Demand-driven System Research Articles

A review of supply chain 4IR management strategy for appraising the manufacturing industry's potentials and shortfalls in the 21st century

The supply chains in the 21st-century manufacturing sector have become more intricate than before this era. Suddenly, the socio-economic and business crescendos that determine corporate entities now require an in-out, demand-driven system. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) intervention enables the automation of the production processes seamlessly through the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The research aims to review the impact of the 4IR implementation and supply chain management (SCM) strategies, thereby creating an adoption template by considering potential opportunities and threats of the fourth industrial paradigm. A comprehensive literature review was conducted by investigating scholarly articles and industry reports available in the global repositories to explore key drivers and barriers of the 4IR adoption using the supply chain management strategy. Research findings suggest that the 4IR has brought new threats and opportunities in manufacturing industries using the supply chain management strategy.

Understanding Organisational Risks and Opportunities Associated with Implementing Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme from the Nonprofit Service Provider Perspective—Findings from Quantitative Research

In this paper, we provide useful lessons from a quantitative analysis across several nonprofit organisations undergoing generational change due to the implementation of the Australian government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This paper contributes to the field in demonstrating the usefulness of the approach in revealing how change has to occur at both the micro and macro levels of the organisations involved, affecting both followers and transforming leadership, whilst simultaneously reinforcing the need to address the strategic and operational risks inherent in such transformational change. It represents a follow-up to an earlier published longitudinal qualitative research and provides further evidence on the key findings associated with the development of the NDIS Implementation Framework. The current paper considers the importance of the risk and opportunity conundrum associated with the implementation of the NDIS among Australian nonprofit service providers. This paper recognises that, as entities operating ostensibly outside the purely commercial realms of service design and delivery, nonprofit service providers are potentially handicapped by an historic lack of relevant and necessary market-based skills. The risks necessitate an accelerated programme of skill development and skill acquisition to enable the full range of opportunities to be realised. The change management processes, identified using the conceptual framework of readiness → implementation commitment → sustainability, as discussed in this paper, highlight the potential financial consequences which have substantial impacts on such nonprofit service providers. Organisations in these settings are challenged by ongoing financial sustainability issues where very small financial margins, resulting directly from the generational business model shift from a supply-driven system to a demand-driven system, may prove the difference between organisational survival and failure.

DEISGN OF MULTI-VILLAGE RURAL WATRE SUPPLY SYSTEM

Water supply in India is now broadcast as community based demand driven system, under which it’s important to reinforce capacity of local community exist in village and small town to improve and manage their own water supply system. The drinking water is one among the essential elements required for all components to hold out the various fundamental activities of lifecycle. Due to rapid urbanization and water inadequacy, continuing a stable and safe water supply has become a challenge to many cities. To overcome these challenges water supply system is required. Basics of Water Supply System gives information on the basic modules of a water supply system, as well as their installation, operation, and distribution, as well as drinking water quality management. With the use of digital GPS, a study of the current population, population from the last three decades, daily water demand, flow characteristics, and a survey of the village are conducted for the proposal of a water supply system. The towns' water supply network is analysed and developed using Bentley's WATERCAD programme. Water distribution network systems are designed to distribute water from a source to all or any single user in a sufficient amount, quality, and pressure.

Insights from a Jordan’s Principle Child First Initiative in Alberta

In 2016 Canada was ordered to implement Jordan’s Principle by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. In response to the order Canada created the Child First Initiative to provide federal funding for provincial and territorial organizations supporting First Nation’s children’s health, education, and social service needs, including service coordination. In the shifting national landscape of Child First Initiative funding, there is a lack of evidence on how pediatric healthcare services are addressing the serious health and healthcare inequities experienced by many First Nations children. This paper describes the implementation of a Child First Initiative by the First Nations Health Consortium in the Alberta region, and research findings that provide insights into the complexity and challenges of advancing First Nations children’s health and health equity within the current federal Child First Initiative mandate in this province. This paper highlights the need for transformative pediatric healthcare approaches that expand beyond an individual and demand-driven system and orient towards practices and policies that are socially-responsive. Also, that First Nations leaders and Jordan’s Principle initiatives play a leading role in the design and delivery of all pediatric healthcare services with First Nation communities, families and children across Canada.

