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Facility placement is of strategic importance to most organizations as a well-placed distribution center minimizes delivery costs and reduces fulfillment lead times, thus improving customer service levels. Because organizations value the location planning process, this teaching brief offers an exercise that analyzes the planning process using the center-of-gravity algorithm, a service area map, and real-world constraints. The objective of the exercise is to identify two locations within a service area that minimize total network distribution costs. Our exercise is intended to complement standard course content and support instructors developing curricula for undergraduate operations management and supply chain management courses. Student-based survey results indicate that the assignment enhanced classroom engagement and helped students better understand the complexities of location planning.

In this paper, we continue describing the project and the experimentation of "Ricerca Operativa Applicazioni Reali" (ROAR; in English, Real Applications of Operations Research), a three-year project for higher secondary schools, introduced. ROAR is composed of three teaching units, addressed to Grades 10, 11, and 12, respectively, having the main aim to improve students' interest, motivation, and skills related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines by integrating mathematics and computer science through operations research. In a previous paper, we reported on the design and implementation of the first unit, started in Spring 2021 at the scientific high school IIS Antonietti in Iseo (Brescia, Italy), in a Grade-10 class. Here, we focus on the second unit, carried out in Winter/Spring 2022 with the same students, now in a Grade-11 class. In particular, we describe objectives, prerequisites, topics and methods, the organization of the lectures, digital technologies used, and a challenging final project. Moreover, we analyze the feedback from students and teachers involved in the experimentation.

This paper proposes the production of animated comics in POWTOON to serve as a visual collaborative tool and a teaching-learning strategy for a course on Operations Research. This proposal aims to achieve meaningful learning of the subject matter, incentivizing the creativity of undergraduate students of marketing and business at the Guadalajara University, given that the production of comics develops, in students, cognitive and practical abilities such as the following: reflection; critical thinking; observation; analysis; synthesis; analogy; systematization; a sense of collaboration; and, teamwork. To validate the substantial improvement in student performance after producing the comic, a paired two-sample means t-test was carried out for 35 undergraduate students of marketing and business at the Guadalajara University who were enrolled in the same Operations Research course. The results obtained show that student performance improved considerably after the production of the comics, facilitating both teaching and the students' significant learning. In this sense, the use of POWTOON demonstrated to be a good learning alternative, since the students for the realization of the comic were able to recover and review the information acquired, write a script, and organize images, videos, sounds, and text in a congruent and didactic way, even when it comes to complex topics.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify and map contemporary research on advanced technology implementations for problem-solving purposes in the manufacturing industry, and to further understand the organizational learning possibilities of advanced technology problem-solving in the manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach: This paper outlines a scoping review of contemporary research on the subject. The findings of the review are discussed in the light of theories of contradicting learning logics. Findings: This paper shows that contemporary research on the subject is characterized by technological determinism and strong solution-focus. A discussion on the manufacturing industries' contextual reasons for this in relation to contradicting learning logics shows that a Mode-2 problem-solving approach could facilitate further learning and expand knowledge on advanced technology problem-solving in the manufacturing industry. A research agenda with six propositions is provided. Originality/value: The introduction of advanced technology implies complex effects on the manufacturing industry in general, while previous research shows a clear focus on technological aspects of this transformation. This paper provides value by providing novel knowledge on the relationship between advanced technology, problem-solving and organizational learning in the manufacturing industry.

We introduce "Ricerca Operativa Applicazioni Reali" (ROAR; in English, "Real Applications of Operations Research"), a three-year project for higher secondary schools. Its main aim is to improve students' interest, motivation, and skills related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines by integrating mathematics and computer science through operations research. ROAR offers examples and problems closely connected with students' everyday life or with the industrial reality, balancing mathematical modeling and algorithmics. The project is composed of three teaching units, addressed to grades 10, 11, and 12. The implementation of the first teaching unit took place in Spring 2021 at the scientific high school IIS Antonietti in Iseo (Brescia, Italy). In particular, in this paper, we provide a full description of this first teaching unit in terms of objectives, prerequisites, topics and methods, organization of the lectures, and digital technologies used. Moreover, we analyze the feedback received from students and teachers involved in the experimentation, and we discuss advantages and disadvantages related to distance learning that we had to adopt because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and operations research (OR) have long been intertwined because of their synergistic relationship. Given the increasing popularity of AI and machine learning in particular, we face growing demand for educational offerings in this area from our students. This paper describes two courses that introduce machine learning concepts to undergraduate, predominantly industrial engineering and operations research students. Instead of taking a methods-first approach, these courses use real-world applications to motivate, introduce, and explore these machine learning techniques and highlight meaningful overlap with operations research. Significant hands-on coding experience is used to build student proficiency with the techniques. Student feedback indicates that these courses have greatly increased student interest in machine learning and appreciation of the real-world impact that analytics can have and helped students develop practical skills that they can apply. We believe that similar application-driven courses that connect machine learning and operations research would be valuable additions to undergraduate OR curricula broadly.

