World-class Operations Research Articles

Achieving World Class Performance in Oil and Gas Industry Using Inherently Safer Design

Hazard Identification, consequence evaluation, risk mitigation analysis, and management of effective safeguards are key to effective risk (safety) management. The high hazard industry, in its quest to achieve safer operations, has developed several risk assessment techniques that prescribe the addition of safeguards, usually safety systems, as the primary means to mitigate risk. This has led to complexity and not necessarily safer plants as evidenced by a trail of major process safety incidents.High profile incidents with associated asset losses, increased public concern on safety issues and changes to regulatory expectations have driven the industry to consider inherently safer design (ISD) options. Chevron, on its journey to achieve world class operations, has adopted and deployed ISD principles during the execution of major capital projects (MCPs). As early as the alternatives generation stage of a MCP, projects rigorously evaluate options that allow for simpler and robust facility design.This paper is based on the systematic application of ISD principles in offshore MCPs. The paper share examples of how ISD was applied in early MCP engineering phases and the benefits of the structured ISD application.

A Study on Usage of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) in Selected SMEs

In the present competitive economic environment, it is very much essential for the manufacturing plants to achieve world class operation standards along with high quality and timely delivery of goods. This requires excellent maintenance practices to increase the availability of the machines, to reduce production cost and to produce goods with desired quality level. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) implementation is an approach to improve the performance of maintenance activities. It aims to maximize the equipment effectiveness by the total participation of all employees. But most of the manufacturing plants are not able to harvest the benefits of TPM practices due to lack of planning and proper awareness. This work is carried out in order to study the usage of TPM in the selected SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises). A total of 50 SMEs involving manufacturing, process and service industries are considered for the study. The primary data is collected through a structured questionnaire consisting of 24 questions related to TPM implementation. The respondents are randomly selected involving chief executives, engineers, managers and supervisors. A five point Likert scale is selected to rate the respondent’s opinion. The results are analysed using simple graphical representations and conclusions are drawn based on the feedback obtained from the respondents. It has been found that 52% of SMEs (26 out of 50) have adopted TPM in their organizations and remaining 48% have not yet implemented TPM. The study helps to find out the extent to which the TPM being used in SMEs and what are the possible reasons for not implementing TPM.

Validity and Reliability Evaluation of a Scale to Measure the Management of Total Productive Maintenance

Objectives: To explain the development of a questionnaire for the identification of the Critical Success Factors -CSF- of Total Productive Maintenance from the ample list of factors cited in the literature. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The questionnaire is constructed with the factors determined in the literature. The common method bias was discarded and several confirmatory analyses procedures tested the model fit. Other tests were applied for an adequate evaluation of psychometric properties and internal reliability. The main underlying proposal is the construct developed establishing a relationship between the TPM deployment and the improvement of operational performance. Findings: The questionnaire developed was validated psychometrically, was applied in 65 plants, receiving 306 questionnaires back. A ten-factor measuring model of the CSF related to TPM deployment was confirmed with different goodness of fit indexes (χ2=965.69, df=657, p 0.572 and the Common Method Bias evaluation indicates results are not biased. Validity of the construct for the operational performance subscale is acceptable, accordingly to Cua et al., 2001; Ma Kone et al., 2001; Konecny and Thun, 2011. Though Ciudad Juarez has a thirty plus years presence of multinational companies with twin plant (maquiladora) world-class operations, some techniques, such as TPM are deployed with noticeable differences among companies. The questionnaire allowed the identification of 34 influencing factors, specifically, the CSF and best practices for the TPM effective application and measures their impact in operational performance. Application/Improvements: This enhancement of the TPM explanatory capabilities allows the companies deploying it to have a better chance of success managing TPM projects under a CSF approach and better practices focus. Keywords: Classifier, Feature Extraction, Feature Vector, Key Frame, Shot, Training and Testing Data Set

