This book presents decision support tools that can be used in the early design stage to analyze the feasibility of a product and its components for remanufacturing. It also covers how to design a product specifically for remanufacturing and offers supporting case studies. This is a comprehensive solutions guide for remanufacturing decision-making. The book illustrates an approach that can be used at the product End-of-Life (EOL) stage to generate optimized recovery plans for the returned products. Opportunities for Industry 4.0 to support remanufacturing along with case studies are included to showcase the decision-making tools. Remanufacturing and Remanufacturability Assessment for the Circular Economy: A Solutions Guide will be of interest to practitioners, business professionals, and researchers that work in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Those involved with supply chain management and advanced technologies associated with Industry 4.0, sustainability, and integrated techniques of circular supply chains will also find this book very useful.

Risk Management Professionals seek to identify, analyze, and document the risks associated with a company's business operations, as well as monitor the effectiveness of risk management processes and implement needed changes. The PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) (R) certification not only highlights the ability to identify and assess project risks, mitigate threats, and capitalize on opportunities, but it also enhances and protects the needs of the organization. Gaining distinction as a PMI-RMP sets the Risk Management Professional apart from other professionals and brings credit to an organization. The exams from the Project Management Institute are not easy, so whether you are running a course as an instructor or studying by yourself, you need a good study guide to maximize time spent studying and one which enhances the chances of passing the exam. Test takers sitting for the exam need a study guide that suggests which study materials are best to read in preparation for the exam, presents exercises to enhance learning and understanding, and provides sample exam questions. Most study guides just explain the contents of the exam without providing the tools to maximize learning. Klaus Nielsen, an Authorized Training Partner with PMI, translates the PMI examination content outline for April 2022 into what people need to do and know in preparation and provides them with exercises and prep questions as a quick and easy check to ensure they are on the right path in preparation for taking the exam. This book helps maximize the chance of passing the exam.

Designing and Implementing Effective Evaluations provides extensive real-life examples of program evaluations that illustrate the various elements and steps in conducting a successful evaluation. The detailed and diverse range of case studies show the common elements, methods, approaches, and processes of program evaluations, while also demonstrating the way that good evaluators adapt and tailor those methods to the specific characteristics and needs of a given program. The chapters explore the process of problem solving while navigating multiple stakeholders, competing agendas, and varying environments. The book introduces conversations concerning how to adapt evaluation processes and concepts with culturally different individuals and communities. It discusses the role of culture in navigating a meaningful evaluation process when significant cultural differences exist between the evaluator and individuals that make up the organization. The text is a vital resource for postgraduate students in program evaluation courses in Psychology, Education, Public Health, Social Work and related fields.

Originally published in 1995, Beyond Capital Labor is a comprehensive empirical study about how and how much technology and regional contextual factors may influence company production and productivity growth. The book constitutes a conceptually consistent and empirically efficient study and provides a consolidated model and an analytical framework to examine the contributions of technology and regional factors to company production and productivity growth. This work goes beyond the current state and brings many scattered theoretical components together to establish an integrated model.

For too long, business has focused on short-term cost advantages through low-cost country sourcing with little regard for the longer-term implications of global sustainability. Purchasing and Supply Chain Management, Second Edition, not only fully addresses the environmental, social and economic challenges of how companies manage purchasing and supply chains, but also delves deeper into emerging areas such as modern slavery, digital technologies and circular supply chains. In addition to explaining the basic principles and processes of both purchasing and supply chain management, the book evaluates how to develop strategic and sustainable purchasing and supply chain management. Our key message is that purchasing and supply chain management needs to focus on value creation rather than cost cutting. This requires the development of new purchasing and supply chain models that involve circular supply structures, supply chain transparency and collaboration with new stakeholders in traditional sourcing and supply chain settings. Aimed at students, educators and practitioners the book integrates sustainability into each chapter as a core element of purchasing and supply chain management. This second edition incorporates new examples and case studies from industry throughout, striking a balance between theoretical frameworks and guidelines for implementation in practice.

Purchasing and Supply Management includes the latest management, procurement, and negotiation techniques and the authors have taken great care to integrate the impact of global commerce on the buyers job. Historically, purchasing evolved as a weak part of manufacturing, gained its independence, and expanded to a financial contributer to a company's success. A major challenge of the buying job is to manage supply management. To do this, the buyer must know and use the full range of techniques and procedures available to the true professional. This book is dedicated to these functions of supply and all they entail.

