Six Sigma Approach to Enhance Concurrency of the Procurement Process for Raw Materials

This paper presents the improvement of the procurement process for raw materials in a real manufacturing company supported by the Lean Sig Sigma as structured approach to deliver the improvement. The manufacturing company that is a subject of this paper have received a significant amount of complains regarding the internal purchase orders approval process and the overall procurement process of the company from both internal employees and external vendors and contractors. Considering that the company is procuring the raw goods from selected vendors, therefore the entire manufacturing plan depends on these materials, the company decided to improve this process trough Lean Six Sigma. The Lean Six Sigma approach was selected in order to obtain the improvement in a short time, based on indicators that were previously analyzed and prioritized. The paper focuses on simplifying of the process trough decreasing the number of mandatory steps.

Clinical evaluation of the molecular-based BD SARS-CoV-2/Flu for the BD MAX™ System

ABSTRACTEfficient and accurate assays for the differential diagnosis of COVID-19 and/or influenza (flu) could facilitate optimal treatment for both diseases. Diagnostic performance related to SARS-CoV-2 and Flu A/B detection was characterized for the BD SARS-CoV-2/Flu for BD MAX™ System (“MAX SARS-CoV-2/Flu”) multiplex assay in comparison with BD BioGx SARS-CoV-2 Reagents for BD MAX™ System (“BioGx SARS-CoV-2”) and the Cepheid Xpert® Xpress Flu/RSV (“Xpert Flu”). Two hundred and thirty-five nasopharyngeal specimens were obtained from external vendors. MAX SARS-CoV-2/Flu had positive percent agreement (PPA) and negative percent agreement (NPA) values for SARS-CoV-2 and Flu A/B that met FDA-EUA acceptance criteria of >95%.

Technological affordance discovery in enterprise social media success

PurposeThis paper aims to build on affordance theory from a discovery perspective, to illustrate how motivations and goals behind enterprise social media adoption by companies in the fashion and apparel industries are discovered and realized in performance. Enterprise social media and its exogenous technological affordances are introduced as action opportunities in an organization during implementation, to be discovered and acted upon by users to effect various performance outcomes.Design/methodology/approachA case study approach was adopted. Data was collected on five fashion companies that have implemented enterprise social media for their internal communication.FindingsThe findings show that fashion companies adopt enterprise social media offered by external vendors to actively seek more effective internal communication and collaboration among their employees. However, fashion companies embark on different pathways of discovering and actualizing the affordances from the newly implemented enterprise social media. As a result, these firms achieved various kinds of performance benefits, which range from improved customer loyalty to enhanced innovation performance.Originality/valueThis study is the first to introduce a discovery perspective to affordance theory and systematically document the success of enterprise social media appropriation by companies in the fashion and apparel industries.

TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PICTURE-BASED COMPOSITION WRITING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM IN SINGAPORE

The primary school Malay Language syllabus emphasises on the teaching and learning (T&L) of writing skills since Primary 1 (P1). The picture-based composition writing (PbCW) was introduced at P3. Based on teachers’ feedback, the the resources for T&L of PbCW found in the CEKAP and MEKAR packages, published by the Ministry of Education, are not sufficient to develop composition writing skills among pupils even though PbCW was tested in end-of-year-examinations in schools. Teachers also faced problems to source for the appropriate picture-series that are aligned with the topics available in both packages. In addition, teachers also need more time to produce picture-series that are related to the topics. These problems raised the issue of validity of the school-based examinations when teachers re-use the picture-series resources purchased from external vendors. Teachers also face challenges in implementing T&L effectively, especially for P3 pupils because there is a huge gap between the skills taught in P2 and P3 classes. Based on these needs, the Malay Language Centre of Singapore (MLCS) took initiatives to produce the PbCW Package to support T&L that are aligned with curriculum requirements. To date, 126 teachers have been trained to use the resources and trialled them in their respective schools. Based on the trialling exercise conducted by 97 respondents, all of them reported strongly agree that the resources provided are aligned with topic of units available in CEKAP and MEKAR packages. All respondents stated that they were able to implement the suggested T&L more effectively based on the recommended strategies. Hence, the PbCW resources that are aligned with curriculum content and well supported by effective strategies are important to ensure pupils’ learning are enriched and enhanced.

Strategies used to implement Hospital at Home: a description of an approach to scaling a complex healthcare intervention

Background Advances have been made in recent years to characterize facilitators and barriers to implementation of complex health care intervention and to classify the implementation strategies available to address these determinants. We study the implementation of a Hospital at Home (HaH) intervention in a multi-hospital health system to understand the selection and use of implementation strategies in its launch, sustainment, and scaling. Methods We report on the implementation portion of an effectiveness-implementation study of the hybrid type 1 design. First, we retrospectively identified determinants of practice most relevant to the HaH intervention using of the Integrated Checklist of Determinants (TICD) assisted by review of archived documents. We also identified implementation strategies using the listing created by the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) that could potentially address each determinant. Second, we then identified which of the ERIC strategies were actually employed using a modified Delphi process to obtain consensus among HaH program leaders involved in the program implementation. Program leaders also rated the importance and effort expended on each strategy on 1-9 Likert scales. The most relevant implementation strategies identified through these steps were detailed with respect to actors, targets, dosing and justification, and associated with prospectively collected implementation outcomes. Results The majority of ERIC implementation strategies (57 of 73, 78%) were utilized; 7 strategies (10%) were not used. On the remaining 9 strategies (12%), program leaders did not reach consensus regarding utilization. For used strategies, mean importance was 6.87 and mean effort expended was 6.22. Implementation strategies rated most important by program leaders had a broad target of actions that included clinical staff, patients, leadership, external vendors, health plans, and government officials. The strategies varied in temporality and dosing. Over the course of the implementation, adoption, acceptance, and penetration increased over time, while measures of fidelity remained stable. Conclusions Considerable effort and multiple strategies were required to implement Hospital at Home. While potentially daunting, use of existing implementation frameworks can help focus limited efforts and resources by targeting strategies that address the key barriers and enablers to implementation of complex healthcare interventions.

