The purpose of this paper is to propose an agent‐based condition monitoring system for use in industrial applications. An intelligent maintenance agent is described that is able…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose an agent‐based condition monitoring system for use in industrial applications. An intelligent maintenance agent is described that is able to autonomously perform necessary actions and/or aid a human in the decision‐making process. An example is presented as a case‐study from manufacturing of industrial robots.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is mainly based on a case‐study performed at a large multi‐national company aiming to explore the usefulness of case‐based experience reuse in production.
Findings
This paper presents a concept of case‐based experience reuse in production. A maintenance agent using a case‐based reasoning (CBR) approach to collect, preserve and reuse available experience in the form of sound recordings exemplifies this concept. Sound from normal and faulty robot gearboxes are recorded during the production end test and stored in a case library together with their diagnosis results. Given an unclassified sound signal, relevant cases are retrieved to aid a human in the decision‐making process. The maintenance agent demonstrated good performance by making right judgments in 91 per cent of all the tests, which is better than an inexperienced technician.
Practical implications
Experienced staffs acquire their experience during many years of practice and sometimes also through expensive mistakes. The acquired experience is difficult to preserve and transfer and it often gets lost if the corresponding personnel leave their job due to retirements, etc. The proposed CBR approach to collect, preserve and reuse the available experience enables a large potential for time and cost savings, predictability and reduced risk in the daily work. The paper exemplifies experience reuse for quality improvement in production using a number of methods and techniques from artificial intelligence.
Originality/value
The main focus of this paper is to show how to perform efficient experience reuse in modern production industry to improve quality of products. Two approaches are used: a case‐study describing an example of experience reuse in production using a fault diagnosis system recognizing and diagnosing audible faults on industrial robots and an efficient approach on how to package such a system using the agent paradigm and agent architecture.
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– The purpose of this paper is to investigate healthcare customer complaints concerning interpersonal matters in cancer care.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate healthcare customer complaints concerning interpersonal matters in cancer care.
Design/methodology/approach
Complaints from cancer patients and their relatives (n=116) that dealt with interpersonal matters registered between 2009 and 2011 at four local Patients’ Advisory Committees in Western Sweden were sampled and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
Findings
Complaints concerned lack of information and consideration from healthcare providers. Lack of empathy and civility also caused dissatisfaction, the latter particularly for women. Relatives complained that they did not feel included in the care process or were not offered proper support. Most complaints by relatives were filed by a female relative and concerned a male patient.
Research limitations/implications
Information about patient demographics other than gender could not be investigated due to database limitations. Hence, factors such as age, country of birth, and geographical residence were not included for analysis. In addition, neither the type nor stage of cancer among the sampled patients was able to be addressed.
Practical implications
Patient complaints should not only be viewed as a post-consumption judgment, but also as a service interaction activity. This may require healthcare providers to enhance their interpersonal skills, allowing patients and relatives to provide feedback during service interaction to satisfactorily address dissatisfaction. Visualizing gender disparities may help healthcare providers prevent stereotypical encounters. In addition, the provider should be invited to participate in the customer’s value creating network, which may also include knowledge and skills from other sources, such as relatives.
Originality/value
Value co-creation offers a different view on patient complaints. Incorporating social construction into value co-creation may reveal socially constructed disparities. The paper provides aggregated information on cancer patients’ and relatives’ complaints concerning interpersonal issues, which can increase knowledge about patient healthcare service perceptions.
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Studies of strategic change are mainly characterized by a linear time view, treating time as a variable, a package of narrative events or as a path that the organization “travels”…
Abstract
Purpose
Studies of strategic change are mainly characterized by a linear time view, treating time as a variable, a package of narrative events or as a path that the organization “travels” over time. The purpose of this paper is to move beyond this view providing an alternative, nonlinear conception of time.
Design/methodology/approach
Framed by the logics of consequence and appropriateness an empirical example of strategic change within the Scandinavian consumer co‐operation is given, illustrating the exploration of business opportunities and the exploitation of socially and historically rooted values and principles. Drawing on philosophical hermeneutics a qualitative method is chosen, the basis on which the empirical material through interviews and documents is generated.
Findings
The empirical study illustrates that the logic of consequence communicates with the logic of appropriateness in a nonlinear manner while interrelating the future and the past. The exploration of business opportunities shapes the past, which is brought to light when opportunities are expressed through the present, continuously forming and reforming the present and in turn shedding new light on the past.
Originality/value
Although various forms of intellectual bridging and transfer are encouraged within the field of strategic management, notably lacking are studies that focus on time. This paper brings to the fore an alternative conception of time. It acknowledges the past in its hermeneutical significance when ascribing the past a dynamic repetitive role.
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Olle Viktor Olsson, Håkan Aronsson and Erik Sandberg
This study aims to explore the involvement of middle management in forming strategies to manage variable acute patient flows at a hospital.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the involvement of middle management in forming strategies to manage variable acute patient flows at a hospital.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical evidence from a university hospital was gathered via interviews, internal documents, observation and participation in meetings. The role of middle management in the development of strategies was analyzed using literature on middle management involvement.
