Optimization of the machining economics problem under the failure replacement strategy

This paper presents a model for calculating the optimal cutting feed rate and spindle speed in a stand-alone cutting machine. The optimal cutting conditions are determined for three different objective functions—minimum expected cycle time, minimum expected cost per unit, and maximum expected profit-rate—under the failure replacement strategy, taking into account cutting tool constraints and machine limitations. We also examine the relationships between the optimal solutions, and present the efficiency range of feed rate.     

Risk management, project success, and technological uncertainty

In times of increased competition and globalization, project success becomes even more critical to business performance, and yet many projects still suffer delays, overruns, and even failure. Ironically, however, risk management tools and techniques, which have been developed to improve project success, are used too little, and many still wonder how helpful they are. In this paper we present the results of an empirical study devoted to this question. Based on data collected on over 100 projects performed in Israel in a variety of industries, we examine the extent of usage of some risk management practices, such as risk identification, probabilistic risk analysis, planning for uncertainty and trade-off analysis, the difference in application across different types of projects, and their impact on various project success dimensions. Our findings suggest that risk management practices are still not widely used. Only a limited number of projects in our study have used any kind of risk management practices and many have only used some, but not all the available tools. When used, risk management practices seem to be working, and appear to be related to project success. We also found that risk management practices were more applicable to higher risk projects. The impact of risk management is mainly on better meeting time and budget goals and less on product performance and specification. In this case, we also found some differences according levels of technological uncertainty. Our conclusion is that risk management is still at its infancy and that at this time, more awareness to the application, training, tool development, and research on risk management is needed.     

Refining the search for project success factors: a multivariate, typological approach

Although the causes for project success and failure have been the subject of many studies, no conclusive evidence or common agreement has been achieved so far. One criticism involves the universalistic approach used often in project management studies, according to which all projects are assumed to be similar. A second problem is the issue of subjectiveness, and sometimes weakly defined success measures; yet another concern is the limited number of managerial variables examined by previous research. In the present study we use a project-specific typological approach, a multidimensional criteria for assessing project success, and a multivariate statistical analysis method. According to our typology projects were classified according to their technological uncertainty at project initiation and their system scope which is their location on a hierarchical ladder of systems and subsystems. For each of the 127 projects in our study that were executed in Israel, we recorded 360 managerial variables and 13 success measures. The use of a very detailed data and multivariate methods such as canonical correlation and eigenvector analysis enables us to account for all the interactions between managerial and success variables and to address a handful of perspectives, often left unanalyzed by previous research. Assessing the variants of managerial variables and their impact on project success for various types of projects, serves also a step toward the establishment of a typological theory of projects. Although some success factors are common to all projects, our study identified project-specific lists of factors, indicating for example, that high-uncertainty projects must be managed differently than low-uncertainty projects, and high-scope projects differently than low-scope projects.     

Success Factors Of High-Tech SBUs: Towards a Conceptual Model Based on the Israeli Electronics and Computers Industry

Of the few studies that have been performed on success and failure of business units in industrial organizations, most were based on marketing and financial data collected in the PIMS program. This study explores the factors contributing to success and failure of high-tech business units. It is based on a survey conducted in the electronics and computers industry in Israel. The article argues that the success of business units in this industry should not be measured in financial terms only. There are two additional dimensions to success: positioning in the market and preparing the necessary assets and infrastructure for future development, manufacturing and marketing of new products.Some unique success and failure factors, other than those revealed in studies at the product level, were found to contribute to the success of high-tech business units.     

Technology's varying impact on the success of strategic business units within the miles and snow typology

The high-tech industry is usually treated as an homogeneous entity, without differentiating between organizations according to the relative importance of technology in their business strategy. This paper investigates the varying impact of technology on the success of strategic business units within the Miles and Snow typology. Although common wisdom might lead to the conclusion that prospectors are more dependent on technological progress than the other strategic types, the results show rather that the influence is greater and more fruitful for the defenders both in the short and the long term.     

A bicriteria approach to maximize the weighted number of just-in-time jobs and to minimize the total resource consumption cost in a two-machine flow-shop scheduling system

We analyze a two-machine flow-shop scheduling problem in which the job processing times are controllable by the allocation of resources to the job operations and the resources can be used in discrete quantities. We provide a bicriteria analysis of the problem where the first criterion is to maximize the weighted number of just-in-time jobs and the second criterion is to minimize the total resource consumption cost. We prove that although the problem is known to be NP-hard even for constant processing times, a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm for its solution exists. In addition, we show how the pseudo-polynomial time algorithm can be converted into a two-dimensional fully polynomial approximation scheme for finding an approximate Pareto solution.     

The relative importance of project success dimensions

Traditionally, the success of a project is assessed using internal measures such as technical and operational goals, and meeting schedule and budget. More recently, it has been recognized that several other measures should be used to define project success. These measures reflect external effectiveness: the project's impact on its customers, and on the developing organization itself.
In our study of 110 defense projects performed by Israeli industry, we used a multidimensional approach to measure the success of defense projects. Based on previous studies, we defined four dimensions of success: meeting design goals ; benefits to the customer ; benefits to the developing organization ; and benefits to the defense and national infrastructure . For each project, we asked three different stakeholders (the customer, the developing organization, and the coordinating office within the Ministry of Defense) for their views on the relative importance of these dimensions of success. Analysis of the data revealed that the dimension benefits to the customer is by far the most important success dimension. The second in importance is meeting design goals . The other two dimensions are relatively unimportant.     

Identifying critical success factors in defense development projects: A multivariate analysis

The main goal of this article is to identify managerial variables that are critical to the success of defense projects. This study analyzes 110 defense projects executed in Israel over the last 20 years. Some 400 managerial variables were collected, and 20 measures of success derived for each project. Multivariate analysis is employed to account simultaneously for the diverse attributes of projects' success.The major results of this study are: (1) in the military environment, the more urgent is the perceived need for the project's output, the greater is the project's chance to succeed; (2) the customer follow-up team has a major role in determining project success—especially important are the team members' professional qualifications and sense of responsibility for project success and the stability of key personnel; (3) defense projects are often technologically challenging; proven technological feasibility at the start of a project is critical to its success; (4) attention to design considerations (produceability, quality, reliability, and design to cost) in the early phases of development are critical to project success; and (5) the professional qualifications and team spirit of the development team are highly correlated with success.