In this paper, we describe a course project in which teams of undergraduate students propose and execute an end-to-end analytics project to solve a real-world problem. The project challenges students to implement machine learning, optimization, simulation, or a combination of these three techniques on real-world data that they collect. A designated project advisor helps each team refine its project and assesses the quality of the resulting work. In our analysis of 58 past projects, we show that students developed solutions for a wide range of topics by employing various methodologies. However, most teams encountered similar challenges that project advisors helped them overcome with tailored feedback. Based on feedback from 106 previous students, the project experience was largely positive and helped them prepare for their future careers. We believe that this type of hands-on project is conducive to the development of important data analytics skills.

How can students prepare for potential business disruptions? The approach shown in this paper uses optimization modeling with parametric sensitivity analysis and further broadens the search for insights with structural sensitivity analysis in a series of contextual exercises. The exercises prompt students to identify critical resources for business impact analysis by extending production planning to include scenario analyses and contingency considerations. During virtual office hours, one participant described the exercises in terms of a "mystery" to solve. For an open-ended contingency planning question, some participants even proposed new product design decisions. Upon conclusion of the study, 25 of the 28 participants recommended the exercises for future semesters.

The Traveling Salesman and Vehicle Routing Problems are integral parts of bachelor and master programs related to Operations Research/Management Science. This is due to their relevance in both practical applications and research. For students, it is essential to gain a deep understanding of the problems' inherent complexity. For this, several tools are available online. A systematic classification of both the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) teaching material is provided and discussed. This classification takes target groups as well as learning objectives into account. Recommended choices depending on the teaching context are provided. A special focus lies on interactive visualizations, which seem to be most useful for supporting students in their solution-oriented competencies. We observe that didactic visualization tools for vehicle routing are scarce. This is surprising since, in practice, this problem is prevalent.

We present an exercise for teaching the transportation problem using a mix of spatial and randomly generated data. It illustrates the potential of using qualitative and quantitative data and is suitable for undergraduate or introductory business school courses on operations research (OR), logistics, and supply chain management. It poses two challenges: (i) given the demand locations and volume, open a certain number of warehouses to ensure customer responsiveness and (ii) given those warehouses with capacity limits, determine an optimal distribution plan that minimizes the total distribution cost. This exercise is developed with the active participation of MBA students in an introductory OR course. The participants, attending the class online from different parts of India during the COVID-19 pandemic, helped generate realistic customer locations by sharing their location data. Visualizing this spatial data (after masking) in Google My Maps helps the students decide on suitable warehouse locations by considering the proximity to customers as well as diverse socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors. Then, using these warehouse and customer data, the optimal distribution plan is obtained by employing OpenSolver. Students appreciate the exposure--starting from data set generation to deriving an optimal solution--offered by this data-driven decision-making exercise.

The center-of-gravity, Weber, and rectilinear minisum problems are common exemplars in single-facility (single-source) continuous location theory and the first of these is covered in many operations management (OM) textbooks. Extensions to multiple-facility (or multisource) continuous location problems are seldom covered in OM textbooks. I have developed an Excel workbook for analyzing multisource extensions of each of the three single-source location problems. The workbook can be used in OM courses for several purposes, which include: (i) illustrating the basic principles of single-source continuous location theory, (ii) highlighting solution differences that might result from different assumptions concerning distance measurement, and, most importantly, (iii) demonstrating the more complex multisource continuous location problems that require positioning of multiple-source facilities and the assignment of demand sites to those facilities.