A comparison of three transformation pathways towards a sustainable European society - An integrated analysis from an energy system perspective

An energy system transition in the European Union is required to meet the decarbonisation targets determined in the Paris Agreement. To realise this transition, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 is required. However, ambitions are being raised towards carbon neutrality. Such transition will likely imply deep changes across all sectors of the EU economies and societies. The impacts on these sectors need to be analysed with a multi-disciplinary approach, to unveil cross-sectoral risks and opportunities of the transition. Additionally, the pace and effectiveness of the transition may be affected by technical and economic drivers within the EU. In this paper, we soft-link three modelling frameworks specialised in assessing technology transitions, spatially-disaggregated health impacts of air pollutants and economic impacts and we apply them to the study of deep decarbonisation pathways for the EU. An energy system model, TIMES PanEU, is soft linked with an impact assessment model, EcoSense, and with a general equilibrium model, NEWAGE. The application looks at three clearly distinguished but likely paths: one where the decarbonisation effort is mostly undertaken by decarbonisation of the energy supply; one where consumers take on a more active role in the decarbonisation, instead; one where ambitions are raised and all sectors of the economy must act together to achieve the targets. In the specific application, it is concluded that 80% reduction is achievable with a decentralised, demand driven system as well as with a centralised one, where the decarbonisation effort mainly comes from the supply side. On the other hand, to achieve a more ambitious reduction target, a broader technology mix and also the effort from both supply and demand side will be required. The synergy between the sectors, especially for the utilisation of the domestic sources such as biomass, will be a decisive factor for the direction of the energy transition.

A Decision Support System for Managing Demand-Driven Collection Development in University Digital Libraries

In recent years, academic digital libraries have become a very important source of information. Academic digital libraries provide a rich collection in order to satisfy user need for information. The augmentation of user population and the volume of new publications causes many challenges to librarians in the collection development process and determining user needs of information is the fundamental challenge that librarians face. This article presents a demand-driven collection development decision support system based on the PROMETHEE II method. The DSS supports the librarians to make decisions in the collection development process to provide a rich collection that meets the users' needs. The DSS evaluates and determines a set of electronic resources for purchase, subscription, contract reviewing or cancelation. The decision support system extracts users' queries from log files to determine user preferences. Then, the revised Simos' procedure is used to derive the criteria weights. Finally, the authors applied the PROMETHEE II method to evaluate and rank the electronic resources.

Dynamic Metabolomics Reveals that Insulin Primes the Adipocyte for Glucose Metabolism

Insulin triggers an extensive signaling cascade to coordinate adipocyte glucose metabolism. It is considered that the major role of insulin is to provide anabolic substrates by activating GLUT4-dependent glucose uptake. However, insulin stimulates phosphorylation of many metabolic proteins. To examine the implications of this on glucose metabolism, we performed dynamic tracer metabolomics in cultured adipocytes treated with insulin. Temporal analysis of metabolite concentrations and tracer labeling revealed rapid and distinct changes in glucose metabolism, favoringspecific glycolytic branch points and pyruvate anaplerosis. Integrating dynamic metabolomics andphosphoproteomics data revealed that insulin-dependent phosphorylation of anabolic enzymes occurred prior to substrate accumulation. Indeed, glycogen synthesis was activated independently ofglucose supply. We refer to this phenomenon as metabolic priming, whereby insulin signaling creates a demand-driven system to "pull" glucose into specific anabolic pathways. This complements the supply-driven regulation of anabolism by substrate accumulation and highlights an additional role for insulin action in adipocyte glucose metabolism.

