Investment In Automation Research Articles

Business Intelligence (bi) en dos organizaciones de la industria de autopartes en México

La evolución de las TIC y la generación de datos en demasía permiten a la organización tomar decisiones asertivas en función de las necesidades de sus consumidores, Business Intelligence (BI), implica gestionar de forma más efectiva el conocimiento organizacional que converge en las empresas. A partir de la integración de un modelo de cinco dimensiones se valoran las condiciones de adopción de un modelo de BI en dos empresas de la industria de autopartes, desde un enfoque cualitativo y con la metodología del estudio de caso. Los hallazgos mostraron que ambas organizaciones manifiestan un desempeño basado en el manejo de información interna, con indicadores respaldados en las tecnologías de información que tienen disponibles, con apertura para generarla y compartirla, bajo un enfoque hacia datos históricos, esto las ubica en el tercer nivel de madurez; por lo que si se quiere llevar a la adopción completa de este modelo se requerirá de inversión en automatización aunado a la capacitación de los empleados en las nuevas tecnologías; además de fomentar una cultura en pro de la apertura y pleno acceso a la información, para con ello poseer capacidad de respuesta al mercado y por ende su permanencia

Implementation of capital deferral algorithm in real distribution systems considering reliability by managing major faults

Distribution automation technology plays a key role on power system reliability by providing faster detection, isolating the faulted area and restoring the fault. In this paper, the impacts of distribution automation are considered on radial distribution system in the event of substation transformer bank malfunction at maximum load level with the aim of deferring the big capital investments. The aim of the proposed method is not only to increase physical impact such as the reliability but also to monetize physical measures into significant economic benefits by deferring the overall investment costs. The proposed algorithm is tested with the real distribution system data, and it is shown that it can obtain remarkable economic benefits by deferring the larger capital equipment investments by making smaller investments in distribution automation.

Automation, performance and international competition: a firm-level comparison of process innovation

SUMMARY The automation of production processes is an important topic on the policy agenda in high-wage countries, and Denmark is no exception. However, the knowledge of the adoption of automation technologies across firms, of drivers of investments in automation, and on the association between automation and firm performance are limited. This paper uses a new survey to collect data on automation combined with register data to examine these issues. The variation in the adoption of automation technologies is high but the change in adoption over time is slow, and almost half of Danish manufacturing firms relied greatly on manual production processes in 2010. Increasing international competition from China is a driver for investments in automation, i.e. the manufacturing firms that are exposed to intensifying competition from China in their output markets invest more in automation than firms that are not exposed to this type of competition. We conduct external validation of the automation survey by examining the association between the automation measures and firm performance measures constructed from completely independent data sources. We find that the measures of automation are significantly associated with productivity and profitability.

Is the argentine postharvest system ready to handle more and better grains?

This is the first comprehensive study of the grain postharvest system of Argentina with the following objectives: 1) to group the grain elevators according to structural, technological, and insect control characteristics; 2) to analyze how the groups are positioned to take advantage of the expected increase in the country grain production; 3) to study how the different groups are positioned to adopt Best Management Practices (BMPs); and 4) to identify the main challenges of each group to implement Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs under the new context of dichlorvos (DDVP) prohibition. A survey was conducted in 86 elevators in the main grain producing area of Argentina. Multiple correspondence and cluster analyses were used to study the relationships amongst the variables and to establish a typology of grain elevators. Three groups of facilities were identified, which mainly differed in size and grain reception capacity, turnover ratios, and fumigation modalities. Large and intermediate scale facilities emerged as the best positioned to profit the projected scenario of crop increase, because of their high reception capacity and their potential to increase the turnover ratios (these two groups handled 95% of the grain volume). Small elevators presented important constraints in their current equipment for grain reception. Large facilities appeared also as the best positioned to implement BMPs, because they would only require minor investments in aeration automation. Intermediate size facilities would also need to incorporate temperature cables for grain monitoring. BMP incorporation seems less feasible in small facilities, given the limitations in drying, aeration, and stored grain monitoring technologies. All the groups will have to make equal efforts to incorporate IPM programs after the banning of DDVP. The detection of group-specific constraints is expected to serve as an input for developing targeted technologies and more efficient sector policies.

Assessing the Transit Agency Business Case for Partial and Full Automation of Bus Services

This paper analyzes the cost-effectiveness of vehicle automation investments for public transit bus services. The calculations are developed for a set of illustrative use cases, using information from market surveys of available technologies and findings from demonstration projects and simulations. Overall, the results indicate that advanced driver assistance systems generally have a strong business case, in that they can provide operational savings that exceed their costs when considered over the life cycle of the bus. For full automation, the situation is more complex: there is the potential for very large labor cost savings, but considerable uncertainty about whether unstaffed scenarios are compatible with the continued need to perform nondriving tasks such as customer assistance and fare collection.

