Thesis (Ph.D) - [Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies], Swinburne University of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. A thesis submitted to [Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies], Swinburne University of Technology for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. "March 2009". Bibliography: p. 136-141.

A new algorithm is developed for setting WIP level in production lines. It is a pull policy that determines when to authorize a job to be processed. Dynamic information in the system such as machine failures and repairs, and demand variations are taken into consideration to provide an efficient method to dynamically determine the WIP level. Two types of production lines are examined in this paper. The first is production lines which have few random interruptions and the second production line is exposed to frequent interruptions. Experiment results from these two types of production lines illustrate that the new algorithm generates higher service level with lower WIP compared to the CONWIP policy. In addition, the superiority of the new algorithm is more significant when the production line is exposed to frequent random interruptions. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

The outsourcing market, especially Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), is growing every year. For decades, companies have successfully used outsourcing to generate significant savings. However, discussions with any employee will reveal some resentment of outsourcing. The aim of the study has been first to improve the understanding of some salient difficulties in Business Process Outsourcing relationships, with special reference to the perceived challenges of managing and monitoring Service Legal Agreements in Swiss banking, and second to assist outsourcing banks and service providers in formulating and managing their outsourcing contracts. The study was designed to obtain, through interviews, descriptions and perceptions of experts in Swiss Banking Business Process Outsourcing. Given the nature of the topic but also because of practical constraints, the investigator elected to use a qualitative, interpretative, social constructionist research framework. An extensive review of the literature revealed that a variety of definitions of in- and out-sourcing exist. Some of these terms were used in academic writings and the business press interchangeably and had to be defined. Twenty-two practitioners were interviewed. The data were analysed and interpreted with the help of qualitative analysis software (NVivo). Subsequently, I compared my findings with those of the literature reviewed. Furthermore, a gap in the literature, namely that it generally does not deal with the perceived quality of the relationship, could be addressed and practical approaches for managing BPO relationships are suggested. / Thesis (DoctorateofBusinessAdministration)--University of South Australia, 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Software Engineering )--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Bret Michael. Includes bibliographical references (p. 389-412) Also available online.

Tato práce si klade za cíl seznámit studenty i profesionály z oblasti IT o čem disciplína Service Management (SM) a proces Service Level Management (SLM) je v prostředí korporátní společnosti. Práce obsahuje příklady různých SLM nástrojů a metod, které jsou skutečně používány (například v manažerském nástroji typu Balanced Scorecard). Zvláštní důraz je kladen na překážky, jež mohou nastat a jak je překonat. Tak jako každá zkušenost toto je pouze jeden z přístupů k SLM, ale pokud přispěje k lepšímu osvícení čtenáře, pak splnila svůj cíl. K dosažení těchto záměrů využívám svých dvou a půl letých zkušeností z práce na projektech ve společnosti DHL a ostatních zdrojů popisujících teoretickou rovinu. První část mé diplomové práce poskytuje teoretickou znalost problematiky, druhá část pak převádí tyto znalosti do podnikové praxe.

