A. Sabharwal, M. Syal and M. Hastak
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of the component assemblies redesign on the material handling costs associated with the facility layout and also, on the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of the component assemblies redesign on the material handling costs associated with the facility layout and also, on the productivity of the assembly process. Component assemblies are the sub‐assemblies that are incorporated into the manufactured house as it progresses on the assembly line.
Design/methodology/approach
Floor assembly is used as an example to demonstrate the impact of the component assembly redesign process. A step‐by‐step process of assembling a floor in the case study factory is described and changes to the process are proposed. The existing and redesigned floor assemblies are analyzed using the factory layout analysis models and the production simulation models.
Findings
The proposed redesign resulted in a small savings of less than 1 per cent in the material handling costs and a substantial savings of around 20 per cent in the production time.
Research limitations/implications
The work described in this paper is based on the existing floor assembly process in a case study factory. Due to the practical limitations, material handling routes and production activities associated with the redesigned assemblies were estimated. The results from this research show that redesign of component assemblies can provide potential avenues of savings for the manufactured housing industry. Such analysis can be performed for any component assembly individually or in combination with other assemblies in order to realize potential savings with relatively minor changes.
Originality/value
Production‐related research in manufactured housing has traditionally focused on either improving the facility layout or the assembly line process but not the combined impact of these two aspects. This paper presents a possible approach to investigating the combined impact by analyzing the impact of redesigned floor assembly.
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Sumit Narula and Dhruv Sabharwal
Researchers, business professionals, and policymakers are now focusing on how disruptive innovations affect markets and business performance in the quickly changing business…
Abstract
Researchers, business professionals, and policymakers are now focusing on how disruptive innovations affect markets and business performance in the quickly changing business landscape of today. This study investigates the complexity of disruptive innovations and how they alter established organizational strategies and market structures. The study explores the core traits of disruptive innovations and looks at how they upend established business models and alter the structure of entire industries. This study employs a comprehensive literature review to identify the primary motivators behind disruptive innovations and their diverse impacts on market dynamics. It looks into how disruptive change is sparked by evolving consumer behavior, flexible business models, and emerging technologies. Additionally, research examines how businesses use internal reorganizations and strategic alliances among other tactics to capitalize on and adjust to disruptive innovations. It also examines how market leaders deal with these difficulties in an effort to stay competitive, shedding light on the possible risks and uncertainties related to disruptive innovations. It also highlights how crucial it is for organizations to have innovative cultures and proactive adaptation in order to prosper in a time of swift technological advancements.
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Judy McKimm, Ana Sergio Da Silva, Suzanne Edwards, Jennene Greenhill and Celia Taylor
Women remain under-represented in leadership positions in both clinical medicine and medical education, despite a rapid increase in the proportion of women in the medical…
Abstract
Women remain under-represented in leadership positions in both clinical medicine and medical education, despite a rapid increase in the proportion of women in the medical profession. This chapter explores potential reasons for this under-representation and how it can be ameliorated, drawing on a range of international literatures, theories and practices. We consider both the ‘demand’ for and ‘supply’ of women as leaders, by examining: how evolving theories of leadership help to explain women’s’ leadership roles and opportunities, how employment patterns theory and gender schemas help to explain women’s career choices, how women aspiring to leadership can be affected by the ‘glass ceiling’ and the ‘glass cliff’ and the importance of professional development and mentoring initiatives. We conclude that high-level national strategies will need to be reinforced by real shifts in culture and structures before women and men are equally valued for their leadership and followership contributions in medicine and medical education.
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Denise A. Brush and Jonathan Jiras
The purpose of this paper is to share the knowledge and lessons learned about the process of developing an institutional repository (IR) using a hosted solution, Digital Commons…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share the knowledge and lessons learned about the process of developing an institutional repository (IR) using a hosted solution, Digital Commons from bepress, and to make the case that Digital Commons is still the best IR solution for smaller university libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a case study based on Rowan University Libraries developing an IR using the Digital Commons platform.
Findings
To implement a hosted solution successfully, key actions include defining the repository’s scope and mission early in the process, including a variety of stakeholders in promoting the repository, integrating the repository with a faculty profile system and being able to effectively work collaboratively with both internal and external professionals in developing the system.