The use of new information and communication technologies both inside the courts and in private online dispute resolution services is quickly changing everyday conflict management. However, the implications of the increasingly disruptive role of technology in dispute resolution remain largely undiscussed. In this book, assistant professor of law and digitalisation Riikka Koulu examines the multifaceted phenomenon of dispute resolution technology, focusing specifically on private enforcement, which modern technology enables on an unforeseen scale. The increase in private enforcement confounds legal structures and challenges the nation-state's monopoly on violence. And, in this respect, the author argues that the technology-driven privatisation of enforcement - from direct enforcement of e-commerce platforms to self-executing smart contracts in the blockchain - brings the ethics of law's coercive nature out into the open. This development constitutes a new, and dangerous, grey area of conflict management, which calls for transparency and public debate on the ethical implications of dispute resolution technology.

This book provides the latest research advances in the field of system reliability assurance and engineering. It contains reference material for applications of reliability in system engineering, offering a theoretical sound background with adequate numerical illustrations. Included are concepts pertaining to reliability analysis, assurance techniques and methodologies, tools, and practical applications of system reliability modeling and allocation. The collection discusses various soft computing techniques like artificial intelligence and particle swarm optimization approach for reliability assessment. Importance of differentiating between the optimal release time and testing stop time of the software has been explicitly discussed and presented in the book. Features: Creates understanding of the costs associated with complex systems Covers reliability measurement of engineering systems Incorporates an efficient effort-based expenditure policy incorporating cost and reliability criteria Provides information for optimal testing stop and release time of software system Presents software performance and security layout Addresses reliability prediction and its maintenance through advanced analytics techniques Overall, System Reliability Management: Solutions and Techniques is a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach for better communication of problems and solutions to increase the performance of the system for better utilization and resource management.

Life-cycle assessment is a methodology used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product, process, or service during its life cycle, and risk assessment is a tool to evaluate potential hazards to human health and the environment introduced by pollutant emissions. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals call for, among other objectives, responsible consumption and production by decoupling environmental resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth and human well-being. Life-cycle assessment and risk assessment are both analytical system approaches that allow scientists and other decision makers to address these issues and objectives according to the current understanding of environmental mechanisms. This book is the first attempt to illustrate the existing interfaces between life-cycle assessment and risk assessment and to indicate options for further integration of both tools. The second edition: Focuses on sustainability Considers new developments in life-cycle assessment and environmental risk assessment over the last ten years at the international level Introduces broader concepts and discussions on integrative versus the complementary use of life-cycle and risk assessments Extends the scope of integrated life-cycle and risk assessments to critical raw materials Includes more case studies and discusses engineered nanomaterials Featuring contributions from leading experts, Integrated Life-Cycle and Risk Assessment for Industrial Processes and Products is a great reference for graduate students and professionals in environmental management and intends to catalyze communication between life-cycle assessment and risk assessment experts and scientists in academia, industry, and governmental agencies. The practical format of the book-illustrated with flowcharts, examples, exercises, and concrete applications-makes it a useful manual for analyzing situations and making decisions.

Few people are better able to describe how to survive in a war zone than those who have seen, experienced, and lived it first-hand. Comprised of a collection of original stories from international contributors, Surviving the International War Zone: Security Lessons Learned and Stories from Police and Military Peacekeeping Forces contains true accounts of unimaginable scenarios that could only occur in war-torn and conflict-ridden areas. Presenting accounts written by military and police officers who lived in different dangerous regions across the world, the book offers an inside look at the lives of the officers and the local people living in the war zone environment. Covering many facets of daily life, the book helps readers understand how to survive in deadly terrain. With contributions from soldiers and law enforcement personnel from 13 different countries who have lived and served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Cambodia, Haiti, and Liberia, the book includes practical tips for day-to-day life in a war zone. It examines topics such as: Surviving extreme temperatures and staying healthy Interacting with the indigenous population and cultural awareness Adjusting to the challenges of limited technology and resources Protecting oneself from the imminent threat of violence that is present in all war-torn regions Enhanced with photographs from the war zone, the stories in this volume range from accounts of unspeakable torture, to descriptions of deplorable living conditions, to moments of humor. Some of the stories will make you laugh; others may make you cry. Ultimately, the book provides an unparalleled insight into the full range of deep-seated and sometimes conflicting emotions of the people who have lived and served in war zones and have come home to tell about it.

