Process Redesign Research Articles

Applying a User-Centered Design Framework to Develop a Remote Research Assessment Protocol for a Randomized Clinical Trial for Toddlers with Early Autism Characteristics.

COVID-19 required many research teams to shift from in-person to remote assessments, which posed both procedural and theoretical challenges. While research has explored the utility of remote assessments for autism diagnosis from the perspective of families and clinicians, less is known about their application in clinical trials. This paper describes the development of a remote research assessment protocol for a randomized clinical trial focusing on the implementation of reciprocal imitation teaching (RIT) with toddlers in Part C early intervention. This project spans two phases. For Phase 1, our team developed and documented a series of steps utilizing user-centered design (UCD) strategies (e.g., recruiting potential users, creating a prototype, engaging in iterative development) for the purpose of redesigning an assessment protocol for a remote environment. For Phase 2, we examined preliminary outcomes of the redesign process. Primary end users (assessors) rated post-redesign usability and acceptability, while acceptability was examined using attrition data from secondary end users (family participants). Preliminary fidelity of implementation was also examined. The iterative redesign process allowed the research team to refine aspects of the assessment that ultimately led to promising preliminary ratings of usability, acceptability, and feasibility, as well as high fidelity. Preliminary data suggest that the redesigned assessment appears to be an acceptable, feasible, and usable tool for autism clinical trial research and that assessors can use it with fidelity. Further research is needed to examine the reliability and validity of the assessment, as well as implementation characteristics on a larger scale.

Strategic optimization: redesign of internal processes in international bulk companies

This research aims to redesign the surveillance and scale processes of an international bulk company, with the aim of streamlining and improving them. The DMAIC Methodology was systematically applied at each stage from a structured approach that improved and optimized existing internal processes, clearly establishing the problem and objectives of the redesign to subsequently collect and analyze necessary information, establishing key measurement metrics that evaluated the success of the redesign. Once the causes and areas for improvement were identified, solutions were developed and changes were implemented in the structure of the processes. The results obtained were the redesign of the company's internal surveillance and scale processes with optimized times of 44 and 77 minutes respectively, obtaining a difference of 25 to 33 minutes, allowing the company to carry out a total of 900 loads per month in 28 minutes. per unit load.

Improvement Operational Business Process in Logistic Companies Using Model-Based and Integrated Process Improvement

The logistics business sector is experiencing increasingly competitive and complex developments, requiring enhancements to remain competitive. The method used in this research is the Model-Based and Integrated Process Improvement (MIPI) method, and business process mapping using Business Process Model and Notation. The MIPI method consists of four stages: Understand Business Needs, Understand the Process, Model and Analyze Process, by conducting activity analysis using Value-Added Analysis and Cause and Effect Analysis to identify problem causes, and the final stage is Redesign Process. Value-Added Analysis indicates that in the outbound process, there are 21 activities, comprising 4 Real Value Added, 15 Business Value Added, and 2 Non-Value Added. In the inbound process, there are 21 activities with a composition of 2 Real Value Added, 16 Business Value Added, and 3 Non-Value Added. Based on Cause and Effect Analysis, customer complaints were found to be related to delayed delivery of goods, with root causes identified in planning, methods, equipment, and human factors. Based on these findings, a proposal for a new business process design is made, including the elimination of Non-Value Added activities and parallelism in some activities to simplify Business Value Added activities. Recommendations for these issues include expanding partnerships and collaboration with vendors, increasing fleet size, and providing employee development training.

Translating 'proportionate universal healthcare' into meaningful system design to optimize equity in child and family services.

