The thesis examines the adoption of Activity Based Cost Management (ABCM) by Small - and Medium - Sized Enterprises' (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector. A generic methodology is proposed, developed and tested to enable the target recipients to assess their requirements for an advanced costing system and to facilitate implementation of an ABCM solution. In support of the methodology, a literature survey, implementation survey and software review have been undertaken. The implementation survey considers the adoption of ABCM by European organisations and the application of published theory. This established the validity behind the adoption of ABCM by SMEs and defined implementation considerations. The software review reports an evaluation of software systems available in the United Kingdom. A software matrix is established by the author to enable organisations to assess their software requirement against their organisational and project orientation. The distinct and original methodology establishes the costing system requirement for SMEs. The methodology is based upon a critical examination of the processes, activities and data prevailing in an organisation. This enables an in-depth appraisal of organisational requirements and appropriate solutions to be facilitated. Part two of the methodology details the implementation of an operational ABCM solution. The designs of ABCM models for three organisations participating in the research programme are presented and the effects upon product and activity cost for these organisations is reported. Utilisation of the methodology and the implementation of ABCM in collaborating SMEs is critically appraised with theory proposed by prominent authors relating to ABCM implementations in large organisations. The thesis concludes with discussion of the proposed methodology and considerations for its adoption by SMEs. Overall conclusions are established and opportunities for exploitation and further research work are detailed.

As the external environment changing continuously, strict control of production, urgent demand, information of manufacturing management need to immediately, transparently, and digitally respond to the market and improve the quality of decision. Therefore, manufacturing execution systems (MES) are chosen to replace shop floor control systems (SFCs) by enterprises. For a long time being, the small and medium-sized enterprises contribute a great deal to Taiwan¡¦s economy. After the global trend of information technology and the rapid development of internet, many chief executive officers realized the important role of information technology played within an enterprise. Can the information system fit seamlessly into the business management? Since there is short of an integrated tool to communicate effectively, most projects of information systems channel into time delay and fail to obtain applause. Still, most companies adopt the process-oriented approach, which is not an integrated tool, to model the manufacturing management. This study, concluding that there is a better choice, selects TOGAF enterprise architecture (EA) Method (ArchiMate) to model the manufacturing management. Through architectural thinking and analysis, ArchiMate tool is able to integrate the organizational structure and organizational behavior, thus improve the communication efficiency and decision quality within an enterprise.

The main objective of the study was to ascertain the presence of the identified critical success factors for lean sustainability in a chemical manufacturing company in Port Elizabeth. The critical success factors that formed part of the research included leadership involvement and commitment, management involvement and commitment, employee engagement and organisational culture. The methodology used was one of a positivistic approach. A questionnaire was utilized and the responses were analyzed using various statistical methods. Based on the results from the analysis, recommendations and conclusions could be drawn. The inferential results of the study indicated that all the critical success factors identified for this study were present within the organisation. However, there were still a large percentage of respondents that remained neutral across all the questions which could indicate reasons why previous attempts in lean implementation failed. The recommendations provided were based on the findings of the study. An implementation strategy was identified and outlined. This strategy and recommendations will assist in providing a sound platform for a sustainable lean initiative within the organisation.

This is a quantitative study. The primary research objective is to investigate the importance of hospital management’s involvement when implementing lean elements in healthcare. In reality, incidents and quality problems are prime reasons why healthcare leaders are calling for redesign in healthcare delivery and systems. This paper presents a proposal for developing a lean culture in healthcare facilities equipped with managers who will be able to drive the implementation of lean elements from the top down, making use of multidisciplinary teams, including physicians, to deliver value-added services. This study ultimately endeavors to indicate the importance of management, multidisciplinary teams and physician involvement in implementing lean principles in healthcare successfully. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.” – Stephen Covey. The reasons why lean management is a particularly important strategy in healthcare currently, includes the following: •The need to reduce waste in healthcare cost; •The need to improve quality and on-time processes; •Fast-paced technological changes; •Ever-increasing patient expectations; and •The need to standardise processes and systems to get the high-quality results anticipated (Chalice, 2010).