Jobless Growth in India during the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017)

Creation of jobs outside of agriculture is one of the biggest challenges that confront the policymakers trying to achieve ‘faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth’. The Indian economy has been growing at unprecedented rates but it has been characterized by jobless growth and informalization of job opportunities in the organized sector. The paper tries to inquire into the reasons for jobless growth in India during the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), with the objective of providing policy recommendations to the government to increase employment. This is achieved by assessing structural changes in employment in India over the past decade and conducting gender-wise employment comparisons along with comparison with other developing countries. The paper finds factors such increase in investment in technology and automation, increased reliance on high skilled labor, sectoral inefficiencies, labor market rigidities behind India’s recent jobless growth. It is recommended that the government set up institutions to provide training to unskilled workers so as to absorb them in the formal sector. Further the government must undertake campaigns to increase awareness about girl child education to reduce female unemployment. Institutions should be set up that primarily focus on review of education and skill development to align the needs of workers with those of big businesses. It is also recommended that the government move towards relaxing some of the rigid labor laws in the Indian labor market.

Grinding and Flotation Optimization Using Operational Intelligence

In recent years, metal-producing companies have increased their investment in automation and technological innovation, embracing new opportunities to enable transformational change. Transformation to a digital plant can fundamentally revolutionize how industrial complexes operate. The abundant and growing quantity of real-time data and events collected in the grinding and flotation circuits in a mineral processing plant can be used to solve operational issues and optimize plant performance. A grade recovery model is used to identify the best operating conditions in real time. The strategy for increasing the value of instrumentation in current plants is reviewed. An optimal Gaudin size distribution model provides augmented information from traditional sensors to find the optimal grind cut size to reduce metal losses in the flotation circuits. Sensors in flotation circuits enable an estimate of the recovery and determination of the optimal froth depth and aeration using an air hold up flotation model. A strategy of classifying data for on-line generation of insights to using operational intelligence tools is described. The implementation of a recovery/grind strategy with industrial examples in non-ferrous mineral processing is presented.

Business model innovation for the energy management of building networks in smart cities

In recent years, buildings have been equipped with building and automation control systems (BACS) that provide a reliable active energy efficiency measure for reducing energy consumption. Given the need for both evidence and practical applications in this field, this study presents some detailed scenario analyses for evaluating the economic convenience of BACS interventions within a network of buildings, in a smart city context. To this end, a simulator was developed capable of modelling and quantifying the main technical-economic variables to examine potential impacts of several 'building network management' scenario types, according to different scales and application areas. The simulator was tested through the results obtained in the smart village project carried out by ENEA in Italy. Our findings allow to assess the convenience of an investment in automation, control and monitoring systems by varying the complexity of the installed automation network, to determine the optimal solution from a technical-economic point of view.

Marketing automation innovation practices and customer retention performance: evidence from the Nigerian manufacturing SMEs

The emergence and dramatic changes in the today's digital consumer markets and industrial competitiveness have metamorphosed into a tremendous technological innovation boom with diverse innovative products and services been deployed as a competitive tool in the market place. The Nigerian manufacturing SMEs have in recent times placed much importance on innovative marketing practices to manage customer relationships, customer asset and customer equity. The study examined the relationship between customer's retention performance and marketing automation innovation among the Nigerian manufacturing SMEs. Results from least square multiple regressions showed that sales force automation has more influence on the firm's customer retention performance. The study recommends that the choice of marketing automation technologies, investment level and firm size are crucial in determining the customer retention performance of the industry and thereby suggest improved investment and management of SMEs' customer relationship for profitability, thus contributing largely to sustainability of industrial development and competitiveness.

Marketing automation innovation practices and customer retention performance: evidence from the Nigerian manufacturing SMEs

The emergence and dramatic changes in the today's digital consumer markets and industrial competitiveness have metamorphosed into a tremendous technological innovation boom with diverse innovative products and services been deployed as a competitive tool in the market place. The Nigerian manufacturing SMEs have in recent times placed much importance on innovative marketing practices to manage customer relationships, customer asset and customer equity. The study examined the relationship between customer's retention performance and marketing automation innovation among the Nigerian manufacturing SMEs. Results from least square multiple regressions showed that sales force automation has more influence on the firm's customer retention performance. The study recommends that the choice of marketing automation technologies, investment level and firm size are crucial in determining the customer retention performance of the industry and thereby suggest improved investment and management of SMEs' customer relationship for profitability, thus contributing largely to sustainability of industrial development and competitiveness.

Automating profitably together: Is there an impact of open innovation and automation on firm turnover?

