Dual track approach to productivity improvement in hospitals

Hospitals traditionally measure and monitor employee productivity in terms of units of service (output) per employee hour (input), or hours per unit of service. However, many times when productivity increases in hospitals, labor costs also rise. The primary reason for this phenomenon is that a larger number of low-wage employees are replaced by fewer, but more highly paid employees.

The OPTIMIS productivity information system integrates monitoring both the number of employee hours per unit of service and the labor expense per unit of service. Every pay period, the actual hours worked and labor dollars paid are compared to the number of labor hours that should have been worked according to a pre-established workload standard (in IE parlance the “earned labor budget”) and labor dollars expended for the workload processed. When managing productivity in hospitals, the goal is to spend fewer labor dollars than the earned amounts on a pay period basis while maintaining appropriate skill level. OPTIMIS provides department managers and division vice presidents with reports and graphs for retroactive analysis and pro-active management of labor costs.     

An application of the learning curve and the nonconstant-growth dividend model: IT investment valuations at Intel® Corporation

Technology benefits last years longer than the standard ROI valuation analysis but are rarely enumerated. In this paper, we utilize a nonconstant dividend growth model to “capture” lasting marginal productivity gained through the “reinvestment” of labor capital rather than the standard the one-time gain of reducing the labor force to realize labor productivity gains. This innovative methodology for capturing the productivity value of maintained employees enables the valuation of continuing marginal productivity gains and the management of workload for the affected employees at Intel. This methodology is applied to the valuation of a standard operating system and hardware upgrade.     

An effective speedup metric for measuring productivity in large-scale parallel computer systems

With the parallel computer systems scaling-up, the measure index for performance of the systems demands a shift from traditional “high performance” to “high productivity.” This brings a new challenge to defining a synthetic, yet meaningful, measure index of multiple productivity variables; namely computing performance, reliability, energy consumption, parallel software development, etc. Traditional measures for large-scale parallel computer systems merely focus on computing performance, and are incapable of measuring the multiple productivity variables simultaneously in an effective manner. A recently proposed market-related money model, which pursues high utility/cost ratio, relies on money as a measure to consider the multiple productivity variables. Differing from the previous models, this paper proposes a novel system productivity speedup metric for large-scale parallel computer systems. The metric uses speedup instead of money to comprehensively unify the measures of multiple productivity variables. Finally, we propose a trade-off productivity measurement to weigh different productivity variables, to address different design targets. The measurement can facilitate the system evaluation, expose future technique tendencies, and guide future system design.     

Cyclicity and well-balanced growth in systems with imperfect competition in labor markets

A dynamic macromodel of an economic system with bilateral monopolistic competition in the labor market is considered. Conditions of arising post-classical business cycles in this model are investigated under the assumption that the impact of labor remuneration on the amount of aggregated demand is restricted. Numerical experiments with the model with varied labor productivity demonstrated the possibility of main-line effects. __________ Translated from Kibernetika i Sistemnyi Analiz, No. 5, pp. 29–47, September–October 2007.     

Forecasting the productivity of a virtual enterprise by agent-based fuzzy collaborative intelligence—With Facebook as an example

Since the Internet bubble, firms that focus on virtual enterprises have sought to enhance productivity. To achieve this goal, a firm must evaluate its present productivity and estimate its future productivity. To overcome the considerable uncertainty in estimates of productivity, we propose an agent-based fuzzy collaborative intelligence approach that predicts productivity. First, a fuzzy learning model is built and used to estimate future productivity. Subsequently, the fuzzy learning model is fitted by several agents with diverse settings; those agents produce different productivity forecasts. Fuzzy intersection is then applied to determine the narrowest range that contains the actual value from the fuzzy forecasts. Finally, a back-propagation network derives a representative value from the fuzzy forecasts. The real-world case of Facebook is used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.     

ICT solutions and labor productivity: evidence from firm-level data

This paper analyses the impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions on labor productivity, i.e. revenue per employee. Based on cross-sectional data on 1955 European firms in 2005 and a linear regression model derived from the microeconomic theory of production, the impacts of six common ICT solutions in electronic commerce (e-commerce) cannot be ignored. According to the linear regression analysis, Internet access, standardized data exchange with the trading partners, enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and customer relationship management (CRM) system contribute significant increases in labor productivity, whereas a website on the Internet, or supply chain management (SCM) system do not result in a significant increase. Especially, Internet access has a significant effect on labor productivity, and the website on the Internet has an insignificant effect.     

