Decision support for manufacturing management

Historically, information systems have been used to improve efficiency through such means as clerical automation, inventory status reporting and transactional processing systems. Today, however, to reduce costs, increase return on investments, and achieve competitive advantage, businesses need to have information systems that support managerial decision-making and result in improved effectiveness. To meet this requirement, new approaches are needed in order to define the right problem and work the problem right. By using such techniques as critical success factor analysis followed by a top down system development approach, developing systems through prototyping and using end-user oriented software, these needs can be met.This article describes several company experiences of using a management systems planning and development process. This process in one company presented an opportunity to test the feasibility of developing an alignment between business goals and events critical to the success of the business. Management believed that to succeed in the future they must be forward thinking in their identification and use of information systems to improve managerial effectiveness. Their questions were “What should we do?” and “How should we do it?” By applying these techniques they were able to achieve outstanding results in a very short period of time.     

Exploring Workflow Interoperability for Neuroimage Analysis on the SHIWA Platform

Neuroimaging is a field that benefits from distributed computing infrastructures (DCIs) to perform data processing and analysis, which is often achieved using Grid workflow systems. Collaborative research in neuroimaging requires ways to facilitate exchange between different groups, in particular to enable sharing, re-use and interoperability of applications implemented as workflows. The SHIWA project provides solutions to facilitate sharing and exchange of workflows between workflow systems and DCI resources. In this paper we present and analyse how the SHIWA Platform was used to implement various cases in which workflow exchange supports collaboration in neuroscience. The SHIWA Platform and the implemented solutions are described and analysed from a “user” perspective, in this case workflow developers and neuroscientists. We conclude that the platform in its current form is valuable for these cases, and we identify remaining challenges.     

Competitive advantage of enterprise resource planning vendors in Iran

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has become one of the competitive advantages for companies around the globe and the dynamic force driving the process of global integration through information. Governmental organizations are increasing their adoption of these systems for various benefits such as integrated real-time information, better administration, and result-based management. Reaching the standard level of being a global company, organizations are concerned about this application and invest in this project for many years and, as a result, help the company reduce the cost and increase the efficiency and effectiveness. Iranian organizations, along with multi-national companies, attempt to be a good player in the flow of this change. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate and determine the competitive environment of ERP vendors implementing their product in Iranian context. The authors investigated the activities of both international and local ERP vendors established in the country and analyzed them by their advantages and potentials.     

Enterprise Resource Planning as the Trojan Horse for New Rules of Operations Management

The control of operations, for example; the flow of materials, the scheduling of production, the planning of capacity – these are central problem in operations management. A substantial body of technique, with attendant technologies, has been developed to facilitate the problem of control of operations. One such technique is Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP). This technique has developed in power and scope in concert with the development of power in computer based technology. From the perspective of the operations management literature, MRP has evolved into MRP II, and now into Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). MRP, and MRP II are systems that are embedded within the operations function, and can be controlled legitimately by the operations function; ERP is fundamentally different. ERP systems in their model implementation are enterprise wide, integrated systems. As an enterprise wide system, ERP has created an opportunity to distance the power to influence operations actions from the location of the function. This change has significant implications for the companies adopting the technology, and more specifically, for the profession of operations management. This paper develops a framework of analysis for this change, presents a set of small cases, and discusses some implications that can be drawn from the analysis. The “three arenas of information use – sense making, knowledge creating, and decision making” (Choo 1998, p.3) must be allowed to energize each other and this can only happen if organization wide information systems, such as ERP, respect and empower situated action, enable ambiguity, and allow the use of multiple interpretive frames as managers interact with the situations of operations management.     

ERP plans and decision-support benefits

Management and implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have tended to concentrate on their transactional and record-keeping aspects, rather than on their decision-support capabilities. This paper explores connections between ERP systems and decision support based on the perceptions of 53 ERP system adopters. It offers new insights into the important objectives that are (and should be) considered in ERP plans, including decision-support objectives. It provides insights into the decision-support benefits of ERP systems. The study also examines relationships between the importance of various objectives in ERP planning and the subsequent realization of decision-support benefits from an ERP system.     

