The purpose of the analysis was to realise potential areas for improvement within the Production Services department. Sources of inefficiency within the Reporting System were identified to support recommendations for the rationalisation, streamlining and alignment of processes. Lean philosophies and Total Quality Management techniques were reviewed to gain an understanding of applicability to Production Services. Evaluation through Value Stream Mapping determined a reporting process efficiency of 71% and two supplementary waste types were recognised in addition to the standard seven wastes of lean processes. The root cause of inefficiency and waste was investigated further with the 5 Whys Technique. A benchmark was established through reviewing industry based literature and conducting comparative studies of both like and unlike departments. Participant and non-participant naturalistic observation techniques were employed to collect a balanced data set for value stream analysis. Variable environmental factors were recognised to moderate results from direct analysis of the reporting system. Dissimilar political, economic, sociocultural, technological and legal factors were considered during comparison and benchmark. The findings in this report provide evidence of issues that should be addressed for the continuous improvement of both the reporting system, and the department. These have been provided for the consideration of Shell Todd Oil Services Limited Production Services and Logistics Manager.

This dissertation consists of three essays in international trade. The first chapter analyzes integration strategies of Korean firms that involve producing final products and providing post-production services for serving geographically separate foreign markets: high-income and low-income countries. I present a model in which heterogeneous firms must provide services for products through their subsidiaries in host countries, but can produce output in different locations. The model shows that the firm's equilibrium decision depends on its own productivity level and economic variables that affect production location and providing services. Using plant- and firm-level data of Korean firms, the empirical analysis provides the results that support the model's predictions. The second chapter analyzes the effects of regional economic integrations on investment patterns among Korean multinational firms. Using Korea's middle-income status, we develop a model in which heterogeneous firms in a middle-income country decide on the optimal FDI strategies for serving different regions: a developed (EEA) and a developing (AFTA) trade integrated regions. Following reduced trade costs between countries inside the trade integrated region, our model predicts that integrating into a regional economic zone affects firms with low productivity levels to enter the region via complex FDI strategies. Depending on the size of the region, however, complex FDI strategies differ such that firms investing in developed region tend to undertake local and export sales to the third country, whereas firms investing in developing region are more likely to engage in not only local and export sales to the third country, but also export sales to the parent country. The empirical analysis confirms the effect of different regional economic integrations on the strategy of firms with different productivity levels. The last chapter examines the conditions under which technology spillovers through workers' movement occur between foreign affiliates in the host country and determine whether such spillovers can affect the exporters' decisions to switch their strategies to serve foreign markets via FDI. Developing a simple two-period duopoly model, I find that the occurrence of technology spillovers is dependent on firm and host country characteristics such that spillovers are more likely to arise when firms have similar technology capabilities and in countries that incur low cost of training local workers. Under these circumstances, exporters are more likely to switch to FDI for serving foreign markets. However, I find that transport costs of goods have ambiguous effect on the occurrence of spillovers and thus, do not play a marginal role in exporters' decision. / text

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-08T14:53:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1355369 bytes, checksum: 9c8287916a30feac7e9a3d355e472d28 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This Project brings a Chance Constrained Programming substantial approaching (CCP). This kind of optimization is used to pattern uncertainties and became useful to all kind of knowledge areas. The project main idea was to show CCP s theories and beyond this to present some applications on Engineering and Public Politics areas. It is noteworthy to say that this tool is pretty important for the production systems because of its uncertainties process. So after showing the theory whose purpose is to comprehend the Chance Constrained Programming, this subject commits itself to apply such technique in Emergency Medical Care Production Services (SAMU) in João Pessoa using the proposed model from Beraldi et al. (2004). This application was really useful to define the necessary ambulances to supply João Pessoa s city as well as the local they must be. However, to understand this technique and also work with it it s necessary a previous knowledge of Statistics, Applied Mathematics and Computing. Therefore, this work emphasizes the continuous and discreet random variables, as well as the probabilistic functions and concepts. In Applied Mathematics, this work brings a Linear Optimization, Facility Location and log concave functions. Concerning to computing, it was used MATLAB R007, Google Maps and CPLEX to provide the model. The great benefit of using CCP is that it offers possible solutions to the person who chooses between them, according to the reality. / Este trabalho apresenta uma abordagem de Otimização Probabilística (OP). Esse tipo de Otimização é utilizada para modelar incertezas e se tornou útil em diversas áreas do conhecimento. O objetivo principal deste trabalho foi apresentar a teoria de OP e, além disso, expor algumas aplicações nas áreas de Engenharia e Políticas Públicas. Vale ressaltar que tal ferramenta é muito interessante para Sistemas de Produção por existir incertezas inerentes ao processo. Assim, depois de apresentada tal teoria, com o intuito de melhor compreender a melhor a ferramenta de OP, este trabalho, se propôs a aplicar tal técnica no Sistema de Produção dos Serviços de Atendimento Médico de Urgência (SAMU) da cidade João Pessoa usando o Modelo proposto por Beraldi et al.(2004). A aplicação serviu para definir a quantidade de ambulâncias necessárias para atender a demanda de João Pessoa, assim como os possíveis locais que as mesmas devem estar posicionadas. No entanto, para entender melhor sobre essa técnica e trabalhar com a mesma, é necessário um conhecimento prévio de Estatística, Matemática Aplicada e Computação. Portanto, este trabalho aborda as variáveis aleatórias discretas e contínuas, bem como conceitos de Funções de Probabilidade. Na parte da Matemática Aplicada, este trabalho aborda conceitos de Otimização Linear, Facility Location e funções log. côncavas. Quanto à computação foi utilizado MATLAB R007,Google Maps e CPLEX para realizar a aplicação do Modelo. A grande vantagem da utilização de OP é que a mesma oferece soluções viáveis cujo tomador de decisão tem a opção de escolher qual a melhor solução de acordo com sua realidade.

Performance-based contracting (PBC) redefines the relationships between suppliers and buyers and differs from traditional contracting approaches with its reward/payment scheme, emphasis on the performance outcomes, increased supplier autonomy, and transfer of risk and responsibilities to suppliers. Given the 70% of life cycle costs of products/systems reside in sustainment, PBC has led to substantial improvements in availability, maintainability, reliability, and thus total cost of ownership of systems/products. Though PBC has changed the way of doing business and its presence has increased across multiple industry, private and public sectors, for profit and not-for-profit, its implications on various aspects of logistics and supply chain management have been understudied. It is important to explore and establish evidence regarding these implications through academic rigor. Therefore, this three-essay dissertation aims to give some insight regarding structural and behavioral implications of PBC using a multi-method approach. Specifically, it (1) explores the relationship between PBC and supply chain resilience (SCRES), (2) examines the supplier goal commitment (i.e., motivation) in PBC, (3) proposes a mathematical model to find optimal contract length, periodic contract price and investment that concurrently maximizing supplier profit and satisfying buyer requirements. This dissertation offers theoretical and managerial contributions as well.