A majority of the established automotive manufacturers are under severe competitive pressure and their long term economic sustainability is threatened. In particular the transformation towards more CO2-efficient energy sources is a huge financial burden for an already investment capital intensive industry. In addition existing operations urgently need rapid improvement and even more critical is the development of highly productive, efficient and sustainable manufacturing solutions for new and updated products. Simultaneously, a number of severe drawbacks with current improvement methods for industrial production systems have been identified. In summary, variation is not considered sufficient with current analysis methods, tools used are insufficient for revealing enough knowledge to support decisions, procedures for finding optimal solutions are not considered, and information about bottlenecks is often required, but no accurate methods for the identification of bottlenecks are used in practice, because they do not normally generate any improvement actions. Current methods follow a trial-and-error pattern instead of a proactive approach. Decisions are often made directly on the basis of raw static historical data without an awareness of optimal alternatives and their effects. These issues could most likely lead to inadequate production solutions, low effectiveness, and high costs, resulting in poor competitiveness. In order to address the shortcomings of existing methods, a methodology and framework for manufacturing management decision support using simulation-based multi-objective optimisation is proposed. The framework incorporates modelling and the optimisation of production systems, costs, and sustainability. Decision support is created through the extraction of knowledge from optimised data. A novel method and algorithm for the detection of constraints and bottlenecks is proposed as part of the framework. This enables optimal improvement activities with ranking in order of importance can be sought. The new method can achieve a higher improvement rate, when applied to industrial improvement situations, compared to the well-established shifting bottleneck technique. A number of 'laboratory' experiments and real-world industrial applications have been conducted in order to explore, develop, and verify the proposed framework. The identified gaps can be addressed with the proposed methodology. By using simulation-based methods, stochastic behaviour and variability is taken into account and knowledge for the creation of decision support is gathered through post-optimality analysis. Several conflicting objectives can be considered simultaneously through the application of multi-objective optimisation, while objectives related to running cost, investments and other sustainability parameters can be included through the use of the new cost and sustainability models introduced. Experiments and tests have been undertaken and have shown that the proposed framework can assist the creation of manufacturing management decision support and that such a methodology can contribute significantly to regaining profitability when applied within the automotive industry. It can be concluded that a proof-of-concept has been rigorously established for the application of the proposed framework on real-world industrial decision-making, in a manufacturing management context.

