Research Problems: Every industry produces its own wastes, but if its development is handled well, these wastes can be used as an additional resource as well. However, every resource recycling industry will eventually have to face the fact that in this industrial world over a period of time, the ¡§Red Ocean¡¨ competition by offering a lower price as well as decreasing the value added to the industry. In the past, the China Steel Cooperation (CSC) used to dump these granulated blast furnace slag into the ocean as industrial wastes, which have caused pollutions to the ocean leading to protest with the local fishermen. Using the Slag Powder Resource Recycling Company as an example, they have taken in these wastes since 1986 from the CSC. Under research, the granulated blast furnace slag are used and developed into a resource to produce slag powder, which successfully substitutes the use of cements to be used to make concrete. After 20 years of development, slag powder production has been extremely competitive and consolidated, making it a mature product in the market. Therefore, knowing how to increase the value-added to a product for the customer has always been a very important issue to the company leader. ¡§This paper is mainly focused on studying how to use the concept of Servitization of Manufacturing to increase the value-added to its product towards its customers.¡¨ Research Design:¡@¡@ This research uses [a slag resource recycling plant] as an example to explore the concept of manufacturing service as a way to develop and cooperate in communications with the customer services. A total of 5 companies, namely A, B, C, D, E, with access to case the company¡¦s downstream clients, are expected to complete five questionnaire interviews. These surveys will provide analysis to enhance the value-added approach. Main Contribution: Through thorough discussion and case interviews with the company¡¦s colleagues and its clients, the direction of the service and its proposed approach is sorted out to give the company and its related industries an increase in production and will also be a very important direction for the company in its development.

Abstract There is no literature explores the relationship between manpower and performance of the Taiwan¡¦s psychiatric hospitals yet. This research takes samples from seven public psychiatric hospitals in Taiwan to investigate: 1. Performance measurement of psychiatric hospitals. 2. The influence of psychiatric hospitals¡¦ manpower inputs on service performance. The orientations of data analysis in this research are research framework and research hypotheses, and then collect data from seven domestic public psychiatric hospitals. According to the nature of gathered data, we applied SPSS software on Descriptive Statistics, Pearson Correlation Analysis, K-Means Cluster Analysis, and t-test for difference of two samples mean, to explore the relationship between manpower input and service performance. Research outcomes: 1¡BAlthough service items don¡¦t increase in high professional manpower structure compare to low professional manpower structure, the service amounts increased significantly. Test results show that the hypothesis 1-1 is not supported, but hypothesis 1-2 is supported. 2¡BGroups with higher manpower quality input have significant increasing in service items¡¦ performances, but not significant statistically. Even though groups with higher manpower quality increased service items, the service amounts do not raise. However, groups with lower manpower quality input have significant increasing in service amounts¡¦ performances. It means that the significantly negative correlation between manpower quality and service amounts¡¦ performances. Test results show the hypothesis 2-1 is not supported, neither is hypothesis 2-2. 3¡BEven though the service items¡¦ performances have no significant increasing in the groups with high formal and contracted personnel percentages input, the service amounts are increased significantly. Therefore, the difference of formal and contracted personnel percentages input has significant influence on service amounts. Test results show the hypothesis 3-1 is not supported, but hypothesis3-2 is supported. 4¡BPsychiatric hospitals with high manpower costs input do not increase service items, but increase service amounts. Test results show the hypothesis 4-1 is not supported, but hypothesis 4-2 is supported. ¡@The relationship between psychiatric hospital¡¦s manpower input and service performance is clearly realized through this research, which could be the reference for hospital managers to adjust profession manpower and to employ personnel in the future. Meanwhile, it can facilitate managers to control correct developments, to use every manpower portfolio engaging in medical operations, and to exert maximum efficiency of human resources with most economical manpower costs to improve psychiatric hospitals¡¦ service performances. ¡iKeywords¡j: Psychiatric hospital, Manpower input, Service performance

