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The mechanization of the meat cutting companies has become essential. This paper aims to study the feasibility of cutting operations for beef and boning operations for pork ham. The study aims to enhance industrial robots application by using vision or force control.

The paper opted for an industrial robot‐based cell. The first part of this paper focuses on in‐depth study of operators' expertise, so as to translate their actions into automatable operative tasks and to identify the constraints of robotization. It details more particularly a cutting strategy using a bone as a guide which shows the complexity of the process. The analysis of the cutting and task constraint parameters involves the use of a kinematically redundant robotized cell with force control. Then the cell model is developed, and experimentation is performed.

The paper explains how to solve the problem of the high variability of the size for beef carcass. It gives several ideas to realize the boning of pork ham. It develops the strategies, the sensors and the cell architecture to make this type of operations.

Because of the choice of an existing industrial robot, the tool paths with force control are limited. Therefore, new force control instructions have to be developed to continue this work on more complicated operations.

This study was carried out within the framework of the SRDViand project in cooperation with meat industry partners.

The paper fulfils an identified need to study the beef quartering which is a high‐variability operation and ham deboning which is a high precision operation.

This paper aims to optimize feed moisture contents, barrel temperatures, blending ratios of maize and lupine for processing of protein-rich best quality extruded product using a twin-screw extruder.

A three-factor three-level response surface methodology by Box-Behnken Design was applied to evaluate the effect of selected processing conditions of blending ratios of lupine (10-20 per cent), barrel temperatures (120°C-150°C) and feed moisture content (14-18 per cent) on functional, nutritional and sensory characteristics of produced snack food.

The results of functional properties such as radial expansion ratio, bulk density, water absorption index, water solubility index observed as 0.71-1.2, 0.33-0.92 g/cc, 4.4-6.4 per cent and 10.2-15.1 per cent, respectively. The snack food showed the moisture 5.6-7.2 per cent, protein 8.1-18.1 per cent, fiber 1.6-2.7 per cent, ash 1.6-2.2 per cent and carbohydrate 64.8-81.4 per cent. The independent variables (lupine blending ratio, barrel temperature and feed moisture content) posed significant effects on expansion ration (p = 0.0030), bulk density (p = 0.0026), water absorption index (p = 0.0075) and water-solubility index (p = 0.0116). Higher blending ratio of lupine was increase in the bulk density and water solubility index, but decrease in expansion ratio and water absorption index of snack food. Higher feed moisture content was led to a reduction in expansion ratio and water-soluble index of snack food. Whereas, higher feed moisture contents was lead to rise in bulk density and water absorption index. Fiber (p = 0.0145), ash (p = 0.0343) and carbohydrate (p = 0.0001) contents were significantly depended on blending ratio. Blending of lupine 15.06 per cent, barrel temperature of 150 °C and feed moisture content of 14.0 per cent produced the snack food with desirability value of 72.8 per cent.

Protein malnutrition is one of the major problems in child development in under developed countries including Ethiopia. Maize is a top producer in the country but least appreciated for cost. Lupine is one of the undervalued produce consumed in Ethiopia after boiling. Still data on the utilization of maize and lupine in the extruded snack preparation was very limited. Optimization of moisture and barrel temperatures for this snack was not reported clearly yet.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically how operational performance and contextual factors contribute to differences in overall patient care costs across different hospitals.

Administrative data are employed from a sample of hospitals in New York State to construct measures of contextual factors, operational performance, and cost per patient. Operational performance and cost variables are adjusted to account for case mix differences across hospitals. Hierarchical regression is used to analyze the effects of contextual and operational variables on cost performance.

Increased length of stay, increased patient volume, and educational mission were associated with higher cost per patient. Mortality performance was associated with lower cost per patient. However, it was not found that location, size, or ownership status had a significant relationship with cost performance.

This paper identifies several significant relationships between contextual and operational variables and hospital costs. From a managerial perspective, these findings highlight the fact that some drivers of cost in hospitals are under the control of managers. One of the primary cost drivers in the study is length of stay, which implies that there is significant room for improvement in healthcare performance through a focus on operational excellence.

For researchers, the present study highlights the relative importance of operational versus contextual factors, with respect to cost performance in hospitals. The results of this study also provide direction for additional research into the role operational performance might play in determining the overall organizational performance in a hospital.

As hospital costs continue to rise, increasing attention is being paid to the way these organizations are and should be managed. This attention typically comes in the form of focus on costs of services, quality (often measured through mortality rates) and length of stay. Hospital management has a broad array of choices at their disposal to address these challenges. As service operations, hospitals present a significant opportunity to apply the many tools and techniques from the field of operations strategy to this important industry. The objective of this paper is to use the operations strategy framework to assess the relationship between a set of operational elements and hospital performance in terms of average length of stay (ALOS), so that hospital managers improve the effectiveness and efficiency of patient care of their hospitals.

Using the structural and infrastructural operations strategy framework, this study examines the relationship between several strategic variables and hospital performance. To analyze these relationships the paper employs data from the population of hospitals in New York State. The performance measure is the ALOS for patients, adjusted for the mix and severity of cases in each hospital.

The paper finds that a direct relationship exists between the dependent variable and location, capacity, and teaching status, and failed to find a direct relationship for capital expenditures, salary, and staffing levels. However, the paper did find significant interaction effects between capital expenses and both salary and staffing levels.

There appear to be trade‐offs between capital expenditures and workforce decisions that have significant implications in light of current and expected hospital staffing shortages. The findings indicate that reductions in staff may not be perfectly replaced by corresponding increases in capital expenditures.

This paper further expands the body of research that addresses the important challenges hospitals face from an operations management perspective.