Investigating other leading indicators influencing Australian domestic tourism demand

In the tourism demand literature, much of the research focuses on income and price variables as demand determinants for travel. Nevertheless, the literature has neglected other possible indicators such as consumers’ perceptions of the future course of the economy, household debt and the number of hours worked in paid jobs. In fact, several studies found that these indicators could influence consumers in making decisions to travel. In this paper, we examine whether there are other indicators that can influence future Australian domestic tourism demand. The econometric model used in this study is a panel three-stage least squares (3SLS) model. Using the data on Australian domestic tourism demand, the empirical results reveal several points: first, it is found that the consumer sentiment index has significant impacts on VFR, but not on holiday tourism. Furthermore, the business confidence index has no influence on business tourism demand. The study also finds that an increase in household debt could encourage more Australians to travel domestically, indicating that Australians may consider increasing debt as their confidence to spend increases. Lastly, working hours have a statistically significant effect in the case of holiday tourism data.     

The impact of ICT on labor productivity in the EU

The paper is concerned with investigating relationships between labor productivity and information and communication technology (ICT) components such as the use of enterprise resource planning (ERP), e-commerce and customer relationship management (CRM) software, and the number of ICT specialists at the country level. The proposed approach uses a neoclassical framework of growth accounting and a translog production function to examine the impact of ICT components on labor productivity in the transition and developed economies of the European Union (EU). Our findings show the positive and significant influence of selected ICT components on labor productivity in EU countries. Moreover, the results indicate that the impact of ERP, e-commerce and CRM software on labor productivity is greater in transition economies than in developed economies of the EU.     

An uncertain price discrimination model in labor market

This paper investigates an uncertain price discrimination problem in labor market, in which the employee’s capability is his/her private information and characterized as an uncertain variable. To maximize the employer’s welfare, an uncertain price discrimination model in labor market is established. Moreover, a crisp equivalent form of the model is given, and the analytic solution is therefore obtained by employing variational method. This optimal solution shows that both the productivity and the wage are increasing with respect to the employee’s capability.     

A Human‐Oriented Simulation Approach for Labor Assignment Flexibility in Changeover Processes of Manufacturing Cells

Skilled operators are the most decisive key factors in manufacturing cells. An optimal assignment of operators is crucial for flexibility and productivity. Although there are many publications dealing with labor assignment problems, different forms of human cooperation on the shop floor and decentralized decision making, which are the main factors for system flexibility, are seldom concerned in existing models. In this article, a human‐oriented methodology to analyze, simulate, and evaluate labor assignment flexibility in changeover processes in manufacturing cells is introduced, which is characterized by an agent‐based approach. First, the problem architecture is presented along with the concepts of labor flexibility. Then, different types of human behavior in the changeover process are modeled. Furthermore, a human–machine interaction model is developed to integrate the human agent models into a generalized discrete event dynamic system (DEDS) process model. In this way, work process dynamics and cooperative behavior can be explicitly modeled and simulated. Third, the model is verified on the basis of a motorcycle engine manufacturing cell, and simulation experiments with different labor assignment schemes are designed and conducted. The simulation results show that assignment strategies incorporating different skill levels and cooperation styles have a significant impact on system performance. The agent‐based approach in conjunction with the human–machine interaction model can be used to analyze and solve a large class of assignment problems in flexible manufacturing systems, especially when human cooperation and collaboration are key factors shaping overall system performance.     

Productivity paradoxes revisited

The adoption of quality assurance methods based on software process improvement models has been regarded as an important source of variability in software productivity. Some companies perceive that their implementation has prohibitive costs, whereas some authors identify in their use a way to comply with software development patterns and standards, produce economic value and lead to corporate performance improvement. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between quality maturity levels and labor productivity, using a data set containing 687 Brazilian software firms. We study here the relationship between labor productivity, as measured through the annual gross revenue per worker ratio, and quality levels, which were appraised from 2006 to 2012 according to two distinct software process improvement models: MPS.BR and CMMI. We perform independent statistical tests using appraisals carried out according to each of these models, consequently obtaining a data set with as many observations as possible, in order to seek strong support for our research. We first show that MPS.BR and CMMI appraised quality maturity levels are correlated, but we find no statistical evidence that they are related to higher labor productivity or productivity growth. On the contrary, we present evidence suggesting that average labor productivity is higher in software companies without appraised quality levels. Moreover, our analyses suggest that companies with appraised quality maturity levels are more or less productive depending on factors such as their business nature, main origin of capital and maintained quality level.     

雷管管芯电阻自动群测系统

本文介绍一种应用于电雷管生产中的引爆管管芯电阻自动测量装置,该设备由现场测量仪和上位管理计算机组成,具有测量精度高,使用方便,可极大地提高劳动生产率,降低工人劳动强度,具有很好的应用推广价值。     

Information technology and productivity: Empirical evidence from the Chinese electronics industry

The importance of IT has been increasing in both developing and developed countries over the past three decades. However, almost all findings on IT productivity have been based on data collected in developed countries, while research on productivity in developing countries has been sparse. We studied the effect of IT investment on firm-level productivity in the Chinese electronics industry using a production function model. We found that the direction and size of the impact of IT investment on productivity in China were generally similar to results of studies for the United States and concluded that Chinese firms should invest more in IT. Finally, contrary to popular belief, labor is still an important factor in the production function of the Chinese electronics industry, despite its status as a high-technology industry.     

