measured by their quality of care. / Ph. D.

Lean principles emerged in the Japanese manufacturing industry after the Second World War. Lean management focuses on improving product quality while eliminating waste—primarily through process redesign and the integration of employees, management, suppliers and customers into the quality management process. The NHS is under significant pressure to improve productivity while maintaining or improving service quality, at the same time as service demand increases. The Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) programme’s primary concern is to ensure that financial resources are used to bring maximum benefit and quality of care to patients (Department of Health, 2010). Lean management could therefore offer a panacea for the NHS, although its applicability to the health service sector is contested. This article investigates whether lean management is merely a fad or whether it could alleviate the pressure the NHS faces. While specific clinical processes may easily adopt lean processes and practices, healthcare organisations will need a paradigm shift in their management philosophy to adopt lean more widely. The promise of lean management remains elusive but could be harnessed by willing organisations.

During the last decades, the U.S. wood products (NAICS 321) and furniture manufacturing (NAICS 337) industries have been greatly affected by economic cycles, rising production and transportation costs, changing buyer habits, and, arguably, most powerfully, increasing global competition. As a result, tens of thousands of jobs were lost and a large number of companies in the industry experienced bankruptcy, closed operations, or relocated to other countries. However, theories exist stating that the use of management systems, such as, for example, Lean management, allows companies to become more competitive and enhance the likelihood of survival. A mail survey was conducted to investigate companies in Virginia's wood products and furniture manufacturing industries as to their awareness of Lean management, the implementation of Lean practices, as well as the companies' need for support in Lean implementation efforts. Findings indicate that a majority of Virginia's wood products and furniture manufacturing industries have heard about terms like, for example, Lean management, Lean manufacturing, or Lean thinking, but are rarely aware of individual Lean elements of which Lean consists. Few businesses thus have implemented Lean. However, findings show that Lean awareness and Lean implementation status differs between individual industry sub-segments. The group of industry segments with the highest Lean awareness and Lean implementation status were "engineered wood products," "manufactured homes," and "household furniture manufacturing," as opposed to industry sub-segments such as "sawmill" and "wood container and pallets," which had lower Lean awareness and Lean implementation status. The study also revealed that smaller companies (less than 50 employees) have a lower level of Lean awareness and implementation status than do larger companies (50-499 employees). Despite the low level of Lean implementation across the wood products and furniture manufacturing industry in Virginia, less than one-fourth of all respondents indicated a need for Lean implementation support. / Master of Science

Cette thèse traite d'un type d'innovation largement négligé jusqu'à aujourd'hui : l'innovation organisationnelle (IO), également connue sous le nom " d'innovation management " ou " innovation managériale ". L'objectif est d'expliquer le phénomène d'adoption de ce type d'innovation en identifiant non seulement ses antécédents internes et externes, mais aussi ses relations avec l'innovation technologique de procédés, avec laquelle elle partage un certain nombre de caractéristiques. Le modèle proposé est fondé sur la vision intégrative de l'innovation (the integrative view of innovation) qui présente un triple intérêt : (1) contrairement à la vision distinctive et linéaire de l'innovation, elle ne relègue pas l'IO au statut d'innovation de second rang ; (2) elle élargit le champ des antécédents au-delà des seuls efforts en R&D et envisage leurs effets d'interaction ; (3) elle enrichit l'explication du phénomène d'adoption d'une IO en faisant l'hypothèse que des innovations de différents types sont adoptées de manière complémentaire. Notre démarche repose sur quatre articles empiriques et une multi-méthodologie, qualitative basée sur six études de cas d'entreprises industrielles, et quantitative faisant appel à différentes méthodes économétriques. Le Lean Management représente la forme concrète d'IO à partir de laquelle les confrontations empiriques sont réalisées. Au final, cette thèse est à l'origine de trois contributions majeures. Tout d'abord, au-delà des antécédents traditionnels privilégiés dans les recherches, d'autres antécédents internes (les pratiques de mobilisation des ressources humaines et la capacité d'absorption des entreprises) et externes (les sources de connaissances) jouent un rôle crucial sur l'adoption d'une IO. Ensuite, la prise en compte des interactions entre ces antécédents s'avère essentielle pour une meilleure compréhension du processus d'adoption, certains étant complémentaires (ex : les pratiques de mobilisation entre elles ou la résistance au changement et le manque de soutien managérial) alors que d'autres sont substituables (ex : les sources externes de connaissance et la capacité d'absorption des firmes). Enfin, conformément à la vision intégrative, l'adoption de l'IO n'est pas indépendante de l'adoption d'une innovation technologique de procédés et est régie par des antécédents similaires. Toutefois, leur relation n'est pas d'ordre complémentaire au sens strict dans la mesure où il y aurait un effet d'ordre. Ces résultats débouchent sur des recommandations managériales utiles pour un meilleur pilotage de l'adoption d'une IO.