Recognizing the lack of knowledge about how to improve data systems for education in emergencies (EiE), we examine in this article how EiE professionals use data and what makes data "useful" to them. Drawing from 48 semistructured interviews from a purposive sample of professionals working in the EiE field across the humanitarian, development, and stabilization sectors, we explored the primary ways EiE professionals use data. Using inductive and emergent coding, we identified the key themes, which we then disaggregated by participants' sector and role in EiE operations. Our findings indicate that there is a common need across sectors for data that inform operations. However, participants working at a national or local level spoke the most about operational uses of data and the least about strategic uses, such as policymaking and advocating. Meanwhile, there was a notable emphasis among actors at the global level on strengthening data systems and their strategic uses. In this article, we also highlight the myriad nontechnical factors that shaped participants' perceptions of usefulness, including the politicization of data, users' expertise in analysis, and personal and institutional relationships. We argue that conversations about improving data for use in EiE must not focus exclusively on tools or techniques but also on people, institutions, and contexts.

This case study focuses on education in three K-8 schools in Medjimurje County, Croatia. The object of inquiry is the development of successful educational practices for Roma students. Until recently, only a limited number of Roma students completed basic K-4 schooling. Today all students at these three schools complete K-8 education, with some Roma students going on to pursue secondary and tertiary education. We examine some of the processes that took place in creating the change, along with the principals', teachers', and Roma assistants' views and actions.

The simple vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a common topic of discussion in introductory operations research/management science courses. The VRP can be framed in a variety of ways, and it can be difficult to solve to optimality. For solution purposes, introductory textbooks demonstrate how Excel's Evolutionary Solver (ES) add-in produces a routing. The ES utilizes a genetic algorithm with a heuristic stopping rule to produce a routing that is not guaranteed to be optimal. Beyond pointing out that search controls, such as maximum execution time, may be extended and followed by restart(s) of ES, textbook treatments do not offer alternative ways to continue the search for a possibly better routing. In this paper, a suite of ways is presented in which students may investigate beyond what ES produces or any other optimality-uncertain VRP solution method. The suite includes perturbation methods and other ways that function within an Excel spreadsheet environment that is popular with students and textbook writers. Because there is no demonstrable feature that confirms optimality, the student problem Solver must settle for a 'best found' result as unsettling as it may be. The incertitude is addressed.

Deloitte Consulting LLP conducted a review of publicly available data sources with the goal of identifying the pre- and post-award systems used in higher education. The number and type of pre- and post-award systems identified not only show that higher education institutions (HEIs) use a variety of methods to facilitate research activities, but also suggest that HEIs and ERP vendors may think differently about the role of research administration technologies. We provide some hypotheses for why this may be the case. These hypotheses focus on: institutional priorities, market maturity, and the "vision thing." We also provide high-level considerations to help HEIs think through their research administration technology decisions.

Research activities often involve enrolling human subjects as volunteers to participate in research studies. Federal regulations mandate that research institutions are responsible for protecting the ethical rights and welfare of human subjects from research risks. This is usually accomplished by requiring approval of research protocols by an institutional review board (IRB) through a review process that is often complicated and time-consuming. The aim of this research was to reduce the time to obtain IRB approval/denial decisions for research protocols. Through a case study, this research addressed this issue within a leading public research university using the Lean Six Sigma methodology, a structured, problem-solving approach for improving process performance. Analyzing the IRB review process and implementing solutions to address the root cause(s) of lengthy processing times helped to streamline this process, which enhanced investigators' ability to conduct their research in a timely manner, while also ensuring compliance with federal regulations for human subject research.

The case is based on an actual product introduction, and is designed to provide instruction on the new product development process. With the cost to launch new products estimated at least US $15 million and new product failure rates ranging from 40% to 80%, it is imperative that students learn how to determine the financial and market feasibility of a new product and understand the steps in the new product development process. This case is based on an award-winning "real world" convenience frozen food product that continues to be marketed and sold twenty years after its introduction. This case is based on an actual company and events. Names have been disguised to protect the privacy of the company and its management.

The purpose of the present study is to describe the roles and responsibilities of academic leaders. Specifically it aimed to provide answers to following questions: What are the competencies of academic leadership? What are the approaches determined by academic leaders in the management of organizational process? A phenomenological research design of qualitative research was used. The participants of the study consist of 13 senior managers from various positions in a university in Turkey and they were determined through maximum variation sampling method. In collection of the data, a semi-structured interview model was used. According to the results of the study, the managers participating in the study categorize the tasks on the focus of academic leadership role into three groups, "bureaucratic works", "the works about instructors" and "educational works". When the views of the managers about the factors shaping the academic leadership role were studied, scientific and techonological advances, socio-cultural background and personal factors played important role in the process.