Findings
In managing variable acute patient flows, middle management adopts a number of roles and behavioral characteristics that have been previously described in research. The role of facilitator is the most prominent, with middle managers prioritizing individual goals and strategies for the clinical departments that they manage before their collective responsibility for hospital performance. Unclear responsibilities and mandates within the organization, together with a lack of hospital-wide strategies concerning how the acute patient flow should be managed, are contributing factors to this behavior.
Research limitations/implications
The research is based on an explorative, single case study methodology. Future research assessing the extent of different middle management roles in health care, in which more empirical data and quantitative analysis is conducted, is encouraged.
Practical implications
There is a need for top management to establish long-term goals to enhance middle management roles when developing strategies for managing variable patient flows.
Originality/value
Middle management involvement in developing strategies for managing variable patient flows is a novel topic for research. The interface and division of tasks between top and middle management is crucial for successful strategies in managing variable patient flows.
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James Guthrie and Vijaya Murthy
The purpose of this paper is to pay tribute to several of the ideas of Jan‐Erik Gröjer by reviewing and critiquing the field of Human Competence Accounting (HCA) since his…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to pay tribute to several of the ideas of Jan‐Erik Gröjer by reviewing and critiquing the field of Human Competence Accounting (HCA) since his Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal review article in 1998.Three research questions he posed in that article are now addressed in the current paper: What could be done, as envisaged in the commentary of Gröjer and Johanson; What has been published in HCA research in the ten year period (1999‐2008); What more could/should be done in HCA as a research agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature based analysis and critique of HCA accounting articles published in the selected journals from 1999 to 2008 is employed. A purpose built coding and classification scheme is built around several categories for the purpose of analysing the HCA literature.
Findings
The paper seeks to demonstrate the importance of Gröjer and Johanson's review and indicates that questions they raised and possible research directions have been acted upon by a number of authors. The findings of the analysis indicate that, a decade on from the original review, HCA is a legitimate area for accounting research and is multi‐disciplinary and multi‐focused in nature.
Research limitations/implications
The paper only considers selected HCA articles within the ten journals used over the period 1999‐2008.American mainstream positivist research has not been reviewed. Also the categories chosen to represent HCA have several limitations which are addressed in the paper.
Originality/value
HCA research has a strong tradition and the Gröjer and Johanson review is an important beacon that provided insights to accounting researchers. The current analysis extends Jan‐Erik's work by providing several insights into what has happened and also provides several ideas for future research and policy work in accounting for HCA.
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Erik Masao Eriksson and Lars Nordgren
There is a current trend in healthcare management away from produced and standardized one-size-fits-all processes toward co-created and individualized services. The purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
There is a current trend in healthcare management away from produced and standardized one-size-fits-all processes toward co-created and individualized services. The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the value concept in healthcare organization and management by recognizing different levels of value (private, group and public) and the interconnectedness among these levels.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses social constructionism as a lens to problematize the individualization of service logic’s value concept. Theories from consumer culture theory/transformative service research and public management add group and public levels of value to the private level.
Findings
An intersubjective (rather than subjective) approach to value creation entails the construction and sharing of value perceptions among groups of people. Such an approach also implies that group members may face similar barriers in their value creation efforts.
Practical implications
Healthcare management should be aware of the inherent individualism of service logic and, consequently, the need to balance private value with group and public levels of value.
Social implications
Identifying and addressing disadvantaged groups and the reasons for their disadvantaged positions is important in order to enhance the individual’s value creation prerequisites as well as to address public and societal values, such as equal/equitable health(care).
Originality/value
It is important to complement service logic’s value creation with group and public levels in order to understand the complexity and interconnectedness of value and the creation thereof.
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Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a method to measure the rolling friction coefficient in an easy and fast way. The aim is also to measure the rolling friction coefficient between a small steel ball and a cylindrical aluminum surface.
Design/methodology/approach
An analytical model of the tribosystem of a freely rolling ball and a cylindrical surface is established. The rolling friction coefficient is evaluated from images recorded by a high-speed camera. The coefficient between a 1.58-mm diameter steel ball and a cylindrical aluminum surface is measured. A background subtraction algorithm is used to determine the position of the small steel ball.
Findings
The angular positions of the ball are predicted using the analytical model, and a good agreement is found between the experimental and theoretical results.
Originality/value
An optical method for evaluating the rolling friction coefficient is presented, and the value of this coefficient between a small steel ball and a cylindrical aluminum surface is evaluated.
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With the outset of automatic detection of information, misinformation, and disinformation, the purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss various conceptions of information…
Abstract
Purpose
With the outset of automatic detection of information, misinformation, and disinformation, the purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss various conceptions of information, misinformation, and disinformation within philosophy of information.
Design/methodology/approach
The examinations are conducted within a Gricean framework in order to account for the communicative aspects of information, misinformation, and disinformation as well as the detection enterprise.
Findings
While there often is an exclusive focus on truth and falsity as that which distinguish information from misinformation and disinformation, this paper finds that the distinguishing features are actually intention/intentionality and non-misleadingness/misleadingness – with non-misleadingness/misleadingness as the primary feature. Further, the paper rehearses the argument in favor of a true variety of disinformation and extends this argument to include true misinformation.
Originality/value
The findings are novel and pose a challenge to the possibility of automatic detection of misinformation and disinformation. Especially the notions of true disinformation and true misinformation, as varieties of disinformation and misinformation, which force the true/false dichotomy for information vs mis-/disinformation to collapse.