In the Internet of Services (IoS) providers and consumers of services engage in business interactions on service marketplaces. Provisioning and consumption of services are regulated by service level agreements (SLA), which are negotiated between providers and consumers. Trading composite services requires the providers to manage the SLAs that are negotiated with the providers of atomic services and the consumers of the composition. The management of SLAs involves the negotiation and renegotiation of SLAs as well as their monitoring during service provisioning. The complexity of this task arises due to the fact that dependencies exist between the different services in a composition. Dependencies between services occur because the complex task of a composition is distributed between atomic services. Thus, the successful provisioning of the composite service depends on its atomic building blocks. At the same time, atomic services depend on other atomic services, e.g. because of data or resource requirements, or time relationships. These dependencies need to be considered for the management of composite service SLAs. This thesis aims at developing a management approach for dependencies between services in service compositions to support SLA management. Information about service dependencies is not explicitly available. Instead it is implicitly contained in the workflow description of a composite service, the negotiated SLAs of the composite service, and as application domain knowledge of experts, which makes the handling of this information more complex. Thus, the dependency management approach needs to capture this dependency information in an explicit way. The dependency information is then used to support SLA management in three ways. First of all dependency information is used during SLA negotiation the to ensure that the different SLAs enable the successful collaboration of the services to achieve the composite service goal. Secondly, during SLA renegotiation dependency information is used to determine which effects the renegotiation has on other SLAs. Finally, dependency information is used during SLA monitoring to determine the effects of detected violations on other services. Based on a literature study and two use cases from the logistics and healthcare domains different types of dependencies were analyzed and classified. The results from this analysis were used as a basis for the development of an approach to analyze and represent dependency information according to the different dependency properties. Furthermore, a lifecycle and architecture for managing dependency information was developed. In an iterative approach the different artifacts were implemented, tested based on two use cases, and refined according to the test results Finally, the prototype was evaluated with regard to detailed test cases and performance measurements were executed. The resulting dependency management approach has four main contributions. Firstly, it represents a holistic approach for managing service dependencies with regard to composite SLA management. It extends existing work by supporting the handling of dependencies between atomic services as well as atomic and composite services at design time and during service provisioning. Secondly, a semi-automatic approach to capturing dependency information is provided. It helps to achieve a higher degree of automation as compared to other approaches. Thirdly, a metamodel for representing dependency information for SLA management is shown. Dependency information is kept separately from SLA information to achieve a better separation of concerns. This facilitates the utilization of the dependency management functionality with different SLA management approaches. Fourthly, a dependency management architecture is presented. The design of the architecture ensures that the components can be integrated with different SLA management approaches. The test case based evaluation of the dependency management approach showed its feasibility and correct functioning in two different application domains. Furthermore, the performance evaluation showed that the automated dependency management tasks are executed within the range of milliseconds for both use cases. The dependency management approach is suited to support the different SLA management tasks. It supports the work of composite service providers by facilitating the SLA management of complex service compositions.

Purpose - The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the possibilities to extend or change the base of IKEA’s SL classification and give recommendations concerning potential improvements.  Method - This thesis has an inductive research strategy since data has been collected to build theory rather than the other way around (Bryman and Bell, 2007). The data has been collected by qualitative research, mainly through interviews with employees at the different IKEA organisations. Empirics - The empirical data gathered describes the service level in practice at IKEA. In order to get an overview of the conflicting interests in the different functions, the chapter is divided into four themes; how IKEA works with SL, the purpose of SL, customer service and suggestion to the design of the SL classification. Theory - The theory has been based on our empirical findings in order to find the best solution for IKEA. The theory includes different classification models, the relationship between customer service and SL and is finished with a section on how to measure availability. Conclusions - The conclusion that could be drawn was that the purpose of the classification was not perceived in the same way within the company and that both internal and external information is needed. A new model is presented that takes into account the different products, buying situations, and customer reactions on OOS, which are important parameters for consumer perception of availability and customer service. By using this model IKEA will be able to fulfil the two, sometimes conflicting purposes; to secure the sales and increase customer satisfaction.

Abstract In many business management policies, the inventory management and decision - makings have been the very important of the business administration. The object of the inventory management is satisfy the customer demand with minimum inventory cost; and the inventory policy is how to decide the quantity or timing of every order times, that can reach the object of the inventory management. Today aims at the supervision strategy of the business inventory system, is still to make use of mathematics and statistics computational method, compute the most economic order quantity (EOQ), the best opportune moment of reorder point (ROP). However the item of the inventory cost that have got trade off relation, inventory service level setting that also have got trade off relation with the total inventory cost. The different inventory policy relates to the different stockholding cost assemble, all operators of the business practice is looking for the balance point between service and cost, the complex relation in this dynamic state, is not a general intuition thinking, simple computing criterion, can acquire among the best solution. So this paper makes use of the System Dynamics simulation tool that is good to solve of the complex problem tool, establish the System Dynamics (SD) model, and aim at the inventory policy, inventory cost, service level setting and out-of-stock strategy to do the system simulation analysis application. Through the study of this paper, can induce following research results: 1. This paper create a System Dynamics (SD) model that can analyze the dynamic relationship between the inventory policy and inventory cost , this model includes the fundamental inventory policy, each related cost of inventory, evaluation the performance of the inventory policy etc. 2. The dynamic model that via this paper create, among the different inventory policy, explore the situation of change of the individual of inventory cost, and analyze the dynamic state of the inventory cost assemble, service level setting and businesses to operate the performance change. 3. Study of that none shortage cost and make use of the stockout strategy to reduce other inventory costs, under the different scenario of the sales, the different ABC class of the goods, applied different inventory cost combine and the setting strategy of the service level, do the dynamic state simulation analysis for business performance. 4. Study of the impact of the business, when the business at the service level set and stockout strategy usage is not appropriate. Keyword: System Dynamics, Inventory Policy, Inventory Cost, Service level, Stockout Strategy

