Analysis, Critique, and Proposed Revision of Crew Resource Management for Cockpit Automation

It is well over 30 years since the first (then called) Cockpit Resource Management (CRM) training, now called crew resource management was introduced. It is a shibboleth, a sacred cow as it were, despite many issues, concerns, and changes over the years. Some 21 years ago, 1992, an Air Transport Association (ATA)/Federal Aviation Association (FAA)-Sponsored Workshop was convened in an attempt to deal with some specific CRM issues. Yet the issues and needs as articulated in that workshop, and some newer ones, remain. Thus, this chapter is 21 years overdue, leading to the questions: Why now and is it still relevant? As said, some needs, issues, and concerns remain. The relevancy is that both a critique of civil aviation CRM on many levels and a comparison with current USAF, USCG, and USN CRM are presented. The proposed skeletal template for the long-overdue revision of civil aviation CRM, the R-MPM is shown. Next, a new model for an intelligent cockpit automated decision aid/advisory system, Event Response Integrated Decision Advisories (ERICA), is shown. ERICA came about from 2009-2012 work in automated decision-making tools for the cockpit and the realization that the Revised Mission Performance Model (R-MPM) and ERICA were interrelated.

Essentials of Linear Programming for Managers

This chapter provides a critical overview of Linear Programming (LP) from a manager's perspective. The main objective is to provide managers with the essentials of LP as well as cautionary notes and defenses on common modeling issues and software limitations. The authors illustrate the findings by solving a simple LP directly on the original decision variables and constraints space without adding new variables or translating the model to fit a specific solution algorithm. The aims are the unification of diverse set of topics in their natural states in a manner that are easy to understand and providing useful information to the managers. The advances in computing software have brought LP tools to the desktop for a variety of applications to support managerial decision-making. However, it is already recognized that current LP tools, in ample circumstances, do not answer the managerial questions satisfactorily. For instance, there is a costly difference between the mathematical and managerial interpretations of sensitivity analysis. LP software packages provide one-change-at-a-time sensitivity results; the authors develop the largest sensitivity region, which allows for simultaneous dependent and/or independent changes, based on the optimal solution. The procedures are illustrated by numerical examples including LP in standard-form and LP in non standard-form.

Why Information Systems Replication Strategy Fails in Transnational Operation

In search of cheaper resources and being able to serve nearby market more efficiently in order to maintain and improve their market position in a global economy, companies relocate, extend, or establish new production facilities overseas. Because of this, how to manage the Information Systems (IS) that support transitional activities within companies has become an important agenda not only in the business but also in the academic community. At a glance, replicating information systems and value chain that a company already has in the new facility overseas is seemingly a cheap and easy option. Nevertheless, in practice, it is not a trivial task, and at its worst, the IS can become obsolete. This chapter explains why replication strategy does not always work, and drawing on the practice lens approach, it posits that any changes in technology-in-use are the outcome of an ongoing structuring process where people constitute and reconstitute the structure of an IS in use. The chapter demonstrates that the structure of an IS is not defined a priori but emerges from daily use of the system, along with people’s understandings of the system, and of its role in the context of organisational routines. On this view, any challenges arising from the attempt to replicate the IS can be regarded as largely inevitable, since the structures embedded and enacted in the use of system, along with the practices that in turn recursively structure the use of the system would also have changed.

Using Holistic Strategy to Govern Today’s Extended Enterprise

Governing extended networks is often associated with having the latest collaborative technology and business processes. However, current studies suggest that both are only part of the answer. This chapter argues that a holistic governing strategy needs to be adopted to achieve peak network performance. That strategy requires four conditions: 1) that each organization is ready to work with fellow business partners; 2) that network orchestrators recognize that all business relationships are not created equal and therefore need to be governed differently; 3) that a holistic governing strategy has to be adopted in order to integrate the people, technology, and processes in place; and 4) that people engagement hinges upon six factors (trust, beliefs, communications, culture, reward systems/metrics, and synergy). This chapter is a modification of an earlier work published by IGI Global.

RFID

The use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tracking in closed systems is replacing barcode as dominant tracking system in many industrial sectors because RFID enables reading multiple objects simultaneously without visual contact. To enlarge tracking systems to cover global supply chains, all aspects related to RFID, such as radio frequencies, data content, transmission protocols, and message sets, need to be standardised. By collecting, processing, and distributing information efficiently, organisations should be able to improve the efficiency of their transport logistics processes, lower their operational costs, and improve their portfolio of logistics services. This chapter describes the current perspectives, challenges, and benefits of RFID tracking applications in manufacturing industry. The perspectives derived from review of previous research are validated by using case study method.

