Exploring Factors Influencing Big Data and Analytics Adoption in Healthcare Management

Demand for improvement in healthcare management in the areas of quality, cost, and patient care has been on the upsurge because of technology. Incessant application and new technological development to manage healthcare data significantly led to leveraging on the use of big data and analytics (BDA). The application of the capabilities from BDA has provided healthcare institutions with the ability to make critical and timely decisions for patients and data management. Adopting BDA by healthcare institutions hinges on some factors necessitating its application. This study aims to identify and review what influences healthcare institutions towards the use of business intelligence and analytics. With the use of a systematic review of 25 articles, the study identified nine dominant factors driving healthcare institutions to BDA adoption. Factors such as patient management, quality decision making, disease management, data management, and promoting healthcare efficiencies were among the highly ranked factors influencing BDA adoption.

The Role of Self-Assembly in Additive Manufacturing of Aerospace Applications

Additive manufacturing is a strategy to produce parts with complex geometries whose process is prohibitive in cost or impossible through subtractive or formative techniques. Research groups are optimizing additive manufacturing processes to improve their performance and reduce the cost of aerospace parts. One of the emerging design techniques is self-assembly which seeks to reduce the number of parts to produce best design practices and rules. Self-assembly represents a comprehensive strategy that improves process time, product quality, cost of materials, and printability. The purpose of this chapter is to review the technological contributions that self-assembly has had in the additive manufacturing of aerospace parts. Future perspectives of the role of self-assembly in additive manufacturing are proposed. According to what was found in this research, self-assembly will facilitate the additive manufacturing of parts in various technological sectors where the manufacture of lightweight parts with high added value and restrictive regulations are required.

Application of Cognitive Automation to Structuring Data, Driving Existing Business Models, and Creating Value between Legacy Industries

To build high quality datasets and unlock the value of unstructured data, a systematic approach for data capture is necessary. Cognitive automation (CA), that is, automation of processes with artificial intelligence (AI), enables the information extraction from unstructured data to provide relevant insights and further processing with AI. This study provides an overview of this new technology and shows how it can be used to transform existing business models. Our case studies in the insurance auditing, healthcare, and banking industries show the potential managerial impact of CA, which prepares these legacy industries for their digital future’s challenges and opportunities. We present the novel data extraction pipeline for textual and visual data and demonstrate its efficiency in extracting information from the company’s unstructured data. We show its performance in quality, cost, and time compared with current industry standards and provide management insights for business applications using CA.

Using a Sustainable Competitive Advantage Strategy to Reduce the Gap in the Dimensions of Competition between the Expectations of the Product and the Wishes of the Customer

Major developments and rapid changes in the business environment and increased competition have made the wishes of the customer constantly fluctuating, and this is what made the companies look at it as a moving goal and not a fixed target, as change became imperative and the obligation of companies. And from this point of view the study has tried the literature of the field of accounting towards new ways in dealing with the strategic dimensions of quality, cost, and time and making them respond in a way that is positive with the wishes of the customer by knowing the needs of the customer and then managing its impact on these dimensions. Continuous improvement has been used to keep competitiveness away from sustainable competitive advantage to determine the cost of activities to manufacture the product and the removal of activities that do not add any valuation, the results have led to an exit. With the conclusion that the orientation towards the dimensions of quality has become time-consuming and the way in which the company's visions are linked to a strategy that includes the integration of these dimensions according to a strategic perspective that contributes to achieving customer satisfaction. It is more useful than moving towards individual smetres.

The Impact of Integrating Quality Costing and Value Stream Costing Concerning Competitive Advantage: Applied Study in Iraqi Industrial Sector

By collecting data from a sample of Iraqi companies, the purpose of this study was to look into the impact of integrating quality cost and value stream costing on competitive advantage in Iraqi industrial companies. Quality costing helps management in lowering costs and preventing non-added costs, whereas value stream costing assists in tracing costs through production lines and enhancing cost Consumption, , both of the systems mentioned above assist in reducing production costs while increasing production efficiency, hence increasing competitive advantage. To achieve the research objectives, a quantitative method has been used, with a questionnaire with closed-ended questions distributed online to a sample of (100) managers and accountants in Iraqi industrial companies. The study concluded that there is a statistically significant, positive, and strong relation between the integration of Quality cost and value stream costing in Iraqi industrial companies, and that these two systems are complementary. The researchers recommend that in Iraqi industrial companies, Quality Cost be used in conjunction with Value Stream Costing in order to improve the use of the establishment's resources thus reducing costs to improve competitive advantage.