A evolução da tecnologia da informação, tanto em hardware quanto em software, na última década, proporcionou ao mundo globalizado mudanças significativas na Gestão das organizações privadas e governamentais, permitindo a integração do fluxo de informações de operação ao fluxo de informações de gestão dos processos de produção, através de uma linguagem de programação específica como o CAD e CAM. Como resultado desse processo de evolução, a partir da década de 90, surgiram os Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning) os quais passaram a incorporar os processos de negócio das empresas induzindo-as a mudanças significativas no ambiente de operação, desde os procedimentos mais simples até os mais complexos. É nesse contexto que pesquisadores e profissionais envolvidos com a implantação de tais sistemas constataram que o custo de aquisição, incluindo investimentos em inovações tecnológicas e treinamento, necessários à operação desses sistemas, por si só não garantiu o custo benefício e o retorno dos investimentos realizados, resultados esses não compatíveis com as expectativas geradas no período de implantação, causando em alguns casos perda de eficiência e frustração por parte dos usuários desses sistemas. Tal evidência induziu o autor do presente trabalho ao objetivo geral de elucidar as causas dos insucessos, partindo para a pesquisa descritiva de diferentes empresas, de segmentos distintos, que implantaram os sistemas ERP de diferentes fornecedores disponíveis no mercado. A pesquisa descritiva de campo permitiu esclarecer no âmbito de operação dessas empresas as suas peculiaridades quanto à estrutura do departamento de planejamento e controle da produção e sua integração com suas técnicas auxiliares. Nesse contexto foi possível avaliar a implantação desses sistemas pelas unidades produtivas pesquisadas que tiveram o objetivo de garantir ganhos significativos quanto à redução do tempo de resposta ao atendimento das necessidades dos clientes, com a possibilidade do apontamento de indicadores de desempenho mais precisos, direcionando a pesquisa para a avaliação do papel do PCP como agente facilitador do processo de implantação e como responsável pela aderência ou não desses sistemas ao sistema produtivo. Logo, um estudo mais aprofundado dos conceitos elucidados na literatura quanto aos tempos de processo e, conseqüentemente, aos tempos de resposta de todo o processo de fabricação, enfatizou a necessidade de se estudar a evolução do processo de manufatura ao longo das últimas décadas. A condução da pesquisa ao estudo das fases inerentes ao processo de evolução da manufatura nas últimas décadas, apontou para a divisão do processo de evolução em quatro fases: 1. Manufatura em Massa; 2. Manufatura Enxuta; 3. Manufatura Ágil; 4. Manufatura Responsiva. Nesse cenário, um dos objetivos específicos do trabalho é o de apontar as deficiências dos sistemas ERP em operação nas empresas que tiveram como meta reduções significativas de tempo de processo, com base no estudo das fases descritas, das técnicas auxiliares do PCP e da relação da função tempo com o contexto atual, além dos sistemas de gestão integrada. A revisão bibliográfica detalhada e cinco estudos de caso aqui apresentados formam o corpo deste trabalho. / The evolution of the technology of information, both in hardware and software, during the last decade, have provided to the globalized world significant changes in the Management of private and governmental organizations, allowing the integration of the flow of information of operation with the flow of information of production management processes, by means of specific programming language as CAD and CAM. As a result of this cycle of evolution, which started in the 90\'s, the ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning - was incorporated to the processes of business in companies leading them to significant changes in the operation environment, from the most simple to the most complex procedures. It is in this context that researchers and professionals, involved with the implantation of such systems, had evidenced that the acquisition cost, including investments in technological innovations and training so necessary to the systems operation, did not guarantee the cost benefits and the return of the investments. These results were not compatible with the expectations generated in the implantation period causing, in some cases, loss of efficiency and frustration on the part of the users of these systems. Such evidences lead the author of the present paper to the general objective of elucidating the causes of the failures. The work started from the descriptive research of different companies of distinct segments, which had implanted ERP systems of different available suppliers in the market. The descriptive field research allowed the clarifying of some peculiarities in the scope of operation of the companies as to the structure of their planning department and production control and the integration with supporting techniques. In this context it was possible to evaluate the implantation of these systems, in the considered productive units, which had aimed at guaranteeing significant profits as to the reduction of time of response to customer needs, with the possibility of pointing to more precise performance indicators, thus directing the research to the evaluation of the role of PCP as a facilitator agent in the implantation process and as a responsible one for the observance or not of these systems to the productive scheme. As a result, a broaden study of the concepts, focused on the specific literature, referring to the time of processing and, consequently, to the time of response of all the manufacturing procedures, emphasized the necessity of studying the evolution of the manufacturing process during the last decades. The conduction of the research to the study of inherent phases of the evolution process of manufacturing in the last decades, pointed to the division of the of evolution process in four phases: 1. Mass Manufacturing; 2. Lean Manufacturing (just in time); 3. Agile Manufacturing; 4. Responsive Manufacturing. In this scenario, one of the specific targets of this work is to spot the deficiencies of ERP systems currently in use in the companies which had as a goal significant reductions of processing time, based on the study of the mentioned paradigms, the PCP supporting techniques, and the relation of the function time with the current context, besides the systems of integrated management. The detailed bibliographical revision and five case studies, herein presented, compose the corpus of this work.