Key Success Drivers for Large High-Technology Projects

Success in project management, and particularly in large, high-technology projects, continues to test the resources of organisations and their sponsors. This chapter revisits the conclusions of an earlier meta-study (Crosby, 2012a) that examined a large number of published case investigations and research efforts relating to the success and failure of projects. In that study, the success factors for general, and high-technology, projects were grouped and ranked as strategic success drivers for use prescriptively by project practitioners and approvers, and the principal drivers were examined closely to reveal any less obvious characteristics influencing project success. This chapter takes the original findings of ranked success drivers and investigates how these align with the experiences of three large contemporary high-technology projects. The conclusions show that, while the original set of drivers remains valid as predictors of project success, the ranking is likely to vary, even between projects that are technically and structurally similar. Two additional success factors are added as a result of the present study.

Innovating Practices in Managing Engineering Design Projects

We can address innovation from different perspectives. In engineering practices we can look to changes resulting from attempts to discover ways of overcoming difficulties. How can we manage these innovative practices in engineering design projects? Furthering our perspective we use an actor-network way to look at change processes as chains of translations between heterogeneous actors that are enrolled in changes and where patterns of action are inscribed in durable manners. In an actor-network, the chains of inscriptions are stronger if the number of aligned actors is bigger, and this is the case of engineering projects where the cost of change builds up with time. Through the use of some stylized situations, the authors construct a Perturbation Index to obtain numeric values to assess the dynamics of innovations in engineering practices. The aim is that the application of this index to real situations could lead to meaningful descriptions of such innovation processes. Managing innovation in engineering design projects has to do with the management of project scope. The proposal extends scope management from its definition and planning phases through the control of changes along the execution.

Improving Security and Efficiency of Multimodal Supply Chains Using Monitoring Technology

Multimodal supply chains are characterized by multiple changes of transport modes, vehicles, and transport operators, and hence, the risks for theft, untimely delivery, and freight quality deterioration increase. There is a growing need to manage the security and efficiency of consignments. Tracking and tracing services, which are on the market, mainly concentrate on a single mode of transport, such as road vehicles, or transport units, such as containers. This chapter describes a concept for managing the security of multimodal supply chains using monitoring technology. A profound risk analysis was performed to identify threats and vulnerabilities during the different phases of the supply chain and key threat scenarios. A security service concept was developed to cope with the risks using monitoring technology. The technological solution depends on the needs of the supply chain actors and on the supply chain properties. The service concept was tested by monitoring different international shipments leaving from Finland. Intelligent monitoring devices, which were attached to the consignments, collected information on location and environmental parameters and transmitted in real-time to a background system. The chapter gives an overview of the framework, service concept, and the analysed results of multimodal shipments.

Case Studies of RFID Practices for Competitive Inventory Management Systems

The nature of emerging business technologies, such automatic identification, and data capture innovations, such as smart cards, touch memory, and RFID, proves to be a difficult process to implement and achieve, despite recent efforts, even as implementation continues to lessen. The economy of scales associated with bar codes is a difficult barrier to overcome. Two Pittsburgh-based companies are showcased in this case study, namely Mobile Aspects, Inc., a recognized leader in the integration of RFID-related technologies in inventory management processes of large acute care, and Vocollect, Inc., which is especially noted for its voice-recognition software and small hardware platforms used in warehousing and partially automated inventory systems. The firms’ goals for implementing inventory management, specific inventory recommendations and changes, comparison of inventory management processes, selected measures to ensure the quality and security of data transmitted via RFID-based technologies, and lessons learned are discussed.

Performance of Firms

With the evolution of information technology, firms offshore outsource services to developing and low service cost countries to have cost as well competitive advantages. This is a growing practice, but there has been limited empirical attention in understanding the outsourcing phenomenon, particularly from the perspective of service provider firms that execute important business processes for their overseas clients. This shows the need to study the factors that play a significant role in the growing trend to outsource and why only a few service provider firms report success. In this chapter, the authors try to find factors that influence performance of service provider firms. Multiple regressions using four indicators of firm performance are carried out to see the influence of certain factors on Information Technology Enabled Service (ITES) firms’ performance.