Radical Re-engineering Research Articles

Delivering the Smart Grid: Challenges for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Research

Restructuring electricity grids to meet the increased demand caused by the electrification of transport and heating, while making greater use of intermittent renewable energy sources, represents one of the greatest engineering challenges of our day. This modern electricity grid, in which both electricity and information flow in two directions between large numbers of widely distributed suppliers and generators — commonly termed the ‘smart grid’ — represents a radical reengineering of infrastructure which has changed little over the last hundred years. However, the autonomous behaviour expected of the smart grid, its distributed nature, and the existence of multiple stakeholders each with their own incentives and interests, challenges existing engineering approaches. In this challenge paper, we describe why we believe that artificial intelligence, and particularly, the fields of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems are essential for delivering the smart grid as it is envisioned. We present some recent work in this area and describe many of the challenges that still remain.

New Applications of Synthetic Biology Tools for Cyanobacterial Metabolic Engineering.

Cyanobacteria are promising microorganisms for sustainable biotechnologies, yet unlocking their potential requires radical re-engineering and application of cutting-edge synthetic biology techniques. In recent years, the available devices and strategies for modifying cyanobacteria have been increasing, including advances in the design of genetic promoters, ribosome binding sites, riboswitches, reporter proteins, modular vector systems, and markerless selection systems. Because of these new toolkits, cyanobacteria have been successfully engineered to express heterologous pathways for the production of a wide variety of valuable compounds. Cyanobacterial strains with the potential to be used in real-world applications will require the refinement of genetic circuits used to express the heterologous pathways and development of accurate models that predict how these pathways can be best integrated into the larger cellular metabolic network. Herein, we review advances that have been made to translate synthetic biology tools into cyanobacterial model organisms and summarize experimental and in silico strategies that have been employed to increase their bioproduction potential. Despite the advances in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering during the last years, it is clear that still further improvements are required if cyanobacteria are to be competitive with heterotrophic microorganisms for the bioproduction of added-value compounds.

The Role of Electronic Business in the Reengeneering and Integration of Business Processes

Abstract Electronic business leads to the reengineering of business processes in a company, which encompasses integrating processes through customer relationship management, supply chain management, and an enterprise resource planning system. The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of electronic business on enterprise transformation through reengineering and integration of business processes. The significance of the research is to emphasise management problems and challenges encountered by companies due to electronic business and application of information technologies. The research applies an analytical method to examine the effects of electronic business on business processes. The main contribution of the research is to look at electronic business as an initiator and the cause of radical changes in business processes characterised as reengineering. By transforming their business practices into electronic business, companies make significant efforts in their restructuring in order to deal with the changes in the competitive environment. The basis of these efforts is a redesign and change of business processes. The conclusion is that introducing the Internet and Web-technologies in business does not require only a radical reengineering of existing basic business processes but also generation of new ones, which would support the new business environment.

Anesthesiologists and the Transformation of the Healthcare System

Anesthesiologists and the Transformation of the Healthcare System

Telemedicine options appraisal for a health district--a strategic clinical and business case.

A clinical and business plan examined five areas in which telemedicine could be introduced to support the strategic objectives of a large health authority: coronary heart disease; links between community hospitals and local care centres and acute hospitals; store-and-forward consultations; care in the community; and mental health. The plan identified substantial clinical, organizational and economic potential benefits, which were greatest when a radical re-engineering of the service was envisaged. Similar studies in other health districts would help to test these conclusions and inform future health service planning.

The emergence of managed care in Europe. Some thoughts on the politics of healthcare reform.

It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate that healthcare reform in Europe can be successful only if it leads to more efficient resource use while maintaining a large degree of equity in the system. Globalisation is undermining the social contracts that established Europe's egalitarian societies after World War II. While socialised healthcare will continue to be an essential building block of social cohesion, public expenditures must be contained. The only approach to maintaining equity of access and financing in the face of a mounting resource constraint is to embark upon a radical re-engineering of the entire healthcare supply chain, introducing and adapting proven US managed-care techniques to the European environment. Through enabling legislation, most European countries are in a phase of testing the feasibility, cost effectiveness and quality enhancement potential of managed-care approaches, before applying them more broadly. While political opposition to change on the part of those whose current positions are threatened continues to run high, the practice of medicine can be expected to converge on the basis of standards of care and information technology over the next 10 to 15 years.

Reengineering the Political/Educational System

ABSTRACT This paper examines the potential for radical reengineering of the education system. It proposes radical changes in the political/educational governance interface of education. It puts forward five 'key rules' for effective reengineering of the approach to educational governance. It argues that educational reform is both possible and practicable given the political will 'to do the impossible'.

In Pursuit of the Re‐Engineering Agenda in Public Administration

The article examines the findings from longitudinal case study work conducted in the 1992‐96 period in two organizations in the United Kingdom health care and post office sectors. The study highlights the many cultural, political and technical issues that emerge in the strategy and implementation of IT‐enabled re‐engineering projects. The radical re‐engineering perspective and model for change presented by Hammer and Champy (1993) are compared against empirical findings. These suggest that the Hammer and Champy advice contains many limitations. The cases show the specific circumstances in which radical re‐engineering can be effective, in managerial terms, but also point to conditions under which a unitary perspective on the organization often cannot address adequately many critical political and cultural issues. Moreover, the case histories point to the dangers of an over reliance on a methodological holism that can rarely be delivered in complex large‐scale organizations, given the scale of change envisaged; and the difficulties engendered by over‐emphasizing the need for transformation, and ‘starting again’, and downplaying the role of history and continuity in both the study and management of organizational change.

