Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Project-based operations'

In this dissertation we address large, multiple-mode, resource-constrained project scheduling problems with the objective of minimizing makespan. After noting that projects often fail and new research is needed, we provide the formal definition of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem and review the existing literature. We then introduce a new model based on digital electronics. We conceptualize our model using agent technology and discuss it as extension of existing models with more representational power. We also describe how our model supports distributed planning. After implementing our model, we conduct two computational studies. In the first, we develop two agent types: basic and enhanced where the enhanced agent is more sophisticated in selecting an activity execution mode. We apply these agents to the scheduling of 500 instances of a small project originally published by Maroto and Tormos (1994). We evaluate the performance of the agents in conjunction with their use of eight heuristic prioritization rules: shortest and longest processing time, fewest and most immediate successors, smallest and greatest resource demand, earliest start time, and earliest due date. Our results show that enhanced agents consistently outperform basic agents while the results regarding priority rules were mixed. In the second computational study, we further develop our enhanced agents by providing still more sophisticated mode selection. We also evaluate static versus dynamic prioritization and two more priority rules: shortest and longest duration critical path. For this study we generated 2500, 5000, 7500, and 10000 activity projects. For each of these, we generated networks with complexities of 1.5, 1.8, and 2.1. For these twelve networks, we generated 20 problem instances for every possible combination of resource factor = 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.0 and resource strength = 0.2, 0.5, 0.8. We graphically evaluated scheduling performance, computation times, and failure rates and conducted an extensive statistical analysis. We found that enhanced agents using shortest processing time priority consistently produced the shortest schedules. However, these agents fail more often than basic agents. We found that dynamic prioritization requires more computation time, but provides little improvement in scheduling performance. We conclude this work with suggestions for future research.

Project-based organizations (PBOs) are becoming increasingly widespread and important for the modern economy and society. Thus, they attact significant scholarly attention to their distinctive features. The unit of analysis employed by the majority of the studies is the project-based organization as a whole. Hence, the locus of attention stays at the organizational level, whereas project-related effects are discussed in terms of aggregate properties. With very few exceptions, projects as distinct entities do not feature prominently in the discussion of project-based organizations. This observation creates an interesting paradox. In particular, when projects are discussed as separate units of analysis, their complex organizational dynamics, idiosyncrasies, and institutional embeddedness are among important loci of attention. However, when projects and project collections are discussed within the context of the PBO, the very same aspects tend to be downplayed. Most commonly, projects are either neglected or implicitly assumed to be homogeneous, interchangeable atomic units without internal structure or dynamics, obediently following orders of the parent organizations. Their internal organizational properties are overlooked and the individual-level variables are assumed to have little or no influence on the project outcomes. This thesis questions these assumptions and posits that understanding the dynamics at the project operations level might have important implications for explaining the effectiveness of management arrangements in the PBO. In particular, this thesis aims to explore the factors that shape project-based operations in the setting of the project-based organization. The thesis examines three particular factors which affect organizing of the project-based operations: (1) the content of operations; (2) the context of operations; and (3) the social processes at the operational level. Structurally, the thesis comprises a cover essay and four appended papers (three of them published in international peer-reviewed journals). Largely inductive in nature, the thesis builds on two research studies. The first study represents an in-depth “insider” case study of project-based operations in the Operations division of a large pharmaceutical company. It employs a combination of data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. The second study represents a structured framework-based literature review. Recognizing the organizational properties of projects, the thesis draws upon several literature streams within organization theory and design to analyze the empirical data. The results elaborate how the organizing of project-based operations in the PBO is shaped by the interplay between the content, intra-organizational and wider institutional contexts, as well as endogenous social processes. The thesis contributes to the literature on project-based organizations by developing an institutional, as well as extending a contingency perspective on organizing project-based operations. Further, the results call for revisiting the conceptualization of the PBO by questioning the view of projects as atomic and homogeneous units. Finally, the thesis contributes to the literature by developing an organization design perspective on the PBO. In terms of managerial implications, the thesis offers a few frameworks which can be used to support the decision-making process in a PBO. In particular, Paper I develops a contingency model of program management competences (the 3C model), Paper II derives a framework that can help PBO managers in evaluating the sources of isomorphic pressure on individual projects and programs, while Paper IV puts forth an organization design model for the PBO. At a more general level, Paper II discusses how the identified isomorphic processes within the PBO can limit flexibility, innovation, and efficiency. Finally, the cover essay discusses the important factors that need to be scrutinized in order to assess organizing of the project-based operations, such as the technical content, the project landscape and social landscape or the influence of institutionalised practices and models.

