Tesi sul tema "Reengineering"

As modern DLs often stay in synchronization with the latest progress of technologies in all fields, interoperability among DLs is often hard to achieve. With the advent of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and Open Digital Libraries (ODL), lightweight protocols show a promising future in promoting DL interoperability. Furthermore, DL is envisaged as a network of independent components working collaboratively through simple standardized protocols. Prior work with ODL shows the feasibility of building componentized DLs with techniques that are a precursor to web services designs.

In our study, we elaborate the feasibility to apply web services to DL design. DL services are modeled as a set of web services offering information dissemination through the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Additionally, a flexible DL user interface assembly framework is offered in order to build DLs with customizations and personalizations. Our hypothesis is proven and demonstrated in the PhysNet reengineering project.
Master of Science

Utvecklingen inom IT-området har under de senaste åren varit explosionsartad. Allt fler branscher har börjat att leta efter nya sätt att tillämpa de olika framsteg som skett inom området

Detta arbete behandlar en kombinerad litteraturstudie och intervjuundersökning kring objektorientering och Business Process Reengineering. Problemställningen för detta arbete har varit:

- På vilka sätt kan objektorientering tillämpas för att utveckla de synsätt och de metoder som används inom Business Process Reengineering

Syftet med arbetet var att hitta ett antal generella tillämpningsområden utifrån problemställningen, samt att hitta ett antal fördelar, som dessa generella tillämpningar skulle kunna medföra.

Resultatet av detta arbete visar att det finns områden inom Business Process Reengineering, där en objektorienterad tillämpning skulle kunna medför stora fördelar. Som exempel på detta kan nämnas förbättrade möjligheter att skapa och anpassa de informationssystem som skall stötta verksamhetsprocesserna. Även möjligheterna att skapa dynamiska metoder, där varje metodsteg utgörs av färdiga moduler som sedan kombineras, bör nämnas som en fördel.

Manufacturing companies find themselves, whether they like it or not, in a more global and changing reality. Fiercer competition, dynamic markets, new consumer habits, stronger environmental regulations, and new technological possibilities, are forcing manufacturing companies to change. The practical effects for European manufacturers are 1) new and innovative products, 2) global value chains, 3) automation, and, 4) a shift from products to solutions. This research is addressing the changes needed for operations in a single enterprise (a group of departments, a plant, or a group of closely located plants), to take advantage of the competitive situation.

For such “internal” operations, the new challenges require changes both in technology and practices. The main concern of this research is the practices, and how a reengineering of manufacturing and office operations can improve performance. The choice of scope is based on the assumption that operations activities are a major source for competitiveness. To reengineer operations activities in processes rather than functions, and to implement best practices wherever appropriate, can therefore provide dramatic competitive improvements.

The overall objective of this research is to:

• establish enterprise reengineering as an approach that enables manufacturing enterprises to achieve fit between market requirements and operations capabilities.

Enterprise reengineering is viewed as model-based and strategy driven approach that enables manufacturers to realise the “soft” or infrastructural aspects of an operations strategy. To support such reengineering efforts, enterprises are viewed not only from a process perspective but also from a resource, materials, information, organisations, and control perspective. Modelling and analysing enterprises from these perspectives can support their effort to implement best practices, and ensure that the practices are combined in a way that supports the overall business strategy.

The overall objective is divided into more specific objectives:

• To develop a strategic framework for enterprise reengineering

• To develop a consistent and practical enterprise reengineering methodology to support the formulation and realisation of operations strategies

• To develop architecture for conceptual enterprise modelling that ensures a coherent, decomposed, and holistic picture of enterprise operations

• To establish “flow manufacturing” as a (optional) best practice programme for enterprise reengineering

Together, the strategic framework, the methodology, and the modelling architecture should enable enterprises to achieve their performance objectives through an enterprise reengineering effort. In cases where an enterprise mapping and analysis concludes that improvements in manufacturing planning and control, order management, layout and flow, or inventory, should be performed, the flow manufacturing programme should provide practical guidance and a set of principles to support reengineering.

In order to achieve these objectives, the following issues are reviewed in this thesis:

1) operations strategy, 2) enterprise reengineering, 3) flow manufacturing, 4) enterprise modelling, and, 5) change management. Based on these literature studies, a strategic framework, a methodology, a modelling architecture for enterprise reengineering and a flow manufacturing programme are proposed.

The major outcome of this research is an enterprise reengineering methodology, which includes strategic planning, and operations mapping, analysis, design, and implementation. The methodology consists of the following models, principles, and tools:

• A operations strategy checklist

• Four flow manufacturing design principles

• An architecture for conceptual enterprise modelling

• Seven change management principles

• A procedural guide for enterprise reengineering

• An operations performance audit sheet

• A five-step approach to flow manufacturing reengineering

The research is based on a case study of HÅG Fast, a very successful enterprise reengineering project carried out in 1991-1992. The case study demonstrates the usefulness of the methodology to analyse and understand enterprises, and the dramatic improvements in performance that can be achieved by implementing flow manufacturing practices. In addition, the enterprise reengineering methodology has been proved useful in several field studies.

Introduction: Cancer registries collect tumor-related data to monitor incident rates and support population-based research. A common concern with using population-based registry data for research is reporting timeliness. Data timeliness have been recognized as an important data characteristic by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Yet, few recent studies in the United States (U.S.) have systemically measured timeliness.

The goal of this research is to evaluate the quality of cancer data and examine methods by which the reporting process can be improved. The study aims are: 1- evaluate the timeliness of cancer cases at the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) Cancer Registry, 2- identify the perceived barriers and facilitators to timely reporting, and 3-reengineer the current reporting process to improve turnaround time.

Method: For Aim 1: Using the ISDH dataset from 2000 to 2009, we evaluated the reporting timeliness and subtask within the process cycle. For Aim 2: Certified cancer registrars reporting for ISDH were invited to a semi-structured interview. The interviews were recorded and qualitatively analyzed. For Aim 3: We designed a reengineered workflow to minimize the reporting timeliness and tested it using simulation.

Result: The results show variation in the mean reporting time, which ranged from 426 days in 2003 to 252 days in 2009. The barriers identified were categorized into six themes and the most common barrier was accessing medical records at external facilities.

We also found that cases reside for a few months in the local hospital database while waiting for treatment data to become available. The recommended workflow focused on leveraging a health information exchange for data access and adding a notification system to inform registrars when new treatments are available.

This project analyzes current state of engineering practice as revealed in the self-image of the individual engineer. A survey of popular engineering literature is employed in order to develop a composite self-image of the engineer: the technical hired hand of industry. â Professionalizationâ is then demonstrated to be useless in the improvement of this situation and furthermore, undesirable in the late capitalist social and economic climate of the late twentieth century.

Late professionalism â an alternative to a understanding of professionalism â is offered as a means by which to improve the job satisfaction of engineers in contemporary society. Suggesting that each engineer is free to negotiate the terms, conditions, and length of his/her own employment based on a personal understanding of the job requirements, late professionalism empowers the engineer to adopt a comfortable position in the late capitalist economy. A new metaphor â the commissioned engineer â is employed in support of the late professional understanding of the engineerâ s occupation.
Master of Science