SAs are documents that specify the business relationship between stakeholders to an outsourcing agreement. SAs specify this relationship in a legally binding manner that assists in managing expectations of the stakeholders about the service provision. According to Verma (1999), an SA is a precise statement of the expectations and obligations that exist in a business relationship between two organisation: the service provider and the client. In order for organizations to have successful outsourcing partnerships, they need well crafted methods of developing Service Agreements (SAs). Successful methods will produce a conclusive contract that will act as a working document that details the spirit of cooperation between the service provider and the service recipient. This research investigates the development of SAs in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, and proposes a model for their development. A number of models for SA development have been analysed. Models are analysed from leading researchers in the area, from software houses such as Microsoft and from international standards organisations such as the BS15000 which stipulates the ITIL framework. Eight development principles are identified and explored. An investigation into SAs and their development is conducted. A model is proposed that is composed of the development principles. The development of SAs was explored in an empirical study by means of a survey administered to industry practitioners and a series of interviews with managers in the ICT industry. The results of the study indicate varying levels of support for the development principles and limited relationship between the development principles and the success of the SA, as defined by the number of changes made to the SA after it is completed.

In hosting environments such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) clouds, desirable application performance is typically guaranteed through the use of Service Level Agreements (SLAs), which specify minimal fractions of resource capacities that must be allocated by a service provider for unencumbered use by customers to ensure proper operation of their workloads. Most IaaS offerings are presented to customers as fixed-size and fixed-price SLAs, that do not match well the needs of specific applications. Furthermore, arbitrary colocation of applications with different SLAs may result in inefficient utilization of hosts' resources, resulting in economically undesirable customer behavior. In this thesis, we propose the design and architecture of a Colocation as a Service (CaaS) framework: a set of strategic and operational services that allow the efficient colocation of customer workloads. CaaS strategic services provide customers the means to specify their application workload using an SLA language that provides them the opportunity and incentive to take advantage of any tolerances they may have regarding the scheduling of their workloads. CaaS operational services provide the information necessary for, and carry out the reconfigurations mandated by strategic services. We recognize that it could be the case that there are multiple, yet functionally equivalent ways to express an SLA. Thus, towards that end, we present a service that allows the provably-safe transformation of SLAs from one form to another for the purpose of achieving more efficient colocation. Our CaaS framework could be incorporated into an IaaS offering by providers or it could be implemented as a value added proposition by IaaS resellers. To establish the practicality of such offerings, we present a prototype implementation of our proposed CaaS framework.

No / Aims and This analysis paper describes a comparative evaluation of service deliverables within the Service Level Agreements (SLA) of two acute psychiatric services; one inclusive and the other exclusive of occupational therapy. Methods: Six SLA agreements provided the standards by which the two services were evaluated. The SLAs were evaluated because they are used by the service managers and commissioners to measure performance and clinical effectiveness. The role of the occupational therapists and their contribution to the planning and delivery of the performance indicators is also considered. An evaluation framework was applied to explore the potential role occupational therapy may have had in any performance difference between the two sites. In doing so it is hoped to provide some evidence to support and inform occupational therapists and service managers on the role and of occupational therapy in acute mental health services. This comparative evaluation followed the first three of the five audit stages: 1. Preparing for audit; 2. Selecting criteria; and 3. Measuring performance level. Findings: The service with occupational therapy performed better on home leave day use, ward occupancy and less than 3-day admissions. Conclusions: By delivering their key roles of individual assessment, therapeutic groups, individual treatment and discharge planning occupational therapist were able to contribute to the overall efficiency of service delivery. These findings support the role of the occupational therapist in an acute psychiatric setting and provide guidance for managers on how to utilise occupational therapy in the delivery of service outcomes.