Impact of quality decisions on information sharing with supplier encroachment

This study examines a retailer's decision to share market demand information in a supply chain wherein a supplier sells a product with a certain level of quality to a retailer, who then resells it to the end consumer. It also considers whether a supplier should establish a direct selling channel by incurring a fixed entry cost to compete with the retail channel. Although conventional wisdom indicates that a retailer may voluntarily disclose information under ex-ante supplier encroachment, our results show how and why a retailer may share information with the supplier who encroaches on the retail market with a decision on quality. Specifically, our findings reveal that information sharing is beneficial to the retailer when the quality cost coefficient is low and entry cost is relatively low, even under encroachment by the supplier. Moreover, the retailer may prefer to disclose demand information to the supplier if the quality cost coefficient is low, even when the entry cost is high, under non-encroachment. Interestingly, we found that the supplier prefers to encroach if the retailer shares demand information when the entry cost is moderate. Further, we found that the retailer has a higher incentive to share information under supplier encroachment compared with non-encroachment. These results are in sharp contrast with the extant literature.

RESEARCH OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE COMPONENTS OF CHOCOLATE GLAZES ON THEIR RHEOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Chocolate glaze is a large-tonnage component of various branches of food technology, which also performs important technological tasks, namely: helps to slow down oxidation processes; improving emulsifying and dispersing properties; prevents hardening of certain types of products; prevents the ingress of moisture, which increases the shelf life of the confectionery, etc. At the first stage, the main problems of production of the confectionery industry are determined - they require a scientific justification for the choice of competitive components of production technology, taking into account quality-cost indicators. Next, for the specified parameters of the production technology determine the components of the formulation of chocolate glazes. As an example, the results of studies of selected technological parameters of some compositions of chocolate glazes, a comparative analysis of their effectiveness on the rheological properties of compositions based on cocoa butter: alternative surfactants – standard lecithin – alternative surfactants - monoglycerides and a mixture of mono-, di- and triglycerides from palm oil by glycerolysis in the presence of an alkaline catalyst. Analysis of the system of results and calculation equations allowed to offer recommendations for the intensification of production processes: effectively reduces the viscosity of compositions based on cocoa butter, which, in turn, makes it possible to use them for partial replacement of lecithin in the manufacture of confectionery.

Managing the economic challenges in the treatment of heart failure

Background Treatment of heart failure is complex and inherently challenging. Patients traverse multiple practice settings as inpatients and outpatients, often resulting in fragmented care. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services is implementing payment programs that reward delivery of high-quality, cost-effective care, and one of the newer programs, the Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Advanced program, attempts to improve the coordination of care across practices for a hospitalization episode and post-acute care. The quality and cost of care contribute to its value, but value may be defined in different ways by different entities. Conclusions The rapidly changing world of digital health may contribute to or detract from the quality and cost of care. Health systems, payers, and patients are all grappling with these issues, which were reviewed at a symposium at the Heart Failure Society of America conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 14, 2019. This article constitutes the proceedings from that symposium.

ANALYSIS AND TRENDS OF THE CHANGES IN THE GRAPHIC INTERPRETATION OF THE QUALITY COSTS MODELS

This paper presents four approaches to the graphic interpretation of the quality costs structure definition models: classical, modern, modified, and visionary approach. These give rise to theoretical graphic quality costs models and illustrate the relationship between the quality costs categories, as well as the relationship between the quality costs categories and the total quality costs and the quality level. The paper comparatively analyzes the underlying assumptions, existing knowledge, and principles characteristic of each approach. This contributes to the shaping of the quality costs categories curves and the overall quality cost curve in the theoretical models. The conducted analysis in the paper will enable forecasting the trend of development of theoretical graphic models and identification of potential stakeholders that contribute to changes in the structure and the behavior of the quality costs categories, and thus the behavior of the overall quality costs.