Ein Service Level Agreement (SLA) ist ein elektronischer Vertrag zwischen dem Kunden und dem Anbieter eines Services. Die beteiligten Partner kl aren ihre Erwartungen und Verp ichtungen in Bezug auf den Dienst und dessen Qualit at. SLAs werden bereits f ur die Beschreibung von Cloud-Computing-Diensten eingesetzt. Der Diensteanbieter stellt sicher, dass die Dienstqualit at erf ullt wird und mit den Anforderungen des Kunden bis zum Ende der vereinbarten Laufzeit ubereinstimmt. Die Durchf uhrung der SLAs erfordert einen erheblichen Aufwand, um Autonomie, Wirtschaftlichkeit und E zienz zu erreichen. Der gegenw artige Stand der Technik im SLA-Management begegnet Herausforderungen wie SLA-Darstellung f ur Cloud- Dienste, gesch aftsbezogene SLA-Optimierungen, Dienste-Outsourcing und Ressourcenmanagement. Diese Gebiete scha en zentrale und aktuelle Forschungsthemen. Das Management von SLAs in unterschiedlichen Phasen w ahrend ihrer Laufzeit erfordert eine daf ur entwickelte Methodik. Dadurch wird die Realisierung von Cloud SLAManagement vereinfacht. Ich pr asentiere ein breit gef achertes Modell im SLA-Laufzeitmanagement, das die genannten Herausforderungen adressiert. Diese Herangehensweise erm oglicht eine automatische Dienstemodellierung, sowie Aushandlung, Bereitstellung und Monitoring von SLAs. W ahrend der Erstellungsphase skizziere ich, wie die Modellierungsstrukturen verbessert und vereinfacht werden k onnen. Ein weiteres Ziel von meinem Ansatz ist die Minimierung von Implementierungs- und Outsourcingkosten zugunsten von Wettbewerbsf ahigkeit. In der SLA-Monitoringphase entwickle ich Strategien f ur die Auswahl und Zuweisung von virtuellen Cloud Ressourcen in Migrationsphasen. Anschlie end pr ufe ich mittels Monitoring eine gr o ere Zusammenstellung von SLAs, ob die vereinbarten Fehlertoleranzen eingehalten werden. Die vorliegende Arbeit leistet einen Beitrag zu einem Entwurf der GWDG und deren wissenschaftlichen Communities. Die Forschung, die zu dieser Doktorarbeit gef uhrt hat, wurde als Teil von dem SLA@SOI EU/FP7 integriertem Projekt durchgef uhrt (contract No. 216556).

Network based services are expanding scale at an unprecedented speed currently. With the continuously strengthen of user’s dependence on these, performance issues are becoming more and more important. Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a negotiated contract between service provider and customer in the way of service quality, priority, responsibility, etc. In this thesis, we designed and implemented a prototype for a SLA driven transmission service, which can deliver a file from one host to another, using a combination of different transport protocols. The proposed service measures the network conditions, and based on these and user’s requirement, it dynamically evaluates if it can meet the user SLA. Once a transmission has been accepted, it uses this information to adjust the usage of different transfer layer protocols, in order to meet the agreed SLA. The thesis work is based on the investigating of network theory and experimental results. We research how the SLA driven transmission service is affected by various factors, they include user’s requirements, network conditions, and service performance, etc. We design and implement an evaluation model for the network performance. It reveals how network performance is influenced by different network metrics, such as Round-Trip-Time (RTT), Throughput, and Packet Loss Rate (PLR), etc. We implement a transmission service on real test-bed, which is a controllable environment. We can alter the network metrics and measuring frequency of our evaluation model. Then, we evaluate these changes with our evaluation model and improve the performance of the transmission service. After that, we propose a calculating method for the service cost. At last, we can summarize the feasibility of this SLA driven transmission service. In the experiments, we obtain the variable delivery time and packet loss of the transmission service, which are changed with RTT and PLR of network. We analyze the different performance of transmission service, which uses TCP, UDP, and SCTP separately. Also a suitable measuring frequency and the cost for the usage of transmission service on this frequency are pointed out. Statistical analysis on the experiment results show that such SLA driven transmission service is feasible. It brings improved performance for user’s requirements. In addition, we come up with some useful suggestions and future work for the transmission service.