Originality/value
This paper will be valuable to academic librarians considering implementing an IR on, or migrating an existing repository to, the Digital Commons platform.
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This chapter attempts to critically examine the wildlife conservation discourse that argues for curtailing the livestock grazing inside the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, situated…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter attempts to critically examine the wildlife conservation discourse that argues for curtailing the livestock grazing inside the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, situated on the India’s international borders with China in southeast Ladakh. The conventional conservation discourse points at the (supposed) greed of the Changpa pastoralists in accumulating an increasing number of pashmina goats as a primary environmental cause of wildlife loss in Changthang; however, there is a critical lack of insight into the political and historical mechanisms that lie within the dynamic interaction between resource access and socio-economic inequalities, critical for understanding Changpa pastoralism today.
Methodology/approach and findings
Ethnographic inquiry into the Changpa economy before the closure of Ladakh–Tibet border trade in 1962, and afterwards, has highlighted the political and economic transformations in the area, as well as the cultural politics of market integration and increasing inabilities of the mobile Changpa pastoralists to access vital productive resources. Inequalities reflected in the contemporary livestock data, acquired from the pastoralists, underscore the processes of institutional bricolage, non-cooperative labour, exchange/wage herding and capital-dominated market networks, making pastoralism impossible for several of the households.
Originality/value
The chapter argues against making livestock withdrawal a major aim of conservation sciences. It calls instead for the recognition of state-provisioned commodified pashmina rearing, seen through the prism of changing abilities and shifting institutions, where unequal access to productive resources is a reflection of both historical dispossessions and also economic impoverishments of Changpa today.
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Denise Chenger and Rachael N. Pettigrew
Companies are turning to big data (BD) programs to help mitigate supply chain (SC) disruptions and risks that are increasing in frequency and severity. The purpose of this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
Companies are turning to big data (BD) programs to help mitigate supply chain (SC) disruptions and risks that are increasing in frequency and severity. The purpose of this paper is to explore exactly how companies translate data into meaningful information used to manage SC risk and create economic value; an area not well researched. As companies are turning to big-data programs to help mitigate supply chain (SC) disruptions and risks that are increasing in frequency and severity, having the capability to internally integrate SC information is cited as the most critical risk to manage.
Design/methodology/approach
Information processing theory and resource-based view are applied to support capability development used to make value-based BD decisions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with leaders in both the oil and gas industry and logistics SC partners to explore each companies’ BD transformation.
Findings
Findings illuminate how companies can build internal capability to more effectively manage SC risk, optimize operating assets and drive employee engagement.
Research limitations/implications
The oil and gas industry were early adopters of gathering BD; more studies addressing how companies translate data to create value and manage SC risk would be beneficial.
Practical implications
Guidance for senior leaders to proactively introduce BD to their company through a practical framework. Further, this study provides insight into where the maximum benefit may reside, as data intersects with other company resources to build an internal capability.
Originality/value
This study presents a framework highlighting best practices for introducing BD plus creating a culture capable of using that data to reduce risk during design, implementation and ongoing operations. The steps for producing the maximum benefit are laid out in this study.
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This chapter provides an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of equality and diversity of students in higher education (HE). My main reason for choosing this topic is…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter provides an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of equality and diversity of students in higher education (HE). My main reason for choosing this topic is personal interest.
Design
Critical race theory (CRT) and the social identity theory were used as analytical tools in understanding equality and diversity of students in higher education.
Findings
Managing equality and diversity of students in higher education can be done through the tournament conception, trial conception, leveling conception, remedy conception, and job-interview conception. The primary intrinsic limit to equality of opportunity of students in higher education institutions (HEIs) is the persistence of irreducible differences between families in their economic, social, and cultural resources. Policy can partly compensate for economic differences but can scarcely eliminate the potency of the family in cultural capital and social networks. Students from advantaged social groups enjoy more access to elite universities through the influence of policies. Disadvantaged students from social groups are excluded from accessing top HEIs. Students in elite universities enjoy more advanced educational opportunities than those in nonelite universities, and they are more advantaged to be placed in the job market.
