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Prisons can utilize effective business process, operations management and continuous improvement techniques to provide an opportunity to support the rehabilitation of inmates. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Iowa Prison Industries (IPI) work training program offered for incarcerated individuals under the supervision of the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC).

The IPI developed an Operational Excellence (OpEx) apprenticeship program that has worked with approximately 800 incarcerated “associates” to help them acquire skills necessary to obtain gainful employment upon release. This includes skills and belt level assessment in Lean Six Sigma as well as 6S/5S events and training. These techniques have been deployed by 22 teams at seven locations across the state of Iowa (USA). These sites have established objectives and goals and provided significant security-related benefits in the correctional industries environment.

Findings and success outcomes have been encouraging as those who completed the IPI apprenticeship program had lower recidivism, higher wages and more employability compared to the general prison population.

The rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals is critical to society. This novel and unique case study reviews one approach to providing work and life skills (such as esteem-building professional and personal skill sets) to support this process within the prison system.

This OpEx program has provided numerous benefits to both IPI and the incarcerated individuals. We feel that these findings could be beneficial to other correctional institutions and better prepare more inmates for a successful return to the workforce and to society.

Using a case study for electrical power equipment, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of dependence between series-connected system components in maintenance decisions.

A continuous-time Markov decision model is formulated to find a minimum cost maintenance policy for a circuit breaker as an independent component while considering a downstream transformer as a dependent component. Maintenance of the dependent component is included implicitly in terms of the costs associated with certain state-action pairs. For policy and cost comparisons, a separate model is also formulated that considers only the circuit breaker as the independent component. After uniformizing the continuous-time models to discrete time, standard methods are used to solve for the average-cost-optimal policies of each model.

The optimal maintenance policy and its cost differ significantly depending on whether or not the dependent component is considered.

Data used are from manufacturer databases; additional model validation could be conducted if applied to an electric utility asset fleet within their generation, transmission, and/or distribution system. This model and methodology are already being applied in other contexts such as industrial machinery and equipment, jet engines, amusement park rides, etc.

The outcome of this model can be utilized by asset and operations managers to make maintenance decisions based on prediction rather than more traditional time- or condition-based maintenance methodologies. This model is being developed for use as a module in a larger maintenance information system, specifically linking condition monitor data from the field to a predictive maintenance model. Similar methods are being applied to other applications outside the electrical equipment case detailed herein.

This model provides a structured approach for managers to decide how to best allocate their resources across a network of inter-connected equipment. Work in this area has not fully considered the importance of dependency on systems maintenance, particularly in applications with highly variable repair and replacement costs.

Halal certification is an acknowledgment of the halalness of a product or service issued by a halal regulator based on Islamic law. This study aims to investigate the intentions of consumers and regulators toward blockchain-based halal certification. Blockchain is useful for storing and verifying halal certificates, thereby increasing trust in products or services because the public cannot change or access data once it is stored.

This study uses a triangulation approach by distributing online questionnaires to consumers as a research instrument of a quantitative approach processed with smart partial least squares. Meanwhile, the qualitative approach is carried out through observation, in-depth interviews with the Ministry of Religion’s Halal Product Assurance Organizing Agency (BPJPH) and Halal Examination Agency (LPH), and forum group discussions (FGDs) with several related parties.

The observation results show that most consumers expect the government to provide an easy-to-use application to check halal food products and restaurants. Consumers’ intention to use this technology is influenced directly by attitudes and indirectly by their beliefs. Furthermore, the results of interviews and FGDs reported that LPH was not ready to apply blockchain technology, while BPJPH strongly supported adopting blockchain technology in the certification process.

This finding recommends that the Indonesian government apply blockchain technology to gain transparency and accountability regarding the halal product process.

This study fills the research gap by observing three perspectives from different stakeholders and using a triangulation approach to analyze the need for adoption of blockchain-based halal certification of halal food products.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need to engender a positive attitude toward business analytics in order for firms to more effectively transform into data-driven businesses, and for business schools to better prepare future managers.

This paper develops and validates a measurement instrument that captures the attitude toward business statistics, the foundation of business analytics. A multi-stage approach is implemented and the validation is conducted with a sample of 311 students from a business school.

The instrument has strong psychometric properties. It is designed so that it can be easily extrapolated to professional contexts and extended to the entire domain of business analytics.

As the advent of a data-driven business world will impact the way organizations function and the way individuals think, work, communicate and interact, it is crucial to engage a transdisciplinary dialogue among domains that have the expertise to help train and transform current and future professionals.

The contribution provides educators and organizations with a means to measure and monitor attitudes toward statistics, the most anxiogenic component of business analytics. This is a first step in monitoring and developing an analytics mindset in both managers and students.

By demonstrating how the advent of the data-driven business era is transforming the DNA and functioning of organizations, this paper highlights the key importance of changing managers’ and all employees’ (to a lesser extent) mindset and way of thinking.

The paper aims to propose and validate a process-based model to enhance managerial effectiveness among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). It has been observed that business uncertainties and inadequate financial resources that MSME entrepreneurs and managers face require them to constantly engage in strong self-awareness and self-regulating behavior to enhance the efficacy in their roles and, henceforth, their role performance effectiveness.

The approach for data collection was based on the clustering of MSMEs belonging to the clusters machine tool, pump manufacturing, foundry, textile and auto-component clusters in India. The respondents to the study were MSME entrepreneurs and managers who oversee and manage multiple functions like operations, quality, marketing, sales, supply chain management, procurement, personnel and administration and general administration.

The self-efficacy of entrepreneurial managers of MSMEs is observed to play an integral role in enhancing the efficacy of their roles, thus highlighting the use of a process-based perspective while dealing with constant resource constraints and excessive dynamism in their business contexts. The ability to handle multiple tasks effectively and resilience to manage challenges enhances their role-making process, which is significant in achieving and sustaining goal-oriented behavior among MSME entrepreneurs and managers.

This paper would serve as an effective model for entrepreneurs and managers to enhance their efficacy in the individual and interdependent role context, which would help achieve their individual and organizational goals. The model emphasizes a process-based perspective that thrusts the need to relate to the organizational context, enhancing individual confidence for goal-related behavior and fulfilling their role-related expectations.

This paper presents a model of enhancing managerial effectiveness that discusses self-efficacy as antecedent behavior. Here, personal and environmental factors aid cognition to one’s capability to construct reality, self-regulate, encode information and engage in effective managerial action.