Total quality management and quality engineering
J. M. Nzumile; I. W. Taifa
Abstract
Packaging plays an important role in ensuring that the produced product is well contained, protected, and preserved. Due to its significance, the researcher decided to undertake research aiming at examining the awareness of local producers towards products’ packaging. This research employs a descriptive ...
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Packaging plays an important role in ensuring that the produced product is well contained, protected, and preserved. Due to its significance, the researcher decided to undertake research aiming at examining the awareness of local producers towards products’ packaging. This research employs a descriptive design in carrying it out where a sample of 120 respondents from different companies give a list of questions regarding packaging and also inspection is done in the market to observe how the products have been packed. Findings revealed that the awareness of Tanzanian local producers is still very low whereby 75% of packaging workers are unskilled. Also, training regarding packaging is not conducted in an effective manner as most companies train their employee only once when they employ them. It is also noted that the local producers mainly focus on the ability of the package to contain the product paying less attention to the ability of the package to protect and preserve. Based on these findings, it is suggested that the knowledge of value chain management has to be imparted to local producers by the local business institution. It is also proposed that training should be given frequently to packaging crew to ensure they do their job effectively. Moreover, it is recommended that to increase the efficiency and cost reduction, it is better for companies to employ experienced workers or those with at least form six or high level of education in packaging section as it is easy to train and they can understand easily.
Scheduling
T. Chawasemerwa; I. W. Taifa; D. Hartmann
Abstract
Doctor scheduling is a complex, costly and time-consuming exercise. This study develops a constraint satisfaction and penalty minimisation scheduling model for meeting ‘hard constraints’ and minimises the cost of violating ‘soft constraints’, i.e. the user inputs, the total number ...
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Doctor scheduling is a complex, costly and time-consuming exercise. This study develops a constraint satisfaction and penalty minimisation scheduling model for meeting ‘hard constraints’ and minimises the cost of violating ‘soft constraints’, i.e. the user inputs, the total number of doctors to be scheduled, the maximum penalty to be met, and the minimum number of doctors to be assigned per shift. The algorithm creates a schedule which checks against all the constraints. The total schedule penalty associated with the constraint violations should be less than or equal to the user input penalty. If this condition is met, the schedule gets produced as the final and near-optimal solution. The model is managed to create a near optimal schedule with the minimal rule violations. However, it is challenging to provide a schedule with no rule violations. Such a situation is shown by the amount of computational time required to create a zero-penalty schedule, hours or even days needed to create a zero-penalty schedule. The system creates a schedule for a short period (weekly schedule) to promote flexibility; however, such a system does not promote fairness. Fairness is achieved through a cyclic schedule with rotations equal to the total number of doctors being scheduled. The system is managed to create a streamlined and flexible working environment and helped to improve the quality of healthcare. An optimization protocol can be incorporated into the system to reduce the search space and get the best optimal schedule since it is possible to get many schedules under the same user-defined parameters.