Orientador: Sergio Tonini Button / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-14T01:34:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sousa_AntonioPereirade_M.pdf: 2432745 bytes, checksum: cca00852af5013ac7b114fa18328f9f8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: O processo de modernização tecnológica e organizacional da indústria tem determinado a demanda por profissionais com maior capacitação para atuarem em planejamento, organização e supervisão do processo produtivo das empresas. O mundo do trabalho passa a exigir cada vez mais um profissional que domine não apenas o conteúdo técnico específico à sua atividade, mas que, igualmente, detenha capacidade crítica, autonomia para gerir seu próprio trabalho, habilidade para atuar em equipe e solucionar criativamente situações desafiadoras em sua área profissional. A generalização do uso da microinformática, a compreensão do trabalho como algo além de conhecimentos técnicos, envolvendo habilidades comunicativas e comportamentais; a necessidade de transferência de conhecimentos entre áreas profissionais distintas, exigem a estruturação de uma educação profissional renovada, em sintonia com os movimentos do setor produtivo. Com isso, é natural que um programa de capacitação de líderes de produção nos dias de hoje esteja pautado nas novas exigências demandadas pelos setores de produção da nova indústria. O setor de produção, coração das empresas industriais, passou a demandar atenção especial no que tange a qualificação das pessoas que comandam esses setores. Logo, é preciso considerar na estruturação de um programa de capacitação do novo líder de produção, a definição clara do perfil profissional desejado e os conhecimentos, habilidades e atitudes necessárias para o exercício da função. Assim, o autor apresenta um Programa de Capacitação de Líderes de Processos Produtivos - CLPP como forma de contribuir com o segmento industrial na qualificação das pessoas que comandam linhas de produção. Estão contidos os resultados obtidos com a aplicação experimental na Perdigão, empresa do ramo de frigorífico de abate e processamentos de aves e suínos / Abstract: The modernization process of the technological and organizational fields of industry has been determining the demand for professionals with larger training awareness to act in planning, organization and supervision of the productive process of the companies. The business world is nowadays demanding a professional that not just dominates the specific technical content of his own activity, but also, in the same way, shows critical capacity, autonomy to manage his own tasks, team work skills and even solve with creativity challenging situations in the professional area chosen. The generalization of micro computing use, the understanding of the work as something beyond technical knowledge, involving communicative and behavioral ability ; the need of knowledge transference among different professional areas, demand the structuring of a renewed professional education, in constant synchrony to the movements of the productive section. As a consequence, it is natural that a training program of production leaders at present time is ruled by the new demands disputed by the sections of production of the new industry. The production section, heart of the industrial companies, started to demand special attention in terms the qualification of the people who lead those sections. Therefore, it is necessary to consider in the structuring of a program for the new production leader's training, the clear definition of the wanted professional profile and the knowledge, abilities and necessary attitudes for the exercise of the function. So, the author presents a program for Training Leaders of Productive Processes - (TLPP) as a way to contribute to the industrial segment in the qualification of people that command production lines. Are contained the results of the experimental application in Perdigão, the branch company of a refrigerator of slaughter and processing of poultry and pigs / Mestrado / Materiais e Processos de Fabricação / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