Mechanisms of integrated care in Flanders: A bottom-up perspective

Background For some time now, integrated care has been put forward to create a more demand-driven, patient-centred and cost-effective care system. Various conceptual frameworks have been developed to shed light on the complex concept. However, they lack insight into the mechanisms driving integrated care in practice. The aim of this paper is to gain insight into how integrated care is realised in practice. Methods Six cooperation projects in Flanders were compared on five integration mechanisms. A content analysis of secondary sources on each of the cases and semi-structured interviews with representatives of these cases was conducted. The data were analysed using comparison tables. Results Six cases representing five cooperation models in the Flemish health and social care were analysed for the presence of integrated care mechanisms. Six of the 22 mechanisms are present in all case examples. Half of the identified mechanisms concern the integration of professionals. Integrated care in these Flemish cases refers mainly to organising a case meeting, appointing a case manager and dividing the tasks between care professionals. Integration of support is less developed. Conclusions The bottom-up approach to study the practical implementation of mechanisms is a fruitful approach, since it brings into light the complex realities and practicalities of the mechanisms of integration and how they are shaped by local actors in local contexts. The approach shows how Flemish and Belgian policy makers are struggling to scaling up these integration models, whilst at the same time responding to local conditions and needs.

HVAC Energy Saving in IPS-enabled Large Space: An Occupancy Distribution Based Demand-driven Control Approach

Abstract Occupancy attracts an increasing attention in recent building energy efficiency research through enabling more sophisticated control strategies. With the development of latest indoor positing systems (IPS), the facility managers are able to detect the geospatial distribution of building occupants. Based on such information, this paper proposes a demand-driven control system for HVAC control in large spaces to reconcile occupants’ thermal comfort demand and energy consumption. Comparing to conventional temperature and CO2 based HVAC control systems, the new approach integrates the indoor positions of occupants and a demand-oriented and PID-based ventilation control mechanism. An computational fluid dynamic simulation is constructed to valid the proposed control system. Air supply flow rate and temperature distribution are captured for three sample cases that have even and uneven occupancy distributions in the simulation. By avoiding overcooling and unnecessary cooling, the proposed approach could save a significant amount of electrical consumption from HVAC operation.

Performance and impact evaluation of solar home lighting systems on the rural livelihood in Assam, India

This study was carried out in four districts of Assam to assess the technical functionality of the solar home lighting systems (SHLS), service delivery model, institutional mechanism, maintenance and monitoring, user's awareness and its impacts on rural livelihood. The study found that only 28.9% of the systems are functional, 62.3% are found working with minor faults and 8.8% are either non-functional or having major faults. The average working durations per day for winter, summer and monsoon seasons are 2.2h, 3.5h and 2.3h respectively. The study observes noticeable benefits due to adoption of SHLS such as reduction in kerosene consumption, increase in children's study hours, extended working hours of small businesses and income generation through mobile phone charging. One of the key reasons for unsatisfactory technical performance of SHLS is because of poor service delivery model and inefficiency in existing institutional structure such as passive village energy committee and non-availability of service centres or local technicians for post-installation maintenance. The study observes that user perceptions on the system are positive. However, cost considerations seem to be the main obstacle for system adoption. This study concludes that availability of local technicians, effective village energy committees, demand driven system design and appropriate social awareness towards livelihood improvement options will improve the sustainability and economic viability of the SHLS.

Let them see it: A project to build capacity by raising awareness of teaching-development pathways

