José Humberto Ablanedo-Rosas

Quality improvement supported by the 5S, an empirical case study of Mexican organisations

Global markets are continuously changing and demanding customised, low cost, and high quality products and services; organisations that offer these products and services are dealing with these issues on a daily basis to stay competitive. Among the quality tools used to achieve competitive advantage, the 5S practice plays an important role facilitating the introduction and development of other quality and continuous improvement methods and techniques. We present results of an empirical study applied to some Mexican organisations with the aim of understanding their implementation experience, empirical relationships, and ongoing challenges associated with the 5S practice.

A study of the relative efficiency of Chinese ports: a financial ratio‐based data envelopment analysis approach

: This research examines the relative efficiency of 11 major Chinese ports by using an innovative adopted version of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA is a non-parametric approach to weigh the inputs/outputs and measure the relative efficiency of decision-making units. This paper adopts an output-oriented version of DEA based on financial ratios in which no inputs are utilized. The new adopted DEA model provides a rounded judgement on port efficiency taking into consideration multiple financial ratios simultaneously and combining them into a single measure of efficiency. The mathematical model is solved for every port, and the relative efficiency of each port is determined. The results of DEA show that the higher a ports efficiency ratio in relation to the corresponding ratio of another port, the higher the efficiency of this port. Finally, suggestions based on the data analysis are provided for managerial decision makers to improve the areas needed for port operating efficiency.

Benchmarking of Mexican ports with data envelopment analysis

The paper focuses on measuring the efficiency of 29 Mexican coastal ports using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Most of the ports perform cargo and cruise handling operations. We suggested combined and individual analysis of operations to perform an evaluation of port efficiency. The results of DEA showed 59% of the Mexican ports analysed were efficient ports when combined cargo and cruise operations were considered, 29% were efficient when considering only cargo operations and 31% were efficient when considering cruise operations exclusively. There was only one port that proved to be efficient in all of the analyses. Furthermore, an analysis of future efficiency was performed for ports with cruise operations, proving that DEA provides insightful information needed for decision-makers to analyse different feasible scenarios and support long term investment plans.

Surrogate constraint normalization for the set covering problem

The set covering problem (SCP) is central in a wide variety of practical applications for which finding good feasible solutions quickly (often in real-time) is crucial. Surrogate constraint normalization is a classical technique used to derive appropriate weights for surrogate constraint relaxations in mathematical programming. This framework remains the core of the most effective constructive heuristics for the solution of the SCP chiefly represented by the widely-used Chvatal method. This paper introduces a number of normalization rules and demonstrates their superiority to the classical Chvatal rule, especially when solving large scale and real-world instances. Directions for new advances on the creation of more elaborate normalization rules for surrogate heuristics are also provided.

Supplier allocation model for textile recycling operations

This paper presents a model that captures the problem of supplier selection for textile recycling operations. Suppliers in this case are the agencies and organisations that collect used clothing through the year and sell the mostly unsorted garments to the recycler. The recycling organisation sorts the materials and sells the sorted and classified clothing in diverse markets using seasonal knowledge about demand and prices. The model considers information related to the typical type of items that are in a shipment from a supplier at different times of the year to determine the optimal purchasing and processing plan. The model considers other constraints and variables, for example processing capacity, demand, inventory, and purchasing budget. The model is presented and then an implementation case is described, followed by a brief sensitivity analysis. The results demonstrate the capabilities of the model to support decision-making for textile recycling operations.

The Impact of Occupational Stress on Academic and Administrative Staff, and on Students: An Empirical Case Analysis.

This article examines the impact of occupational stress among academic staff, administrative staff, and students in a well-established US university environment. The results show that there are different correlations associated with stress such as organisational demand, health issues, and stress management. Findings suggest that occupational stress levels differed between academic staff, administrative staff, and students. However, at the aggregate level, stress levels were similar by either gender or age. Different stress factors, such as work overload, feeling overwhelmed, and interrelated relationships were analysed. Students reported significant outcomes from stress: having sleep problems, depression, and irritability.

Total quality management principles: : implementation experience from Mexican organisations

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of a basic quality practice in manufacturing and service organisations in Mexico. Several factors are defined for measuring quality practice implementation and investigating two major aims: the critical success factors and the major benefits from the quality implementation. A survey was applied to 50 manufacturing and service organisations. Pairs of factors were constructed to study their linear relationships. ANOVA was used to determine the significance of the relationship between factors; and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength of the relationship. This paper contributes to understanding the challenges and benefits encountered when implementing quality principles. It also demonstrates that this quality practice is a significant driver towards a continuous improvement (Kaizen) philosophy. A total of 16 critical factors and 51 significant relationships were identified, which explain the quality practice success implementation. The positive impacts produced by the quality practice implementation are summarised in six significant benefits. The findings clearly show the necessity of applying the philosophical dimension or way (do) of implementing this quality practice.

Developing country efficiency assessment by means of a comprehensive model based on data envelopment analysis

This paper introduces a comprehensive model aimed to assess the relative efficiency of developing countries. The model is based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) and considers only outputs as performance measures. The millennium development goals (MDGs), an initiative originated by the United Nations, are considered to define 13 performance measures that are used to evaluate the efficiency of 54 developing countries around the world. Inefficient countries are ranked by their inefficiency scores and efficient developing countries are ranked based on their super-efficiency scores, both of which are derived from the DEA model. Target performance measures are defined for the inefficient countries to provide insight to policy makers and the like.

Production planning of parallel resources considering yields, failures and production costs

Effective production planning of manufacturing networks requires careful consideration of several factors, including capacity, production, yields, and resource failure costs. This is particularly critical in highly variable environments where multiple resource types are available during the planning and implementation processes. This paper presents a model to aid the decision makers to determine what production resources to select, and the amount of production to allocate to each resource in order to minimise the total costs. The model considers costs associated with the production resources and customer related costs such as late delivery and loss due to undelivered units. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine the robustness of the optimal solution with respect to late delivery costs and loss costs. The results demonstrate the usefulness of the model by providing insights into the interactions among the cost and resource variables.

Scheduling with multiple tasks per job – the case of quality control laboratories in the pharmaceutical industry

This paper addresses a complex scheduling problem encountered in a major pharmaceutical industry setting. Specifically, the problem deals with assigning tasks to technicians as part of the quality control phase in order to minimise the total flowtime, and the number of jobs not meeting a required time window. The problem considers test batching, overlapping tests, and resource assignments constrained by test specific capability requirements. Furthermore, batching tasks of similar types is possible, but batch sizes are particular to each product-test type combination. This is a significant difference from previous literature in batching parallel machines. The particular problem described in the paper is highly relevant to the pharmaceutical industry and has not been previously addressed in the literature. Various approaches to solve this particular problem are described and compared via statistical analyses. Finally, the authors present a software prototype with implemented solution algorithms.