Technical and management perceptions of enterprise information system importance, implementation and benefits

Abstract.  This paper compares information systems (IS) integration in high-tech organizations from the information technology (IT) and general management perspectives. All the organizations studied have experience of integrated Enterprise Resource Planning systems, and some with their extension to Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship Management systems. The operational scope of the sample systems, and senior IT and general management perceptions of the importance of their functions, benefits and implementation success factors, obtained by qualitative interviews with 49 senior managers and a quantitative survey of 219 high-tech companies, are described and compared. Although the opinions expressed indicate some mutual hostility, IT and general management perceptions of IS implementation were very similar. IT managements overall importance assessments of business functions were more strongly correlated with their overall level of implementation, and they tended to rate system benefits and system reliability more highly. The significance of these findings is discussed and some suggestions for further investigation, placing them in a wider context, are made. Arguably, the similarities found are more important than the differences.     

Machines and manoeuvres: Responsibility accounting and the construction of hospital information systems

This paper analyses an episode in the development of management information systems in NHS hospitals in the UK. These systems (called Resource Management Systems) are designed to reveal the costs of medical activity, and thus open up new scope for management of that activity. The paper accepts that notions such as “responsibility accounting” and the “constitutive role of accounting systems” can substantially help in the analysis of how such systems are used. However, it argues that such approaches are less successful in revealing how such systems come to be created. To address this problem, the “actor-network” approach of Callon and Latour is employed in the analysis of fieldwork data collected by the authors in three health authorities over a three-year period. The analysis reveals considerable interpretative flexibility surrounding the understandings of the nature and purpose of resource management, and of the technologies that might be used to implement it. This diversity, the paper argues, cannot be adequately explained without recourse to a framework such as that contained in the actor-network approach.     

Knowledge transfer in pair programming: An in-depth analysis

Whilst knowledge transfer is one of the most widely-claimed benefits of pair programming, little is known about how knowledge transfer is achieved in this setting. This is particularly pertinent for novice−expert constellations, but knowledge transfer takes place to some degree in all constellations. We ask “what does it take to be a good “expert” and how can a “novice” best learn from a more experienced developer?”. An in-depth investigation of video and audio excerpts of professional pair programming sessions using Interaction Analysis reveals: six teaching strategies, ranging from “giving direct instructions” to “subtle hints”; and challenges and benefits for both partners. These strategies are instantiations of some but not all teaching methods promoted in cognitive apprenticeship; novice articulation, reflection and exploration are not seen in the data. The context of pair programming influences the strategies, challenges and benefits, in particular the roles of driver and navigator and agile prioritisation which considers business value rather than educational progression. Utilising these strategies more widely and recognizing the challenges and benefits for both partners will help developers to maximise the benefits from pairing sessions.     

Factors affecting the performance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in the post-implementation stage

Despite the widespread adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, many companies struggle to achieve the expected benefits from ERP. It has been especially observed that many companies fail to gain significant benefits from ERP in the post-implementation stage, regardless of their initial implementation success. This paper focuses on this post-implementation stage and empirically studies the factors that influence the performance of ERP in this stage. Through the review of related literature and a pilot study of Korean firms, the following six were identified as the influential factors: top management support, competency of an internal ERP team, user training, inter-department collaboration and communication, continuous process improvement and continuous systems integration/extension. The factors were used to build a comprehensive model that aims to explain how to successfully use ERP in the post-implementation stage. The model was tested with the data collected by questionnaires given to Korean companies using the partial least-square method. The results show that continuous improvement efforts and on-going organisational support have positive influence on the performance of ERP in the post-implementation stage.     