This article explores the role that corporations can play in the creation or failure of a sustainable society. A review of the concept of sustainability in the Australian Curriculum: Geography is made and then linked to a comparison of the legal framework guiding business activities of traditional corporations and those of B Corporations, which are guided by their own separate legislation. Business activities of a particular B Corporation in Australia, and other profit-oriented businesses in the same sector of the economy, are then compared in terms of four earth functions listed in the Australian Curriculum to determine if one is more sustainable than the other. This comparison concludes that the B Corporation is more sustainable than a traditional profit-oriented corporation in several respects, though it is not sustainable absolutely. The example explored is linked to curriculum outcomes and suggestions are made as to how teachers might apply this content and analysis when teaching for sustainability in their own classes.

This article has recognised the need for fundamental improvements in the HRM department of the Bankstown Hospital. Through the critical analysis and evaluation of internal systems and processes we were able to identify a number of issues as areas where improvement must be facilitated, each with varying degrees of seriousness. The key problem areas identified were: Chronic under-funding by the government, obsolete hospital facilities, excessive debt and weak budgeting controls, disproportionately higher costs than other hospitals, lack of certain key HR skills/competencies by staff, and various internal operating problems. By applying the six-sigma quality control framework, World Health Organisation standards, and the works of various other prominent health care authors and consultants, we have devised a comprehensive and long term solution for improvement within this organisation. The use of HRM controls and tools, such as employee motivational framework is also highly beneficial to improving staff morale and work performance.

Decentralization of teacher recruitment and selection in Kenya was as a result of World Bank/IMF policies, which support projects that guarantee direct net economic returns by productivity and indirect returns on externalities. The approach has been used as a way of improving service delivery. This strategy that has been successful elsewhere may not necessarily be appropriate for Kenya. Any meaningful interventions in Kenya ought to be based on research data from within the countries education system. This paper is based on a research that was conducted in Gucha district in the year 2010. The study sought to assess decentralized approach process and examined the challenges faced in the application of the approach in secondary teacher recruitment and selection. Arising from the descriptive survey research analysis and interpretation is that despite the crucial role decentralized approach play in Secondary teacher recruitment and selection, there are still some negative aspects that hinder the applicability and implementation of the approach. It was noted that, the approach has led to better staffing in rural remote schools, equity and equality in employment leading to community development and high rate of teacher trainee absorption in the employment sector. However, very little attention is paid to competence of the BOG/PTA, adequate funds, corruption, political interference and teacher performance that challenge the efficiency and effectiveness of the approach. Consequently, this paper recommends that capacity building be incorporated to the BOG/PTA members for empowerment; increase of funds set aside by the government for recruitment to increase teacher absorption rate for adequate and equal distribution; streamline decentralized approach to give it a national outlook and supervision of the exercise by professionals for sustainable development in Kenya.

This study examines the emergence of leadership characteristics within a new organizational community of individuals: the Maker community. The Maker community is a group of individuals that classify themselves as "Makers" and have become innovators and entrepreneurs through the creation of technological gadgets, artistic projects, and other end products. Historically, so-called Tinkers were motivated to design and develop objects in their garages apart from other people with similar motivations. Drawing from Quinn's Competing Values Framework, these Maker communities exemplify emergent leadership characteristics within collaboration frameworks. Forty critical incident interviews with Makers express the leadership characteristics of these individuals. Characteristics may differ from individual to another, but a general representation of the community as a whole can be made from observing sub-groups within the community. The results hold important implications for leadership growth, cross-cultural management, and the future for what has become an emerging organizational community. The growth of this community has implications for the field of engineering education and new project-based learning coursework. The emergence of the Maker community including maker spaces has also become relevant in this context and the future of how we education engineers.

Universities began operating in the present borders of Canada in 1802. As annual enrolments grew to 1,147,233 in 2012, so too did university expenditures. Government contributions to university revenues fluctuated from 62% in 1920 to 46% in 1935, reaching a high of 81% in the mid- to late 1970s, then falling to 48% in 2014. Annual university revenues increased about 275 times between 1920 and 2014 (in constant 2014 dollars), from $129.3 million to $35.5 billion. In the two centuries between 1813 and 2013, undergraduate fees (in constant 2013 dollars) increased by a factor of 24, from $236 to $5,720.