To conduct a child and family health nursing service redesign to improve pathways of access, response and outcomes for all families with children aged 0-5 years. The study was conducted as an iterative, mixed-method study of the process and impact of the service redesign, informed by a participatory action research paradigm and the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation process for developing a model of care. Diagnostic, solution design, implementation and sustainability phases were undertaken. Quantitative analyses were undertaken of administrative data, and child and family health nurse and client surveys. Qualitative analyses were undertaken of design workshops. The administrative data demonstrated that prior to the redesign service provision was the same for all clients regardless of levels of risk. The design solution, developed through a series of diagnostic and visioning workshops, included multiple new client response pathways. Implementation included development of tools and training. Sustainability of the redistribution of resources to the new pathways was assessed though an evaluation demonstrating a positive impact for families with adversity, with no deleterious effects for families receiving a universal response, and improvements in the emotional labour undertaken by nurses. Despite this, nurse burnout increased post-redesign. The shift from equal services (everyone receives the same) to equitable proportionate universal provision in response to need can be achieved and has positive impacts for nurses and families. This study shows the value of undertaking a systematic and participatory approach to service redesign. A proportionate universalism approach can ensure that early childhood nursing services are available to all in relation to needs. The Revised Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE 2.0) check-list was used to guide reporting. No patient or public contribution.

Perancangan Ulang Tampilan Aplikasi Perpustakaan Digital ISOLOKKAB Berbasis Design Thinking

Redesigning the appearance of the application is the process of redesigning the existing design with the aim of improving the user experience. This is due to the appearance of the application that is still behind compared to other applications. The purpose of this redesign is to produce an improved display that has been redesigned as a recommendation for the development of the iSolokKab digital library application. This redesign was carried out using interview techniques to iSolokKab application users and reviews from users from the Play Store. iSolokKab needs improvement both from the appearance design and features. The method used in this redesign process is the design thinking method. Design thinking is a method that focuses on user complaints and provides suitable solutions to problems experienced by users in the application. Therefore, this method is very suitable for the process of redesigning the appearance of this iSolokKab application, because it can understand user needs. Based on the results of tests that have been carried out on improving the appearance design of the iSolokKab application, it can be said that it is easy to understand by users, judging from the tests conducted on 5 respondents with an average time spent on each task of 9.6 seconds and no click errors. As a result, the process of redesigning this display design is fairly well understood by users because users can complete tasks easily. The redesign of the appearance of the iSolokKab application is expected to be a reference and improve the quality of the performance of the iSolokKab application itself.

How a project design becomes a macro-actor: laboratory simulations in trials of strength between competing bridge designs, project budgets and sustainability

PurposeThis paper shows how Bruno Latour’s novel work and methodological approach can enrich management and organization studies, accounting and science and technology studies on what it takes to redesign sustainable societal infrastructures. Latour’s notions of trials of strength, macro-actor and design as redesign are used in a case study to describe and analyse how the laboratory becomes decisive in negotiating the bridge design and project budget to the benefit of a more sustainable transport infrastructure.Design/methodology/approachLatour’s notion of the detective-author is used to research and write a longitudinal qualitative case study that reconstructs the project processes and chain of related events by following the actors/actants.FindingsThe case analysis shows how a project design becomes an emerging powerful macro-actor through the mobilization of laboratory simulations and calculations. The role of the project budget changes; from a strong supporting role as input to a decision option in favour of a cheaper stayed bridge to a weak role as an output from a process of redesign supporting a much larger, costlier and more sustainable suspension bridge.Originality/valueWe use Latour’s methodological approach to engage primarily in detailed process descriptions to go beyond the often-pointless call for further theory development and to rather account for what is at work in specific situations. Latour’s notions of redesign as an outcome from trials of strength, we consider a useful approach to further our understanding since it also takes account of the distributed knowledge production that is integral to the actors’ cognitions and recognitions. Relatedly, the specific Latourian notion of redesign opens up new avenues for researching the more or less powerful role accounting devices such as a project budget can play in valuing, supporting and/or undermining the design of sustainable societal infrastructures.

