published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 67-72).

M.Sc. / The technique known as "Rapid Prototyping" constitutes a technology that is already saving large corporations time and money in respect of prototyping. Currently, Rapid Prototyping machines are, however, still expensive to purchase and maintain. In order to allow more people to make use of Rapid Prototyping machines, certain businesses are specialising in rendering a Rapid Prototyping service. Rapid Prototyping service bureaux render such service by selling machine time. To allow people to make use of the service, designs are submitted across a distance by means of telemanufacturing. To enable a wide variety of users to avail themselves of this service, certain checks and balances must, however, be put into place. These checks and balances must test whether or not a valid job has been submitted, and if so, the submitter has to be assisted in deciding upon settings. In order to submit a job from anywhere in the world, the Internet is harnassed for telemanufacturing. Once remote submission has been made safe and convenient, more businesses and individuals could derive benefit from Rapid Prototyping. This dissertation has, therefore, been undertaken to identify the prerequisites for Rapid Prototyping. Once a job has been submitted, it has to be checked for errors and the user has to be advised on building types and recommendations. For this, an agent is used. In this way, problems are prevented, should faulty jobs be sent to a Rapid Prototyping machine. Once a job has been submitted, it is scheduled by a queue manager in order to maximise machine usage. Rapid Prototyping has the potential in future to become as commonplace as printers. In terms of this technology, a design would, therefore, be printed in three dimensions for instant verification by the user. The very advantage of being able to hold a new product in one's hands is self-evident. The technology that is being developed today will, therefore, be successfully used in future scenarios.

This research conducted an interdisciplinary field experiment to identify relationships between productivity, user satisfaction and IS Helpdesk USP's use of effective communication behavior. An experimental group of Helpdesk USPs of a large retail organization were trained by communication professionals in communication effectiveness, with emphasis on the needs of the telephone environment.

Voice mail has become a major communications tool. This study examined the opinions of 357 Indiana chief executive officers regarding voice mail systems--based on a random sample of the 4,697 members of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce as of November 18, 1992. A 100 percent response rate was achieved. The CEOs generally did not like calling into systems. The study concluded that 20 percent of Indiana businesses have voice mail. The major advantage--as cited by CEOs--to calling into systems was that they can leave detailed messages at anytime. The major disadvantage was that voice mail is cold and impersonal--CEOs want to speak to a real person. The CEOs who have voice mail gave major advantages and disadvantages of their internal systems as well as a rating. Oanparisons were made between various findings including how not having voice mail affects the rating of calling into other systems. / Department of Journalism

Voice mail is a computer-aided telephone system which is capable of storing and forwarding spoken messages. The voice mail market has been and is still focused on larger companies since they comprise a sizable amount of the installed base of voice processing systems (Radisich, 1994). Consequently, all voice mail research has been centered on the large company and concentrates on advantages or disadvantages found in these substantial companies.This study focused on the implementation and diffusion of a relatively new communication technology and its consequences in an unresearched arena--the small company. Also a comparatively new methodology in the field of communications research, grounded theory, was used to explore the impact of a new technology, thus possibly advancing the credibility of this research methodology.The results of this pilot study on voice mail in a small company found diffusion to be extremely successful, even to the point of surprising some of the subjects with their total acceptance of the technology.The study results indicated that the small company can benefit from voice mail usage in similar ways to the large company, especially if the company has travelers or off-site locations. The results implied that there are some ways that voice mail can assist in the small company where it has not previously had a reported effect in the large company---as a negotiating, organizing, and delegating tool.The results of the study could provide insights for other small companies concerned with successful usage of the voice mail technology in similar environments. Several concepts on novel uses of voice mail surfaced as a result of this study. These concepts could provide hypothesis for empirical testing to further voice mail investigation.The study concluded that voice mail is a communication technology that is an accepted and beneficial tool which offered several major advantages that the subject small company was able to successfully utilize. / Department of Journalism

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 310-346).