Everyone has heard the phrase about doing twice the work in half the time, but instead of focusing only on time, this book focuses on driving increased output with consistently less input. Implementing Lean: Twice the Output with Half the Input! teaches readers not only about Lean and its major concepts, but it drives the leader toward implementing a true Lean system. The authors have used the methodologies in this book everywhere from hospitals to service industries to manufacturing plants in order to impact businesses by providing proven principles, techniques, and approaches that yield substantial improvement to any business, small or large, in any sector. Learn about the benefits of implementing Lean in your company as the authors walk you through the major components as well as show you how to implement them. This guide is already being used by Lean Practitioners every day on shop floors to educate and refresh how tools are used in real-world applications.

This book is the leader among the new generation of text books on quality that follow the systems approach to creating quality in products and services; the earlier generations focused solely on parts of the system such as statistical methods, process control, and management philosophy. It follows the premise that the body of knowledge and tools documented by quality professionals and researchers, when employed in designing, creating and delivering the product will lead to product quality, customer satisfaction and reduced waste. The tools employed at the different stages of the product creation cycle are covered in this book using real world examples along with their theoretical bases, strengths and weaknesses. This textbook can be used for training - from shop floor personnel to college majors in business and engineering to practicing professionals. Graduate students training as researchers in the quality field will also find useful material. The book has been used as the text for a Professional Series Massive Open Online Course offered by the Technical University of Munich on edX.org, through which tens of thousands of participants from all over the world have received training in quality methods. According to Professor Dr. Holly Ott, who chose the book for the course, the text is one of the main factors contributing to success of this MOOC. The Third Edition has been fully revised to be friendly for self-study, reflects changes in the standards referenced such as ISO 9000, and includes new examples of application of statistical tools in health care industry. Features: Reviews the history of quality movement in the U.S. and abroad Discusses Quality Cost analysis and quality's impact on a company's bottom line Explains finding customer needs and designing the product using House of Quality Covers selection of product parameters using DOE and reliability principles Includes control charts to control processes to make the product right-the-first-time Describes use of capability indices Cp and Cpk to meet customer needs Presents problem solving methodology and tools for continuous improvement Offers ISO 9000, Baldrige and Six Sigma as templates for creating a quality system

This book looks at how and where human resources (HR) meets quality management, and the implications of this. Most organizations, whatever their size or sector, struggle with demonstrating the value of continuous improvement (CI) and/or HR initiatives at a time when economic conditions are challenging in the global marketplace. Both within the UK and internationally, organizations will use continuous improvement and business excellence (BE) as a means of not only improving performance internally, but also to secure external recognition of their management practices, including people management, and therefore increase their competitiveness in their market. This text explores the potential overlaps between the two fields by considering how to address the development and implementation of a strategy to integrate CI/BE and human resource management. Practical and applied, this text provides: A brief overview of the concepts of CI and BE An analysis of the strategic factors impacting on an organization's decision-making around adopting a CI/BE approach, and the impact this may have on people management and development practices A review of some major external CI/BE accreditations and awards, and their value and how they might be used An analysis of the possible problems and outcomes which could be achieved by adopting such a CI/BE strategy and integrating it with people management and development activities This book is ideal for any professional HR or performance improvement practitioner who wants to understand how a CI/BE approach could benefit their organization, as well as postgraduate students of HR or quality management.

Everyone has heard the phrase about doing twice the work in half the time, but instead of focusing only on time, this book focuses on driving increased output with consistently less input. Implementing Lean: Twice the Output with Half the Input! teaches readers not only about Lean and its major concepts, but it drives the leader toward implementing a true Lean system. The authors have used the methodologies in this book everywhere from hospitals to service industries to manufacturing plants in order to impact businesses by providing proven principles, techniques, and approaches that yield substantial improvement to any business, small or large, in any sector. Learn about the benefits of implementing Lean in your company as the authors walk you through the major components as well as show you how to implement them. This guide is already being used by Lean Practitioners every day on shop floors to educate and refresh how tools are used in real-world applications.

The objective of a synchronized production system is to harmonize all the elements of the manufacturing process based on the Just-in-Time strategy. This strategy is designed to improve return on investment in business by reducing in-process inventory and its associated costs. The process is driven by a series of signals, or Kanban, that tell production processes to make the next part. The Synchronized Production System sets out the fundamentals of the process clearly and concisely and shows the remarkable results that can be achieved: Money previously tied up in stock is released Quicker response times to customer orders, leading to increased customer satisfaction Custom manufacture to order - improving equity return by reducing risk Dramatically improved product quality This ground-breaking book also explains how to improve performance through changes to management processes making it an invaluable reference for managers in all types and size of business.