The Effects of Digitalization on the Sustainability of Small Farms

Digitalization of agriculture is one of the priorities of the EU’s rural development strategy “From Field to Table”, which promotes the creation of more added value and climate change mitigation in agriculture. A growing body of the literature argues that digitalization enables better information management, reduces production costs, and increases the potential for farm income growth, but only a few papers provide empirical studies on how digitalization improves the performance of small farms. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper presents a case study as empirical evidence of the impact of digital innovation on smallholder performance through a sustainable development lens. This paper reports research based on a pilot digitalization project implemented on a small organic farm. It examines the identification of logical links between the digitalization processes introduced and the impact of digitalization on the economic, social, and environmental performance of the small farm. The case study data were collected through semi-structured interviews and based on the results of a pilot project. The findings of this study provide evidence that the introduction of digital technologies has improved the economic performance of the farm, including a reduction in labor costs, improved customer relations, improvements in farmers’ investment planning, and process redesign. Based on this study, recommendations are made to policymakers on how to promote the uptake of digital technologies in smallholder farming.

Enhancing Package Ergonomics for Arthritis Consumers: A Case Study

ABSTRACTBecause arthritis and limited dexterity affect at least 25% of the US adult population (1) and these issues can make packaging more difficult to open, there has been an overall increase in interest about inclusive packaging (2). Inclusive packaging is designed to ensure that the largest number of consumers possible will be able to open a package without serious difficulty. When designing for those with arthritis, testing is often done using simulation technologies that impair hand and joint movements, such as the Cambridge Simulation Gloves (CSG). However, not all packages have been evaluated for inclusive design, and as such, the goal of this study was to use CSG to evaluate several representative packages currently in the marketplace for inclusivity and to redesign the one deemed most challenging for those with impaired dexterity. The study evaluated product packages that were deemed non‐inclusive, identified common trends between these products, including the necessity for fine finger movements, existence of small gripping areas, and opening mechanisms with little clearance between the two surfaces. Of the products examined, a common aspirin package, was found to be the most difficult to open—it was nearly impossible to lift the seal while wearing the CSG and the package required the most time to open. As such, this product was selected to undergo redesign, and this redesign focused on the tamper evident induction seal. The redesign process involved prototyping an included finger loop and then testing the prototypes using the CSG. This led to a final design consisting of a loop attached to the induction seal, which was then tested with the CSG to evaluate its effectiveness. This study shows the utility of incorporating the CSG into the preliminary design process as opposed to only at the final test of the product. Furthermore, the findings of the study strongly suggest that in designing inclusive packaging for those with limited dexterity, decreasing the required fine finger and joint movements and increasing the gripping areas, especially those involved in the opening mechanism of the package, are the most useful changes to make.

Planning, Designing, Rendering and Model Making of Institutional Building Using Autocad, Sketchup and Rhino

Abstract: This paper presents a holistic methodology for retroactively planning, designing, rendering, and model making of Dr. Lankapalli Bullayya College, an existing educational institution employee AutoCAD, Sketchup and Rhino software. The approach aims to enhance the colleges architectural features, visualize potential renovations, and communicate design proposals effectively. Beginning with AutoCAD, precise measurements and existing floor plans are digitized to establish a comprehensive foundation for the redesign process. Sketchup is then utilized to create 3D models of thecollege, allowing for virtual exploration of design modifications and spatial arrangements. Rhino software further refines the 3D models, incorporating intricate details and architectural enhancement.Rendering techniques are applied using both Sketchup and Rhino, enriching visualizations with realisticmaterials, lighting effects and contextual elements. These rendered images serve as valuable Tools for stakeholders to visualize proposed changes and provide feedback. In the model making phase, a combination of digital fabrication methods and traditional model making techniques are employed to produce physical prototypes of the redesigned college. These models facilitate a tangible understanding ofspecial relationships and design interventions, aiding in decision making process andcommunity engagement.By integrating AutoCAD, Sketchup, and Rhino, this approach offers a comprehensivesolution for retroactivearchitectural design, enabling stakeholders to re imagine and revitalize existing structuressuchasDr.Lankapalli BullayyaCollegewith efficiency and precision. This project focuses on the planning, designing, rendering and model making of Dr. Lankapalli Bullayya College, leveraging AutoCAD, Sketchup and Rhino. The completed structure serves as the basis for refining architectural elements and visual representations. Through the integration of the software tools, the projectaimsto optimize the collegesspecial layout, aesthetic appeal and functional efficiency