O objetivo deste estudo é realizar a avaliação da estrutura de três instituições públicas com relação às propostas de inovação organizacional por meio das mudanças em seus processos de trabalho. Este estudo abrange os contratos terceirizados realizados por meio de processo licitatório com a utilização de Acordo de Nível de Serviço (ANS), que possui critérios objetivos de mensuração dos resultados contratados. Isso permite adequar o pagamento das faturas dos contratos de acordo com a quantidade e qualidade dos serviços prestados, constituindo o processo inovativo a ser estudado neste trabalho. Para isso, foram realizadas entrevistas com servidores das áreas que atuam desde o planejamento até o acompanhamento e execução dos contratos terceirizados continuados de forma a verificar a percepção com relação à inovação em sua instituição, cultura organizacional e apoio da alta administração. Dentre os contratos terceirizados, optou-se por avaliar os serviços prestados referente ao contrato específico de limpeza. Identificou-se que a instituição A possui a contratação por posto de trabalho sem que haja uma avaliação especifica para a qualidade dos serviços prestados vinculado ao pagamento da fatura, mesmo com total abertura para projetos inovadores. Esse modelo de contratação, atualmente, supre com as demandas da instituição. Já as instituições B e C possuem a contratação com utilização de ANS. Apesar de possuírem obstáculos com relação à adoção de inovação, observou-se que essas duas instituições possuem um modelo diferenciado de gerir seus contratos com inovação em seu processo. Verificou-se que as três instituições conseguem atingir os objetivos esperados para os contratos apresentados tais como a qualidade na entrega dos serviços prestados e o correto pagamento da fatura com relação ao serviço executado. Apesar disso, como existe a possibilidade de contratar futuramente uma empresa que não atinja a qualidade esperada ou que não tenha a competência para tal, é importante avaliar a implantação do ANS nos contratos futuros. / This paper aims to evaluate the structure of three public institutions’ regarding the proposals for organisational innovation through changes in their work processes. This study includes third-party vendors contracts through a bidding process with the use of Service Level Agreements (ANS in Brazil), which has objectives evaluates contracts. This allows adjusting the payment of the contracts according to the quantity and quality of the services provided, constituting the innovative process to be studied in this work. For that, interviews with workers in areas from planning to execution of continued third-party contracts were conducted to check the perception of innovation in their institution, organisational culture and managers’ support. Among the outsourced contracts, we opted to evaluate the services referring to the specific cleaning contract. The institution A has the type of contract by workstation without specifically check the quality of services provided which were paid, even with possibility for innovative projects. This contracting model currently meets the demands of the institution A. Institutions B and C follows Service Level Agreements. Despite they usually reach an impasse on innovation process, it was noted that these two institutions follows a particular model to manage their contracts with innovation. It was verified that the three institutions achieves the goals expected for contracts provided, which consists in the quality of services provided, followed by the due payment. The evaluate of the employment of Service Level Agreements is important, because there are no guarantees that a future contract will reach the expected quality.

M. Tech. Business Administration (MBA) / Information technology (IT) services have become strategic to business. Complex IT environments are usually managed according to a service management framework of which the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the de facto standard. Due to a lack of studies on service quality and the Information Technology Infrastructure Library in South Africa, this research was focused on how service quality is perceived by the business after the adoption of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library. The purposes of this research were: to identify which dimensions of service quality contributed most significantly to the service quality gap; to determine what the perceptions of service quality were after the implementation of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library; and how the opinions of service quality differ between the Information technology division and the business.

