Umar M. Al-Turki

Maintenance strategy selection using AHP and ANP algorithms: a case study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of two general purpose decision‐making techniques in selecting the most appropriate maintenance strategy for organizations with critical production requirements.Design/methodology/approach – The Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and the Analytical Network Process (ANP) are used for the selection of the most appropriate maintenance strategy in a local newspaper printing facility in Turkey.Findings – The two methods were shown to be effective in choosing a strategy for maintaining the printing machines. The two methods resulted in almost the same results. Both methods take into account the specific requirements of the organization through its own available expertise.Practical implications – The techniques demonstrated in this paper can be used by all types of organizations for selecting and adopting maintenance strategies that have higher impact on maintenance performance and hence overall business productivity. The two methods are explained ...

A framework for strategic planning in maintenance

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to introduce a framework for developing a maintenance strategic plan that links the maintenance function with the corporate strategy and integrates it with other functional areas. Within the proposed framework, a systematic process for maintenance strategic planning is described and key success factors that need special attention are identified.Design/methodology/approach – An analytical methodology is adopted to develop a systematic approach for implementing the frameworkFindings – The study finds that the involvement of major stakeholders as well as top management commitment is essential for the successful development of a maintenance strategic plan. The process of development of the strategic plan in maintenance differs from other areas because of its intangible benefits to the organization and special type of stakeholders. More emphasis should be put into handling senior management and other partners within the organization.Practical implications – Senior mainten...

Performance measures for academic departments

Measuring the performance of academic departments received little attention compared to other industries due to their complex nature and difficulty in measuring their outputs. However, measures of performance are needed to assess whether they meet their set objectives and foster an environment of continuous improvement. The objective of this paper is to develop a performance measurement system for educational institutions. It outlines the properties of adequate performance measures and the steps for developing such measures in an educational environment. Three types of performance measures are proposed. These are outcomes, inputs and process measures. Suggestions are made to select the most appropriate and relevant performance measures pertinent to academic departments’ goals and objectives. Also the need, relevance and implementation issues in the context of the Saudi Arabian educational system has been discussed and highlighted in the paper.

Integrated models in production planning and scheduling, maintenance and quality: a review

The integration in production planning, scheduling, maintenance and quality has gained much attention from researchers in recent years. These areas are usually treated independently, which yielded independent models for each function. It is widely believed that these separate models will provide suboptimal solutions, due to the fact that they are interrelated. Proper understanding of this dependency will open a new avenue for more integrated models, and result in significant savings in operational cost and improved efficiency for any production system. This paper reviews the literature on models addressing different aspects of integration in these areas. This integration is treated in two different ways in the literature. The first way is to present models where a model is considered for one function taking into account the other. These models are referred to as interrelated models. The second way is to simultaneously model two or more elements of the production system. These models are referred to as integrated models. The objective of this paper is to review research in both interrelated and integrated modelling of production planning, scheduling, maintenance and quality to identify possible future directions.

Tabu search for a class of single-machine scheduling problems

Abstract In this paper we develop a tabu search-based solution procedure designed specifically for a certain class of single-machine scheduling problems with a non-regular performance measure. The performance of the developed algorithm is tested for solving the variance minimization problem. Problems from the literature are used to test the performance of the algorithm. This algorithm can be used for solving other problems such as minimizing completion time deviation from a common due date. Scope and purpose Scheduling problems with non-regular performance measures has gained a great importance in modern manufacturing systems. These problems are found to be hard to solve and analyze. The purpose of this paper is to present a tabu search approach for solving a certain class of single-machine scheduling problems with non-regular performance measure. Minimizing the variance of completion times and the total deviation from a common due date are two examples of such problems. The proposed approach is found to perform better than the simulated annealing approach for the variance minimization problem.

An exploratory study of ERP implementation in Saudi Arabia

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is being implemented by many organisations as a potential solution to their businesses. In spite of its appeal, ERP has challenges and difficulties in its realisation, especially in developing countries. In this article, existing trends and success factors for ERP implementation in Saudi Arabia is investigated. The results of this study apply, to a large extent, to other developing countries in the Middle East and other oil producing countries. The study captures the best implementation practices, difficulties encountered, critical success factors and benefits realised. Most organisations suffer serious time and/or cost overruns in ERP implementation. Management commitment and the existence of a clear strategic objective were found to be critical for the success of the ERP implementation. Change management programmes and extensive training were found to be essential for smooth implementation process.

Quality function deployment for designing a basic statistics course

The quality of academic programs is drastically affected by the design of the courses within the program. The design and delivery of courses are the most essential elements for building quality in academic programs. The purpose of this paper is to customize the techniques of quality function deployment (QFD) for designing courses and demonstrate its use in the design of a basic statistics course in the Department of Systems Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. In this study, organizations from industry are used as external customers. Faculty members and students are utilized as internal customers to identify the course technical requirements. Then QFD process planning matrices are used for developing several alternative course design concepts. Then based on a simple decision criterion the design concept that closely meets customer requirements is identified. The result of the analysis is a balanced basic statistics course.

The single‐machine absolute‐deviation early‐tardy problem with random completion times

We consider sequencing n jobs on a single machine subject to job completion times arising from either machine breakdowns or other causes. The objective is to minimize an expected weighted combination of due dates, completion times, earliness, and tardiness penalties. The determination of optimal distinct due dates or optimal common due dates for a given schedule is investigated. The scheduling problem for a fixed common due date is considered when random completion times arise from machine breakdowns. The optimality of a V-shaped about (a point) T sequence is established when the number of machine breakdowns follows either a Poisson or a geometric distribution and the duration of a breakdown has an exponential distribution.

Stakeholders integration in higher education: supply chain approach

Supply chain management principles have emerged in the last decade as a strategic option to meet new challenges in global business environment. Viewing business environment as part of a chain, starting from raw material suppliers to end customers passing by producers, is at the heart of supply-chain management. Many management principles have emerged for better planning and controlling this chain to the benefit of all parties involved. This paper explores the implications of supply-chain management principles on higher education. First, a supply-chain view of higher education is described and its environment is analysed for the possibility of adopting supply-chain principles. Features that might be catalysts or hurdles towards these principles are identified. Second, a framework for supply-chain coordination and integration in higher education that takes into consideration these features are developed. Finally, existing practices that address supply-chain in higher education are identified and some new practices representing a natural extension of supply-chain management practices are suggested. A potential case study for implementing these concepts is presented.

A comparative study of heuristic algorithms to solve maintenance scheduling problem

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the effectiveness of two meta‐heuristics in solving the problem of scheduling maintenance operations and jobs processing on a single machine.Design/methodology/approach – The two meta‐heuristic algorithms, tabu search and simulated annealing are hybridized using the properties of an optimal schedule identified in the existing literature to the problem. A lower bound is also suggested utilizing these properties.Finding – In a numerical experimentation with large size problems, the best‐known heuristic algorithm to the problem is compared with the tabu search and simulated annealing algorithms. The study shows that the meta‐heuristic algorithms outperform the heuristic algorithm. In addition, the developed meta‐heuristics tend to be more robust against the problem‐related parameters than the existing algorithm.Research limitations/implications – A future work may consider the possibility of machine failure along with the preventive maintenance. This relaxes ...