Kuan Yew Wong

An empirical study of the important factors for knowledge‐management adoption in the SME sector

Purpose – To investigate the critical success factors (CSFs) for adopting knowledge management (KM) in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) – an area that has, to date, received very little attention in the literature.Design/methodology/approach – A survey instrument comprising 11 factors and 66 elements was developed. Through a postal survey, data were sought from SMEs in the UK. A parallel one was also administered to a group of academics, consultants and practitioners in the KM field in order to provide a more holistic view of the CSFs.Findings – The survey instrument was shown to be both reliable and valid. Pertinent statistical analyses were then performed. By integrating the results from both groups of respondents, a prioritised list of CSFs, in order of importance for implementing KM, was generated.Research limitations/implications – The number of responses received was rather small since KM is a new and emerging discipline, and not many SMEs have formally implemented it.Practical implications...

Supply chain performance measurement system using DEA modeling

– This paper aims to illustrate the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) in measuring internal supply chain performance., – Two DEA models were developed – the technical efficiency model and the cost efficiency model. The models are further enhanced with scenario analysis to derive more meaningful business insights for managers in making resources planning decisions., – The information obtained from the DEA models helps managers to identify the inefficient operations and take the right remedial actions for continuous improvement. More importantly, the opportunity cost (forgone profit) calculated serves as a good reference to managers to make efficient decisions on resource allocations., – Results are based on the deterministic data set. Future enhancement of the study would be to look into the possibility of modeling DEA in a stochastic supply chain environment (non‐deterministic) due to the fact that supply chain operates in a dynamic environment., – The proposed DEA‐based approach provides useful managerial implications in the measurement of supply chain efficiency. The study proves the usefulness of DEA as a decision‐making tool in supply chain., – This paper provides useful insights into the use of DEA as a modeling tool to aid managerial decision making in measuring supply chain efficiency.

A review on benchmarking of supply chain performance measures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to redress the imbalances in the past literature of supply chain benchmarking and enhance data envelopment analysis (DEA) modeling approach in supply chain benchmarking.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is sorted into sections: benchmarking, definitions, concepts and literature survey, supply chain benchmarking, problems in supply chain benchmarking, existing tools used in benchmarking, problems in existing tools and motivation of using DEA as a supply chain benchmarking tool. A range of recently published (1995‐2004) works is referred and aims to provide insights into possible new research focus in supply chain benchmarking.Findings – Provides information about new trends in supply chain benchmarking and what are the existing problems. Recognizes the lack of mathematical modeling tool in addressing this issue.Research limitations/implications – Supply chain benchmarking is gearing towards a holistic approach. DEA is deemed to be an appropriate benchmarking too...

Development of a knowledge management initiative and system: A case study

As knowledge emerges as the primary strategic resource in the 21st century, many firms in the manufacturing and service sectors alike are beginning to introduce and implement Knowledge Management (KM). Organisations can certainly benefit from its application for enhanced decision support, efficiency and innovation, thus helping them to realise their strategic mission. However, KM is an emerging paradigm, and not many organisations have a clear idea of how to proceed with it. This paper presents the results of a case study conducted in one company in the United Kingdom (UK), the major aim being to identify how it has developed a KM initiative and system. Hopefully, the information extracted from this study will be beneficial to other organisations that are attempting to implement KM or to those that are in the throes of adopting it.

Applying Ant System for solving Unequal Area Facility Layout Problems

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a young metaheuristic algorithm which has shown promising results in solving many optimization problems. To date, a formal ACO-based metaheuristic has not been applied for solving Unequal Area Facility Layout Problems (UA-FLPs). This paper proposes an Ant System (AS) (one of the ACO variants) to solve them. As a discrete optimization algorithm, the proposed algorithm uses slicing tree representation to easily represent the problems without too restricting the solution space. It uses several types of local search to improve its search performance. It is then tested using several case problems with different size and setting. Overall, the proposed algorithm shows encouraging results in solving UA-FLPs.

An expert fuzzy rule-based system for closed-loop supply chain performance assessment in the automotive industry

Closed-loop supply chain management has been identified as an efficient, effective and economical strategy towards environmental sustainable practices in manufacturing companies. Without a formidable closed-loop supply chain to complement green supply chain management, most of the goals will not be achieved. A performance evaluation system is crucial for achieving a successful closed-loop supply chain in the automotive industry. Hence, a suitable expert fuzzy rule-based system for evaluation was developed in this study using Visual Basic.Net. The fuzzy rules and arithmetic used were described. The resulting performance measurement system was evaluated using a case study company from the automotive industry. The study culminated with recommendations and proposal of directions for future studies.

Short Communication: Solving facility layout problems using Flexible Bay Structure representation and Ant System algorithm

This paper proposes an Ant System (AS) algorithm for solving Unequal Area Facility Layout Problems (UA-FLPs) using Flexible Bay Structure (FBS) representation. In addition, an improvement to the FBS representation is made when solving problems with empty spaces. The method is extensively tested using numerous problem instances taken from the literature and overall, encouraging results are obtained.

A hybrid ant colony optimization algorithm for solving facility layout problems formulated as quadratic assignment problems

Purpose – This paper aims to describe a new hybrid ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm developed to solve facility layout problems (FLPs) formulated as quadratic assignment problems (QAPs).Design/methodology/approach – A hybrid ACO algorithm which combines max‐min ant system (MMAS) (i.e. a variant of ACO) with genetic algorithm (GA) has been developed. The hybrid algorithm is further improved with the use of a novel minimum pheromone threshold strategy (MPTS).Findings – The hybrid algorithm shows satisfactory results in the experimental evaluation due to the synergy and collaboration between MMAS and GA. The results also show that the use of MPTS helps them to achieve such performance, by promoting search diversification.Research limitations/implications – The experimental evaluation presented emphasizes more on the search performance or pattern of the hybrid algorithm. Detailed computational work could reveal other strengths of the algorithm.Practical implications – The developmental work presented i...

Knowledge Management performance measurement: measures, approaches, trends and future directions

This paper presents a review on Knowledge Management (KM) performance measurement in the past two decades. Various tools and techniques that have been developed are discussed and presented chronologically to show how KM performance measurement has changed during this period. Each tool and technique is evaluated and classified based on the types of measures and approaches used. This paper also proposes six new categories: traditional, advanced, deterministic, stochastic, general result oriented, and specific result oriented, to complement the previous classification schemes. Future research directions for KM performance measurement are identified and presented in a holistic framework to act as a guideline for new researchers who wish to embark on this field.

A new minimum pheromone threshold strategy (MPTS) for max-min ant system

In recent years, various metaheuristic approaches have been created to solve quadratic assignment problems (QAPs). Among others is the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm, which was inspired by the foraging behavior of ants. Although it has solved some QAPs successfully, it still contains some weaknesses and is unable to solve large QAP instances effectively. Thereafter, various suggestions have been made to improve the performance of the ACO algorithm. One of them is through the development of the max-min ant system (MMAS) algorithm. In this paper, a discussion will be given on the working structure of MMAS and its associated weaknesses or limitations. A new strategy that could further improve the search performance of MMAS will then be presented. Finally, the results of an experimental evaluation conducted to evaluate the usefulness of this new strategy will be described.