The safety of operations is vital in any process in the oil and gas sector, especially given that increasingly more hydrocarbon reserves are discovered in non-conventional remote and Arctic locations. Safety systems are designed as a part of a complex IT system for process control. The design of these systems is conducted in the form of an engineering project. This research presents a decision-making framework to facilitate formulating clear and comprehensive recommendations for the requirements specification developed for the safety systems. The contribution of this research to the strategic planning area of IT solutions for hazardous industrial facilities is integrating the problems of designing a safety system, planning its maintenance, and scheduling the employees to conduct the required maintenance. With this joint decision-making, it is possible to explore trade-offs between investments into the systems’ complexity and workforce-related expenditures throughout the solution’s lifecycle. The reliability modelling is conducted with the help of Markov analysis. The multi-objective decisionmaking framework is employed to deduce straightforward requirements to the safety system design, maintenance strategy, and workforce organisation. This research is relevant to managing the petroleum sector engineering projects with regard to the design of technological solutions.
Keywords:
employee scheduling engineering project management maintenance planning in the oil and gas industry remote and arctic location requirements specification safety systems
The developments of the fourth industrial revolution have caused changes in all areas of society, including production. The changes in production caused by the fourth industrial revolution have also resulted in fundamental changes in the supply chain and have converted it to supply chain 4.0. Organisations must be receptive to supply chain 4.0 to maintain their competitive advantage. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationships among supply chain 4.0 technologies so that, by learning and understanding these connections, industries can pave the way for the implementation of these technologies in their supply chains and use them in problemsolving. The literature review was used to identify the supply chain 4.0 technologies, and the Delphi technique was applied to extract them, including the Internet of Things (IoT), cyber-physical systems, cloud computing, big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence, Radio-frequency Identification (RFID), augmented reality, virtual reality, and simulation. The relationships of supply chain 4.0 technologies were examined using the DEMATEL technique and based on interpretive structural modelling (ISM), their deployment map was drawn. The type of technologies was determined using the MICMAC method. The MICMAC analysis found that the artificial intelligence technology is independent and, based on the findings through the DEMATEL technique, this technology is related to simulation, which belongs to the first level of the interpretive structural modelling technique, and IoT, cloud computing, big data, and blockchain technologies, which are at the second level. Based on the ISM method, RFID, virtual reality, augmented reality and simulation technologies are located at the first level; IoT, cyber-physical systems, cloud computing, big data and blockchain technologies are situated in the second level; and artificial intelligence technology belongs to the third level. According to the related literature, few studies have been conducted on the issues of supply chain 4.0 and the technologies that affect it.
Keywords:
supply chain management (SCM) supply chain 4.0 Industry 4.0 DEMATEL ISM MICMAC
Effective strategic purchasing and supplier selection in companies provides businesses with leverage in acquiring goods and services. Thus, companies are in a better position to negotiate prices, discounts, delivery times and logistic channels. Also, strategic purchasing allows for performing a risk assessment to ensure the company’s profitability. This research aimed to identify the key currently deliberated by SMEs for supplier selection, considering such purchasing strategies as (1) cost reduction, (2) risk management, (3) global sourcing, (4) total quality management, (5) sustainable management and (6) supplier management. Also, it aimed to identify the emerging issues related to purchasing strategies. This research work performed a content analysis following a literature review. The Scopus indexation database was selected to conduct the document search. After the refinement process, based on 59 analysed documents, bibliometric assessment tools were applied to identify the key criteria for supplier selection. The TOP6 highest ranked criteria, which corresponds to 80 % of the most referred criteria, include: (1) the quality of goods; (2) compliance with the delivery times; (3) price/cost; (4) supplier reputation and/or market positioning; (5) geographical location; and (6) supplier performance history. The goal of strategic purchasing is to support the companies in achieving long-term goals through its integration into the company’s strategic planning process. It should be identified by the managers as an important resource. Several factors elevate the importance of strategic purchasing, namely, environmental protection, technology advances related to logistics 4.0, and risk assessment related to global sourcing and sustainability. The present research is in line with the findings of the referred literature, i.e., the application of prioritised criteria for the procurement and supplier selection operations in the industrial context, aiming to reduce lead times and logistic costs. The criteria must be aligned with the purchasing strategies adopted by the companies. The manuscript aims to demonstrate that the fundamentals of strategic purchasing strategies can contribute to the improvement of the SME supply process with the application of simple and cost-effective approaches.
