Purpose – Worker activity identification and classification is the most crucial and difficult stage in work sampling studies. Manual methods of recording are tedious and prone to error and, hence automating the task of observing and classifying worker activities is an important step towards...

Purpose – Quality improvement is critical to the success of software development organizations. Automated tools can greatly assist in the implementation of quality improvement. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the state of tool support of software process improvement....

Purpose – To examine and analyze the decision process that a firm undergoes for acquiring an advanced manufacturing system to obtain manufacturing flexibility for its operations. Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach is used to examine these decision processes. A conceptual...

The history, successes, failures and future needs that relate to the allocation of functions to humans and/ or machines in manufacturing environments are presented. The various methodologies that have been proposed for performing function allocation are discussed. The basic process involves...

At the heart of successful automated manufacturing systems lies the idea of effective integration of various functions. In any sizeable application of a Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) system, an enormous amount of complex data needs to be logically integrated and managed. Presents and...

Global competition has made it necessary for many firms to introduce such advanced technologies as Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). However, the extent of such technology applications varies from industry to industry and has met various degrees of success. Reviews the impetus for the...