This cross-sectional study of Portuguese service organizations seeks to determine the level of alignment of competitive methods with strategy typologies covered in the business literature. Surveyed firms were asked to indicate their level of utilization of several competitive methods. The results of factor analysis of the survey data indicate that 30 of the 33 competitive methods covered in this study represent seven underlying strategy dimensions. Further analysis revealed that there is some congruence between the derived strategy dimensions and established strategy typologies in the literature. Cluster analysis revealed that each of the responding firms could be classified into one of four hybrid or mixed strategy orientations. However, differences in strategy orientation were not statistically significant in explaining differences in the financial performance of these organizations. These findings are discussed in the light of their implications for strategy development, strategy choices and performance evaluation in the Portuguese service sector.

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Since October 1999, Kaohsiung City Government has contracted for operating and managing senior-citizen activity centers to eight non-profit organizations. The purpose of the research is to evaluate service performance, service satisfaction and service quality of senior-citizen activity centers and explore the differences between those with contracting and without contracting. The population is the users of 23 senior-citizen activity centers of Kaohsiung City. Using structured questionnaires, face-to face interview and purposive sampling, the data was collected. The results of study revealed: in contracting centers, women had more service satisfaction than men did. The users with lower educational backgrounds had higher service satisfaction. However, in centers without contracting, the high frequency users had higher service satisfaction. Four significant differences were found between centers with or without contracting: ¡§service satisfaction¡¨, ¡§environment and facilities¡¨, ¡§management and administration¡¨ and ¡§service attitude¡¨. The users of contracting centers gave better performance score than the users of centers without contracting. No significant difference was found in ¡§service outcome¡¨. There were five factors influenced the users¡¦ service satisfaction in contracting centers: ¡§environment and facilities¡¨, ¡§management and administration¡¨, ¡§service attitude¡¨, ¡§service outcome¡¨ and ¡§interpersonal relationships¡¨. These five factors explained 75% variance of the regression model. However, in centers without contracting, three factors influenced the users¡¦ service satisfaction: ¡§management and administration¡¨, ¡§service attitude¡¨ and ¡§interpersonal relationship¡¨. These three factors explained 72% variance of the regression model. Furthermore, the researcher ranked the scores of service performance of the eight contracting centers and compared them with the rank list evaluated by Bureau of Social Affairs in 2004. The comparative results were not the same. It indicated that higher grade evaluated by Bureau is not necessarily got the higher levels of service performance and satisfaction experienced by users. At last, according to the results of the study, researcher provided practical guidance for policy considerations by municipal managers and administrators.

Organizations across the United States and in many parts of the globe are increasingly focused on providing their customers with an excellent service experience by implementing organizational emotion display rules (Hochschild, 1983). These display rules dictate the requisite employee emotions for a particular encounter (Ekman, 1973). However, over the course of a work day display rules may call for expressions that contradict an employee's genuine emotions, thus prompting a discrepancy between felt emotions and required emotions -- emotional dissonance (Hochschild, 1983). Emotional labor involves employee efforts to reduce emotional dissonance in order to adhere to organizational display rules (Hochschild, 1983; Grandey, 2000). Hochschild (1983) identified two emotional labor strategies that may be used by employees -- surface acting (managing observable expressions to obey display rules) and deep acting (corresponds to managing feelings in order to actually feel the emotion required by the display rules). This study examined emotional intelligence, affectivity and gender as potential antecedents of an employee's choice of emotional labor strategy in order to meet organizational display rules. I also investigated the differential impact of the emotional labor strategies on the individual outcomes of emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction, and service performance.Correlation and moderated regression analyses as well as structural equation modeling were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Two hundred and twenty-three employee-supervisor pairs completed surveys to examine the research hypotheses. Correlation results indicate that emotional intelligence, affectivity and gender related to the emotional labor strategies in the expected directions. Similarly, deep acting and surface acting displayed differential relationships with emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and service performance. Moderated regression analyses suggest that females were more likely to report negative outcomes when engaging in surface acting. Structural equation modeling results indicate that affectivity predicted choice of the emotional labor strategies, which in turn predicted the outcomes of emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and service performance.