The Town Crier: A Use-Case Design and Implementation for a Socially Assistive Robot in Retirement Homes

The use of new assistive technologies in general, and Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) in particular, is becoming increasingly common for supporting people’s health and well-being. However, it still faces many issues regarding long-term adherence, acceptability and utility. Most of these issues are due to design processes that insufficiently take into account the needs, preferences and values of intended users. Other issues are related to the currently very limited amount of long-term evaluations, performed in real-world settings, for SARs. This study presents the results of two regional projects that consider as a starting hypothesis that the assessment in controlled environments and/or with short exposures may not be enough in the design of an SAR deployed in a retirement home and the necessity of designing for and with users. Thus, the proposed methodology has focused on use-cases definitions that follow a human-centred and participatory design approach. The main goals have been facilitating system acceptance and attachment by involving stakeholders in the robots design and evaluation, overcoming usage barriers and considering user’s needs integration. The implementation of the first use-case deployed and the two-phase pilot test performed in a retirement home are presented. In particular, a detailed description of the interface redesign process based on improving a basic prototype with users’ feedback and recommendations is presented, together with the main results of a formal evaluation that has highlighted the impact of changes and improvements addressed in the first redesign loop of the system.

Facilitating the comprehension of business process models for unexperienced modelers using token-based animations

Process models are structured representations of workflows in an organization that provide a powerful tool for facilitating communication and process redesign or improvement. Model comprehension is challenging for beginning modelers. This study scrutinizes the effect of token-animated process models on novice modelers’ comprehension in an experiment with 229 participants. The study is grounded in the theory of distributed cognition as well as other cognition theories. The results confirm the significant impact of token-animated models on comprehension. Several individual characteristics were found to be important as well. Given that the animations were well accepted, token animation can be considered a resourceful technique for pragmatic and educational purposes.

Critical literacies, imagination and the affective turn: Postgraduate students’ redesigns of race and gender in South African higher education

In this paper, we build on critical literacy scholarship and the affective turn, focusing particularly on the redesign process. A close and critical textual analysis of student responses to two assignments in the postgraduate education module Language and Literacy, Theories and Practices, enables us to trace the critical-creative-affective moves that students made when required to analyse and redesign university student recruitment advertisements. Students’ analyses and redesigns illustrate 1) how identification/disidentification with issues of power across gender, race, and (de)coloniality enable them to enter ‘relations of affective solidarity’ as a complex form of empathy, 2) the nuanced negotiations of affect in doing critical literacies across reading and redesign and 3) the ways in which affect surfaces differently for each student across contrasting genres and ‘revealed spaces’ (Boler, 1999).

DBR based Redesign cycle of a TLS on Dynamics for High School

In this paper, the process of the design a Teaching Learning Sequence (TLS) on Newton’s Law for high school is presented. The design of the TLS follows Design Based Research (DBR) methodology First, the grasp of the design is going to be presented to later, present the data obtained after the application of instruments designed to evaluate the TLS regarding the students achievement and the quality of the TLS. How we involved in-service teachers to participate in the design and redesign process and the implementation of the TLS is also explained.

Extracting the explore‐exploit intelligence of Physarum to manage the sustainability of an enterprise network

AbstractIn this work, we enhance the sustainability of an enterprise network (EN) by complementing it with an expert system that apprehends the explore‐exploit behavioural intelligence of Physarum to survive against the attractive‐adversarial nutritional environment. EN sustainability is dynamic since it depends on how well EN can react to an adversarial environment. We capture a reverse analogy to characterize EN's workload‐environment with Physarum's nutritive‐environment, where the high volume of workloads at the backbone network corresponds to a poor‐nutrient environment. The expert system explores EN to find out how to manage the workloads as Physarum handles its survivability, and exploits the users' workload patterns by grouping the highly communicating users together to redesign the network structure as Physarum's intelligence to exploit energy from rich‐ and poor‐nutrient food sources through redesigned tubular structures. We define two factors, such as nutrient‐intensity and chemo‐attractant to aid the redesign process. EN evolves through a set of redesigned clusters with an objective function to maximize its sustainability for a given set of explored workloads by minimizing the workloads through the backbone. EN evolution terminates when there is no change in the backbone utilization, resembling the organism's stay in a dormant state until it experiences a favourable environment. Our experimental results on an EN with a higher volume of workloads at the backbone producing 14.26 kWh energy consumption demonstrated that the developed expert system reduced the energy consumption to 11.27 kWh, thus enhanced the sustainability from 21% to 61%.