Keywords:
supply chain management strategic purchasing supplier selection
Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, community-level medical institutions as health service centres have been gaining importance in the medical reform expansion. As prior research has not fully addressed how to index and evaluate the quality of medical service, this article proposes a framework based on the service quality gap theory and the three-faceted “structure–process–outcome” quality evaluation theory. The study took the medical services at Beijing’s Tianqiao Community Health Service Centre as an example to construct an index system for medical service quality evaluations. Data was collected from 211 people, and SPSS software was used for data processing and analysis. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, patients without serious diseases tend to choose community hospitals to reduce their infection risk. As a result, they have growing requirements for clinics to have more departments and specialists. The studied community health service centre has encountered difficulties connected to low patient expectations, a poor medical environment, outdated hardware and equipment, and a low level of medical services. Some suggestions have been made to add specialised departments and consider the convenience of medical treatment for the elderly.
Keywords:
community health service centre quality improvement service quality SERVQUAL model
This study examined and analysed the role of remote transformational leadership in business strategy consensus by considering the contingency of competitive intensity and organisational learning culture. The population of this study are owners or service managers of start-up business companies in the provinces of DIY and East Java. The sampling technique used was a purposive sampling method with a sample size of 231 managers. The data was collected through the distribution of questionnaires and interviews with several key service managers who represent their companies. Euclidean Distance Simple Regression and Euclidean Distance Simple Regression Moderation were used as the statistical processing tools. The results of this study proved a fit between each business strategy typology with each contingency variable examined in this study. It was also found that transformational leadership could strengthen the relationship pattern. The contingency approach is crucial because situations and conditions between organisations may vary depending on the company’s internal (organisational learning culture) and external (competitive intensity) environment, especially in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic. Contingency fit in the organisational strategy needs to be assessed so that the service performance can be improved and sustainable in the long term. This situation and condition will improve when strengthened by the role of remote transformational leadership.
Keywords:
competitive intensity organisational learning culture remote transformational leadership service performance
It is essential for manufacturers to consider the interrelation among quality, inventory, and maintenance decisions to detect imperfect quality products, keep the production system in good operating condition, and manage quality and inventory costs. Hence, this paper aims to develop an integrated model of inventory planning, quality engineering, and maintenance scheduling in which the expected total cost per time unit is minimised by determining the sample size, sampling interval, control limit coefficient, along with production cycle time. In this regard, an imperfect multi-product manufacturing system is considered, in which the inventory shortage in satisfying the demand for each product type and the idle time during the production cycle are not allowed. It is assumed that the process starts in an in-control condition where most produced units are conforming. However, due to the occurrence of an assignable cause (AC), the process mean moves to an out-of-control condition in which a significant fraction of non-conforming units is produced. The efficiency of the proposed mathematical model is evaluated by a numerical example, and then the sensitivity of the proposed model to important inputs is analysed. Finally, a comparative study based on the Taguchi design approach is given to confirm the capability of the proposed model to achieve remarkable cost savings.
Keywords:
multi-product system production planning maintenance scheduling control chart inventory planning imperfect production system
Successful Building Information Modelling (BIM) enabled projects that require large volumes of project data to be embedded within BIM models. However, with this wealth of data, relevance and accuracy have been identified as important issues affecting the BIM performance of the project. Currently, Quality Assurance (QA) in the industry has focused on geometric data, including scrutinising physical and spatial clashes. However, as BIM practices progress in the industry, the requirements for nongeometric model data and their quality have become more necessary. This study aimed to ascertain the feasibility of using visual programming for semi-automating the BIM QA process in a practical case study on using BIM in infrastructure projects. This paper outlines a generic semi-automated QA methodology and its application in a construction project case study. The validity of this method was tested and evaluated in practice through (n=2) workshops. The methodology was implemented within an integrated engineering consultancy, employing visual programming methodology to generate QA summaries and additionally highlight model elements with data quality issues based on a defined set of parameters. Based on the evaluation findings, the proposed process was feasible and provided a pathway for low-cost and low-skill QA of BIM model data within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. The paper’s main scientific contribution is a conceptual framework for using visual programming to achieve automatic quality assurance.
Keywords:
building information modelling data quality assurance model