Bih-Ru Lea

Enhancing Business Networks using Social Network Based Virtual Communities

Purpose – To enhance an entrepreneurs business network through the integration of the social network concepts and design principles of virtual communities.Design/methodology/approach – This study documents the design and initial deployment of a virtual community case, Innovation Information Infrastructure, based on social network concepts.Findings – Basic design principles, deployment strategy, and future directions for social network‐based virtual communities are presented.Research limitations/implications – Because of resource and time constraints, only basic content service, communication tools, and transaction functions were implemented in the initial deployment. Future extensions of this study may include development of a personalized and intelligent information retrieval system utilizing data mining techniques, development of advanced communication features to promote active participation, and creation of automatic social network‐tracking tools to monitor an individuals network evolution.Practical...

The impact of management accounting, product structure, product mix algorithm, and planning horizon on manufacturing performance

Abstract This paper examines how three types of management accounting systems and two methods to determine product mix interact in both the short term and the long term to affect the manufacturing performance of two shops – one with a flat and the other with a deep product structure – in a highly automated industry that has a significantly high overhead content. Through a large-scale computer simulation, this study provides additional insights into the product mix decision through considering fluctuations caused by environmental uncertainty, using an integrated information system that integrates a manufacturing system and a management accounting system, considering the decision-outcome dynamic over time, the choice of cost content, and using both financial and non-financial performance measures. This study found that no single shop setting is best for all performance measures. The manager must determine which performance measures are the most important to their competitive success when making a decision about selecting or changing a management accounting system, product mix algorithm, or product structure.

A prototype multi-agent ERP system: an integrated architecture and a conceptual framework

Abstract This paper proposes a prototype multi-agent enterprise resource planning (MAERP) system that utilizes the characteristics and capabilities of software agents to achieve enterprise wide integration. A software agent is a self-contained, autonomous software module that performs assigned tasks from the human user and interacts/communicates with other applications and other software agents in different platforms to complete the tasks. Four types of intelligent software agents (coordinating agents, task agents, data collecting agents, and user interface agents) are examined and discussed in the proposed MAERPS architecture. We demonstrate how the proposed prototype MAERP system takes advantage of existing information systems among various functional areas to achieve the system integration of commercially available enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, while avoiding numerous problems encountered during a typical ERP implementation.

Selection of management accounting systems in Just-In-Time and Theory of Constraints-based manufacturing

In todays competitive business environments, a firms long-term survival rests heavily on its ability to sustain manufacturing superiority over its competitors. To provide the firm with detailed guidelines for sustaining manufacturing superiority, this paper examines the impact of different management accounting systems, manufacturing control systems and time horizon on manufacturing performance in an enterprise resource planning integrated environment. These management accounting systems include traditional costing, activity-based costing and throughput accounting. The manufacturing control systems include Just-In-Time- and Theory of Constraints-based manufacturing. Through a series of simulation experiments, it was found that activity-based costing provided higher short- and long-term profit, better customer service and lower work-in-process inventory than traditional costing and throughput accounting in situations where firms have high overhead costs and relatively low labour and material costs, while carrying ending inventories because of demand uncertainty. Traditional costing also outperformed throughput accounting by exploiting the real-time information sharing capabilities of an enterprise resource planning system. Just-In-Time manufacturing outperformed Theory of Constraints with respect to short- and long-term profitability, customer service, and work-in-process inventory because of differences in buffer inventory policies and sequencing rules. However, time horizon and its interaction with management accounting systems had no impact on the manufacturing performance. In addition, the results suggest that a management accounting system that depicts the manufacturing process tended to provide more accurate product cost information and resulted in a better system performance than the others.

Management accounting in ERP integrated MRP and TOC environments

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine traditional costing, activity‐based costing (ABC), and through‐put accounting in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) integrated environment for decision making.Design/methodology/approach – Computer simulation is used to model a manufacturing firm operating under a manufacturing resource planning environment and a theory of constraints environment.Findings – Through the inclusion of both manufacturing and non‐manufacturing costs and the use of both volume and non‐volume‐based cost drivers, ABC captures manufacturing characteristics and resource usage more accurately than traditional costing and through‐put accounting and results in higher profit, lower inventory, and better customer service for both the short and long term.Research limitations/implications – This study only simulates industries that have a relatively high‐overhead content and relatively low labor and raw material costs and inventory evaluations includes only work‐in‐process inventory. St...

Usability of performance dashboards, usefulness of operational and tactical support, and quality of strategic support: a research framework

Performance dashboards are used as a strategic decision support tool in organizations. In this research, we examine the relationships between the usability of performance dashboards, the usefulness of operational and tactical support, and the quality of strategic support that they provide. We hypothesize that usability of performance dashboards will influence user perceptions of the usefulness of the operational and tactical support provided by the dashboards, which in turn influence the perceived quality of strategic support provided.

A Multiple-Agent Based System for Forecasting the Ice Cream Demand Using Climatic Information

A multiple agent-based system is intended to capture complex behavioral patterns by utilizing a collection of autonomous computer systems (called agents) that can interact with decision makers and then learn, perform, and delegate tasks on their behalf. With its ability to handle a large amount of information from heterogeneous sources in dynamically changing environments, a multiple agent-based system can significantly improve the company’s business intelligence and operational efficiency. Though rarely used in demand planning, this paper proposes a multiple agent-based system for demand forecasting of ice cream which poses unique challenges due to volatility and seasonality of ice cream consumption. To validate the usefulness of the proposed system for demand planning, the forecasting outcomes of the proposed system was compared to those of traditional forecasting techniques. Our experiments showed that the proposed multiple agent-based system outperformed its traditional forecasting counterparts in terms of its accuracy and consistency.