Technologies like computer vision, advanced sensors, internet of things, 3D printing, big data, or artificial intelligence are penetrating all facets of the industrial value chains. Hence, industry is engaged in an accelerated automation race where industrial automation converts value chains into intelligent, data-driven systems. This generates new business models and spurs firm competitiveness in general. Companies thus pay attention to the development, acquisition, and incorporation of related technologies to profit from these developments in specific. For this, they must incorporate external flows of knowledge to succeed in innovation. Yet, there is a dearth of research that links open innovation to the incorporation of industrial automation, and to firm performance. Hence, this paper takes a knowledge-based view of the firm and sheds light on the moderating role of the processes of open innovation on the economic results of firms’ subject to automation. In order to do so, we estimate the impact of the interaction of open innovation and automation on firm turnover using panel data for 5287 Spanish firms from a variety of manufacture and service industries. We separate the effects for different open-innovation partners and find that turnover is increased for those automating firms that engage in open innovation with suppliers. These results indicate that suppliers possess the knowledge required for successful automation, and firms that innovate together with suppliers fare better at leveraging investments in automation. In addition, automating firms should exercise caution when choosing collaboration partners from the same country.

An Evaluation of Cross-Efficiency Methods, Applied to Measuring Warehouse Performance

In this paper method and practice of cross-efficiency calculation is discussed. The main methods proposed in the literature are tested not on a set of artificial data but on a realistic sample of input-output data of European warehouses. The empirical results show the limited role which increasing automation investment and larger warehouse size have in increasing productive performance. The reason is the existence of decreasing returns to scale in the industry, resulting in sub-optimal scales and inefficiencies, regardless of the operational performance of the facilities. From the methodological perspective, and based on a multidimensional metric which considers the capability of the various methods to rank warehouses, their ease of implementation, and their robustness to sensitivity analyses, we conclude to the superiority of the classic Sexton et al. (1986) method over recently proposed, more sophisticated methods.

Impact of Digital Growth in Modern Business

Target research in this paper is the assessment and analysis of content of digital progress and its impact on modern business. Business digitization has been introducing increasingly dynamic changes across the entire global economic sphere, whereas its content increasingly maintains to affect the competitiveness of national economies. At the microeconomic level, digital technologies lead to a change of economic structure and quality of production factors, based on knowledge and innovations. This paper should provide specific answers on how to apply new technologies and digital techniques in a quality manner within the knowledge economy. This is not the only answer provided in this paper. On the contrary, the paper shall respond to question how to minimize the risks of all kinds, in order to increase labour productivity. The immediate objective of this paper is to adequately locate and understand the problem of economy digitization and the changes it brings, as well as to provide specific ideas and practical solutions for better and more efficient business operations. The new information, i.e. digital economy fundamentally differs from the traditional ones. This very synergy of workforce, its emergence in such manner, as well as increase in its presence, will be the biggest challenge to what we now call the digital economy. The IT revolution and communication technology affect the development of the new economy on a global scale, which significantly contributes to the modern business. The impact of digital growth on modern business should be reflected in increased productivity, knowing that the increase in productivity is a key issue in any economy, including the digital economy. Increasing productivity implies an increase in the results achieved with the same consumption of resources or achieving the same results with less consumption of resources. Numerous studies have been performed on this subject at the global level, demonstrating that there are serious analyses and research that show exactly how much the investment in IT does actually increase productivity. It is believed that the majority of the growth in productivity since 1995 to date is to be primarily credited to investments in information technology and business process automation. Increasing productivity is evident almost anywhere: in individual companies, industries and economies, which actually represents the essence of modern business activities.

The Evolving Contours of Productivity Performance and Automation Investment in U.S. Manufacturing

This paper analyzes the productivity challenges as well as the production-related technological investments in the U.S. manufacturing sector in order to create a rich framework for productivity-enhancing policy making. It offers an industry-based analysis of the evolution of manufacturing productivity performance and subsequently presents original, survey-generated data on automation investment. Productivity performance drivers are statistically identified and a discussion of the still poorly understood relationship between automation and productivity is offered.

Preserving Human Agency in Automated Compliance

As technology transforms financial services, so too must it transform the regulation of financial markets and intermediaries. The imperative of real-time, prophylactic regulation increasingly compels reallocation of regulatory and compliance budgets to surveillance and enforcement technology. At the same time, in light of the well-known weaknesses of automated systems, securities firms (and their regulators) must temper investment in automation with efforts to augment the agency of compliance professionals. This symposium contribution considers how investment in the professional development of compliance personnel can better integrate automated tools within established compliance and supervisory structures and thereby advance regulatory and operational objectives.

ISO 15189:2012 Accreditation and Certification: Are You Ready?