Research Limitations
Student pedagogic (content knowledge) and formative (evaluation) opportunities in HEIs may not be achieved when equality and diversity is dissociated from its academic content and reduced to access for the sake of access. Universities are expected to develop a repertoire of lecturing methods to enable students to learn (Gudmundsdottir, 1990, p. 47). Students constrained by financial considerations, or not given a choice, are not in a position to achieve equality and diversity in their choices of the benefits offered by HEIs as the constrains may limit them from having the necessary resources. Differences between the students’ contexts of learning may also place limit to their performance ability because of the differentiated contextual background. Recruit of students to universities should include students from diverse contextual backgrounds. In addition, universities ought to integrate diversity management with their admission policies and other strategic choices. The chapter focuses only on equality and diversity for students in HEIs. Again, it is limited by relying on the researcher’s experiences and literature review only. In addition, interviews with students and staff at universities were not done because literature reviewed gave more information from researches based on findings of other scholars.
Originality
Higher education institutions (HEIs) should engage students and listen to their needs for equality and diversity to be realized. Debate continues about the best strategies for the management of discrimination that comes in many forms depending on the perceptions of the individuals affected.
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Hajar Mousannif, Hassan Al Moatassime and Said Rakrak
Energy consumption has always been the most serious issue to consider while deploying wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Sensor nodes are limited in power, computational capacities…
Abstract
Purpose
Energy consumption has always been the most serious issue to consider while deploying wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Sensor nodes are limited in power, computational capacities and memory so reporting the occurrence of specific events, such as fire or flooding, as quickly as possible using minimal energy resources is definitely a challenging issue. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new, reactive and energy‐efficient scheme for reporting events. In this scheme, nodes that detect a certain event will organize themselves into a cluster, elect a clusterhead that will collect data from the cluster members, aggregate it and forward it to the mobile sink.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to evaluate the scheme, a new sensor node model was designed, where the network layer is implemented from scratch. This layer contains the state process model of the algorithm which was made available through a high‐fidelity process modeling methodology.
Findings
Simulation results show that a high‐event notification delivery ratio and a significant energy saving is achieved by deploying the proposed sensor node model; comparisons with existing methods show the efficiency of using the new scheme.
Originality/value
The new contribution in this paper is a novel, reactive and energy‐efficient scheme for reporting events over WSNs. The concept introduced in this paper will decrease energy consumption inside the network and, thus, improve its lifetime.
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Eric Badu, Anthony Paul O’Brien and Rebecca Mitchell
This integrative review aimed to identify and synthesis literature on analysis techniques and methodological approaches used to analyse consumer measures in mental health research.
Abstract
Purpose
This integrative review aimed to identify and synthesis literature on analysis techniques and methodological approaches used to analyse consumer measures in mental health research.
Design/methodology/approach
The review included papers published up to January 2020 across seven databases: CINAHL, Web of Science, Medline, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Scopus and Google Scholar. Data search and extraction was conducted according to the recommended guidelines for conducting review by Cochrane and Joanna Briggs Institute. Mixed method synthesis was used to integrate both qualitative and quantitative data into a single synthesis.
Findings
The initial search yielded a total of 2,282 papers. A total of 32 papers were included in the synthesis. Most of the included papers (25/32; 78.12%) focused on psychometric properties, whereas 14% (5/32) targeted analysis techniques, and 6.3% (2/32) addressed methodological justification. The measurement models (e.g. psychometric properties) were analysed through validity and reliability testing as part of instrument development and adaptation. The structural models were analysed using techniques such as structural equation modelling, multivariable regression models, intraclass correlation coefficient and partial least squares–structural equation modelling.
Practical implications
Although consumer-reported instruments are analysed using techniques involving linear, hierarchical and longitudinal effects, no attempt has been given to procedures that applied complex data mining or machine learning. Consumer researchers, clinicians and quality management are encouraged to apply rigorous analysis techniques to critically evaluate consumer outcome measures.
Originality/value
This review provides evidence on the analysis techniques in mental health research to inform the training of mental health professionals, students and quality assessment practitioners.