In an ideal world, university teaching and research would be valued equally; however, this is not currently the case. Research continues to be better rewarded and valued in most universities (Bexley, James & Arkoudis 2011; Gill 2016; Probert 2013). The notion that university reputation should be judged predominantly by research metrics has been challenged by a global trend towards a demand-driven system that encourages widening participation, student choice and social mobility. Consequently we have seen an increased number of teaching-focused roles (BIS 2016). Paradoxically, the drive to increase university reputation based on research has also contributed to the increased numbers of teaching-focused roles (Probert 2013). The introduction of these roles has been welcomed due to the perceived increased professionalism of the workforce and recognition of teaching quality, and criticised because of its potential to undermine the teaching-research nexus and erode academic identities (Probert 2013). Although opinion is divided regarding the reasons for and benefits of creating teaching-focused roles, there is consensus about the dearth of clear promotional pathways based on teaching (Bexley, James & Arkoudis 2011; Probert 2013). In response to this need, the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) and the United Kingdom’s Higher Education Academy (HEA) collaborated to deliver the Transforming Practice Programme Reward and Recognition: Promotion, Process and Policy; known as TPP (Transforming Practice Programme) in Australia and PPP (Promotion, Process and Policy) in the UK. The TPP/PPP was a transnational change program designed to build universities’ capacity to identify, capture, compare and reward evidence of teaching excellence (HEA 2016, OLT 2016). Universities in the TPP/PPP initiative focused on process or policy development to transform practice in relation to promotion based on teaching excellence. The study presented in this paper was not part of the TPP/PPP initiative, although one of the authors was involved in a TPP project at Curtin University in 2014. The previous TPP project had involved implementation of peer-based professional-learning strategies to enhance teaching and provide participants with evidence for academic promotion. Understandings about the links between professional development (e.g. peer review of teaching), the enhancement of teaching quality and academic-career pathways that emerged from the 2014 TPP project informed the study. In this paper we describe the steps we took to make teaching-development opportunities visible to staff. The focus was on creating visual artefacts underpinned by robust technology that our users could navigate and interact with. Our strategy included a short video, an interactive map and a database (Figure 1).

Childcare in the Netherlands: Lessons in privatisation

ABSTRACTIn 2005 the Child Care Act was introduced in the Netherlands. The explicit objective of the childcare reform has been to stimulate the operation of market forces so that childcare services are provided in an efficient way. The change towards a demand-driven financing system implies that there is no longer public provision of childcare services in the Netherlands. The emerging picture shows that the availability and use of childcare clearly increased since 2005. Due to the focus on working parents there is still inequality in childcare use by family type, yet this inequality does not seem to translate into unequal use of high quality childcare services by different socio-economic groups. Quality has been on a downward trend since process quality information was first collected in 1995. Yet, it seems likely that this negative trend is not the result of privatisation, but rather the rapid expansion in supply.

Early and delayed offers to under-represented university students

This paper examines the relative merits of early and delayed offer schemes in attracting under-represented students to university. Following the introduction of a demand-driven system and the establishment of national growth and equity targets, Australian universities have increased the number of offers made to students before the release of Australian Tertiary Admission Ranks. The majority of public universities now operate an early offer scheme, often explicitly to increase their proportions of traditionally under-represented students. By contrast, the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Australia have developed delayed offer schemes, whereby entry to professional courses depends primarily on achievement within a generalist undergraduate degree. Under both models, institutions seek to reduce their reliance on Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, which has been shown to be correlated with socio-economic status. The paper considers both models with respect to their transparency, efficiency, predictive validity and equity.

The barriers to govern long-term care innovations:: The paradoxical role of subsidies in a transition program

This study deals with the governance of a transition program (2007–2011) that tried to radically change a fragmented, supply-driven long-term care system into an integrated, demand-driven system to deal with an aging population. The transition program was subsidized by the healthcare ministry and enabled 26 projects throughout the Netherlands. The idea was to first experiment with innovative long-term care practices outside the system and then to scale-up these innovations to change the system. However, previous research does not highlight examples of long-term care innovations that scaled-up. Hence, the goal is to explore the barriers to govern the scaling-up of the long-term care innovations. The barriers were identified by participating in the program and interviewing ministry, program and project actors. The core barrier was the lack of commitment to the empowerment. It resulted from the subsidy focus of the projects and the lack of protection of the innovations, and from conflicts of interests and power struggles on the ministry-level. A transition program requires more than providing a subsidy. Policymakers have to learn from innovations outside the system in order to change it. Simultaneously, projects should not be entirely subsidized, otherwise there are no incentives to scale-up the innovations.