The coastal heavy mineral sand deposits of Africa

The trailing margin of the stable African continent is the depositional environment of several heavy mineral placer deposits of which seven have developed into viable world class operations producing titanium feedstock (ilmenite, rutile, leucoxene) and zircon. At least 30 other deposits are marginal under the present global economic climate but have the potential to be turned into account in the medium term with an increase in demand and higher commodity prices. Combined, the seven operating mines are the biggest single producer of titanium feedstock in the world and the second largest producer of zircon after Australia. Mineral resources are vast and the extensive African coastline offers significant exploration potential and possibly is the largest depository of valuable heavy minerals (VHM) on the planet. Generally, Pliocene to Holocene unconsolidated, siliciclastic sands of predominantly marine-aeolian, but locally fluvial origin host the heavy mineral suite and deposits are large coast-parallel dune fields with or without minor strandlines. Tonnages of these deposits are large and in several instances exceed a billion tons with grades between 2 and 12 percent total heavy minerals (THM). Deposit characteristics are influenced by continental tectonics, coastal morphology, sea level changes, tides, climate and the altered, eroded nature and composition of the provenance. The formation of an economically viable deposit requires the juxtaposition of most, if not all of these conditions to favour heavy mineral concentration with a high VHM content. Mining is by open cast using either dry mechanized, hydraulic monitoring, or floating dredge and wet concentrator methodologies. Mineral separation uses physical properties such as density, magnetic susceptibility and electrical conductivity to produce high quality concentrates for the international market. Only three of the mines, all located in South Africa, have their own smelters that convert ilmenite into titanium slag and pig iron. Coastal environments are all eco-sensitive and mine site rehabilitation is employed throughout, including effective disposal of radiogenic tailings associated with high U+Th zircon and monazite. The most effective exploration methods for these deposits include identification of trailing continental margins with Neogene to Quaternary coastal strandlines and dune fields spatially related to geomorphological features such as headlands and significant fluvial systems. High-resolution ground and aeromagnetic surveys reflecting ilmenite and traces of magnetite, coupled with radiometric surveys related to monazite and high U+Th zircon content have been the most effective geophysical methods for these deposits. Reconnaissance followed by detailed infill drilling of anomalous areas by truck mounted rotary drill to collect samples for THM and VHM determinations is the industry standard.

The Pransky interview: Dr William “Red” Whittaker, Robotics Pioneer, Professor, Entrepreneur

Purpose The following paper details a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky, Associate Editor of Industrial Robot Journal, to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned successful business leader, regarding the commercialization and challenges of bringing technological inventions to the market while overseeing a company. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is Dr William “Red” Whittaker, Fredkin Research Professor of Robotics, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU); CEO of Astrobotic Technology; and President of Workhorse Technologies. Dr Whittaker provides answers to questions regarding the pioneering experiences of some of his technological wonders in land, sea, air, underwater, underground and space. Findings As a child, Dr Whittaker built things and made them work and dreamed about space and robots. He has since then turned his dreams, and those of the world, into realities. Dr Whittaker’s formal education includes a BS degree in civil engineering from Princeton and MS and PhD degrees in civil engineering from CMU. In response to designing a robot to cleanup radioactive material at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, Dr Whittaker established the Field Robotics Center (FRC) in 1983. He is also the founder of the National Robotics Engineering Center, an operating unit within CMU’s Robotics Institute (RI), the world’s largest robotics research and development organization. Dr Whittaker has developed more than 60 robots, breaking new ground in autonomous vehicles, field robotics, space exploration, mining and agriculture. Dr Whittaker’s research addresses computer architectures for robots, modeling and planning for non-repetitive tasks, complex problems of objective sensing in random and dynamic environments and integration of complete robot systems. His current focus is Astrobotic Technology, a CMU spin-off firm that is developing space robotics technology to support planetary missions. Dr Whittaker is competing for the US$20m Google Lunar XPRIZE for privately landing a robot on the Moon. Originality/value Dr Whittaker coined the term “field robotics” to describe his research that centers on robots in unconstrained, uncontrived settings, typically outdoors and in the full range of operational and environmental conditions: robotics in the “natural” world. The Field Robotics Center has been one of the most successful initiatives within the entire robotics industry. As the Father of Field Robotics, Dr Whittaker has pioneered locomotion technologies, navigation and route-planning methods and advanced sensing systems. He has directed over US$100m worth of research programs and spearheaded several world-class robotic explorations and operations with significant outreach, education and technology commercializations. His ground vehicles have driven thousands of autonomous miles. Dr Whittaker won DARPA’s US$2m Urban Challenge. His Humvees finished second and third in the 2005 DARPA’s Grand race Challenge desert race. Other robot projects have included: Dante II, a walking robot that explored an active volcano; Nomad, which searched for meteorites in Antarctica; and Tugbot, which surveyed a 1,800-acre area of Nevada for buried hazards. Dr Whittaker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and served on the National Academy of Sciences Space Studies Board. Dr Whittaker received the Alan Newell Medal for Research Excellence. He received Carnegie Mellon’s Teare Award for Teaching Excellence. He received the Joseph Engelberger Award for Outstanding Achievement in Robotics, the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s inaugural Feigenbaum Prize for his contributions to machine intelligence, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Simon Ramo Medal, the American Society of Civil Engineers Columbia Medal, the Antarctic Service Medal and the American Spirit Honor Medal. Science Digest named Dr Whittaker one of the top 100 US innovators for his work in robotics. He has been recognized by Aviation Week & Space Technology and Design News magazines for outstanding achievement. Fortune named him a “Hero of US Manufacturing”. Dr Whittaker has advised 26 PhD students, has 16 patents and has authored over 200 publications. Dr Whittaker’s vision is to drive nanobiologics technology to fulfillment and create nanorobotic agents for enterprise on Earth and beyond (Figure 1).