abstract: In recent years, service oriented computing (SOC) has become a widely accepted paradigm for the development of distributed applications such as web services, grid computing and cloud computing systems. In service-based systems (SBS), multiple service requests with specific performance requirements make services compete for system resources. IT service providers need to allocate resources to services so the performance requirements of customers can be satisfied. Workload and performance models are required for efficient resource management and service performance assurance in SBS. This dissertation develops two methods to understand and model the cause-effect relations of service-related activities with resources workload and service performance. Part one presents an empirical method that requires the collection of system dynamics data and the application of statistical analyses. The results show that the method is capable to: 1) uncover the impacts of services on resource workload and service performance, 2) identify interaction effects of multiple services running concurrently, 3) gain insights about resource and performance tradeoffs of services, and 4) build service workload and performance models. In part two, the empirical method is used to investigate the impacts of services, security mechanisms and cyber attacks on resources workload and service performance. The information obtained is used to: 1) uncover interaction effects of services, security mechanisms and cyber attacks, 2) identify tradeoffs within limits of system resources, and 3) develop general/specific strategies for system survivability. Finally, part three presents a framework based on the usage profiles of services competing for resources and the resource-sharing schemes. The framework is used to: 1) uncover the impacts of service parameters (e.g. arrival distribution, execution time distribution, priority, workload intensity, scheduling algorithm) on workload and performance, and 2) build service workload and performance models at individual resources. The estimates obtained from service workload and performance models at individual resources can be aggregated to obtain overall estimates of services through multiple system resources. The workload and performance models of services obtained through both methods can be used for the efficient resource management and service performance assurance in SBS. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Industrial Engineering 2012

In today’s technology industry, cloud refers to servers which can be accessed viainternet, and the software and database applications run on the servers [22]. Whereas cloud computing is a concept of delivering the IT resources via internet which is accessed by the users and companies. In these scenarios OpenStack is the widely used cloud software which controls large pool of IT resources like compute, storage and networking which are managed and provisioned through APIs [11]. In this technology the underlying parts are the transport protocols and web servers used for authenticating and provisioning mechanisms. When stating about its underlying transport protocols, TCP is the default (standard) protocol used behind the functioning of cloud, and HTTP/1.1 version towards actions between Web servers (apache2 and nginx) and browsers [10]. The scope of the thesis is to observe the complexity of replacing TCP with QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connection) in OpenStack and to observe the performance difference in OpenStack using HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/3. To observe this complexity, Performance Evaluation has been considered the best way in which the performance can be observed from the terminals. The thesis deals with performance of OpenStack with transport protocols from a Web server supporting HTTP/3 feature. We prove that its possible to provide the Keystone API via both HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/3. From our results we see that for simple API access HTTP/3 is faster than the HTTP/1.1 and also when the network is subjected to packet loss. The resultstates that there is a path obtained for OpenStack’s Keystone Service to interact with HTTP/3 and the average request-response time (total time) of HTTP/3 is less than that of HTTP/1.1 for accessing Keystone and Token generation even at defined packet loss rates.