Decision making in most universities is taught within the conventional OR/MS (Operations Research/Management Science) paradigm. This paradigm is known to be "hard" since it is consisted of mathematical tools, and normally suitable for solving structured problems. In complex situations the conventional OR/MS paradigm proves to be inadequate; decisions must be based on systems thinking which provides the decision maker(s) the opportunity to address the problematic situation in its full system context. The aim here is to develop a framework and a new course to teach "decision making through systems thinking" to industrial engineering students. The new course is to be taken after the existing course which covers the traditional OR/MS paradigm. It is believed that such an "extended" framework will help students to improve their skills in handling complex decision situations.

Often, users of information systems (both automated and manual) must analyze those systems in a "black box" fashion, without being able to see the internals of how the system is supposed to work. In this case of business process outsourcing, an insurance industry customer encounters an ongoing stream of customer service issues, with both the original provider and outsourcing organization. To understand and validate what is happening with his account, the insurance customer (Edward) and his representative (Penny) must deduce the operations, business rules, and data flows of the organizations. Most importantly, have the operations of these organizations released anyone's data inappropriately? And are these same customer service issues happening to other customers, who may not be in a position to spend the time and energy needed to catch and resolve them?

The urgency of the problem under investigation due to constant changes in the external business environment requires organizations to establish a mechanism to manage change and increase the impact of these changes. The purpose of the article is to analyze the change management concepts and their applicability in the strategically important holdings in the region, as well as identifying features of reforming of the enterprises in the crisis through the creation of change management system. The leading approach to the study of this problem is a systematic approach to identify the main features allowing for the formation of the mechanism of change management in the regional holding companies. The main results: systematization and analysis of the existing change management concepts, and identified particular changes in the company based on the use of change management system. Article Submissions may be useful for the regional and federal holding companies with constant changes in the external business environment.

Relevance of the researched problem is caused by the fact that today there is a requirement for a unique, generalized, theoretically and methodically elaborated budgeting mechanism disaggregating the aims of strategic level to the level of structural units of the company. The aim of article is to develop methodical provisions and practical recommendations to harmonize a budgeting mechanism of development companies on the basis of direct interrelation of current budgeting and strategic objectives of company development. The leading approach to a research of this problem is the classical approach allowing revealing sources and directions of financial resources application of commercial organizations and also ensuring their balance. The main results of a research are the expansion of a budgeting concept as a type of financial planning, the author's technique of budgeting is suggested that is based on the indicators of assets turnover ratio, sales profitability and return on assets as the main characteristics of activity efficiency of a development company. Materials of the article can be useful in financial management enhancement and forming an effective budgeting mechanism in development companies.

This study was designed to investigate the extent of utilizing electrical equipment in poultry production in the rural areas of Ebonyi State, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted for the study. Three research questions guided the study. The population for the study was 46 respondents comprising 16 Extension agents and 30 Poultry farmers. There was no sampling because of small population of the respondents. The instrument was validated by 3 experts, two in Vocational Agricultural Education unit of Technology and Vocational Education Department and one in measurement and evaluation of science Education Department, in the same faculty and university. Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of the instrument was 0.82 which was good enough for the study. The instrument was administered to the respondents with the help of three research assistants in the three agricultural zones in the state. The data collected were analyzed using mean score and standard deviations. The study revealed (1) That 13 out of 18 electrical equipment items assessed are available in the poultry farms while 5 out of 18 electrical incubating equipment were not available. (2) That all the electrical watering and brooding equipment for poultry production were affordable. (3)That all the electrical feeding equipment was adequate for poultry production in all the farms as stated by the respondents among the recommendation made was that poultry farmers need to form cooperative society in order to procure necessary electrical equipment in their farms.

Massive growth in the numbers of fee-paying international students and an increasing private sector role are two of the most salient features of Australian higher education in the past quarter century. Both these trends were evident in a little known partnership, involving a public regional university and a private entrepreneur, which had its origins in 1993. While hindsight allows us to locate this development in a neoliberal framework, this article explores the origins of the relationship and concludes that while the eventual operation was consistent with the theme of the overall decline of the university as an essentially public enterprise, the role of personalities was crucial in what was initially more serendipity than grand strategy.