Project management is at a crossroads: There is a pressing need to rethink the approaches used in initiating, managing and governing projects, programmes and change initiatives. The aim of this book is to progress the dialogue around project practice by shifting the focus from instrumental methods and prescriptive techniques towards a context-sensitive consideration of people, strategy and change. Projects are initiated to deliver agreed outputs that can be translated into meaningful outcomes capable of satisfying the wishes and expectations for improvement and development. Yet, people, strategy and change, which are largely ignored by the conventional bodies of knowledge, are clearly central to the sustainable and enduring success of projects, efforts and initiatives. The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on key topics including trust, ethics, people, psychology, requirements, project performance, audits, uncertainty, anti-fragility, strategic initiatives, governance, change management and commercial management. The collection offers an invaluable new resource for informed managers looking to engage with the latest thinking and research.

The growth of global corporations has led to the development of new business strategies whose complexity and configuration rest on corporate networks; corporate cross-culture and intangible corporate and product assets. In global markets, corporations compete in a competitive marketspace dimension, in other words, competitive boundaries in which space is not a stable element of the decision-making process, but a competitive factor whose complexity depends on markets increasingly characterized by time-based competition and over-supply. In view of today's fierce competition from US and Southeast Asian corporations, this book highlights global business development policies based on innovation, sustainability and intangible assets. The book assesses competitive business management from a global perspective, examining business development policies linked to the profitability of global firms. It forces readers to actively think through the most fundamental policies developed by global firms in the current competitive landscape and provides answers to questions such as: What are the new drivers of global capitalism?; How do global businesses deal with new local nationalism?; Which governance systems and behavioural norms qualify global businesses?; What are the main business policies that characterize competitive business management in a global competition perspective? Competitive Business Management neatly explains the global business management domain and helps readers to gain an understanding of global development business policies.

Organizations enjoy two kinds of strategic advantages. One is transitory: being in the right place with the right products at the right time. The other comes from having first class management and instituting processes that mobilize an organization, keeping in ahead of the competition. Which would you like to count on for your organization's success?Integrating ERP, CRM, Supply Chain Management, and Smart Materials explores how to create business opportunities and reap savings by: Restructuring and updating of ERP and CRM software as it integrates supply chain management and delivers new killer applications Evolving opportunities that will develop from the implementation of smart materials, automatic identification, classification systems, and quality assurance projects Auditing the implementation, operation, and maintenance of ERP and CRM software as well as the corrective action taken on the basis of resultsInternet commerce, online supply chain, and advances in technology - all available at increasingly lower costs - make systems of the past obsolete. However, just as new technology creates new opportunities, it can also create unforeseen consequences. By binding a wealth of interdependent issues between the covers of one book, Integrating ERP, CRM, Supply Chain Management, and Smart Materials gives you the tools you need to create proprietary, high value-added solutions.

The third book in the Healthcare Payment Systems series, Prospective Payment Systems examines the various types of prospective payment systems (PPS) used by healthcare providers and third-party payers. Emphasizing the basic elements of PPS, it considers the many variations of payment for hospital inpatient and outpatient services, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, long-term hospital care, and rehabilitation facilities along with other providers. The book describes the anatomy of PPS, including cost reports, adjudication features and processes, relative weights, and payment processes. It outlines the features and documentation requirements for Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Groups (MS-DRGs), the Medicare Ambulatory Payment Classifications (APCs), Medicare HHPPS, Medicare Skilled Nursing Resource Utilization Groups (RUGs), and private third-party payers. Provides a framework for understanding and analyzing the characteristics of any PPS Discusses Medicare prospective payment systems and approaches Includes specific references to helpful resources, both online and in print Facilitates a clear understanding of the complexities related to PPS covering specific topics at a high level and revisiting similar topics to reinforce understanding Complete with a detailed listing of the acronyms most-commonly used in healthcare coding, billing, and reimbursement, the book includes a series of case studies that illustrate key concepts. It concludes with a discussion of the challenges with PPS including compliance and overpayment issues to provide you with the real-world understanding needed to make sense of any PPS.

Knowledge and Practice in Business and Organisations contributes to scholarly understanding of knowledge and practice, mapping the conceptual terrain, providing a critical review of debates in the field and setting out key theoretical perspectives. Knowledge and practice are explored in a range of organisational and policy settings through six context-specific discussions. The collection helps shape the field, identify areas for future research inquiry, and suggest implications for practitioners. The range of sites of inquiry represented in the book (e.g. craft working, accounting, public sector organisations, creative industries, health care, and so on) make the book distinctive, enabling the reader to connect debates and ideas from across a range of sectors and disciplines. The book charts different currents of debate which have hitherto tended to remain unconnected. In one accessible volume, this book provides an excellent introduction to a set of concepts that have animated scholarly conversations across a range of disciplines and provides cases and examples of practices which come from beyond any one particular sector. Aimed at researchers and academics in the field, this book is valuable source, helping define and progress the scholarly debate.

