Large Transportation Company Research Articles

An investigation of the generalizability of the Houghton and Neck Revised Self‐Leadership Questionnaire to a Chinese context

PurposeSeeks to examine the psychometric properties and construct validity of the Houghton and Neck Revised Self‐Leadership Questionnaire (RSLQ) in a Chinese context.Design/methodology/approachThe RSLQ was administered to 559 Chinese employees of a large petroleum transportation company. Analyses included reliability assessments, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and tests of association with creativity and performance.FindingsThe RSLQ did not uniformly generalize to a Chinese context. The best fitting model included the self‐leadership dimensions of goal‐setting, visualizing successful performance, self‐talk, self‐reward, and self‐punishment. The modified RSLQ was positively associated with creativity and in‐role performance.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this study supports some components of self‐leadership generalizing to a Chinese context, the results suggest that further validation work is required on the RSLQ.Practical implicationsManagers will be well served to understand which dimensions of self‐leadership are generalizable across cultures, and how to measure the existence and development of such practices.Originality/valueThis research makes a significant contribution to research on self‐leadership by investigating the generalizability of the RSLQ to working adults in a non‐Western culture.

A Metastrategy for Large-Scale Resource Management Based on Informational Decomposition

This paper addresses the solution of large, complex resource allocation problems, examples of which include large freight transportation companies and supply chain management. Some instances of these problems involve millions of constraints and tens of millions of variables. Classical formulations focus on modeling the physical problem alone. In this paper, we focus on modeling the organization of information and decisions, producing a natural decomposition based on how decisions are actually made. Restricting the size of a subproblem to the sizes of problems actually solved by real decision makers, we avoid the computational demands posed by large problems. The algorithmic challenge is producing high quality solutions that reflect the interaction between subproblems. Linear approximations have been a widely used tool for decomposition, but these can produce unstable solutions of only moderate quality. We introduce the concept of using nonlinear approximations, which creates special technical problems but also produces solutions of very high quality. The strategy is simulated on two problem classes (fleet management and supply chains) and compared against standard modeling strategies. Synchronous and asynchronous strategies are also compared.

Development of an Information Kiosk for a Large Transport Company

An information kiosk system is a computer-based information system in a publicly accessible place. Such a system was developed for a large public transport company to provide African commuters with limited educational background with up-to-date information on schedules and ticket prices while also presenting general company information in a graphically attractive way. The challenges regarding liaison with passengers are highlighted and the use of a touchscreen kiosk to supplement current liaison media is justified. System architecture is motivated and special services offered by the system are discussed. Several lessons were learned regarding the implementation of such a system in general, as well as in this environment specifically. An online survey indicated that the system fulfils its role of providing useful information in an accessible medium to commuters in a reasonable time.

Strategies for global information systems development

Developing global information systems is a formidable task. Multinational companies operate in regions that are thousands of miles, many time zones, and many cultures away from headquarters. Organizing the activities and aligning the tasks and mindsets of people that are so far apart and to change the way that business is conducted through the use of IS is a major challenge. This study discusses alternative global IS development strategies and the factors that impact their selection. Four systems from a large transportation company are presented as real life examples to demonstrate the viability of these strategies and the accompanying factors.

Efficient trip generation with a rule modeling system for crew scheduling problems

Trip generation is the most time consuming phase in the solution process of crew scheduling problems faced by large transportation companies such as airlines and railways. A large number of trips must be constructed while satisfying a complex set of regulations. In this paper, we present an efficient trip generation method that utilizes originally a rule modeling system in order to reduce the corresponding search space. Special pruning rules are defined using a high-level rule language, which also supports the modeling of the business regulations required in the scheduling process. In addition, the legality checking mechanism involved has been tuned to perform efficiently in order to cope with the vast amount of the legality checks required by the trip generator. The algorithms are tested as a module for a crew scheduling application satisfying the tight response time requirements of a production system. We present experimental results based on problems provided by a major European airline that validate the usefulness and applicability of our work.