Safety management systems in Australian higher education organisations are under-researched. Limited workplace safety information can be found in the various reports on university human resources benchmarking programs, and typically they show only descriptive statistics. With the commencement of new consultation-focused regulations applying to many universities in Australia, the need to have a better understanding of the operation of organisational safety management systems has more prominence. This paper presents results from a "safety culture" survey completed by staff in a business-related faculty (53 respondents, 15 per cent response rate) from three Australian universities. Based on analysis of the survey data, the safety culture in these three universities can aptly be described as a work-in-progress.

This paper critically examines the treatment of the statistical basis for Six Sigma and process capability in popular operations management textbooks. It discusses areas of confusion and suggest ways of treating the topic that make sense to instructors as well as students. Even though Six Sigma was introduced almost 30 years ago, misconceptions persist. In the textbooks we have found no consistency of approach or understanding of the statistical underpinnings (3.4 defects per million opportunities) of Six Sigma. Sometimes statements are made that are factually incorrect and cause frustration for students and instructors. Similar difficulties are encountered in discussions of the related concept of process capability. The paper suggests changes that will help resolve these issues and bring much-needed clarity to discussions of these important ideas. Students will find the material much more accessible and instructors will find it much easier to convey the concepts underlying this important topic.

Topicality of the issue researched is preconditioned by the need to describe the conceptual basis and significance of educational service resource support of at the current development stage of Russian vocational education, classification of its main components as well as significance of the need to transform resource support from the factor that hinders development of vocational education into a powerful tool for its improvement and modernization. The purpose of the research is to define the conceptual basis of the theoretical and methodological framework of the system of certification of educational service resource support and its structural logic. The leading research method applied to this issue is the multi-aspect analysis and synthesis of information on the issue researched which is studied in national and foreign scientific sources dedicated to pedagogics, methodology, didactics, economics, law, statistics and other disciplines which allows identifying trends for defining the conceptual basis of the system of certification of educational service resource support and means for its theoretical description. As a result of the research, educational service resources have been identified and classified, concepts have been introduced, and their core reflecting their specifics in certification of educational service resource support has been substantiated. The article may be of use for professors and heads of educational institutions when developing vocational educational programs, including for net-wide application thereof in the contemporary educational environment.

The aim of this case study was to highlight coaching in the process of change using a real life information technology and operational change project in an institution. It demonstrates the critical importance of coaching in change management, for successful change to occur. Any sustaining change requires ongoing coaching as an integral part of the process. The study heeds a call for adopting coaching to support organizational learning and change. It also attempts to open further research interests in the link between the process of change and coaching, and the benefits of coaching in change management today.

Accrediting organizations in higher education have shifted emphasis from indirect measures such as student course evaluations, focus-group interviews, and employer surveys to direct measurement of student performance using appropriate assessment instruments. In response, we developed a spreadsheet tool for reports and analysis of test assessments (STRATA) to document and evaluate quantitative data from test questions linked to learning objectives in an introductory undergraduate management science (MS) course. STRATA automatically generates a variety of tables and charts that allow us to examine our students' achievement at three different levels: individual question item, MS topic (subsets of items), and total score. It also tracks test results over time and produces summary reports. In this paper, we discuss STRATA's features, its usefulness in meeting accreditation requirements, and how it can provide faculty with valuable feedback in ways that encourage meaningful conversations about course content and pedagogy.

The Tangibles in Operations Strategy (TANGOS) exercise provides students with the direct experience of designing a firm's operations function. Specifically, students must engage in decision making with respect to the structural decision areas in a firm's operations strategy, by considering the firm's product strategy and span of control, process choice, capacity, and layout. The exercise, divided into three parts, spans a period of 6-8 weeks, to coincide with the teaching of these operations management topics. Part 1 involves deciding on the product models to be made, the span of control, and the process choice. Part 2 examines capacity issues. Part 3 deals with the plant layout. The exercise is not resource intensive, and it offers flexibility, where instructors could choose to focus on any single part of the exercise, as well as alter constraints to limit or expand the scope of each decision. Student feedback reflects a high rating of the exercise.

