Alemu Moges Belay

Time-to-market and concurrent engineering in product development processes

Nowadays time based strategy has become a competitive weapon for many industries. This article investigates whether companies should always follow learning curve for all types of innovation and products or not. New time to market model is proposed and compared with previous model by Prasad (1997). Products of 6 to 36 months market window time are considered and the results of revenue loss from these two models are different. This gives an insight for managers to take appropriate decision on which for what. From the result, Model I would be appropriate for continuous innovation and modified or extended products whereas Model II for discontinuous innovation and breakthrough products.

Adoption of quality management practices: An investigation of its relationship with labor productivity for labor-intensive manufacturing companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between quality management practice and labor productivity in labor-intensive manufacturing companies in a developing nation and benchmark with the world average. Design/methodology/approach – Primary and secondary data were collected from 34 selected companies. The primary data were obtained using a questionnaire survey to determine the quality management adoption level of each company using the European Business Excellence Model. Secondary data also collected in order to compute labor productivity of each organization and benchmark with international norms. Findings – In this research, labor productivity is measured by revenues per employee and total assets per employee and found that adopting quality management has strong relationships with revenue per employee unlike total asset per employee that is weakly related. Originality/value – Several authors suggest a positive relationship between adoption quality management principles and...

Scaled critical factor index for optimal resource allocation in service and lean construction

Service and construction require large resource, thus there is a need for a comprehensive method for optimal resource allocation. The purpose of this study is to develop and use scaled critical factor index (SCFI) for sustainable resource allocations in a service provision company and a lean construction project. In this research, 160 questionnaires were distributed and the response rate was 48%. Different statistical process control charts were incorporated in the analysis to avoid subjective decisions. The pitfalls of the previous CFI model are explained and improved. The managers identified areas to be improved and developed an insight into how to balance the resources. Results were validated by plotting an implementation index versus relative importance and it was found that the results are in line with the literature. SCFI enables seeing the relative differences in resource allocation under all conditions and helps managers to allocate resource in a more sustainable way.