Solving and Estimating Dynamic Models under Rational Expectations

This paper combines recent developments in methods for solving and estimatingrationalexpectations dynamic models. These developments are applied to a model oflabor-market search,where firms operate under uncertainty. We assess the ability of the structuralmodel to mimicnonlinear features found in the data. The solution to the model is obtainedusing a method ofweighted residuals. The model is then estimated using an auxiliary modeltechnique. Our resultsindicate that the simple theoretical representation of the labor market wepropose is able tomatch the overall behavior of US hours worked along various dimensions. Beyondthey show theusefulness of this combined approach to study dynamic models under rationalexpectations.     

考虑员工合作关系的单元装配系统构建方法

针对流水线装配向单元装配转换的基本问题,考虑员工之间的合作关系,以最小化总装配周期和最小化员工总工作时间为目标,建立流水装配线向单元装配系统转换的多目标优化模型.针对模型的特征,采用基于NSGA-II的多目标优化算法进行求解.通过数值实验证明考虑员工合作关系的必要性,并分析员工合作系数的均值和方差的变化对单元系统构建的组成和性能的影响.结果表明,整体合作程度较高及合作关系差异较大时,单元系统的性能提升程度较为明显.     

How does environmental regulation affect environmental performance? A case study of China's regional energy efficiency

Environmental regulation has been recognized as an important way to directly improve environmental performance or indirectly impact environmental performance through increasing environmental innovation. The present paper constructs an energy and carbon emission total factor productivity index using the Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index and data envelopment analysis. The proposed technique is used to measure the environmental performance of 30 Chinese provinces during the period 2010–2015. The energy and carbon emission total factor productivity measure is divided into a pure technical efficiency index and a technical progress index to provide detailed environmental performance information. Then an ordinary least squares model is adopted to analyse the impact of environmental regulation on environmental innovation operation and environmental performance by hypothesis testing. The empirical results show that environmental regulation and environmental innovation have positive direct effects on environmental performance and that market-based environmental regulation has a positive indirect effect on environmental performance by increasing environmental innovation.     

X10-FT: Transparent fault tolerance for APGAS language and runtime

The asynchronous partitioned global address space (APGAS) model is a programming model aiming at unifying programming on multicore and clusters, with good productivity. However, it currently lacks support for fault tolerance (FT) such that a single transient failure may render hours to months of computation useless.     

An organic matter and nitrogen dynamics model for the ecological analysis of integrated aquaculture/agriculture systems: II. Model evaluation and application

The performance of a model developed to simulate organic matter and nitrogen dynamics in integrated aquaculture/agriculture systems was evaluated using sensitivity analysis and model verification procedures with data from three sites. The model sensitivity analysis results were used to identify parameters that required high accuracy in measurement, and to suggest areas of future research in integrated aquaculture/agriculture systems. Model sensitivity analysis results showed that research on stocking density, sediment processes and water management practices was required, in order to improve the overall understanding of the functioning of the integrated aquaculture/agriculture system. Results from model verification runs showed that the model performance was satisfactory with respect to fish growth, crop growth, pond and terrestrial nitrogen and organic matter simulations. However, the modeling of phytoplankton biomass was less satisfactory and the results suggested the need for more site-specific calibration of exogenous factors and the consideration of phytoplankton species composition in simulating grazing preferences by fish. Application of the model to investigate the effects of different cycling pathways on nitrogen retention and productivity showed that the recycling of plant wastes to aquaculture ponds had a major effect in reducing system nitrogen losses and increasing system productivity. Sediment organic matter processes were identified as the major determinants of system nitrogen retention, as measured by the nitrogen retention index. The modeling study also showed that the number of linkages between the aquaculture and agriculture components was not directly related to nitrogen retention and productivity in the system. The results of the modeling study suggest that the system nitrogen status may be more important than the number of pathways in determining the number and type of cycling pathways that should be incorporated in integrated aquaculture/agriculture system.     

网络智能信息服务系统的设计与实现

本文介绍了基于Agents合作和移动Agent的思想,实现具有学习能力、自主式的网络智 能信息服务系统的方法,以便对Internet信息自动收集和过滤,从而把用户从大量、分散、 复杂的电子信息中解脱出来,节约用户时间,提高效率．     

基于MDA的模型转换方法研究

模型驱动方法提高了软件开发的产品及效率,而模型转换是开发基于MDA应用工具的关键技术。该文首先简要介绍了MDA的基本理论,着重分析模型转换的研究方法、分类及其在开发工具中的应用,并且通过实例说明模型转换器的规范化和实现,最后,列举了未来研究方向上一些需要考虑的问题。