Applications of Business Process Redesign in Hotel Daily Operations

Abstract

The growing yet competitive global economy necessitates businesses to continuously seek ways to execute more efficiently while delivering products or services to customer expectations of quality and timeliness. Business process redesign (BPR) is an approach to analyze, evaluate, and change existing processes and sub-processes in the product/service manufacture and delivery cycle. Delivery of services is more difficult due to the nebulousness of the customer final interpretation and the rapid evaporation of the delivery occurrence. The drop in American travel since September 11, 2001 has devastated hotel occupancy. Hotels delivering services matching or exceeding customer expectation will be more likely to survive the ebb of customer room night sales.

This project applied BPR to a process of airport van delivery in a large US hotel. Following customer complaint, the hotel gathered staff to discuss and propose solutions to reducing customer wait times at the airport curb. An initial analysis by management indicated that communications and employee training were two interventions to the process that would likely improve the process. During the analysis period, customers riding in the van were surveyed to determine their satisfaction with the pickup service. The process was redesigned to add more communication devices to the concierge work area and to improve van driver training. Customers were resurveyed following the intervention. Significant improvement was noted in operator courtesy and friendliness and decreased wait time. Allowing time to analyze processes within an operation can yield rapid improvements often without major financial expenditure.     

British overseas retailing, 1900–60: International firm characteristics,market selections and entry modes

We examine the historical developments of the environmental adaptation process at one Swedish metal smelting firm, contrasting the result with cases in Canada. The findings suggest that the Swedish system in excluding stakeholders, focusing on plant emissions and stipulating pollution reduction at economically feasible costs mitigated risk which resulted in long-term contracts in a cooperative framework in which engineers were given a high degree of discretion. This enabled an ‘expansion-for-emission-reduction’ strategy which is consistent with the so-called Porter and van der Linde hypothesis. Moreover, the findings suggest that environmental management systems should be considered in the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) research.     

厢式货车配载的初步方法

厢式货车在现代物流运输中占有很重要的地位,本文对目前运输过程中的几类厢式货车进行了说明与比较。介绍了厢式货车的类型与功能,运输过程中的优点。因为厢式货车的车门开启位置决定了装卸货物的方式,所以本文重点说明了在不同的车门开启情况下,应如何配装货物更加的方便。分别针对单车门、双车门、多车门不同情况采用视图的方式清楚的给出了配装方案,并举实际例子进行说明。最后指出车门的设置应根据需要来选择,对物流公司的运输以及货车的选择具有指导意义。     

Agriculture in Europe 2000: An interim report on a cross-national research project

The futures research programme initiated by the European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam, in 1968, under the general title of Plan Europe 2000, consists of four projects : Education, Industrialisation, Urbanisation and Agriculture.¹ Work on the last Agriculture Project commenced in September 1970. The prime aim of the project is to provide alternative “guiding images” of the roles and functions which agriculture could fulfil in Western Europe in the future.²     

货车120型控制阀检修运用中的故障分析及措施建议

随着120型控制阀的普及与推广应用,120型控制阀在我国铁道车辆运用中逐渐占主导地位。在运用生产中120型控制阀的可靠性能越来越成为列车安全运行的重要保证,因而确保120型控制阀的正常工作现显得尤其重要。通过现场实际运用,120型控制阀在实际工作中也出现了一些问题,对行车安全构成了威胁。现就这些问题加以分析与探讨,并提出了一些改进的措施和建议。     

Variations of the Entrepreneurial City: Goals,roles and visions in Rotterdam's Kop van Zuid and the Glasgow Harbour Megaprojects

Both Rotterdam's Kop van Zuid and the Glasgow Harbour waterfront developments are examples of different forms of European urban entrepreneurial megaprojects. They are both situated on formerly vacant land in older industrial cities. In Rotterdam, the municipality has taken the initiative in planning and developing the megaproject, while in Glasgow, this task has been left to the private sector, with the City functioning as a facilitator. While urban entrepreneurialism and megaprojects have been discussed in academic literature for almost three decades, there are too few case studies which delve into the specific visions guiding these projects, the goals which they are meant to achieve and the positions which different actors play. The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between these visions, goals and positions of actors in megaprojects and whether these relationships can explain how the different outcomes are produced. What we see is that in municipally‐led projects, entrepreneurial goals are more easily formed and implemented than when the public sector acts only as a facilitator to private developers. It will also argue that it is not only structural contexts which are important in determining the types of megaprojects which get built and the success which they achieve, but also the specific values, visions and goals that different stakeholders have.     

商用车车身开发思维的探究——基于五菱荣光货车车身开发过程的研究

车身在开发过程中会遇到设计变更的特殊情况,数据状态处于动态之中,这对供应商的工装开发和调整能力提出了新的挑战。笔者作为供应商质量管理工程师全程参与了前期模具验收和后期功能评估工作,初步了解到车身开发不仅需要关注厂内过程,还需要关注供应商的控制方法和过程。供应商对整个开发过程的理解和思维方法尤为重要,某些时候甚至影响到了整个项目的进度。     

重庆主城区货车限行总体方案研究

文中对重庆主城区货车运输进行分析,评价了原有货车限行方案,基于均衡交通流,空间上均衡,时间上错峰填谷,减少客货干扰,提高行车安全的原则,从限行时段、限行车种、限行区域三个方面,提出适合主城货运限行新方案。     

Significance levels of linear rank tests using Edgeworth expansions

We study one aspect of applying Edgeworth expansions to linear rank statistics. Since the use of such expansions is often recommended already for moderate sample sizes we investigate for this case the gain of accuracy for the level of significance of some linear rank tests when their critical values are derived from an Edgeworth expansion instead of from a normal approximation. We verify Does' conditions (1983) for the validity of the expansions for four rank statistics of general interest and show by a numerical study that an Edge-worth expansion does not outperform the normal approximation in all situations. A considerable improvement shows up however for the Klotz test at the 5% level.     

The Asymptotic Efficacies and Relative Efficiencies of Various Linear Rank Tests for Independence

In this paper we consider eight general models of independence, the Hájek–Šidák model, the Janssen–Mason model, Konijn’s model, Steffensen’s model, the Farlie model, the bivariate Gamma distribution, the Mardia model and the Frechet model. The asymptotic efficacies and relative efficiencies of various linear rank tests are computed. It turns out that the asymptotic power depends heavily on the underlying model. However, for the vast majority of considered models, the Spearman test is, asymptotically, a good choice.