Impact of Lean Production on Perceived Job Autonomy and Job Satisfaction: An Experimental Study

Previous studies have indicated positive and negative effects of lean production on employees’ perceived work characteristics and job attitudes. The most detrimental consequence of lean production is a decrease in the perceived job autonomy of workshop employees. To reduce these negative consequences, we propose human resource practices for integration with lean production. Drawing on the job characteristics model, we hypothesized that the implementation of lean production combined with human resource practices would enhance perceived job autonomy, job satisfaction, and operational performance. To evaluate our hypotheses, we used an experimental design consisting of a simulation game that mimics a manufacturing company. We implemented lean production combined with human resource practices in this simulated company. The results indicated a significant increase in perceived job autonomy, job satisfaction, and operational performance. Moreover, the results revealed a positive relationship between job satisfaction and operational performance.     

Communication media choice by workers in distributed environment

Information technology (IT) is the facilitator for successful implementation of distributed-work. However, research on the implication of different types of IT in distributed-work in an organization is limited. The aim of our research was to study the distributed-worker’s media use empirically, and determine the influential factors that affect the media selection and its effect on distributed-work. To achieve the objectives of the research, a hypothetical model that shows the relationships between media use and contextual factors, individual characteristics, media richness, and social influence was developed and validated. Distributed-workers’ day-to-day, job related, communication information was collected through log-sheets. Data analysis showed that simple communication media, such as telephone and e-mail, is effective enough for carrying out job related activities from remote sites. Contextual, individual, and social level factors were found to influence the media selection of distributed-workers. Though, e-mail is thought to be a lean medium in media richness theory, this study shows that e-mail oriented workers use it effectively even for complex communication tasks, such as discussion.     

Teachers' implementation of a game-based biotechnology curriculum

Research in education suggests that computer games can serve as powerful learning environments, however, teachers perceive many obstacles to using games as teaching tools. In this study, we examine three science teachers' implementation and perceptions of a curriculum unit incorporating the game, Mission Biotech (MBt) and a set of supporting curriculum materials. The curriculum unit was designed to provide multiple avenues for teachers to adjust and modify materials and implementation plans based on their unique classroom goals and environments. To understand how individual teachers use, conceptualize, and reflect upon the MBt unit and its implementation, we conducted three case studies, including classroom observations and teacher interviews. Findings include many similarities among teachers including adaptation of activities to classroom norms and practices, high value placed on quality curricular resources and support, advantage of the game to provide experiences that are normally out of reach for students, and concerns about effective use of time. Unique features of different teachers revealed implications for design and professional development for game-based curricula. For example, the study revealed that teachers need support to integrate and make explicit connections between the game and supporting curriculum materials.     

Psychophysical Demands and Perceived Workload—An Ergonomics Standpoint for Lean Production in Assembly Cells

The adoption of a lean production model means a systematic implementation of various management methods and practices. Such a model presents the human element as a key factor in continuous improvement efforts, influencing workers’ job content and the quality of work. However, there are few evidences regarding research on quantitative assessment of the work demand, either psychological or physical, in a lean production environment. Therefore, this study aims to analyze from an ergonomics perspective the psychophysical demand and workers’ perceived workload within assembly cells undergoing a lean production implementation. The proposed method integrates complementary concepts of widely known techniques, enabling the consolidation of several assessment criteria into one particular index for both psychological and physical demands. Such a diagnostic method is illustrated in a case study from the automotive parts manufacturing sector, whose application is performed in three critical assembly cells selected by senior management. Our findings show systemic gaps between work demand and employees’ profile, indicating improvement opportunities in order to provide a better work environment.     

Stress, computer-based work monitoring and measurement systems: a conceptual overview

The design and implementation of computer-based work monitoring systems can result in changes in the organization, job and task. Electronic performance monitoring (EPM) systems are one type of change based on principles of work simplification and work rationalization. In this new work arrangement, control and coordination functions are allocated to the computer. The supervisor becomes a monitor of information and primarily provides negative performance feedback to the employee. The employee is constrained in his/her ability to use either job resources or social resources to meet the greater demands resulting from the system controlling the pace of work. It is proposed that these work arrangements provoke stress responses in employees that can result in short-term illness and potentially long-term changes in health status. Information enriched work environments are proposed as an alternative. These new work arrangements could improve job resources and social resources to manage job demands and reduce the potentially damaging stress responses. To provide a frame of reference we focus on the impact of EPM systems on the organizational and job elements involved in provoking individual stress responses. The impact of EPM systems on individual health is described using a psychosocial stress framework. Ergonomics interventions discussed include: participation in the design process; allocation of control and coordination functions between the computer and the employee; development of feedback systems; and work measurement and the development of performance appraisal systems.     