QC 20170508

Companies globally have lost profit each year because of the lack of intra-organizational knowledge sharing. The purpose of this descriptive, multiple case study was to explore the knowledge management practice strategies that project management business leaders use to improve knowledge sharing in project-based organizations. Nine project management business leaders from 4 project-based organizations in metro Atlanta, Georgia completed individual Skype/phone semistructured interviews, and 5 project team members completed an in-person focus group discussion and an interview questionnaire. Knowledge management was the conceptual framework for this study, the basis for understanding the world around project management business leaders, and the implementation of knowledge management practice strategies for knowledge sharing. The individual interviews, focus group discussion, and interview questionnaire yielded the lived experiences of project management business leaders and the perceptions of project team members regarding knowledge sharing in their project-based organizations. The data were analyzed through data source triangulation and cross-case synthesis, which resulted in various themes such as communication, practices to overcome barriers, and a centralized resource center. The findings of this study may effect positive social change and the improvement of knowledge sharing by promoting the worth, dignity, and development of individuals, communities, organizations, cultures, or societies.

The research made in the current master thesis uses theoretical framework from the area of project management, voluntary labor turnover and performance appraisal. Prior research based on existing literary sources allows assuming that the following factors, such as job alternatives, knowledge intensity and nature of work have specific relevance for the emergence of voluntary labor turnover in project-based organizations. Employees of the case study company-AGR Field Operations´ Maintenance Engineering department were interviewed and surveyed in order to determine the relevance of those factors on the example of a concrete project-based organization. The obtained results indicate that the nature of work is more significantly related to the emergence of the voluntary labor turnover in the given case study department. Whereas availability of more job alternatives due to being close to the client or knowledge intensity factor of becoming more generalist do not have the same influence. During the course of the research it was discovered that the department uses outcome-based type of performance appraisal which is proved to be unsuitable in the given organizational settings. To that matter there were provided further suggestions in the field of performance appraisal. The current research will attempt to identify specific factors contributing to the emergence of the voluntary labor turnover specifically for project-based organizations. As well as it will attempt to give suggestions for improvement of the concrete case study department´s performance appraisal tools and thus supplement turnover reduction actions already put in place by the department management.

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Práticas em gestão de projetos (GP), apesar de amplamente difundidas, utilizadas e pesquisadas, não garantem o desempenho (sucesso) do projeto em suas entregas em tempo e custos conforme planejamento. Observa-se que, apesar do uso extensivo de práticas de GP, falhas em relação ao atendimento do cronograma e orçamento são amplamente relatadas. Portanto, este trabalho tem como objetivo principal analisar a influência das práticas de gestão de projetos e do objetivo de desempenho no Comportamento de Cidadania Organizacional (OCB) da equipe de projetos. As dimensões que compuseram o OCB foram: Ajuda, Iniciativa e Compliance. Para testar a relação entre os fatores de práticas de GP (incipientes ou avançados) e objetivo de desempenho (normal ou desafiador) no comportamento da equipe foi utilizada a metodologia do experimento baseado em cenários (SBRP experiment). A amostra contou com 216 alunos de graduação e pós-graduação em administração. O estudo mostrou que a utilização de práticas em gestão de projetos não influenciou o Comportamento de Cidadania Organizacional da equipe de projetos. Entretanto, o objetivo de desempenho nas dimensões de tempo e custos influenciou o Comportamento Cidadão da equipe de projetos. Além desses resultados, a pesquisa mostrou que características pessoais, como experiência em liderar projetos, influenciou a propensão em aumento do comportamento cidadão mediante uma remuneração adicional. Como contribuição adicional este estudo mostra que existem diferenças de resultados nos diferentes grupos de respondentes (alunos de graduação e pós-graduação em administração), conforme encontrado em outros estudos. A utilização do experimento também foi um diferencial metodológico, em virtude de sua ainda baixa utilização em gestão de operações. Finalmente, este estudo também identificou as principais práticas utilizadas na gestão de projetos.
Practices in project management (PM), although widely disseminated, utilized and researched, do not guaranteee the project performance (success) in their deliveries on time and costs as planned. It is observed that, despite the extensive use of PM practices, failures to meet the schedule and budget are widely reported. Thus, this thesis aims to analyze the influence of PM practices and performance targets on the project team's Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). The dimensions that composed OCB were: Help, Initiative and Compliance. To test the relationship between the factors of PM practices (incipient or advanced) and performance targets (ordinary or challenging) in team behavior, the scenario-based role-playing experiment (SBRP experiment) was used, as research methodology. The sample consisted of 216 undergraduate and post graduate students in business administration. The research showed that the use of practices in project management did not influence the project team’s Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). However, performance targets in time and costs influenced the project team’s OCB. In addition to these results, the research showed that personal characteristics, such as experience as project manager, influenced the propensity for increasing OCB based on additional payment. As an additional contribution this study shows that there are differences in the results for different groups of respondents (undergraduate and post graduate students in business administration), as found in other studies. The use of the SBRP experiment was also a methodological advantage, seeing that is has not been widely used in operations management. Finally, this study also identified key practices in project management.