A evolução da tecnologia da informação, tanto em hardware quanto em software, na última década, proporcionou ao mundo globalizado mudanças significativas na Gestão das organizações privadas e governamentais, permitindo a integração do fluxo de informações de operação ao fluxo de informações de gestão dos processos de produção, através de uma linguagem de programação específica como o CAD e CAM. Como resultado desse processo de evolução, a partir da década de 90, surgiram os Sistemas Integrados de Gestão (ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning) os quais passaram a incorporar os processos de negócio das empresas induzindo-as a mudanças significativas no ambiente de operação, desde os procedimentos mais simples até os mais complexos. É nesse contexto que pesquisadores e profissionais envolvidos com a implantação de tais sistemas constataram que o custo de aquisição, incluindo investimentos em inovações tecnológicas e treinamento, necessários à operação desses sistemas, por si só não garantiu o custo benefício e o retorno dos investimentos realizados, resultados esses não compatíveis com as expectativas geradas no período de implantação, causando em alguns casos perda de eficiência e frustração por parte dos usuários desses sistemas. Tal evidência induziu o autor do presente trabalho ao objetivo geral de elucidar as causas dos insucessos, partindo para a pesquisa descritiva de diferentes empresas, de segmentos distintos, que implantaram os sistemas ERP de diferentes fornecedores disponíveis no mercado. A pesquisa descritiva de campo permitiu esclarecer no âmbito de operação dessas empresas as suas peculiaridades quanto à estrutura do departamento de planejamento e controle da produção e sua integração com suas técnicas auxiliares. Nesse contexto foi possível avaliar a implantação desses sistemas pelas unidades produtivas pesquisadas que tiveram o objetivo de garantir ganhos significativos quanto à redução do tempo de resposta ao atendimento das necessidades dos clientes, com a possibilidade do apontamento de indicadores de desempenho mais precisos, direcionando a pesquisa para a avaliação do papel do PCP como agente facilitador do processo de implantação e como responsável pela aderência ou não desses sistemas ao sistema produtivo. Logo, um estudo mais aprofundado dos conceitos elucidados na literatura quanto aos tempos de processo e, conseqüentemente, aos tempos de resposta de todo o processo de fabricação, enfatizou a necessidade de se estudar a evolução do processo de manufatura ao longo das últimas décadas. A condução da pesquisa ao estudo das fases inerentes ao processo de evolução da manufatura nas últimas décadas, apontou para a divisão do processo de evolução em quatro fases: 1. Manufatura em Massa; 2. Manufatura Enxuta; 3. Manufatura Ágil; 4. Manufatura Responsiva. Nesse cenário, um dos objetivos específicos do trabalho é o de apontar as deficiências dos sistemas ERP em operação nas empresas que tiveram como meta reduções significativas de tempo de processo, com base no estudo das fases descritas, das técnicas auxiliares do PCP e da relação da função tempo com o contexto atual, além dos sistemas de gestão integrada. A revisão bibliográfica detalhada e cinco estudos de caso aqui apresentados formam o corpo deste trabalho. / The evolution of the technology of information, both in hardware and software, during the last decade, have provided to the globalized world significant changes in the Management of private and governmental organizations, allowing the integration of the flow of information of operation with the flow of information of production management processes, by means of specific programming language as CAD and CAM. As a result of this cycle of evolution, which started in the 90\'s, the ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning - was incorporated to the processes of business in companies leading them to significant changes in the operation environment, from the most simple to the most complex procedures. It is in this context that researchers and professionals, involved with the implantation of such systems, had evidenced that the acquisition cost, including investments in technological innovations and training so necessary to the systems operation, did not guarantee the cost benefits and the return of the investments. These results were not compatible with the expectations generated in the implantation period causing, in some cases, loss of efficiency and frustration on the part of the users of these systems. Such evidences lead the author of the present paper to the general objective of elucidating the causes of the failures. The work started from the descriptive research of different companies of distinct segments, which had implanted ERP systems of different available suppliers in the market. The descriptive field research allowed the clarifying of some peculiarities in the scope of operation of the companies as to the structure of their planning department and production control and the integration with supporting techniques. In this context it was possible to evaluate the implantation of these systems, in the considered productive units, which had aimed at guaranteeing significant profits as to the reduction of time of response to customer needs, with the possibility of pointing to more precise performance indicators, thus directing the research to the evaluation of the role of PCP as a facilitator agent in the implantation process and as a responsible one for the observance or not of these systems to the productive scheme. As a result, a broaden study of the concepts, focused on the specific literature, referring to the time of processing and, consequently, to the time of response of all the manufacturing procedures, emphasized the necessity of studying the evolution of the manufacturing process during the last decades. The conduction of the research to the study of inherent phases of the evolution process of manufacturing in the last decades, pointed to the division of the of evolution process in four phases: 1. Mass Manufacturing; 2. Lean Manufacturing (just in time); 3. Agile Manufacturing; 4. Responsive Manufacturing. In this scenario, one of the specific targets of this work is to spot the deficiencies of ERP systems currently in use in the companies which had as a goal significant reductions of processing time, based on the study of the mentioned paradigms, the PCP supporting techniques, and the relation of the function time with the current context, besides the systems of integrated management. The detailed bibliographical revision and five case studies, herein presented, compose the corpus of this work.

When the current South African government came into power two decades ago they inherited a fragmented health care system whose main focus was on the tertiary care level. The strategy of the current government was to re-focus the whole health care system and prioritize primary health care system. That included setting up district health care systems and building primary health care centres in the areas within the communities in order to make health care accessible to everybody. Due to financial difficulties the majority of the people staying in these communities solely depend on these clinics as they cannot afford to buy health care services in the private sector. The study seeks to assess the current medication supply chain to these clinics with a view of coming up with recommendations that, when implemented, will ensure that the supply of medication by the clinics is able to meet the demands of their patients. Lean management is a system that was started in the manufacturing sector and because of its success there it was later adopted by the service industry. Lean is a system that seeks to eliminate all forms of waste and improve the quality of the service rendered to the satisfaction of the customer/patient. Literature review and discussion of lean implementation is discussed extensively. The findings of the study are presented, analyzed and discussed. In these findings it is noted that the system is functioning very well but there are challenges in these clinics that need to be addressed. Recommendations of how lean management can be implemented successfully to optimize the functioning of the current system are discusse The permission received from the Department of Health to conduct this study came with contractual obligations that the researcher promised to honour. One of those requirement stated clearly that the findings of the study should not be published anywhere without the permission of the Department (see addendums A & C). It is under that premise that the researcher wants to bring this to the attention of the relevant university departments, with the hope of ensuring that this contractual obligation is honoured.

No description available.