Quality of Service on Queueing Networks for the Internet

Most studies of resource allocation mechanisms in Internet traffic have used a performance model of the resource provided, where the very concept of the resource is defined in terms of measurable qualities of the service such as utilization, throughput, response time (delay), security level among others. Optimization of resource allocation is defined in terms of these measurable qualities. One novelty introduced by an economic mechanism design approach is to craft a demand-driven system which takes into account the diverse QoS requirements of users, and therefore, uses multiobjective (utility) optimization techniques to characterize and compute optimum allocations. Economic modelling of computer and communication resource sharing uses a uniform paradigm described by two level modelling: QoS requirements as inputs into a performance model that is subject to economic optimization.

Crises, Institutional Frameworks and Minority Subjects

Crises, Institutional Frameworks and Minority Subjects Dimitris Tziovas The crisis in the humanities is not a new phenomenon. Every now and then there is talk of some sort of crisis in this area. Science subjects have also faced crises, as, for example, when a few years ago almost twenty physics departments closed in the United Kingdom and recruitment in computer science slumped following the dot-com bubble. What is new, in my view, in the present crisis is that a purely demand-driven system of education, with the introduction of much higher fees and a cut in the government teaching grant to universities, is now being consolidated in England. Commenting on the Browne Report on Higher Education Funding, Professor Stefan Collini has pointed out that consumer demand, in the form of student choice, will determine what is offered by service providers (i.e. universities), thus signaling "a redefinition of higher education and the retreat of the state from financial responsibility for it" (London Review of Books, 4 November 2010). As a result, specialisms of minority interest will be marginalized even further and starved of funding. While a few years ago in English universities these subjects (including modern Greek) used to receive additional state funding to keep them going, now student demand will determine the future of many of them. Though science subjects (the so-called STEM) will be protected, this will not apply to the humanities or social sciences, thus introducing a funding hierarchy in subjects at tertiary level. The funding changes in English universities will mean that only mainstream subjects will survive, but even they will be exposed to trends and fluctuations in demand. A higher education system based almost exclusively on student demand and numbers will not be able to offer such a wide range of subjects, and choice will be substantially restricted. The expansion of the universities in terms of student numbers is also counterproductive for minority subjects and programs. While student numbers, particularly in the United Kingdom, may have risen dramatically in the last fifteen years, the number of subjects, courses, or modules has shrunk. One could argue that, paradoxically, the earlier [End Page 133] elitism of university education in the United Kingdom (when around 10% of school leavers were going on to university education compared to more than 40% nowadays) supported minority subjects or specialized areas of research. The increase in student numbers has benefited the popular subjects, even within the humanities, and the resulting gap between mainstream and minority programs of study has widened, leading to calls for the closure of the latter in order to fund the former. The recent trend in British universities and elsewhere towards larger and more flexible academic units in order to promote interdisciplinarity and academic synergies will not be helpful either. This interdisciplinary facade is deceptive since it facilitates and conceals the closure of small departments and the transfer of resources to areas where there is greater student demand. Furthermore, the aspirations of many leading Anglophone universities to become "global" or "world-class universities" does not encourage institutions to use their considerable resources to maintain or invest in a range of humanities subjects because the competition for world-class status is limited to profitable fields. Leading universities might be competing on a global scale in terms of scholarships, research grants, facilities, publications, or pay deals to staff, but not in terms of the range of humanities and social science provision offered. This kind of competition for global status is concentrated on key areas that can simply deliver student numbers from emerging economies or yield substantial research income and, therefore, does not help minority subjects. In short, the scholarly prestige of leading universities is not contingent on maintaining a good range of subjects, nor, in certain countries, does the autonomy of the universities encourage a national strategy on the teaching of minority languages in higher education institutions. Any discussion about the future of Modern Greek Studies should be placed within the context of these wider developments. There may be national variations or local specificities regarding education infrastructure, national curricula, language policies, endowments, or fees, but we cannot ignore the fact that higher education worldwide is moving inexorably towards a...

