The just-in-time (JIT) production and inventory philosophy coupled with manufacturing automation in the form of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) and its related facets are considered by many as great competitive weapons. The birth of JIT and its positive influence on the global strategic posture of Japanese firms is well-documented. In the 1980s many US manufacturers regarded JIT manufacturing as a peculiar Japanese contrivance, suited only to the oriental culture. However, as more companies with ever more diverse manufacturing environments successfully applied its principles, manufacturers recognized its inherent wisdom. Today, most US manufacturers have come to regard JIT as vital to their survival. This study examines the problems associated with the implementation of JIT in manufacturing environments and attempts to identify hindering factors for its success. An implementation strategy is proposed so that the organization will achieve the benefits of JIT and ultimately improve its strategic posture.

The lack of practical methodologies to guide and integrate the strategic and operational organizational efforts toward a systematic e-business strategy is hindering the effective use of the e-business model. This paper offers a Baldrige-based rapid assessment implementation methodology (RAIM) approach toward integrating the different facets of e-business.

The main focus of our work is to develop, apply and assess cheminformatics tools and methods. In particular, we focus on the following three areas: Integration of open source tools with application to drug discovery, usability studies to assess the efficacy of these software tools and finally, developing novel techniques for database query. Rapid globalization in the present time has sparked a need in the scientific community to interact with each other at an economic and a fast pace. This is achieved by developing and sharing open source databases using World Wide Web. A web based open source database application has been developed to incorporate freeware from varied sources. The deployment of developed database and user interface in a university lab setting is discussed. To aid in connecting the end user and the software tools, usability studies are necessary. These studies communicate the end users’ needs and desires, resulting in a user-friendly and more powerful interactive software packages. Usability studies were conducted on developed database student application and on different drawing packages to determine their effectiveness. Developing new and interactive search engines to query publicly available databases helps researchers work more efficiently. The huge volume of data available and its heterogeneous nature presents issues related to querying, integration and presentation. In aiding the retrieval process, an innovative multi faceted classification system, called ChemFacets, is developed. This system provides dynamic categorization of large result sets retrieved from multiple databases.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) in children’s mental health has the potential to treat childhood psychological concerns in a more effective and cost-efficient way. Despite the American Psychological Association’s commitment to EBP utilization, current efforts to disseminate and implement EBP into routine care have been slow. This slow uptake may adversely affect children and families by limiting their access to effective care. These consequences may be exacerbated in rural communities due to lack of qualified professionals and resources necessary to implement EBP. Previous research has identified several individual clinician factors and mental health agency characteristics that may influence the success of implementation efforts. These factors include clinician demographic variables (e.g., education level, theoretical orientation, discipline, years of clinical experience, caseload size), clinician attitudes toward EBP, clinician knowledge of EBP, agency characteristics (e.g., setting, size, supervision method, available funding), organizational culture, and organizational climate. The current study investigated how these variables are associated and affect EBP implementation in rural areas. Fifty-five rural mental health providers who provide therapy services to children completed questionnaires assessing current use of EBP, attitudes toward and knowledge of EBP, and agency culture and implementation climate. Results indicated that rural clinicians possessed relatively positive attitudes toward EBP, perceived their organization’s culture and climate as conducive to EBP use, and were just as knowledgeable about EBP as clinicians from urban and mixed rural-urban samples. However, clinician knowledge of evidence-based therapy techniques was not related to EBP utilization. Results also indicated that organizational culture was negatively associated with EBP use and suggests that further research is needed to clarify how clinician and agency variables affect EBP utilization in rural areas. These findings have important implications for EBP training programs. Specifically, extended supervision and consultation models should be incorporated into continuing education workshops and content related to organizational factors (e.g., strategies for fostering an organizational culture and climate conductive to EBP use) should be included. Findings from this study also highlight the need for more effectiveness research to be conducted in rural settings to address the unique barriers experienced by rural clinicians.