O objetivo deste estudo é realizar a avaliação da estrutura de três instituições públicas com relação às propostas de inovação organizacional por meio das mudanças em seus processos de trabalho. Este estudo abrange os contratos terceirizados realizados por meio de processo licitatório com a utilização de Acordo de Nível de Serviço (ANS), que possui critérios objetivos de mensuração dos resultados contratados. Isso permite adequar o pagamento das faturas dos contratos de acordo com a quantidade e qualidade dos serviços prestados, constituindo o processo inovativo a ser estudado neste trabalho. Para isso, foram realizadas entrevistas com servidores das áreas que atuam desde o planejamento até o acompanhamento e execução dos contratos terceirizados continuados de forma a verificar a percepção com relação à inovação em sua instituição, cultura organizacional e apoio da alta administração. Dentre os contratos terceirizados, optou-se por avaliar os serviços prestados referente ao contrato específico de limpeza. Identificou-se que a instituição A possui a contratação por posto de trabalho sem que haja uma avaliação especifica para a qualidade dos serviços prestados vinculado ao pagamento da fatura, mesmo com total abertura para projetos inovadores. Esse modelo de contratação, atualmente, supre com as demandas da instituição. Já as instituições B e C possuem a contratação com utilização de ANS. Apesar de possuírem obstáculos com relação à adoção de inovação, observou-se que essas duas instituições possuem um modelo diferenciado de gerir seus contratos com inovação em seu processo. Verificou-se que as três instituições conseguem atingir os objetivos esperados para os contratos apresentados tais como a qualidade na entrega dos serviços prestados e o correto pagamento da fatura com relação ao serviço executado. Apesar disso, como existe a possibilidade de contratar futuramente uma empresa que não atinja a qualidade esperada ou que não tenha a competência para tal, é importante avaliar a implantação do ANS nos contratos futuros. / This paper aims to evaluate the structure of three public institutions’ regarding the proposals for organisational innovation through changes in their work processes. This study includes third-party vendors contracts through a bidding process with the use of Service Level Agreements (ANS in Brazil), which has objectives evaluates contracts. This allows adjusting the payment of the contracts according to the quantity and quality of the services provided, constituting the innovative process to be studied in this work. For that, interviews with workers in areas from planning to execution of continued third-party contracts were conducted to check the perception of innovation in their institution, organisational culture and managers’ support. Among the outsourced contracts, we opted to evaluate the services referring to the specific cleaning contract. The institution A has the type of contract by workstation without specifically check the quality of services provided which were paid, even with possibility for innovative projects. This contracting model currently meets the demands of the institution A. Institutions B and C follows Service Level Agreements. Despite they usually reach an impasse on innovation process, it was noted that these two institutions follows a particular model to manage their contracts with innovation. It was verified that the three institutions achieves the goals expected for contracts provided, which consists in the quality of services provided, followed by the due payment. The evaluate of the employment of Service Level Agreements is important, because there are no guarantees that a future contract will reach the expected quality.

O objetivo deste estudo é realizar a avaliação da estrutura de três instituições públicas com relação às propostas de inovação organizacional por meio das mudanças em seus processos de trabalho. Este estudo abrange os contratos terceirizados realizados por meio de processo licitatório com a utilização de Acordo de Nível de Serviço (ANS), que possui critérios objetivos de mensuração dos resultados contratados. Isso permite adequar o pagamento das faturas dos contratos de acordo com a quantidade e qualidade dos serviços prestados, constituindo o processo inovativo a ser estudado neste trabalho. Para isso, foram realizadas entrevistas com servidores das áreas que atuam desde o planejamento até o acompanhamento e execução dos contratos terceirizados continuados de forma a verificar a percepção com relação à inovação em sua instituição, cultura organizacional e apoio da alta administração. Dentre os contratos terceirizados, optou-se por avaliar os serviços prestados referente ao contrato específico de limpeza. Identificou-se que a instituição A possui a contratação por posto de trabalho sem que haja uma avaliação especifica para a qualidade dos serviços prestados vinculado ao pagamento da fatura, mesmo com total abertura para projetos inovadores. Esse modelo de contratação, atualmente, supre com as demandas da instituição. Já as instituições B e C possuem a contratação com utilização de ANS. Apesar de possuírem obstáculos com relação à adoção de inovação, observou-se que essas duas instituições possuem um modelo diferenciado de gerir seus contratos com inovação em seu processo. Verificou-se que as três instituições conseguem atingir os objetivos esperados para os contratos apresentados tais como a qualidade na entrega dos serviços prestados e o correto pagamento da fatura com relação ao serviço executado. Apesar disso, como existe a possibilidade de contratar futuramente uma empresa que não atinja a qualidade esperada ou que não tenha a competência para tal, é importante avaliar a implantação do ANS nos contratos futuros. / This paper aims to evaluate the structure of three public institutions’ regarding the proposals for organisational innovation through changes in their work processes. This study includes third-party vendors contracts through a bidding process with the use of Service Level Agreements (ANS in Brazil), which has objectives evaluates contracts. This allows adjusting the payment of the contracts according to the quantity and quality of the services provided, constituting the innovative process to be studied in this work. For that, interviews with workers in areas from planning to execution of continued third-party contracts were conducted to check the perception of innovation in their institution, organisational culture and managers’ support. Among the outsourced contracts, we opted to evaluate the services referring to the specific cleaning contract. The institution A has the type of contract by workstation without specifically check the quality of services provided which were paid, even with possibility for innovative projects. This contracting model currently meets the demands of the institution A. Institutions B and C follows Service Level Agreements. Despite they usually reach an impasse on innovation process, it was noted that these two institutions follows a particular model to manage their contracts with innovation. It was verified that the three institutions achieves the goals expected for contracts provided, which consists in the quality of services provided, followed by the due payment. The evaluate of the employment of Service Level Agreements is important, because there are no guarantees that a future contract will reach the expected quality.