Esta tese aborda serviços cuja \"matéria-prima\" é o próprio cliente e que se diferenciam dos demais tipos de serviços por não apresentarem uma correspondência imediata entre produto e resultado. Ou seja, os resultados almejados - frutos de vários encontros entre o cliente e o seu fornecedor - ocorrem em um tempo posterior ao da ação efetuada. Em função dessas características e da ausência de uma terminologia própria, foram denominados de Serviços de Resultados Ulteriores (SRU). Considerando-se que os SRUs apresentam características específicas, que demandam práticas gerenciais diferenciadas, neste estudo procura-se compreender tal fenômeno sob o ponto de vista de gerenciamento de operações. Desse modo, o presente trabalho objetiva auxiliar as empresas de SRU - academias de ginástica, serviços sociais de inclusão no mundo do trabalho, cursos preparatórios para concursos, entre outros - a obterem um melhor desempenho. Para tanto, a pesquisa foi baseada na metodologia de estudo de múltiplos casos, e uma mostra de seis diferentes organizações pertencentes às categorias de serviços de massa ou lojas de serviços foi investigada. Os resultados da pesquisa de campo evidenciaram que estas empresas estruturaram um sistema de monitoramento e controle voltado para o relacionamento com os seus clientes, caracterizado por rotinas de acompanhamento dos resultados ulteriores almejados e das atividades realizadas pelo cliente, ao longo de um extenso ciclo de transações. Observou-se também a utilização de táticas que favorecem mais participação e envolvimento dos clientes nas atividades executadas. Verificou-se que aplicação de um sistema de monitoramento e controle bem estruturado afeta positivamente a eficácia dos SRUs, mas ela pode ser influenciada por fatores externos que fogem ao controle da empresa. Além disso, a pesquisa observou que a retenção de clientes é afetada pela capacidade desse sistema de monitoramento e controle apontar necessidades de ajustes e correções em seu processo de entrega de serviço, pois isso favorece benefícios de natureza psicológica e social, além de possibilitar a customização do serviço entregue aos clientes. / This thesis deals with services whose raw material is the customer itself and they differentiate from the others because they do not have an immediate correspondence between the output and the outcome. That is, the outcome is obtained after several service encounters. Due to the fact that this type of service has not been appropriately studied by the service operations management literature and due to the fact that they do not have a proper terminology, them they will be called Services of Posterior Outcomes (SPO). It is important to assert that SPOs presents specific characteristics that require differentiated management practices under the point of view of service operations management, so this thesis intends to help the SPOs companies by understanding how they can achieve better performances. The methodology of case research was used in multiple cases. Six different companies classified as service shop or mass services were analyzed. The field research pointed out that SPOs companies tend to implement a monitoring system oriented for customer relationship. This system is characterized by the presence of routines that monitors the outcomes and the activities carried by the customer on the service, throughout a cycle of transactions. Also, SPO companies use tactics for promoting customer participation and your interest in the services activities. It was verified that a greater presence of this system positively affects the effectiveness of these services, but it is necessary to weigh the influence of external factors that affects the accomplishment of this objective. Moreover, the research observed that the retention of customers is influenced by the capacity of this system to make adjustments and corrections in its process of service delivery, therefore this capacity promote the acquisition of relational benefits by the customers.

Decisions concerning IT systems are often made without adequate decision-support. This has led to unnecessary IT costs and failures to realize business benefits. The present thesis presents a framework for analysis of four information systems properties relevant to IT decision-making. The work is founded on enterprise architecture, a model-based IT and business management discipline. Based on the existing ArchiMate framework, a new enterprise architecture framework has been developed and implemented in a software tool. The framework supports modeling and analysis of data accuracy, service performance, service availability and application usage. To analyze data accuracy, data flows are modeled, the service availability analysis uses fault tree analysis, the performance analysis employs queuing networks and the application usage analysis combines the Technology Acceptance Model and Task-Technology Fit model. The accuracy of the framework's estimates was empirically tested. Data accuracy and service performance were evaluated in studies at the same power utility. Service availability was tested in multiple studies at banks and power utilities. Data was collected through interviews with system development or maintenance staff. The application usage model was tested in the maintenance management domain. Here, data was collected by means of a survey answered by 55 respondents from three power utilities, one manufacturing company and one nuclear power plant. The service availability studies provided estimates that were accurate within a few hours of logged yearly downtime. The data accuracy estimate was correct within a percentage point when compared to a sample of data objects. Deviations for four out of five service performance estimates were within 15 % from measured values. The application usage analysis explained a high degree of variation in application usage when applied to the maintenance management domain. During the studies of data accuracy, service performance and service availability, records were kept concerning the required modeling and analysis effort. The estimates were obtained with a total effort of about 20 man-hours per estimate. In summary the framework should be useful for IT decision-makers requiring fairly accurate, but not too expensive, estimates of the four properties. / <p>QC 20120912</p>