Assessing performance and value-creation capabilities in Lean healthcare: insights from a case study

ABSTRACT

Lean thinking is increasingly being applied worldwide. Yet its actual impact is still a puzzle, particularly when a ‘full-implementation approach’—which entails the adoption of a strategic approach to Lean dissemination on policy deployment procedures—is used. Focusing on the healthcare sector, this paper presents and tests a comprehensive measurement framework for Lean interventions. The paper explains how Lean testing can help decision-makers to solve managerial issues related to Lean initiatives.     

把食品质量安全作为"健康·维权"的重点

“中消协”把“健康·维权”列为2005年维权的主题,对于促进我国国民身心健康、落实以人为本的科学发展观和构建社会主义和谐社会,有很大的现实意义。“健康”是个大概念,包括身体健康、心理健康和人身安全等等,综合指标可以是国民的平均寿命影响健康和平均寿命的因素很多,诸如衣食住行、医疗保健、生活环境、人际关系等,既有外部的,相应的健康维权也需从多方面努力。从我国现实情况看,我以为应把食品的质量安全作为重点,因为:1 食品消费在国民健康和和构建和谐社会主义社会中具有特别重要的作用。民以食为天,食品消费是最基本的消费。…     

Internal validity assessment of conjoint estimated attribute importance weights

This paper investigates how various conjoint designs (full versus fractional) and estimation procedures (LINMAP, MONANOVA, OLS) may interact with basic characteristics of the “true” utility functions (i.e., their range, shape, and curvature) when estimating attribute importance weights. Substantial weight distortions are found, especially under a fractional design.     

Advances in forecasting with neural networks? Empirical evidence from the NN3 competition on time series prediction

This paper reports the results of the NN3 competition, which is a replication of the M3 competition with an extension of the competition towards neural network (NN) and computational intelligence (CI) methods, in order to assess what progress has been made in the 10 years since the M3 competition. Two masked subsets of the M3 monthly industry data, containing 111 and 11 empirical time series respectively, were chosen, controlling for multiple data conditions of time series length (short/long), data patterns (seasonal/non-seasonal) and forecasting horizons (short/medium/long). The relative forecasting accuracy was assessed using the metrics from the M3, together with later extensions of scaled measures, and non-parametric statistical tests. The NN3 competition attracted 59 submissions from NN, CI and statistics, making it the largest CI competition on time series data. Its main findings include: (a) only one NN outperformed the damped trend using the sMAPE, but more contenders outperformed the AutomatANN of the M3; (b) ensembles of CI approaches performed very well, better than combinations of statistical methods; (c) a novel, complex statistical method outperformed all statistical and CI benchmarks; and (d) for the most difficult subset of short and seasonal series, a methodology employing echo state neural networks outperformed all others. The NN3 results highlight the ability of NN to handle complex data, including short and seasonal time series, beyond prior expectations, and thus identify multiple avenues for future research.     

The adaptation of hospitality and retail firms to the NMW: a focus on the impact of age‐related clauses

A lower national minimum wage for 18‐ to 21‐year‐olds and the exclusion of all workers under 18 prompted fears of a distortion in the British labour market and an undermining of training initiatives. Empirical data collected from employers in two low paying sectors, revealing the full utilisation of young workers and under‐utilisation of training initiatives, ensure these fears are not justified and that the government's basis for the lower rate cannot be substantiated.     

Bayesian regression analysis using poly-t densities

Poly-t densities are defined by the property that their kernel is a product, or ratio of products, of Student-t kernels. These multivariate densities arise as Bayesian posterior densities for regression coefficients, under a surprising variety of specifications for the prior density and the data generating process. Although no analytical expression exists for the integrating constant and moments of these densities, these parameters are obtained through numerical integration in a number of dimensions given by the number of Student-t kernels in the numerator, minus one. The paper reviews how poly-t densities arise in regression analysis, and summarizes the results obtained for a number of models.     

Su un piano ottimale d'ammortamento di un prestito diviso in obbligazioni

Viene considerato il problema della determinazione della «politica ottima» di un'impresa che deve ammortizzare un prestito diviso in obbligazioni, noti i tassi di interesse del prestito, la redditività del capitale disponibile e prefissati vincoli sul numero massimo di obbligazioni da rimborsare nei singoli anni. Il problema viene risolto coi metodi della programmazione lineare.     

Confidence intervals: An empirical investigation of the series in the M-competition

This paper empirically evaluates the uncertainty of forecasts. It does so using the 1001 series of the M-Competition. The study indicates that although, in model fitting the percentage of observations outside the confidence intervals is close to that postulated theoretically, this is not true for forecasting. In the latter case the percentage of observations outside the confidence intervals is much higher than that postulated theoretically. This is so for the great majority of series, forecasting horizonts, and methods. In addition to evaluating the extent of uncertainty, we provide tables to help users to construct more realistic confidence intervals for their forecasts.     

On supply-constrained equilibria

The paper gives sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium with price rigidities and quantity rationing where: (i) demand is never rationed; (ii) net trades of an a priori chosen numeraire are never rationed; and (iii) supply is rationed only when relative prices are downward rigid.