Block-Level Goal Recognition Design

Existing works on goal recognition design (GRD) consider the underlying domain as a classical planning domain and apply modifications to the domain to minimize the worst case distinctiveness. In this paper, we propose replacing existing modifications with blocks, which group several closely related modifications together such that a block can modify a region in a search space with respect to some design constraints. Moreover, there could be blocks within blocks such that the design space becomes hierarchical for modifications at different levels of granularity. We present 1) a new version of pruned-reduce, a successful pruning rule for GRD, for block-level GRD, and 2) a new pruning rule for pruning some branches in both hierarchical and non-hierarchical design space. Our experiments show that searching in hierarchical design spaces greatly speeds up the redesign process.

Implementing a new living concept for persons with dementia in long-term care: evaluation of a quality improvement process

BackgroundImproving quality of nursing home care for residents is a constant focus of stakeholders involved within quality improvement projects. Though, achieving change in long-term care is challenging. Process evaluations provide insight into the nature, exposure and experiences of stakeholders and influencing mechanisms for implementation. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the process and facilitating and hindering mechanisms of implementing a quality improvement project that seeks to create a dementia-friendly community with a nursing home at its core.MethodsFor the process evaluation we planned a case study design with an ethnographic approach. Various research methods were used: qualitative observations, focus groups, interviews and questionnaires for various stakeholders and document review. Data collection and analyses in this study is based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.ResultsFour main lessons were learned. Firstly, nursing staff are crucial to achieve more freedom for residents. Secondly, high-impact changes in daily care need strong and sustainable focus from the care organisation. Thirdly, dementia-friendly societies should be deployed from multiple actors, which entails long-term collaborations with external stakeholders. Fourthly, the transition to a dementia-friendly society requires meeting spaces for and a focus on both residents and people from the community. Consequently, local residents are shifting from external to internal stakeholders, extending beyond the regular involvement of informal carers and volunteers within the nursing home.ConclusionsNursing homes are part of the local community and provide opportunities to collaborate on a dementia-friendly society. However, the change that is required (promoting freedom, residents’ autonomy and the redesign of care processes) is complex and influenced by various mechanisms. Understanding these mechanisms can benefit other care organisations that strive to implement a similar initiative.

Reorganization of mitochondria-organelle interactions during postnatal development in skeletal muscle.

Skeletal muscle cellular development requires the integrated assembly of mitochondria and other organelles adjacent to the sarcomere in support of muscle contractile performance. However, it remains unclear how interactions among organelles and with the sarcomere relates to the development of muscle cell function. Here, we combine 3D volume electron microscopy, proteomic analyses, and live cell functional imaging to investigate the postnatal reorganization of mitochondria-organelle interactions in skeletal muscle. We show that while mitochondrial networks are disorganized and loosely associated with the contractile apparatus at birth, contact sites among mitochondria, lipid droplets and the sarcoplasmic reticulum are highly abundant in neonatal muscles. The maturation process is characterized by a transition to highly organized mitochondrial networks wrapped tightly around the muscle sarcomere but also to less frequent interactions with both lipid droplets and the sarcoplasmic reticulum. Concomitantly, expression of proteins involved in mitochondria-organelle membrane contact sites decreases during postnatal development in tandem with a decrease in abundance of proteins associated with sarcomere assembly despite an overall increase in contractile protein abundance. Functionally, parallel measures of mitochondrial membrane potential, NADH redox status, and NADH flux within intact cells revealed that mitochondria in adult skeletal muscle fibres maintain a more activated electron transport chain compared with neonatal muscle mitochondria. These data demonstrate a developmental redesign reflecting a shift from muscle cell assembly and frequent inter-organelle communication toward a muscle fibre with mitochondrial structure, interactions, composition and function specialized to support contractile function. KEY POINTS: Mitochondrial network organization is remodelled during skeletal muscle postnatal development. The mitochondrial outer membrane is in frequent contact with other organelles at birth and transitions to more close associations with the contractile apparatus in mature muscles. Mitochondrial energy metabolism becomes more activated during postnatal development. Understanding the developmental redesign process within skeletal muscle cells may help pinpoint specific areas of deficit in muscles with developmental disorders.