A economia globalizada e os avanços tecnológicos propiciaram um novo modelo de Outsourcing de Tecnologia de Informação (TI): os provedores de serviços de aplicativos (ASP - Application Service Providers). As discussões a respeito de ASP intensificaram-se nos três últimos anos, com a proposta de comercialização do software como um serviço. Quanto maior a interdependência da área de TI com as metas de negócios das organizações, maior a ênfase dada à satisfação das expectativas do cliente quanto aos serviços prestados pelos provedores. No mercado, têm-se adotado os acordos dos níveis de serviços (SLA - Service Level Agreements) como mecanismo de controle das atividades de outsourcing. Porém, essa adoção é nova e imatura, e a literatura é escassa. Tanto os provedores quanto os cliente sentem a necessidade por estruturas de implantação semelhantes às de SLA. Essa carência é ressaltada no caso dos modelos ASP. Propondo-se a contribuir com a compressão do modelo ASP e de SLA para ASP, apresenta-se uma pesquisa exploratória das características desse modelo com SLA, de modelos de qualidade de serviços de outsourcing e finalmente de considerações que devem ser feitas para garantir a qualidade dos serviços ASP, empregando-se os SLA. / The global economy and technological advances propitiated a new model of Information Technology (IT) Outsourcing: the Application Service Providers - ASP. Discussions regarding ASP became more frequent in the last three years because of the new approach of selling software as a service. As the interdependency between the IT area and the business goals of organizations becomes greater, the emphasis on fulfilling the client\'s expectations regarding service rendered by providers becomes stronger. In the market, Service Level Agreements - SLA have been adopted as control mechanisms of outsourcing activities. However, this adoption is new and immature, and the literature on the matter is scarce. Providers and clients feel the need for implementation structures similar to SLA\'s. In lhe case of ASP models, this necessity is emphasized mainly due to the lack of conceptual information on the ASP model. In order to better comprehend lhe ASP and the SLA models for ASP, I am presenting an exploratory research about the characteristics of the new approach with SLA models, outsourcing models of service quality and considerations, which must be carried out to ensure quality of ASP services employing SLA.