Work Outcomes and Job Design for Contract versus Permanent Information Systems Professionals on Software Development Teams

Organizations have significantly increased their use of contracting in information systems (IS), hiring contractors to work with permanent professionals. Based on theories of social exchange and social comparison, we hypothesize differences in work attitudes, behaviors, and performance across the two groups, and evaluate our hypotheses with a sequential mixed-methods design. Our first study surveys contract and permanent professionals on software development teams in a large transportation company. Our second study involves in-depth interviews with contract and permanent IS professionals in three organizations. We find support for many of our hypotheses but also some surprising results. Contrary to our predictions, contractors perceive a more favorable work environment than permanent professionals but exhibit lower in-role and extra-role behaviors than their permanent counterparts. Supervisors perceive their contract subordinates as lower-performing and less loyal, obedient, and trustworthy. In-depth interviews help to explain these findings. Job design emerges as an important factor influencing contractors' work attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Supervisors restrict the scope of contractors' jobs, limiting their job behaviors and performance. To compensate, permanent professionals are assigned considerably enlarged job scopes, leading to their lower perceptions of the work environment. We propose a theoretical model that embraces job design in explaining differences in work outcomes for contract versus permanent professionals on software development teams. The results from our study imply that organizations should carefully design and balance the jobs of their contractors and permanent employees to improve attitudes, behaviors, and workplace performance.

Human factors in technology replacement: a case study in interface design for a public transport monitoring system

This paper describes ergonomic issues raised during a project to provide a replacement real-time bus route control system to a large public transport company. Task and system analyses highlighted several deficiencies in the original system architecture, the human-machine interfaces and the general approach to system management. The eventual live prototype replaced the existing original system for a trial evaluation period of several weeks. During this period a number of studies was conducted with the system users in order to measure any improvements the new system, with its ergonomic features, produced over the old. Importantly, the results confirmed that (a) general responsiveness and service quality were improved, and (b) users were more comfortable with the new design. We conclude with a number of caveats which we believe will be useful to any group addressing technology impact in a large organisation.

RELIABILITY ANALYSIS AND MAINTENANCE POLICY OF RADIATORS FOR A LARGE FLEET OF BUSES

Parts in an engineering system are subject to deterioration caused by friction, impact, metal fatigue, etc. which occur when the system is in operation, and also due to ageing of its plastic and rubber parts and rusting of metal parts. In order to ensure that a system functions properly, it is important to perform maintenance which rectifies the faults in its parts as time passes. In this paper the authors use Weibull analysis to investigate the failure pattern of radiators in the cooling system of different bus types in a large public transportation company, and work out from a costing point of view that regular preventive maintenance is not recommended but overhaul of the radiators should be done once in several years when the bus undergoes a major overhaul. In this analysis, the renewal function of the Weibull distribution has to be computed. A table for the renewal function has been computed as well. The manpower requirement for the maintenance of radiators for the bus fleet is also investigated. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

RELIABILITY ANALYSIS AND MAINTENANCE POLICY OF RADIATORS FOR A LARGE FLEET OF BUSES

Parts in an engineering system are subject to deterioration caused by friction, impact, metal fatigue, etc. which occur when the system is in operation, and also due to ageing of its plastic and rubber parts and rusting of metal parts. In order to ensure that a system functions properly, it is important to perform maintenance which rectifies the faults in its parts as time passes. In this paper the authors use Weibull analysis to investigate the failure pattern of radiators in the cooling system of different bus types in a large public transportation company, and work out from a costing point of view that regular preventive maintenance is not recommended but overhaul of the radiators should be done once in several years when the bus undergoes a major overhaul. In this analysis, the renewal function of the Weibull distribution has to be computed. A table for the renewal function has been computed as well. The manpower requirement for the maintenance of radiators for the bus fleet is also investigated. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Incidents in manual handling activities

More than 20000 handling manoeuvres in loading or unloading trailers in a large transportation company were observed. The aim of the study was to determine the frequency and nature of the incidents occurring whilst handling. The incidents were recorded and interpreted from a double perspective, namely as risk factors and as activity regulation factors. The study showed that on average, one incident occurred in every seven handling manoeuvres: 71% of them were related to the environment, and 29% to the activity. While numerous, the environment-related incidents were generally without consequences. In this respect, the activity incidents appeared more risky; also, the majority of these incidents occurred during the load positioning phase. The study also showed that loads are re-handled twice as often in unloading as in loading, the frequency of re-handlings varying widely from one handler to another. The reasons why so few of the observed incidents are reported in accident studies and their significance in the understanding of handling problems are discussed.