An extended model of design process of lean production systems by means of process variables

In this paper, we present an axiomatic modeling of lean production system design, using process variables (PVs). So far, we had developed a model for conceptual design of lean production systems by means of FR–DP relationships, the key characteristics of axiomatic design (AD) methodology, appeared in the proceedings of Second International Conference of Axiomatic Design. Albeit the model in question was thorough enough to be applied in various cases, its embedded abstract principles hamper straightforward applications and the required resources, tools, and techniques are not clarified. In AD terms, it lacks PVs created by mapping the design parameters (DPs) to the process domain to clarify the means that produce the specified DPs. Owing to the difficulties involved in the definition of PVs for manufacturing systems, there is few works in this area. This paper is an attempt to introduce PVs in production system design. When we are developing a product (i.e. a part), we can simply interpret the set of PVs as the process design. In the case of a production system we interpret PVs as the tools, methods, and resources, required for implementing a lean production system. In this paper, according to AD methodology, we have developed a hierarchical structure to model the design process of a lean production system, composed of FRs, DPs, and PVs. Serving as an efficient guideline for the design process and clarifying the required tools, methods, and resources, this structure is general enough to be applied for different cases.     

Radical Innovation with Limited Resources in High‐Turbulent Markets: The Role of Lean Innovation Capability

How do firms radically innovate with limited resources in high‐turbulent environments? We examine this question via in‐depth comparative case studies of ten start‐up firms in diverse high‐turbulent markets. Evidence shows that the perceived value of resources depends on two contextual factors: market type and business model type. More interestingly, firms that see resource limitation as an enabler rather than an inhibitor seem to have a distinct capability that we call lean innovation capability. It is defined as a distinct capability that reflects a firm's ability to experiment with ideas that meet core customer needs by constantly iterating the initial offering with the purpose of validating the learning through continuous market feedback to achieve sustainable performance. The three main qualities of these companies are (1) adopting abductive reasoning, (2) embracing a validity‐driven approach, and (3) operating in the overlapping spaces of fundamental customer needs, business viability and technological feasibility. Lean firms adopt design‐thinking methodology and act like bricoleurs, such as make‐do by applying combinations of the available resources through rapid prototyping to new problems and opportunities in an experimental way. Briefly, lean innovation capability enables firms to manage limited resources by reconfiguring and reallocating existing resources, and, thereby, helps empower resource‐limited radical innovation.     

The dynamics of innovation efforts in the early career

Although innovation is highly valued in organizations, early-career professionals face a paradox of bringing in novel ideas, yet having varied latitude and support to see these new ideas through. Building on 35 critical-incident-based interviews with early-career engineers in the United States, this study illuminates the socially situated dynamics of their innovation efforts, examining the process of such promotive proactive behaviour. We find that all participants reported some engagement in creating, championing and implementing new ideas, typically in the form of self-initiated improvements to the tools and processes participants used in their jobs. Encouragement from direct supervisors, supportive organizational cultures and practices, job scope, time afforded and one's perceived status were key considerations in determining whether to take such initiative. Carrying out innovative work behaviours, in turn, was largely dependent on continued employee initiative and ad hoc, informal cooperation, with individual effort punctuated by influential interactions with others that often determined the perceived valence of efforts. The study adds to understanding the social interactions and perceptions of voice required for innovative work behaviour, revealing when and to whom these prerequisites are afforded. Implications for organizations' innovation capacity and new hires' participation in innovation are discussed.     