This case study focuses on modeling and analyzing the practices concerning the staffing of the immigration agency at the Island of Tropical Paradise International Airport, which is responsible for processing arriving passengers into the country. Students are challenged to model the status quo of immigration employee scheduling and analyze various high-level policy changes to determine the reduction in staffing requirements while also being concerned with the wait time of passengers in the queue at immigration. The case has been used in an introductory operations research (OR) course in an engineering curriculum as a term project and was created based on a client of a major consulting organization. The main teaching objective of the case is to have students demonstrate an understanding of how to use OR models and analysis to impact practice. To this end, the case moves the students from standard classroom or textbook examples to an open-ended problem where there is not a single correct model or analysis to tackle it. [For the related Case, see EJ1304600.]

This project analyzes a long-standing school district-based leadership development program in British Columbia, Canada, and its transition to a partnership with the local university in which the students receive credit toward a graduate degree. The intent of this study was to explore the change process in leadership development from a school district-based program to a joint venture between the school district and the local university. Historical data was gathered to situate the pre-existing program. Interviews with key participants in the process of changing to program were held. Consideration of the research literature about current leadership program partnerships and a mapping to the interviews reveals this program to be in line with effective leadership development partnerships according to research findings, and highly innovative in the province of British Columbia. Future considerations are addressed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the health care practices for medical textiles in government hospitals Enugu State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study determined the availability and maintenance of medical textiles in government hospitals in Enugu State, Nigeria. A sample of 1200 hospital personnel were studied. One thousand two hundred copies of questionnaire were distributed to the respondents and were filed and collected completely. Data collected were analyzed using frequency and mean. The findings include that medical textiles are not enough and the few medical textiles available in the government hospitals are not properly maintained. The findings of the study will create awareness to the hospital management in the provision and maintenance of medical textiles. Federal government should sponsor and monitor the provision of medical textiles in the hospitals, there should also be regular supervision by medical supervisors to ensure that the medical textiles supplied in the government hospitals are properly cared for.

The use of networks in public education is one of many knowledge mobilization (KMb) strategies utilized to promote evidence-based research into practice. However, challenges exist in the ability to mobilize knowledge through networks. The purpose of this paper is to explore how networks work. Data were collected from virtual discussions for an interim report for a province-wide government initiative. A secondary analysis of the data was performed. The findings present network structures and processes that partners were engaged in when building a network within education. The implications of this study show that building a network for successful outcomes is complex and metaphorically similar to finding the "sweet spot." It is challenging, but networks that used strategies to align structures and processes proved to achieve more success in mobilizing research to practice.

The purpose of this study was to assess the role of Competitive and Market Intelligence (CI/MI) Research as a potential source for improving the innovation capability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) leading to successful new product/services/processes/capabilities development (Cooper & Edgett, 2002). This report highlights the background, methodology and findings of this study. Based on the findings, CI/MI service has the potential to contribute to enhancing a company's innovation capability by adding value at different stages of the research and development continuum, particularly at the early assessment stage as well as at a pre-commercialization stage. CI/MI research can lead to qualitative improvements in commercialization efforts. This, in turn, can contribute to a reduction in the high failure rate of new product commercialization, an ongoing problem identified at the beginning of this report.

The organisational structure of universities follows particular models that distinguish them from other learning institutions. This research investigated the effect of the organisational structure on the management of universities in Uganda using a sample of 361, 44% of whom were members of academic staff, and the rest contained university top management officials, administrative and support staff of universities. The subjects were selected using stratified random sampling. Data were collected using a questionnaire as well as interview guide. Statistical data were analyzed by referential and descriptive statistical processes with SPSS software. The findings reveal that the organisational structure of universities significantly affects the management. While the staff in universities require a more flexible approach which enhances more creativity, innovations and autonomy, the present organisational structure of universities contains high levels of formalization characterised by rigidity and centralised decision making processes. The staff feel that universities can operate between the two theoretical polarities (bureaucratic and collegial) in order to remain competitive.

Research managers at science-intensive institutions appear as a continuously evolving group of professionals whose identity is somewhat fragmented, even to themselves. In Portugal, specialized research manager roles have rapidly emerged over the last years alongside the development of a small but consolidated scientific system. In order to get an inside view of the professional identity associated to research management in Portugal, the authors conducted a semi-structured discussion session with a group of professionals. The session aimed to find operational definitions of research management in a broad sense, identifying competencies and skills required to perform such roles, and discuss perspectives on career development in the current scenario. This article departs from the perceptions collected within the group of professionals to inquire about the future environment of the profession.