The purpose of this project is to gain a better understandng of the sales opportunities available to credit unions through business-to-business relationship selling. This cluster-based approach will focus on techniques and tactics to increase sales. The project differentiates the market by companies in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, referred to as the Inland Empire. The project will reveal the benefits of instituting a territory based sales program similar to Arrowhead Credit Union's that encourages sales professionals to learn about their region's nuances. More importantly, it addresses the advantages of relationship selling over numbers based selling.

From 2001 through 2015, some information technology (IT) project managers failed to deliver U.S. Government IT projects on time and within budget. The failure of IT project managers to complete projects on time and within budget provoked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to classify IT projects as high risk. This multiple case study explored strategies government contracted IT project managers use to reduce cost overruns and improve on-time delivery. The participants in this study were government contracted IT project managers from organizations that provide IT project management in the Maryland area. Employing purposeful sampling of the explicit population, 5 selected participants from 5 firms provided data. The conceptual framework for this study was the actor-network theory. Data were collected and triangulated from 5 semistructured interviews and business documentation. Yin's 5-step data analysis process resulted in the emergence of multiple themes. The emergent themes included clearly defined requirements, monitor and control, and demonstrated leadership. As more government organizations realize the benefits of IT project success strategies, funding may become available for leaders to advance additional positive social change projects in various communities. IT project managers may implement the practical strategies found within this study to improve the outcome of their government contracted IT projects.

The project introduces and subsequently proposes a novel framework, based on the medical model of diagnosis, to facilitate business students' preparation of case analysis. The project also shows students how to apply the framework in a sample case study.

Despite the use of earned value management (EVM) techniques to track development progress, federal information (IT) software programs continue to fail by not meeting identified business requirements. The purpose of this logistic regression study was to examine, using IT software data from federal agencies from 2011 to 2014, whether a relationship between schedule variance (SV), cost variance (CV), and actual cost (AC) could predict the success of IT software program, as operationalized by meeting the identified business requirements. The population of interest was 132 IT software programs developed between 2011 and 2014 for federal agencies. The sample source was an archival database located at ITdashboard.gov. The theoretical framework for the study was earned value (EV) project management theory. The EV project management theory is a project performance measurement system that involves integrating cost, schedule, and performance elements for planning and control. EVM contributes to project success by providing early warnings when programs deviate from cost and schedule plans. This study found that only SV was significant (SV days, p = .002). The null hypothesis was rejected, suggesting that a relationship exists between IT program success and the SV, CV, and AC. This study may contribute to social change by increasing the program managers' understanding of EV in federal project management and by decreasing federal spending through successful programs and more cost-efficient use of taxpayers' money.

Intresset för studien väcktes ur gemensamma diskussioner kring lärares vardagsarbete i relation till skolans organisation och ledning. Vi fann därför ett förändringsarbete från traditionell till temabaserade undervisning på gymnasieskola intressant att studera. Studiens syfte var att undersöka och söka förståelse för hur förändringsprocessen upplevs och påverkar lärarna samt att vara en del i utvärderingen av lärarnas nybildade tematiska arbetslag.

Vi valde att använda aktionsforskning som metod med en hermeneutisk ansats som innebär tolkning och reflektion. När vi studerade tidigare forskning uppmärksammade vi att Blossing (2000) i sin studie konstaterar att bland annat skolkulturen och skolledaren har betydelse för förändringarbetets utveckling. Vi använde oss av reflexiva intervjuer eftersom de erbjuder flexibilitet vid intervjutillfällena och vi relekterade över olika aspekter som framkom. Analysarbetet innebar att vi rörde oss mellan delar och helheter i en ständigt pågående process.