What About Us? Addressing the Needs of First Responders in Behavioral Health Disaster Planning in Chicago

Introduction:Behavioral health needs of first responders often receive less attention than those of survivors. Fire, police, medical, and other personnel frequently witness direct loss of life, assaultive violence, and other stressors during disasters. Evidence indicates a greater incidence of psychiatric sequelae among disaster workers. What role do emergency management authorities have in addressing the needs of such personnel?Aim:To evaluate integration of first responder behavioral health needs among a metropolitan healthcare coalition, the Chicago Healthcare System Coalition for Preparedness and Response (CHSCPR).Methods:CHSCPR developed a Behavioral Health Annex providing uniform guidance on behavioral health integration into emergency operations with attention to first responders. An electronic Behavioral Health Capability Survey of coalition members was performed in March 2017 to assess implementation of these recommendations. Qualitative and quantitative responses were recorded.Results:Fifteen of thirty-five institutions responded, including academic and private community hospitals. Many reported no services. Where services existed, most facilities endorsed use of employee assistance programs or external vendors for staff support. 4/15 (26.7%) reported proactive strategies to mitigate stress such as information sheets on healthy coping. Measures for family support of affected emergency personnel were varied and typically outsourced to online resources, or reported as “in development.”Discussion:Findings suggest that recognition of emergency personnel behavioral health needs is lacking in city-wide disaster planning with greater emphasis on post-disaster needs than preventative efforts. Increased awareness of risk for psychological decompensation among first responders, and inclusive efforts to mitigate this risk, are warranted in future disaster planning.

Outsourcing the Corporate Governance Officer (Potential Business Model)

In the last decades, the legal industry has experienced a global paradigm shift in the delivery model for legal services. This new model, known as legal process outsourcing (LPO), transfers the work of attorneys, paralegals and other legal professionals to external vendors located domestically and overseas. Legal outsourcing (both onshore and offshore) is transforming law practice as law firms and corporate legal departments seek to minimize costs, increase flexibility and expand their in-house capabilities. In this new decade, we have to prepare, with the legal services outsourcing, that we will become more sophisticated, with higher value of legal work, at higher level of quality and speed, and dramatically lower cost. In the Article authors deal with the process of the transformation of legal service into a legal good and point on some dilemmas during that process. This paper argues that outsourcing ultimately will have a positive effect on the legal profession and development of the quality of legal services. In the second part of the paper authors also stress out some information about different possibilities, how to organize virtual law firms for low budget legal services in the Slovenian case and also include some information about the possibility how to organize corporate governance in companies through the corporate secretary as outsourcing, because the corporate secretary is the chief governance officer and provides leadership for the corporation to implement a high level of corporate governance.

Strategic and Ethical Issues in Outsourcing Information Technologies

Outsourcing of information technology (IT) is the transfer of a company’s information technology functions to external vendors. Ordinarily, such transfer is considered only with regard to its strategic and economic impact on the organization. However, as the recent practice demonstrated, cost-benefit considerations and other strategic considerations are not sufficient to analyze an outsourcing case. Important ethical concerns relating to fiduciary responsibilities, insiders’ bidding for outsourcing contracts, and the like, are also pertinent to the analysis of outsourcing. This chapter will identify major ethical problems and will propose guidelines for ethical conduct in the process of outsourcing IT. Such guidelines could have broad practical implications for the practice of outsourcing. The chapter will analyze literature on outsourcing models and professional ethical standards. It will have the following structure. First, the benefits and models of outsourcing information technology will be discussed. Second, ethical literature in general and professional organizations’ codes of ethics in particular will be considered. Third, a recent case of IT outsourcing will be presented and analyzed. The ethical standards established in the thesis will be applied to the case. Finally, generalized ethical guidelines will be suggested for outsourcing models.

"Boundary-Spanning" Practices and Paradoxes Related to Trust Among People and Machines in a High-Tech Oil and Gas Environment

This chapter follows subsea engineering coordinators (SEC) at Statoil, a major Norwegian oil company, and their collaboration with subsea engineering/operational support personnel and external vendors. This is a high-tech business that tends to be described by formal procedures and a strict division of labor, or in other words, strict hierarchy and market coordination mechanisms. Still, engineers in this setting perform substantial informal boundary work to be able to do their work efficiently. Their self-definition and devotion is realized through boundary-spanning interaction with various material resources and through extensive management of trust. The consequence of this knowledge intensive operational practice is that the engineers have to live continuously with paradoxes. In the light of the situation of these engineers, we address some of the dynamics of collaboration and control that such professionals must cope with in today’s high-tech environments.

Information Technology Outsourcing

Organizations have used external vendors to supply information technology (IT) functions since the first commercial implementations. In the sixties, the use of facilities management, contract programmers, and contract project management were common, but during the 70s, many organizations relied increasingly on internal delivery of IT services. The term “outsourcing” arose in the late 80s. Since that time industry has seen a fundamental change in the way information technology (IT) services are organized and delivered, with increasing reliance on external, outsourced providers. Managing outsourced IT service delivery has now become a core competence for organizations.