Inter-organizational innovation and cloud computing

Firms are increasingly shifting from the ‘closed’ innovation paradigm, in which their innovation design and implementation activities were based on their own internal knowledge resources, skills and production facilities, towards the inter-organizational ‘open’ innovation paradigm, which is based to a significant degree on collaboration with other organizations, aiming at the exploitation of external knowledge resources, skills and production facilities as well. This paper investigates empirically the effects of firm’s inter-organizational collaboration for the design and implementation of innovations, and also use of ICT for supporting this collaboration, on firm’s propensity to adopt cloud computing (CC), and in this way it examines in an ‘objective’ manner to what extent firms regard CC as a cost-effective means of supporting inter-organizational collaboration for the design and implementation of innovation. Our study is based on a dataset collected in the e-Business Survey of the European Commission from 676 European firms from the glass, ceramics and cement manufacturing sectors. It has been concluded that firms of these sectors regard CC as a cost-effective means of supporting collaboration with other firms for the design of innovations in their products, services and processes, and also of reducing the costs and increasing the capabilities and flexibility of already existing electronic support of inter-organizational innovation design collaboration. Furthermore, our results indicate that firms find CC useful for the reduction of the costs and the increase of the capabilities and flexibility of their existing electronic support of the complex operations required for the inter-organizational implementation of innovations.     

Learning sites: Networked resources and the learning community

This research has been concerned with the use of networked computer resources in the context of full‐time residential university education. Topics addressed include the use of computer‐mediated communication to supplement conventional teaching and the provision of access to campus networks and the Internet from university study‐bedrooms. The research has been concerned to establish individual and social factors influencing students’ responses to networked tools and resources, including library resources, and to assess the impact of these technologies upon the experience of being a student at a campus‐based university. A broadly ecological approach has been adopted, involving the use of questionnaires, interview and usage diaries.     

Improving performance and quality of working life: A model for organizational health assessment in emerging enterprises

The organization of work has been addressed through numerous perspectives by a diverse set of disciplines. While job stress research has focused on the promotion of worker well‐being, contemporary business‐improvement initiatives (e.g., lean manufacturing, six sigma) have sought to optimize effectiveness through work processes. However, these two aims, although traditionally viewed as contradictory, are actually interdependent variables in the determination of long‐term profitability. The concept of organizational health blends the pursuit of individual wellness with organizational effectiveness to yield a strategy for economic resilience. This article introduces a novel model for organizational health assessment using a systemic approach that addresses work factors at the individual, job, process, and organizational levels. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 14: 81–95, 2004.     

Job control in distributed environments with non-dedicated resources

A model of job processing in distributed environments with non-dedicated resources having owners is proposed and justified. The model adopts the implementation of the so-called fair distribution of resources between independent users and owners of computation nodes. Problems of optimal and efficient combinations of available resources based on dynamically changing schedules (lists of slots of which each is associated with a time interval for the execution of a part of job and a certain type of resources) are discussed.     

Intelligent production planning for complex garment manufacturing

Apparel production is characterised by labour-intensive manual operations, frequent style changes, seasonal demand and shortening production lead times. With fierce competition worldwide, many manufacturers are switching their production from mass mode to lean mode to shorten their response time to changes. In a complex mixed mode production environment, it is very important to allocate job orders to suitable production lines so as to ensure the effective utilization of production resources and on-time completion of all job orders. In this paper, planning algorithms are proposed for automatic job allocations based on group technology and genetic algorithms. For genetic algorithms based intelligent planning algorithms, single-run and multiple-run genetic algorithms are suggested. Real production data are used to validate the proposed method. The proposed algorithms has been shown being able to substantially improve planning quality. These planning algorithms are currently used by apparel manufacturers in Hong Kong as part of their routine planning operations.     

Flexible open caching for the Web

Caching plays a vital role in the performance of any large-scale distributed system and, as the variety and number of Web applications grows, is becoming an increasingly important research topic within the Web community. Existing caching mechanisms are largely transparent to their users and cater for resources which are primarily read-only, offering little support for customisable or complex caching strategies. In this paper we examine the deficiencies in these mechanisms with regard to applications with requirements for shared access to data where clients may require a variety of consistency guarantees. We present “open” caching within an object-oriented framework, an approach to solving these problems which, instead of offering caching transparency makes the caching mechanism highly visible allowing great flexibility in caching choices. Our implementation is built upon the W3Objects infrastructure and allows clients to make caching decisions for individual resources with minimal impact upon other resources which do not support our mechanisms.     

Scheduling and planning job execution of loosely coupled applications

Growth in availability of data collection devices has allowed individual researchers to gain access to large quantities of data that needs to be analyzed. As a result, many labs and departments have acquired considerable compute resources. However, effective and efficient utilization of those resources remains a barrier for the individual researchers because the distributed computing environments are difficult to understand and control. We introduce a methodology and a tool that automatically manipulates and understands job submission parameters to realize a range of job execution alternatives across a distributed compute infrastructure. Generated alternatives are presented to a user at the time of job submission in the form of tradeoffs mapped onto two conflicting objectives, namely job cost and runtime. Such presentation of job execution alternatives allows a user to immediately and quantitatively observe viable options regarding their job execution, and thus allows the user to interact with the environment at a true service level. Generated job execution alternatives have been tested through simulation and on real-world resources and, in both cases, the average accuracy of the runtime of the generated and perceived job alternatives is within 5%.     