Information technology and radical re-engineering: Emerging issues in major projects

Abstract The paper examines the findings from longitudinal case study work conducted in the 1992–95 period in two organizations in the United Kingdom insurance and health care sectors. The study highlights the many cultural, political, and technical issues that emerge in the strategy and implementation of large-scale radical re-engineering projects. The radical re-engineering perspective and model for change presented by Hammer and Champy (1993) are compared against empirical findings. These suggest that the Hammer and Champy advice contains many limitations. The cases show the specific circumstances in which radical re-engineering can be effective in managerial terms, but also point to conditions under which a unitary perspective on the organization often cannot address adequately many critical political and cultural issues. Moreover the case histories point to (1) the dangers of an over-reliance on a methodological holism that can be rarely delivered on in complex large-scale organizations, given the scale of change envisaged; and (2) the difficulties engendered by overemphasizing the need for transformation and “starting again”, and downplaying the role of history and continuity in both the study and management of organizational change.

Overcoming Resistance to TQM

Managers tasked with implementing TQM in their organizations—whether through gradual, continual improvement or by radical reengineering—frequently encounter the strongest resistance to the cultural...

Modelling in the re-engineering process

Terms like Business Process Re-engineering and Business Re-engineering have their origins in the publications of Hammer (Hammer, 199 0) and Davenport (Davenport & Short, 1990). As it is stated in (Soles, 1994), one of the key ideas of Re-engineering is to 'focus analysis on business processes across the firm with customer satisfication in view'. We define a business process as ' a set of logical ly interrelated activities within an organisation the execution of which contributes in the achievement of the business objectives '. In Re-engineering the analysis of business processes is combined with advanced information systems technology (IT). In this way, IT acts as an enabler for realizing new products which satisfy the users' needs along the lines of business process analysis results. W orkflow Management Systems are an example of systems that can be used as tools for implementing and executing business processes (White amp; Fischer, 1914). Re-engineering can start in an enterprise only if the enterprise's strategic management has realised that there is a need for change and for reformulation of the enterprise's vision. Usually the enterprise's strategic management selects the business process(es) that should be re-engineered. Re-engineering corresponds to the second process within the Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) - Framework (Karagiannis, 1994, Sep.) which considers all the activities, that have be executed while dealing with business processes, as processes themselves. The Re-engineering Process may be seen as consisting of a number of subprocesses (Karagiannis, 1994, May; Soles, 1994). Here, the Re -engineering Process is viewed as consisting of four main subprocesses (see Fig. 1, below): • Goal Definition, where the re-engineering goals are defined. • Information Acquisition, where information necessary for business process modelling, (like activities, people, roles, control etc.) as well as information needed for the Re-engineering Process (like cost, time, specific laws etc.) is collected. • Modelling which deals with the modelling of the (new) business process. • Evaluation which is concerned with the evaluation of the business process model against the re-engineering goals. Depending on the evaluation results, the subprocesses of Information Acquisition, Modelling and Evaluation may be iteratively executed until all the re-engineering goals (defined during the Goal Definition subprocess), have been reached. These four subprocesses may be differently 'instantiated', depending on the chosen methodology. For example, Hammer says that re-engineering teams should try to think as companies are starting anew. This means that, the execution of the In formation Acquisition sub process depends on whether it is executed within a 'radical re-engineering approach' (Hammer & Champy, 1993) or within an 'increment al re-engineering approach' (Davenport, 1993). Furthermore, a number of different techniques may be used for each of these subprocesses. For example, animation, simulation or statistical analysis are some of the techniques that may be used for Evaluation . The use of a specific technique is also a characteristic of the chosen methodology. The focus of this paper is on the third subprocess of the Re-engineering Process, i.e. on Modelling . This subprocess is the core of the Re-engineering Process as the goals of a re-engineering project can only be reached if the business process is analysed properly and afterwards implemented according to the constructed business process model. A general description of Modelling is given in section 2. As it can be seen in Fig. 2, Modelling may be viewed as consisting of three tasks, namely: Choose Modelling Philosophy, Choose a Modelling Formalism and Apply Formalism to the selected Business Process . In section 2 a brief description of the business process objects to be modelled is given and a number of requirements to be satisfied by business process modelling formalisms is set. The first modelling task is analysed in section 3. Business process modelling approaches are classified under two modeling paradigms, namely task-oriented paradigm and business policy-oriented paradigm. The other two modelling tasks are analysed in section 4 by describing and comparing two representative approaches of the two modelling paradigms which are applied to the same example. Finally, section 5 draws some conclusions from this work and focusses on issues which still remain open in this area and gives some suggestions for further work.

Catalog outsourcing at Wright State University: Implications for acquisitions managers

In 1993, the administration of the Wright State University Libraries decided to outsource its cataloging operations to improve the quality and reduce the costs of cataloging. A number of alternatives were considered and rejected; outsourcing was deemed to be the most appropriate solution for WSU. The decision was influenced by the business management literature that advocates radical reengineering of processes. Although some acquisitions processes have been performed for years by vendors, these processes should be reexamined and questioned, especially with the rise of electronic publishing. Increased outsourcing of acquisitions may be one answer. Even with outsourcing, acquisitions managers will still be required, but they will need a broad set of skills and qualities to face the new electronic environment. These skills are outlined and discussed.