Cette thèse aborde le problème de tournées de véhicules périodiques (PVRP) lorsqu'il est appliqué au transport de marchandises convoitables. Des contraintes spécifiques relatives à la sécurité du convoi doivent être définies.Le problème de tournées de véhicules périodiques avec dispersion des instants de service (PVRPTS) est alors décrit puis modélisé mathématiquement. Le but est de servir un ensemble de clients sur plusieurs jours en respectant un degré de variation définit dans les heures de service. Le modèle obtenu est discuté et deux heuristiques constructives sont proposées et évaluées pour sa résolution.Une recherche locale itérée avec redémarrages (MS-ILS) est proposée pour ce problème. Les résultats obtenus montrent que cette méthode surpasse les deux précédentes sur toutes les instances de test. Elle est ensuite évaluée sur un problème plus classique de la littérature : le problème de tournées de véhicules avec fenêtres horaires souples (VRPSTW) et s'avère très compétitive, produisant de nouvelles meilleures solutions.La MS-ILS est ensuite transposée au problème de tournées de véhicules régulières (ConVRP). Contrairement au PVRPTS, il s'agit dans le ConVRP de servir régulièrement des clients aux demandes intermittentes. La méthode montre une flexibilité remarquable et produit de bons résultats.Pour finir, les développements effectués chez Nexxtep Technologies sont présentés. Ils comprennent la conception d'un logiciel commercial pour l'optimisation de tournées de véhicules et l'implémentation des méthodes développées / This thesis is dedicated to the periodic vehicle routing problem when applied to the transportation of valuable goods. Specifics constraints have to be defined to ensure the security of the convoy.The periodic vehicle routing problems with time spread constraints on services (PVRPTS) is defined and a mathematical model is given. The goal is to serve a set of customers over several days such that their visit times differ by a minimum amount. The depicted model is discussed and two constructive heuristics are designed and assessed.A Multi-start iterated local search (MS-ILS) is proposed to solve this problem. The results shows that the method outperform the two previous heuristics. For the sake of comparison with previous approaches, the MS-ILS is evaluated on a more classical problem : the vehicle routing problem with soft time windows (VRPSTW). The method proves to be very competitive, producing new best known solutions.The MS-ILS is then adapted to solve the consistent vehicle routing problem (ConVRP). Unlike the PVRPTS, the goal of the ConVRP is to deliver customers with intermittent demands with regularity in terms of service times and drivers. The method demonstrate his flexibility and produce good results. Finally, the developments performed at Nexxtep Technologies are depicted. They encompass commercial-software design and implementation of the proposed methods

A economia globalizada e os avanços tecnológicos propiciaram um novo modelo de Outsourcing de Tecnologia de Informação (TI): os provedores de serviços de aplicativos (ASP - Application Service Providers). As discussões a respeito de ASP intensificaram-se nos três últimos anos, com a proposta de comercialização do software como um serviço. Quanto maior a interdependência da área de TI com as metas de negócios das organizações, maior a ênfase dada à satisfação das expectativas do cliente quanto aos serviços prestados pelos provedores. No mercado, têm-se adotado os acordos dos níveis de serviços (SLA - Service Level Agreements) como mecanismo de controle das atividades de outsourcing. Porém, essa adoção é nova e imatura, e a literatura é escassa. Tanto os provedores quanto os cliente sentem a necessidade por estruturas de implantação semelhantes às de SLA. Essa carência é ressaltada no caso dos modelos ASP. Propondo-se a contribuir com a compressão do modelo ASP e de SLA para ASP, apresenta-se uma pesquisa exploratória das características desse modelo com SLA, de modelos de qualidade de serviços de outsourcing e finalmente de considerações que devem ser feitas para garantir a qualidade dos serviços ASP, empregando-se os SLA. / The global economy and technological advances propitiated a new model of Information Technology (IT) Outsourcing: the Application Service Providers - ASP. Discussions regarding ASP became more frequent in the last three years because of the new approach of selling software as a service. As the interdependency between the IT area and the business goals of organizations becomes greater, the emphasis on fulfilling the client\'s expectations regarding service rendered by providers becomes stronger. In the market, Service Level Agreements - SLA have been adopted as control mechanisms of outsourcing activities. However, this adoption is new and immature, and the literature on the matter is scarce. Providers and clients feel the need for implementation structures similar to SLA\'s. In lhe case of ASP models, this necessity is emphasized mainly due to the lack of conceptual information on the ASP model. In order to better comprehend lhe ASP and the SLA models for ASP, I am presenting an exploratory research about the characteristics of the new approach with SLA models, outsourcing models of service quality and considerations, which must be carried out to ensure quality of ASP services employing SLA.