Open Innovation Climate Measure: The Introduction of a Validated Scale

Open innovation describes how organizations open up their innovation processes for external influence and collaboration. Despite this recent, and increasingly popular, development in the industry as well as in academic literature, the field lacks valid assessment tools. As a supportive organizational climate is argued to be a crucial element for successful implementation of open innovation, we propose in this paper Open Innovation Climate Measure (OICM). This three‐dimensional assessment tool is tested in three units located in a multinational automotive corporation in the process of incorporating open innovation principles in practice.     

一种基于JMX的远程作业管理系统设计与实现

文章提出了一种新型远程作业管理系统框架。该框架基于JMX架构,融合了基于企业权限映射模型的安全机制、JSF(JavaServerFace)的可视化框架等多项技术,有效地改进了传统的作业管理系统的可扩展性差、安全机制不足和缺乏统一、完善的系统管理三点不足。并基于该框架实现了国家863项目“远程作业管理系统”,实现了灵活的系统组件动态配置,基于企业权限映射模型的高安全和可视化管理界面,比较了实现系统和传统系统的优点,讨论了其中涉及到的关键技术。     

Application of Lean Manufacturing in Hospitals—the Need to Consider Maturity,Complexity, and the Value Concept

Lean is widely applied in hospitals, but the impact tends to be limited. This paper investigates three possible explanations: 1) maturity, 2) complexity, and 3) the value concept and analyses the bearing of these in a case study of lean application in a large Danish university hospital. The results indicate that lean tends to be applied in secondary and support functions with a logistic character and therefore has had a limited impact on the overall healthcare performance. The case study shows that there are constraints related to low lean maturity, the complexity of processes and operations as well as differences in value perceptions among the different professions (e.g., doctors, nurses, and managers) within the hospital. The conclusion is that lean is useful for hospitals, but the lean concept as well as its implementation methods need to be fitted to the organizational complexity and diverging values in hospitals in order to bring about a larger impact. It is therefore necessary to develop new models for the lean concept as well as the implementation of lean adapted to the particular context of hospitals with a stronger focus on patient experiences and on coordination of social relations.     

A Meta-Brokering Framework for Science Gateways

Recently scientific communities produce a growing number of computation-intensive applications, which calls for the interoperation of distributed infrastructures including Clouds, Grids and private clusters. The European SHIWA and ER-flow projects have enabled the combination of heterogeneous scientific workflows, and their execution in a large-scale system consisting of multiple Distributed Computing Infrastructures. One of the resource management challenges of these projects is called parameter study job scheduling. A parameter study job of a workflow generally has a large number of input files to be consumed by independent job instances. In this paper we propose a meta-brokering framework for science gateways to support the execution of such workflows. In order to cope with the high uncertainty and unpredictable load of the utilized distributed infrastructures, we introduce the so called resource priority services. These tools are capable of determining and dynamically updating priorities of the available infrastructures to be selected for job instances. Our evaluations show that this approach implies an efficient distribution of job instances among the available computing resources resulting in shorter makespan for parameter study workflows.     

Cost performance dynamics in lean production leveling

Balancing of production systems is one of the main lean manufacturing principles as it reduces in-process storage and related forms of waste. A dynamic systems approach is proposed to investigate challenges of implementing production leveling and associated costs. A lean cell producing at takt time is modeled using system dynamics. The model captures various lean tools influencing production leveling and their implications. Comparative cost analysis between various leveling implementation policies for stochastic demand with multiple products is conducted. Results showed that determining the most feasible leveling policy is highly dictated by both the cost and limitations of capacity scalability. In addition, delivery sequence plans of different products/parts needed to achieve mix leveling and lot sizes affect the feasible production leveling policy while implementing lean principles. The developed model and insights gained from the results can help lean manufacturing practitioners to better decide when and how to implement production leveling as well as determine both production lots sizes and sequence. They also emphasize the importance of cost analysis as assisting decision support tool in the trade-off required between the benefits of different levels of lean policies and their associated cost.