内存体系划分技术的研究与发展

在多核计算机时代,多道程序在整个共享内存体系上的“访存干扰”是制约系统总体性能和服务质量的重要因素.即使当前内存资源已相对丰富,但如何优化内存体系的性能、降低访存干扰并高效地管理内存资源,仍是计算机体系结构领域的研究热点.为深入研究该问题,详述将“页着色(pagecoloring)”内存划分技术应用于整个内存体系(包括Cache、内存通道以及内存DRAM Bank),进而消除了并行多道程序在共享内存体系上的访存干扰的一系列先进方法.从DRAM Bank、Channel与Cache以及非易失性内存(non-volatile memory, NVM)等内存体系中介质为切入点,层次分明地展开论述:首先,详述将页着色应用于多道程序在DRAM Bank与通道的划分,消除多道程序间的访存冲突;随后是将页着色应用于在内存体系中Cache和DRAM的“垂直”协同划分,可同时消除多级内存介质上的访存干扰;最后是将页着色应用于包含NVM的混合内存体系,以提高程序运行效率和系统整体效能.实验结果表明,所提内存划分方法提高了系统整体性能(平均5%-15%)、服务质量(QoS),并有效地降低了系统能耗.通过梳理...     

Experts' systems instead of expert systems

By studying several cases of expert systems' use, a variety of difficulties were identified as directly depending on specific characteristics of experts and their tasks. This concerns more than the questions: “May experts be replaced by machines?” or “Is experts' knowledge explicable?”. The organisational structure of their work as well as the cyclic, non-plannable way of their task performing have further relevance. The paper introduces the concept of experts' systems to deal with diversities of their expertise and complexities of their work. It draws a distinction between non-monotonic problem solving, exploration, medium and modification, and argues that these modes are not reducible to yet another improved input/output strategy or dialogue style but introduce additional functions supporting the human-computer interaction according to experts' needs. In the first few sections, the paper covers the theoretical and empirical results of our research, whereas Section 4 introduces our design suggestions for experts' systems.     

Designing habitable dialogues for speech-based interaction with computers

Habitability refers to the match between the language people employ when using a computer system and the language that the system can accept. In this paper, the concept of “habitability” is explored in relation to the design of dialogues for speech-based systems. Two studies investigating the role of habitability in speech systems for banking applications are reported. The first study employed a speech-driven automated teller machine (ATM), using a visual display to indicate available vocabulary. Users made several distinct types of error with this system, indicating that habitability in speech systems cannot be achieved simply by displaying the input language. The second study employed a speech input/speech output home banking application, in which system constraints were indicated by either a spoken menu of words or a “query-style” prompt (e.g. “what service do you require?”). Between-subjects comparisons of these two conditions confirmed that the “menu-style” dialogue was rated as more habitable than the “query-style”. It also led to fewer errors, and was rated as easier to use, suggesting that habitability is a key issue in speech system usability. Comparison with the results of the first study suggests that for speech input, spoken menu prompts may be more habitable than similar menus shown on a visual display. The implications of these results to system design are discussed, and some initial dialogue design recommendations are presented.     

Post-Implementation ERP Usage: A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Control and Empowerment

Organizations have invested in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems expecting to obtain benefits of the system and realize a healthy return on investment. Nonetheless, research indicates that employees rarely use ERP to its full potential. To tackle the challenge of underutilization, this article studies the longitudinal impact of control and empowerment on usage behaviors at the individual level. Results indicate that users engage in different but coexisting usage behaviors: routinization and infusion.     

Moderating effects of localization differences on ERP use: A socio-technical systems perspective

Despite the promised benefits of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, more than two thirds of ERP system projects result in failure. In this study, we investigate some plausible reasons for their failure from the user’s perspective. Particularly, we propose the socio-technical factors that affect ERP system use. This study has two research objectives. First, it introduces and tests a theoretical model that views ERP systems as both an organizational change driver and a sophisticated information system to explain the phenomenon of ERP system use. For this purpose, the proposed model includes attitude toward change and computer self-efficacy; this may affect ERP system use behavior through perceived usefulness for the systems. Second, this paper attempts to shed some light on how the localization differences of ERP systems may affect users’ intention to use the ERP systems. The results based on survey data using subjects from two different ERP systems support the proposed research model. It identifies the moderating effect of the localization differences. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed along with its limitations.     