Performance Evaluation of Check Gate in Canal Using a Numerical Model

As the project for the second period, Aichi Water Supply is working to construct a new water channel system by creating multiple upstream water channels and renovating the check gate. Plans to introduce a demand-driven system in the existing downstream channel using a downstream water stage control gate were hindered by the appearance of hydraulic and structural problems such as rise of the water channel and tunnel flooding. Although attention focused on a supply-driven approach, consideration was given to the possibility of introducing a float-type constant upstream and downstream water stage control gate in which a demand-driven water channel system operates as long some extra capacity exists in the water channel upstream from the gate. This type of gate is distinctive in that downstream water level can be regulated using water stored in the water channel upstream from the gate, and offers the advantage of being able to utilize that water without flooding the existing water channel. The operating mechanism of this gate has been shown to possess adequate practical functionality in both on-site testing and performance results from mathematical-model-based simulations. Unlike an open channel system, this type of gate does not require a major investment and allows for limited demand-driven management of the water supply.

1234 POSTER How to integrate data from a centralized hospital information system (HIS) with a local developed departmental oncology treatment application – Patient Protocol Administrative System (PPAS).

Objectives: To address the problem of alignment of health information systems to healthcare processes, which is a major challenge in healthcare organizations; to present a layered approach for system evolution and adaptation based on an application framework and rapid application development; to accomplish a demand-driven system evolution by embedding the software engineering process in business process optimization projects and by closely involving end users to improve their own work practices. Methods: We have used a holistic health information system as a core application framework. System functionality is incrementally improved using an integrated “generator tool” for rapid application development. We have developed an iterative and participatory software engineering process, adapted to the conditions of the generator tool. The documentation techniques provided by the Unified Modeling Language (UML) were modified to achieve a straight forward documentation covering the whole development cycle from the business process model to generator-based computer applications. Results and conclusion: The layered approach for system evolution did provide an environment in which a flexible and participatory software development process could be established. Today, generator-based applications are used in all clinical departments of our 1200-bed University Hospital. We expect that tools for rapid application development will be further improved and will play an increasingly important role to establish responsive IT-infrastructures where the application developer can concentrate on business process alignment instead of coding and debugging.

Capacity-driven vs. demand-driven material procurement systems

A capacity-driven procurement (CDP) system is an alternative to the demand-driven material requirements planning (MRP) procurement system. The MRP procurement system closely tracks the independent demand, whereas the CDP system decouples the procurement from the independent demand and acquires materials to support a preset operating capacity based on the quantity that can be produced, the quantity that is expected to be sold, and related managerial policies. We use simulation to compare the performance of these two procurement systems in terms of system-related and customer-related performance measures under fairly reasonable practical scenarios. The results show that the CDP system is a viable alternative to the demand-driven MRP system when a production system is not loaded up to its full capacity, and if one can trade off the system-related performance measure for the customer-related PM and ease of control. Furthermore, we argue that when the product demand is uncertain, the CDP system is more suitable to support a pull system of shop floor control than the demand-driven system.

Demand-driven Evolution of IT Systems in Healthcare

To analyze and to optimize interdisciplinary clinical processes, to introduce an IT-supported model for demand-driven system evolution in healthcare, and to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach for a clinical example and to present an evaluation. System evolution and change management are viewed as two sides of the same coin, thus formal methods for process analysis and IT system evolution were embedded into a goal-oriented change management model. Based on a process model, a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and a computer simulation were performed. A tool for rapid application development (RAD) was used to incrementally improve the healthcare information system according to newly arising needs. Each of the formal methods used contributed to the successful reorganization of the interdisciplinary clinical process. An evaluation demonstrated significant improvements. An integrated IT application was implemented to support the optimized process. Process improvement is feasible and effective when formal methods for process analysis and requirements specification are used in a reasonable and goal-oriented way. It might be necessary to trade off costs and benefits or simplify a given method in the context of a particular project. As the same information is utilized in different tools, it is supposed that the efforts for process analysis, documentation and implementation of adapted applications could be reduced if different tools were integrated and based on a single coherent reference model for description of clinical processes.