“The quality of shoes reflects the status of man and standard of toilets reflect the status of family”: we mean to say- quality matters in day-to-day living. Despite less recognition and prioritization of clinical laboratory in former years, the recent advancement in modern medicine has compelled the health professionals to intensify its importance in diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and management of diseases. It is estimated that 70-80% of clinical decisions are based upon information derived from laboratory results. The simultaneous concern on quality of clinical diagnosis has been noted in developing country like Nepal. A huge investment in automation for the sake of quality services has also justified the fact that quality definitely matters. However, the enigma of quality service in clinical laboratory still exists in our health environment. Hence, we attempted to poke a part of the process of developing quality services in diagnostic fraternity.

Getting IT to work for marketing: Exploring collaboration between marketing and IT functions for the delivery of marketing innovation

The success of marketing automation investments depends on information technology (IT) delivery possibilities being effectively linked to marketing business needs. Innovators, however, have run into problems with collaboration between marketing and IT, which has impacted the effectiveness of the delivery of these IT-enabled projects. Addressing these problems has provided the impetus for this study, which has made use of established frameworks. However, instead of focusing on new product development in large manufacturing firms — the typical context for previous research — this study has explored the business context of marketing innovations, considering projects that are IT-based services, rather than the physical products considered in previous research. Exploratory research of eleven firms consistently found problems with collaboration between marketing and IT departments, with subsequent impacts on the delivery of IT-enabled innovations. All the firms acknowledged interpretative barriers to collaboration and employed a variety of different tactics to overcome them. The key implication of the study’s findings is that the success of marketing automation projects can be improved by dealing explicitly with interpretative barriers to collaboration. This paper offers suggestions for a framework to describe the barriers, possible mitigation tactics and direction for further research.

Economic Evaluation of Distribution System Smart Grid Investments

This article investigates the economic benefits of smart grid automation investments. A system consisting of 7 substations and 14 feeders is used in the evaluation. Here benefits that can be quantified in terms of dollar savings are considered, termed “hard dollar” benefits. Smart grid investment evaluations to be considered include investments in improved efficiency, more cost effective use of existing system capacity with automated switches, and coordinated control of capacitor banks and voltage regulators. These smart grid evaluations are sequentially ordered, resulting in a series of incremental hard dollar benefits. Hard dollar benefits come from improved efficiency, delaying large capital equipment investments, shortened storm restoration times, and reduced customer energy use. Analyses used in the evaluation involve hourly power flow analysis over multiple years and Monte Carlo simulations of switching operations during storms using a reconfiguration for a restoration algorithm. The economic analysis uses the time-varying value of the locational marginal price. Algorithms used include reconfiguration for restoration involving either manual or automated switches and coordinated control involving two modes of control. Field validations of phase balancing and capacitor design results are presented. The evaluation shows that investments in automation can improve performance while simultaneously lowering costs.

Technological Innovation Projects: Proposal for an Integrative Model Between Project Management and Knowledge Management in a Customer-Supplier Perspective

In face of strong competition, companies in Brazil have increased their financial investments in automation, offering new products and services and reducing operating costs. These companies are focusing their efforts on core competencies and, therefore, they often lack the internal expertise to implement new projects, especially those that bring technological innovation. For this reason, we use the processes of outsourcing or subcontracting to help implement such projects. The unit of analysis in this study is the project and the object of the study to analyze the process of knowledge transfer from a provider to a customer during the duration of the project, which involves new technologies. The main motivation of this work is to address the acquisition and retention of new knowledge related to projects designed for business customers. We have developed a study of three cases of multiple financial firms that buy new technologies and two suppliers of information technology. As a practical result, a management model of knowledge transfer and retention of knowledge in client companies is proposed and incorporated into project management.

The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation and Income Inequality

Persistently increasing wage inequality, polarization of the wage distribution, and stagnating real wages for low skill workers are some of the most salient features of modern labor markets, but are difficult to reconcile with the theoretical literature on economic growth. To better understand the mechanisms driving these phenomena, we construct an endogenous growth model of directed technical change with automation (the introduction of machines which replace low-skill labor and complement high-skill labor) and horizontal innovation (the introduction of new products, which increases demand for both types of labor). The economy endogenously follows three phases: First, both low-skill wages and automation are low, while income inequality and the labor share are constant. Second, increases in low-skill wages stimulate investment in automation, which depresses the growth rate of future low-skill wages (potentially to negative), and reduces the total labor share. Finally, the share of automated products stabilizes and low-skill wages grow at a positive but lower rate than high-skill wages. Adding middle skill workers allows the model to generate a phase of wage polarization after one of uniform increase in income inequality. We show that this framework can quantitatively account for the evolution of the skill premium, the skill ratio and the labor share in the US since the 1960s.