The public eldercare is responsible to provide with both resources and safety for the elderlypopulation now and in the future with the challenge of an aging population. Each of the smallmunicipalities in Åland provides with care for the elderly. This is regulated by the Finnishsocial welfare act with the purpose for the elderly to get the social care they are in need of.The goal of this study is to find out the biggest challenges with this implementation accordingto the leaders of the eldercare. The interviews and the analysis in this study are based on theclassic implementation theory by Lundquist (1992) in which the implementation is analyzedby three important elements: the knowledge, the resources and the willingness to implement.The results of this study indicate that there is some challenges in the implementation of thesocial welfare act. Although there is some lack of resources this is the element in which themost development is taking place, and perhaps the easiest element for the eldercare leaders todiscuss. There is a strong willingness among the leaders to implement the social welfare act.Finally the knowledge has many sides since the leaders are sometimes self taught but alsoaffected by the vagueness of the law. The eldercare is in for a change, in which new laws areabout to be implemented in to the eldercare system and a whole new implementation processwill begin during the next year.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Development Studies in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Zululand, 2017 / Local government structures have a particularly important role to play in harnessing national and regional resources to promote their areas and in facilitating strategic local partnerships to enhance and sustain economic growth. The study sought to examine the implementation of Local Economic Development Strategy implementation in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality (BLM) in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. The sample comprised of BLM LED officials and at least 5 respondents selected from10 projects and these included the project management team and workers. The Chosen projects were chosen based on proximity and availability but maintaining balance to cover the entire municipality. This allowed the researcher to have a balanced view from both the municipal officials and people at the project sides. A purposive sampling method was used to select the sample for the study. The primary data was collected using interviews and structured observations. Secondary data was collected using the document analysis method. SPSS and the content analysis methods were used in the study. The study found that BLM has an LED strategy as prescribed in the municipal IDP and projects have been implemented to promote local economic development in the region. However, there is a knowledge gap from project participants as some have no access to information and cannot access and use the services from the LED offices to enhance their economic activities, due to their peripheral location. The BLM LED strategy is implemented following the Location Theory, projects were planned and positioned in places where they will maximise profit and minimise production costs by employing local ideas and resources, packing them to attract outside interest. The participatory model adopted by the municipality in planning and implementing LED activities does not yield the desired results due to some projects that are unable to be part of the participatory planning processes. The consultative activities during the conception and planning should target the poor. The study recommends therefore, that LED in BLM has to be a participatory model which is based on a holistic approach to incorporate different activities from different areas based on their local potential and available resources to create economic Spin-offs. The study also makes a number of specific recommendations to facilitate the planning and implementation of LED strategy in BLM.First, participatory processes such as the IDPs at local municipal levels should be used to facilitate people’s participation in the whole process, from conception, planning, implementation and evaluation of all LED activities in the local municipality. The beneficiaries have to be active participants in their own development; hence this will ensure full and active participation. The study also discovered that there is lack of coordination among the stakeholders to create viable establishment of cooperatives development and to formalise their economic participation in order to promote sustainable SMME development, growth and sustainable cooperative movement. Challenges of LED strategy implementation in BLM included that the municipality, like many others in the country, do not have adequate economic growth strategies, and if they do, it will only sound good on paper but the implementation on the ground does not happen as depicted in the strategy. This further perpetuates the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The implementation of evidence into practice is a complex process. Estimates indicate that it takes seventeen years on average for research to be translated into practice. Delay in implementation of evidence-based practice (EBP) results in poor patient outcomes and negative impacts to healthcare systems. While many factors contribute to delayed implementation of evidence, organizational characteristics of healthcare institutions have a significant impact on implementation. Leaders play a critical role by influencing these organizational characteristics to support evidence-based practice implementation. A key leadership role within acute care healthcare organizations is that of the front-line nurse manager (NM). Front-line nurse managers have responsibility for nursing unit operations and clinical nurses who deliver patient care under the nurse managers supervision. The relationship between NM leadership competencies and implementation of EBP is not well understood. Therefore, there is a critical need to identify how NM leadership behaviors influence the implementation of EBP. This dissertation examined the relationship between NM leadership behaviors and implementation of EBP. Results link the role of the NM to evidence-based clinical practice, and describe competencies and education needed for NM development. With an understanding of the NM leadership behaviors associated with implementation of EBP, healthcare leaders can develop education, processes, and interventions to increase competencies on NM leadership behaviors. Better implementation support by NMs will result in an improvement in use of EBPs. To examine the NM leadership behaviors that are associated with implementation of EBP, the following activities were completed: (1) an integrative review of the literature related to NM competencies associated with implementation, (2) identification and description of nurse manager competencies associated with EBP implementation using the Delphi method, and (3) examination of NM leadership behaviors associated with implementation of EBP during the COVID-19 pandemic response through a multi-site descriptive correlational survey of NMs and their nursing staff. Results of these studies demonstrate the importance of NM leadership characteristics and behaviors on EBP implementation.

While designed and adopted at the federal level, the Clean Air Act (CAA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) rely on states for implementation. The result of this implementation framework is a disparity in environmental conditions across the nation. The objective of this research is to examine how the implementation stage of the policy process affects program outcomes. The findings indicate that the primary means of shaping program outcomes are the decision-making criterion and subsequent behavior of implementing officials, where their value based actions dictate service delivery. These decisions are, in turn, shaped by the context of the work, where organizations and the socio-political environment influence the basis for decision-making. These findings connect broader organizational and socio-political factors with program outcomes through an indirect relationship, rather than assume a direct relationship as previous authors have done. The findings explain a significant portion of the variance in both air and water program outcomes across the nation. This research indicates the importance of front-line operators in the implementation process, an issue that has been left-out of other work. These conclusions can be used to enhance performance management by practitioners, through a greater understanding of how organizations and individuals affect program outcomes. Finally, the theoretical framework and methodological techniques suggest that previous implementation research has failed to properly specify statistical models, which enhances the literature on the subject.

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The explorative research is set out to evaluate if FAWE Rwanda Chapter has, in the eyes of informants, implemented the objectives set for their school program; ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’. By a target achievement evaluation model aims this research to explore if the organizational structure design of ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’ has had any impact on FAWE Rwanda Chapter’s possibilities to successfully implement their objectives. This research includes six depth-interviews with informants from ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’ and one depth-interview with an informant from FAWE Rwanda Chapter. Questionnaire forms where handed out to two of the participating informant groups; the teachers and the students at ‘The Centre of Excellence for Girls’. Forty questionnaire forms were handed out to the students and ten questionnaire forms to the teachers, with the purpose to support or weaken the data given from the depth-interviews. The result shows that FAWE Rwanda Chapter has not completely succeeded to implement their set objectives. Some of the objectives are implemented, while some are not! The result shows that the decentralized organizational structure of ‘The Centre of Excellence’ is rather complicated. This has lead up to lacks in the information flow and miscommunication in between the organizational levels, and lacks in understanding the purpose of the objectives.