The handling of objects other than boxes: univariate analysis of handling techniques in a large transport company.

The purpose of this study, carried out on handlers in the distribution centre of a large transport company, was to identify the techniques used for handling objects other than boxes. Thirty-one workers, with experience varying from one month to 17 years, were each filmed during one shift. A grid with 36 variables allowed the successive operations to be described: the type of grip, the nature and the direction of the efforts by the upper limbs, the use of the back and the lower limbs, and the displacement of the object. Nine hundred and forty-four handlings carried out in 3217 distinct movements were analysed. These observations revealed the complexity of the handling techniques and the tendency to favour some of them. Seventy-nine per cent of the handlings observed included pre-transfer and/or post-placement phases in addition to the transfer itself. Essentially horizontal phases (pulling, pushing) are more frequent than essentially vertical ones (lifting, lowering); asymmetry is generalized, whether it involves the back position (torsion), the direction and the type of effort, the position of the hands on the object, etc. More than half of the efforts are used to move an object resting on a surface (sliding, pivoting, turning, rolling); resistive efforts downwards (e.g., lowering) are avoided in favour of 'throwing' or 'dropping'.

Validation of a sales representative selection inventory

The finesse with which a sales person handles customers and clients is critical to success on the job. Because interpersonal behavior is a nontechnical, noncognitive element of job performance, we used items from theHogan Personality Inventory (HPI) to develop a new Sales Potential Inventory (SPI) for use as a selection procedure. The HPI is a well-researched measure of normal personality which was developed specifically to evaluate real-world interpersonal competencies. The SPI was developed as part of a concurrent, criterion-related selection study for the position of Sales Representative in Preston Trucking Company, a large freight transportation company with 82 terminals concentrated in the nation's Middle Atlantic and Northeast Regions. A thorough job analysis revealed that activities concerned with customer requests and complaints, calling on existing and potential clients, and other face-to-face client interactions were both the most crucial and time-consuming for sales representatives. Additionally, incumbents (N=127) endorsed the adjective descriptors “friendly,” “confident,” “dependable,” “competitive,” “good memory,” and “energetic” as being characteristic of the “ideal” sales representative. Homogenous Item Composites (HICs) from the HPI scales were combined to produce a measure (the SPI) that would assess the personality dimensions shown to be important to success in the sales representative job. Correlations between scores on the SPI and various criteria ranged from .19 (p<.05) to .53 (p<.01) for the total sample. These results are consistent with other research findings that measures of normal personality can successfully be used to predict job performance.

Reciprocal effects between organizational culture and the implementation of an office communication system: a case study

Abstract As part of a study investigating the implementation of an office communication system and its effects on work and organizational processes in a large transportation company, reciprocal effects between organizational culture and the new technology were analysed. It was found that in one department which was characterized by a well established culture, the communication system was integrated fairly easily and thereby reinforced the culture. In a second department, which was in the middle of a strong internal cultural conflict, the new technology was used unsuccessfully by one subgroup to support cultural change. By refusing to use the communication system in the intended way, the other members of the department resisted that attempt. In both departments, the technology did not effect a change, rather it was integrated into pre-existing cultural patterns.

Research note: the relationship between industrial accidents and absenteeism

In this research note, Phil Beaumont takes another look at the issue of the relationship between accidents and absenteeism and reports the findings of a study undertaken in four depots of a large road transport company in Scotland.

La compilazione automatica dei turni del personale viaggiante di un'azienda di trasporti ad orario fisso

One serious problem for a large transport company is to assign working schedules to their travelling personnel so as to minimize the difference between the legal working time paid for and the actual operating time on route, which is usually much shorter on account of several, either technical or administrative, constraints.