Resultatet visar på flera olika aspekter som påverkar lärarna och vi valde att presentera dessa med innehållet i fokus framför individen av hänsyn till lärarnas integritet. Vi fann att personliga erfarenheter och egenskaper påverkade inställningen till förändringsarbetet och dess innehåll. Andra faktorer som synliggjordes var vikten av struktur för arbetet och möjligheter för reflektion. Planeringstidens betydelse och hur den organiseras och disponeras framkom och vi konstaterar att skolledningen har en viktigt roll i förändringsarbetet genom att leda och skapa struktur samt vara lyhörd för arbetslagets signaler.

Our interest for the study was an outcome from our mutual discussions about teachers every day work related to schools leadership and organisations. Therefore we found a developing project from traditional teaching to theme based team work teaching in an upper secondary school interesting for our study. The main purpose of our study was to examine and understand teachers experiances of the change from traditional teaching to theme based teaching. The purpose is also to be a part in the teachers’ team work evaluation.

The empirical approach was hermeneutic and the chosen method was action research. As method to collect the empirical material we used reflective interviews that gave us the opportunity to be flexible during the interviews. During the process we reflected over different parts that appeared and how they interact as a totality. When we looked for former research we found that Blossing (2000) establishes that school culture and head of schools are of great importance for the outcome of developing work.

From the result we can understand that there are several different factors that affect the teachers in a developing work. Their individual personalities and experiences affect their attitude towards the process of change and the containment of the same. The teachers need time for reflection and they find that they have not got enough time for planning the teaching in the theme based team work. Our conclusion is that the head of school has an important role in leading, creating structure and being attentive to the teachers needs.

碩士
國立成功大學
土木工程學系
106
The Schedule Risk Monitoring is a challenge constantly present in the daily life of construction project; its complexity involves the understanding of the schedule risk factor, their causes and symptoms, and the mechanisms display to identify their occurrence and proper management. Recently, machine learning algorithms, potentiated by Deep Learning methods, have achieved unprecedented performance in many domains; especially, in Natural language processing; thus, it constitutes a strong tool for text understanding of raw data. Regarding the risk schedule monitoring’s raw data, there are not available datasets for feeding machine learning algorithms; thus, they need to be built from scratches. This paper presents the development of an ontology-based construction operations’ features extraction framework oriented to build those datasets from construction operational documents, and thus its final purpose is to contribute in the creation of schedule risk monitoring system based in a machine learning classifier model. This framework was built under the ontology development methodology and combines the explicit representation of the knowledge of previous work in the risk management domain, with the knowledge extracted from the construction operational documents. The results of the data collection contextualized the selected Contractor operations in alignment with previous studies; moreover, the validation of the framework consists of competency questions test and a case study, the test proofs the framework sufficient coverage of target knowledge, and the case study’s result proofs the ontology knowledge capacity to identify the features that evidence the risk factors’ trigger events and their impact on the project schedule.

碩士
國立臺東大學
教育學系(所)
101
The goal of the research is to understand the current status of project-based competition instructing by a team of teachers in a private elementary school. To explore how the mode of operation works in the project-based competition coaching by a team of teacher. What is the key point to succeed in instructing project- based competition and the plight in it? The research is focused on the individual case study for the project-based competition. In the private elementary school as the research field .The in-depth interviews, participating observation and documents analyzing were mainly used to collect the relevant information for the research and to analyze. Please see below for the conclusion. 1. For the cola private elementary school in this research, their mode of operation can be divided into planning stage, the research strategy stage and the evaluation stage for the three major stages. 2. The factors of success can be grouped into six dimensions which are the quality of instruction, integration of school resources, diversity of course design, character of students, social status of parents and innovation of topic research. 3. The analysis of dilemma of the research can be divided into four respects those are the problems faced by the team of teachers, the problems caused by students, external environment and the organization inside the school. Based on the discovery of the research the researchers focus on the mode of operation for the project-based competition, the factors of success and future relevant research to provide suggestions.