HOW EFFECTIVE IS DATA RESOURCE MANAGEMENT?Reassessing Strategic Objectives

For more than a decade, data base management systems (DBMSs) have been proclaimed as the panacea for data integration and redundancy problems. Are organizations reaping the benefits of data base technology? What specific data resource management tasks have they failed to address effectively? A study of 276 organizations seeks to address these questions and to describe and diagnose the data resource management problems that corporations face today.     

Selectors: High-Level Resource Schedulers

Resource sharing problems can be described in three basically independent modular components. ? The constraints the resource places upon sharing because of physcal limitations and consistency requirements. ? The desired ordering of resource requests to achieve efficiency-either efficiency of resource utilization or efficiency of processes making the requests. ? Modifications to the ordering to prevent starvation of processes waiting for requests which might otherwise never receive service. A high-level nonprocedural language to specify these components of resource sharing problems is described. General deadlock and starvation properties of selectors are proven. Solutions to several classic resource sharing problems are shown to illustrate the expressiveness of this language. Proof techniques for this high-level language are introduced to show how to prove particular selectors are or are not deadlock and starvation free.     

Cloud service: automatic construction and evolution of software process problem-solving resource space

The automatic construction of networked software and its ability to adapt to dynamic environments are important for cloud services that depend upon these capabilities. We provide a cloud service that browses the stacks of problem solution resources produced in the software process (SP for short) by organizing them into a structured Resource Space according to domain topics. Efforts are made to provide the cloud service with the ability of automatic construction of the SP problem-solving Resource Space, including extracting domain topics from document resources with the TDDF algorithm, transforming the topics into several categories to form the logic Resource Space, and deploying the Resource Space in a Peer-to-Peer (P2P for short) network. We also expect to achieve the online service evolution such as adjusting the resource pool and refining the Resource Space Model (RSM for short) by continuously understanding and adapting to its surroundings. Empirical cases are finally presented. Our investigation promotes the adaptability of cloud services to their changing environment.     

Managing computer files via artificial intelligence approaches

Agent-oriented computing has been regarded as a very promising methodology to developing intelligent software systems. Intelligent agent technology has, thus, been successfully applied in many industrial and commercial areas. Cased based reasoning (CBR) is an effective and efficient analogical reasoning method for solving problems using the knowledge of past experiences, which are stored in a knowledge base as cases. CBR has been extensively employed to tackle such problems as design, planning, classification, and advising in many different application fields. On the other hand, as various files are created on computers, how to efficiently manage computer files becomes a significant issue. So far, there are a number of file management systems available. However, none of them can deal with these crucial problems of file management: Which files should be deleted after their use? Which files should be temporarily kept or permanently preserved? To the best of our knowledge, these problems have not yet been investigated in the open literature. To bridge this gap, in this paper we explore the value of the above artificial intelligence approaches in managing computer files. We develop an intelligent agent based personal file management system, where CBR is employed to guide users to managing their files. Through extensive practical experiments, we validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the developed system.     

A framework for addressing the organisational issues of enterprise systems implementation

Over the last 10 years many organisations have made significant investments in Enterprise-wide Systems (ES), particularly Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software packages. Whilst in most cases technical implementation is relatively successful, many of the initiatives have failed to deliver the benefits expected. Research studies have identified a wide range of factors, that can affect the success of ES implementations, and the general consensus is that organisational issues are more difficult to resolve than technical ones.This research set out to synthesise a framework, from prior research, for analysing and understanding these organisational issues and to apply and refine the framework by studying four ES initiatives in different organisational and industry contexts. The findings from the case studies suggest that the framework can help understand how different approaches to managing ES implementations both address and influence the behaviours of key interest groups and hence the achievement of the benefits expected from the investment.