As stakeholder relationships and business in general have become increasingly central to the unfolding of stakeholder thinking, important new topics have begun to take centre stage in both the worlds of practitioners and academics. The role of project management becomes immeasurably more challenging, when stakeholders are no longer seen as simple objects of managerial action but rather as subjects with their own objectives and purposes. This book will aim to explain some of the complexities of project management and managerial relationships with stakeholders by discussing the practice of stakeholder engagement, dialog, measurement and management and the consequences of this practice for reporting and productivity, and performance within project management.

Written by a recognized leader in the manufacturing industry with nearly two decades of experience working for Toyota, this book supplies a firsthand account of the realities behind implementing the Toyota Production System (TPS). The Toyota Kaizen Continuum: A Practical Guide to Implementing Lean presents authoritative insight on how to use the TPS to drive operational value and improvement across all segments of an organization. Highlighting valuable lessons learned directly from the TPS masters at the Toyota factories in Japan, John Stewart provides a time-tested approach for implementing a process of continuous improvement. Delving into his wide-ranging experience-that includes time as a team member on the assembly line and managing the vehicle assembly division for Toyota's largest European operation in the United Kingdom-he explains how to get the process started, how to get senior management excited about the possibilities, and details a process for implementing the TPS in your organization. Written by an industry veteran named one of the Top 10 Automotive Executives by Automotive News in 2007 Unveils the methods used within the walls of the world's premier manufacturing organization Illustrates valuable lessons learned with real-world examples of TPS implementations Describes five simple steps for executing change in any organization The book includes case studies that illustrate real-life successes and failures behind the walls of the world's largest automobile manufacturing organization. Detailing a five-step process for executing improvement initiatives, it supplies you with the tools and understanding of the core principles of the TPS needed to implement and sustain a culture of continuous improvement in your organization.

This book is about the behaviour of systems. Systems are important, for we interact with them all the time, and many of the actions we take are influenced by a system - for example, the system of performance measures in an organisation influences, often very strongly, how individuals within that organisation behave. Furthermore, sometimes we are involved in the design of systems, as is any manager contributing to the definition of what those performance measures might be. That manager will want to ensure that all the proposed performance measures will drive the 'right' behaviours rather than (inadvertently) encouraging dysfunctional 'game playing', and so anticipating how the performance measurement system will work in practice is a vital part of a wise design process. Some of the systems with which we interact are local, such as your organisation's performance measurement system. Some systems, however, are distant, but nonetheless very real, such as the healthcare system, the education system, the legal system and the climate system. Systems, therefore, exist on all scales, from the local to the global. And all systems are complex, some hugely so. That's why understanding how systems behave can be very helpful. Systems are complex for two main reasons. First, the manner in which they behave over time can be very hard to anticipate - and anticipating the future sensibly is of course a key objective of management. Second, the 'entities' within a system can be connected together in very complex ways, so that an intervention 'here' can result in an effect 'there', perhaps a long time afterward. Sometimes this can be surprising, and so we talk of 'unintended consequences' - but this is of course a euphemism for 'because I didn't understand how this system behaves, I had not anticipated that'. Systems thinking, the subject matter of this book, is the disciplined study of systems, and causal loop diagrams - the 'pictures' of this 'picture book' - are a very insightful way to represent the connectedness of the entities from which any system is composed, so taming that system's complexity.

The ISO 9001/2 series of standards for Quality Managment Systems is of increasing importance to the food and drink industry; it functions as an outward and visible sign to customers that the industry has a defined quality management system that has been independently appraised and is regularly audited. ISO 9001/2 certification can enable a company to reduce the audit burden from a multitude of customers and can also help the manufacturer or distributor involved in auditing its own suppliers. Above all, it may improve the effectiveness of its own operation and profits.

This first book to cover all aspects of multi-parametric programming and its applications in process systems engineering includes theoretical developments and algorithms in multi-parametric programming with applications from the manufacturing sector and energy and environment analysis. The volume thus reflects the importance of fundamental research in multi-parametric programming applications, developing mechanisms for the transfer of the new technology to industrial problems. Since the topic applies to a wide range of process systems, as well as due to the interdisciplinary expertise required to solve the challenge, this reference will find a broad readership.
Inspired by the leading authority in the field, the Centre for Process Systems Engineering at Imperial College London.