abstract: Ramping up a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility is a challenging endeavor. One of the key components of this process is to schedule a large number of activities in installing and qualifying (Install/Qual) the capital intensive and sophisticated manufacturing equipment. Activities in the Install/Qual process share multiple types of expensive and scare resources and each activity might potentially have multiple processing options. In this dissertation, the semiconductor capital equipment Install/Qual scheduling problem is modeled as a multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem (MRCPSP) with multiple special extensions. Three phases of research are carried out: the first phase studies the special problem characteristics of the Install/Qual process, including multiple activity processing options, time-varying resource availability levels, resource vacations, and activity splitting that does not allow preemption. A modified precedence tree-based branch-and-bound algorithm is proposed to solve small size academic problem instances to optimality. Heuristic-based methodologies are the main focus of phase 2. Modified priority rule-based simple heuristics and a modified random key-based genetic algorithm (RKGA) are proposed to search for Install/Qual schedules with short makespans but subject to resource constraints. Methodologies are tested on both small and large random academic problem instances and instances that are similar to the actual Install/Qual process of a major semiconductor manufacturer. In phase 3, a decision making framework is proposed to strategically plan the Install/Qual capacity ramp. Product market demand, product market price, resource consumption cost, as well as the payment of capital equipment, are considered. A modified simulated annealing (SA) algorithm-based optimization module is integrated with a Monte Carlo simulation-based simulation module to search for good capacity ramping strategies under uncertain market information. The decision making framework can be used during the Install/Qual schedule planning phase as well as the Install/Qual schedule execution phase when there is a portion of equipment that has already been installed or qualified. Computational experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the decision making framework.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Industrial Engineering 2015

This thesis deals with regional history and possibilities of its didactic use in teaching of History at lower - secondary school. The theoretical part of the thesis is devoted to the characterization of the project methods and regional history. There is also introduced the topic of Operation SILVER A in Pardubice and the evaluation of its importance in history of the region. The practical part of the thesis presents a design of the project with possibility of integration into the teaching of History at lower - secondary school. The results of project which has been implemented with pupils of lower - secondary school Základní škola Pardubice Benešovo náměstí during May and June 2014 and suggestions for development of the project are presented in the final chapter. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

We consider a class of periodic preventive maintenance (PM) optimization problems, for a single piece of equipment that deteriorates with time or use, and can be repaired upon failure, through corrective maintenance (CM). We develop analytical and simulation-based optimization models that seek an optimal periodic PM policy, which minimizes the sum of the expected total cost of PMs and the risk-averse cost of CMs, over a finite planning horizon. In the simulation-based models, we assume that both types of maintenance actions are imperfect, whereas our analytical models consider imperfect PMs with minimal CMs. The effectiveness of maintenance actions is modeled using age reduction factors. For a repairable unit of equipment, its virtual age, and not its calendar age, determines the associated failure rate. Therefore, two sets of parameters, one describing the effectiveness of maintenance actions, and the other that defines the underlying failure rate of a piece of equipment, are critical to our models. Under a given maintenance policy, the two sets of parameters and a virtual-age-based age-reduction model, completely define the failure process of a piece of equipment. In practice, the true failure rate, and exact quality of the maintenance actions, cannot be determined, and are often estimated from the equipment failure history. We use a Bayesian approach to parameter estimation, under which a random-walk-based Gibbs sampler provides posterior estimates for the parameters of interest. Our posterior estimates for a few datasets from the literature, are consistent with published results. Furthermore, our computational results successfully demonstrate that our Gibbs sampler is arguably the obvious choice over a general rejection sampling-based parameter estimation method, for this class of problems. We present a general simulation-based periodic PM optimization model, which uses the posterior estimates to simulate the number of operational equipment failures, under a given periodic PM policy. Optimal periodic PM policies, under the classical maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian estimates are obtained for a few datasets. Limitations of the ML approach are revealed for a dataset from the literature, in which the use of ML estimates of the parameters, in the maintenance optimization model, fails to capture a trivial optimal PM policy. Finally, we introduce a single-stage and a two-stage formulation of the risk-averse periodic PM optimization model, with imperfect PMs and minimal CMs. Such models apply to a class of complex equipment with many parts, operational failures of which are addressed by replacing or repairing a few parts, thereby not affecting the failure rate of the equipment under consideration. For general values of PM age reduction factors, we provide sufficient conditions to establish the convexity of the first and second moments of the number of failures, and the risk-averse expected total maintenance cost, over a finite planning horizon. For increasing Weibull rates and a general class of increasing and convex failure rates, we show that these convexity results are independent of the PM age reduction factors. In general, the optimal periodic PM policy under the single-stage model is no better than the optimal two-stage policy. But if PMs are assumed perfect, then we establish that the single-stage and the two-stage optimization models are equivalent.
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