Face and content validity of a mobile delirium screening tool adapted for use in the medical setting (eDIS-MED): Welcome to the machine.

Following a user-centred redesign and refinement process of an electronic delirium screening tool (eDIS-MED), further accuracy assessment was performed prior to anticipated testing in the clinical setting. Content validity of each of the existing questions was evaluated by an expert group in the domains of clarity, relevance and importance. Questions with a Content Validity Index (CVI) <0.80 were reviewed by the development group for potential revision. Items with CVI <0.70 were discarded. Next, face validity of the entirety of the tests was conducted and readability measured. A panel of five clinical experts evaluated the test battery comprising eDIS-MED. The content validity process endorsed 61 items. The overall scale CVI was 0.92. Eighty-eight per cent of the responses with regard to question relevancy, usefulness and appropriateness were positive. The questions were deemed fifth grade level and very easy to read. A revised electronic screening tool was shown to be accurate according to an expert group. A clinical validation study is planned.

Hybrid architecture to support the intelligent mapping and redesign of organizational processes

The objective of this article was to develop and apply a Hybrid Architecture (HA) based on Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Architecture (EA) with TOGAF and Process Mining (PM) to support the intelligent mapping and redesign of organizational processes. The experiments were carried out in four phases: company selection, data selection, computational experiments and comparison of results. The comparison of the results showed that with the application of AH the mapping time was reduced by 60%, the number of people involved by 50% and a 20% reduction in the return time to the customer. The number of activities mapped with AH increased from 19 to 27, that is, 42% more than in the traditional method. It was concluded that AH contributed intelligence, agility and discovery of knowledge not perceptible with other methods to support intelligent mapping and redesign of organizational processes.

REENGINEERING BUSINESS PROCESSES IN THE CONTEXT OF ENSURING INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRISES

The deep and prolonged socio-economic crisis observed in Ukraine in recent years has caused a number of problems in the development of domestic enterprises. Financial instability, inflationary processes, devaluation of the national currency, and now the challenges of a full-scale war and the consequences of active hostilities on the territory of Ukraine have led to an imbalance in the system of inter-sectoral relations. Constant missile attacks and extensive damage caused by the aggressor country's terrorist actions have significantly destabilised the operations of Ukrainian enterprises, critically limiting their resource capabilities (human, material, financial) and, consequently, their competitive potential. Significant uncertainty and turbulence in the external environment as a result of a combination of internal and external destabilising factors in the context of wartime challenges have made strategic planning impossible for producers. Therefore, the issues of finding approaches for effective management of enterprises, their restructuring and rehabilitation by identifying development priorities and formulating policies for their implementation are of particular relevance. The purpose of the study is to analyse theoretical and methodological approaches to the implementation of anti-crisis management models, to rethink the concept of enterprise development in terms of the need for strategic changes in the new economic realities, and to make a critical assessment of the system of management technologies, one of which is business process reengineering. To achieve this goal, general scientific methods of cognition were used: deduction and induction, analysis and synthesis, and generalisation. An important result of the work is the identification of a relevant link between the achievement of sustainable development goals, ensuring inclusiveness of activities and the content of business process reengineering as an anti-crisis paradigm in the current economic environment of Ukrainian enterprises. The results obtained are of practical value for economic systems focused on radical redesign and fundamental rethinking of business processes in order to achieve a significant improvement in the quality of human capital use.