Process Based Model of Business Excellence to Achieve World Class Status

This paper presents a new business excellence model based on critical business processes that are required to achieve world class operations. It is important to also evaluate the status of the firm as a world class company. 168 business practices have been identified and the results of business excellence have been measured by 29 performance indicators. Best global practices used in MNCs have been used for developing the model. This model has been tested in a sample of 75 top performing listed companies in India through Correlation, Median split t-tests, and Path analysis techniques. The study was conducted during 2009–2012. Important determinants of excellence in Indian companies have been identified. The model is simple to use by self assessment and gives clear directives on required benchmarks and processes.

My Addiction: The Artificial Kidney, The Rise and Fall of Dialysis

My Addiction: The Artificial Kidney, The Rise and Fall of Dialysis

The Relevance and Utility of World Class Operations to the University of Guyana

This paper explores the relevance and utility of World Class Operations to the University of Guyana in an erawhere time and distance no longer pose barriers to competition locally and internationally. It outlines the optionsavailable under a World Class Operations framework which can enable the university to progress beyond itspresent quality assurance initiative. The utilisation and implementation of world class operations strategies canallow the institution to not only achieve its present goal of producing programmes/graduate students fit forpurpose intended but also to gain a competitive edge over competitors and thus ensure the university’s continuedsurvival.

Developing world-class operations staff

Operations is a primary activity for a fund management business. As such, a business that wants to be world-class needs to have a leading operating model. A key element of such a model is the staff. It is necessary to put a sustained focus upon how to develop world-class operational staff to ensure the securities industry is fit to embrace the significant future developments that are expected.

Big Sky, Inc. (B): the Magasco Paper Mill

This case describes the people and events that transformed a strike and tension-ridden situation into a world-class operation. The case outlines the issues and personalities that created this remarkable change. See also the A case (UVA-OB-0396).

Book Review: Cases in Operations Management: Building Customer Value Through World-Class Operations

Book Review: Cases in Operations Management: Building Customer Value Through World-Class Operations

8C plus 6C management model for multi-national corporation: a locally compatible and globally fit culture model

Taking a macroperspective of world-class organisation, one can easily trace the corporate culture that develops within the enterprises and their employees. Corporate culture is indeed the soul of an organisation. It was suggested by scholars that the actual reason accounting for the prosperity of an organisation does not lie in its tough management program or management tools, but in their cultural elements rooting in an organisation and its distinctive corporate culture. In exploring the reasons for the prosperity of an organisation, these aspects are always being reviewed. How can organisations fully inspire the passion of all employees and deploy their strengths and talents? What the organisations would do to assist employees in pursuing their career path? In order to survive and thrive, organisations, independent of their sizes, should form their own beliefs, values and work ethics. They also should have a common platform for understanding of their employees, customers and business partners. In 1989, SAE moved their operation into China, the Guangdong Province, Dongguan City to set up its manufacturing facility. SAE started from scratch at a unique place with different culture, values, beliefs, perspectives, society system, norms etc. Facing the new environment and challenges, the staff did not show any sense of being strangers psychologically: on the contrary, they possessed high confidence in operating the new facility and were committed to building a world-class operation. This paper presents the SAE 8C Corporate Culture Model ( concern, communication, consensus, co-operation, commitment, control, creativity and contribution) which has a strong base of the ancient Chinese wisdom of The Analects of Confucius. This SAE 8C Corporate Culture Model influences the employee step-by-step in a progressive way and it basically has four levels: infancy, childhood, adulthood and parenthood level. In an effort to maintain sustainable superiority over the rivals in the marketplace, another add-on self-initiated continuous benchmarking process: SAE 6C self-actualisation engine ( committed, combative, concentrated, crazy, creative, and champion) is launched for further self-advancement.

TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING (TILT)

Mineral Resources EngineeringVol. 11, No. 01, pp. 129-135 (2002) Educators ForumNo AccessTECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING (TILT)ARUN J. BASU, RAJIVE GANGULI and JOHN R. STURGULARUN J. BASUImperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London, UK Search for more papers by this author , RAJIVE GANGULIUniversity of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA Search for more papers by this author and JOHN R. STURGULUniversity of Idaho, Moscow, USA Search for more papers by this author https://doi.org/10.1142/S0950609802000811Cited by:0 PreviousNext AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsRecommend to Library ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail AbstractMining engineering education is multidisciplinary and requires the learning of operational practices for engineering design, production planning and maintenance, in addition to the theoretical knowledge required in these areas. Moreover, the world-class operations are located in North America, Australia, South America and South Africa. The availability and development of current telecommunication technology merging internet, video-conferencing, and visualisation tools provide a great opportunity to implement these tools in the learning and teaching environment at Imperial College for teaching the best practice in mining engineering operations on a global scale.Presented at the APCOM 2002 — 30th Application of Computers & Operations Research in the Mineral Industry, 25–27 February, Phoenix, Arizona, USA FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Recommended Vol. 11, No. 01 Metrics History PDF download

A world class delicacy

While the manufacturing industry in general seems to be in decline, there will always be a demand for food and drink processing. Paula Boston describes a world class operation.

Gaylord Chemical Tries To Resuscitate DMSO

Gaylord Chemical Co. is trying to breathe new life into dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), an old and sometimes controversial product. Establishing DMSO as a reaction solvent has been an uphill struggle for the Slidell, La.-based company. In 1987, Gaylord Chemical, a subsidiary of Gaylord Container Corp., inherited the DMSO business from its predecessor, Crown Zellerbach. The enterprise was losing money, and its facilities were teetering on the brink of disaster. Our predecessor had not paid attention to the facilities for quite a while, Louis E. Zeillmann, Gaylord's chief executive, explains. We spent 10 years and $30 million rebuilding the plant and making it a world-class operation. There is nothing too exciting about what Gaylord Chemical does. It uses the black liquor stream from one of its parent company's paper mills in Bogalusa, La., to produce dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and DMSO. We make our products from a renewable resource—wood, Zeillmann says. We use about 3% of the ...

Competitiveness of Indian Manufacturing

This paper by Pankaj Chandra and Trilochan Sastry reports the findings of a survey to study the competitiveness of Indian manufacturing sector. The paper identifies the priorities of Indian manufacturing firms, the programmes that they undertake to reach their objectives, and the outcome or the performance of these firms. The authors also present some international comparisons based on a similar study done in the US. The paper highlights the role of innovation and supply chain management as a part of any robust manufacturing strategy in developing world-class operations.

Quality system an integral part of total quality management

A quality system is required to provide quality products or services to meet customer requirements and to generate profits to satisfy stockholders. A quality system consists of the organizational structure, responsibilities, processes and resources needed to achieve quality objectives for products, services, and customer satisfaction. The system is capable of sustaining the environment and means by which superior products and services are profitably designed, developed, and delivered to customers on time and defect free. A quality system also catalyzes an organization to become a learning organization. At the initial stage, the quality system drives systematic problem solving, experimentation with new approaches, and learning from experience and history. Furthermore, the quality system drives an organization to benchmark world-class operations as well as capture and apply the learned knowledge. This paper provides a thorough view of the quality system architecture, its required elements, and implementation approach.

Performance measurements in worldclass operations

No previously published research has developed a comprehensive set of requirements or critical factors that spans the literature. Offers a set of nine critical factors and 58 supporting performance measurements of world‐class operations (WCO) that have been synthesized from various authors. Proposes that it can be very useful to an organization attempting to identify those characteristics often mentioned in WCO literature that may provide an opportunity to implement core manufacturing strategies and a total global strategy. Managers can devise a plan to assess the current stages, determine the performance measurements, assign responsibilities and resources within the organization and monitor the progress for achieving company‐wide improvements towards WCO status and global competitiveness.

Framebreak: the radical redesign of American business

Part One: Business Not As Usual. 1. The Demise of the Modern Organization. 2. A Vision of the New Organization. Part Two: The New Order of Business. 3. Knowledge and Learning. 4. Recovery and Development. 5. World Service and Spirituality. 6. World-Class Operations. Part Three: The New Spirit of Business. 7. Radical Steps Toward a Radical Redesign. 8. Total Ethical Management