Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore if six sigma and lean are new methods, or if they are repackaged versions of previously popular methods – total quality management (TQM) and just-in-time (JIT). Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a critical comparison of lean with JIT and six sigma with TQM, a study of the measure of the publication frequency – the number of aca...

Dynamic superinstructions and replication can provide large speedups over plain interpretation. In a JVM implementation we have to overcome two problems to realize the full potential of these optimizations: the conflict between superinstructions and the quickening optimization; and the non-relocatability of JVM instructions that can throw exceptions. In this paper, we present solutions for thes...

A medium sized UK based academic publishers own a subsidiary printing business. Presently the Academic Printers (AP) is experiencing productions line flow problems reducing the efficiency of the operation. Most of the problems are generated by the imbalanced workflow through the system. By implementing a JIT production planning system it is hoped that some of the production problems can be reso...

For reasons well known, change has always been uncomfortable to business systems. There is some resistance and resentment whenever changes are made in the existing set-up more so in the case of technological change. New technologies have often brought structural changes to the business systems, which affect their cultural complexion as well. In recent years, there has been a stream of new innov...

The focus on the sequential nature of the improvement initiatives has neglected the synergistic effects among practices and literature lacks research on complementarity between internal and external bundles of practices. The aim of this paper is to test the existence of complementarity among internal and external just-in-time bundles. We run statistical analysis using the third round of High Pe...

Given the increased competitive pressures on manufacturing, many companies are interested in implementing Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing philosophies. At the shop floor level, one application of JIT is the introduction of kanbans in order to control in-process inventory. Traditionally, it has been argued that kanban systems work well when the shop floor environment is fairly stable. In this p...

The so-called `Open Compilers' is a technique to incorporate various self-descriptive modules for language customization and optimization based on computational re ection. We apply the open compiler technique to a Java Just-In-Time compiler to develop the OpenJIT compiler, which allows class-speci c customization and optimization, fostering research of new compilation techniques such as applica...

Designing and constructing a technically complex yet efficient, fully integrated fill-finish facility is no small task. The timeframe can be long, the costs can be high, and the stakes with numerous stakeholders involved, can be even higher. But this case study of one biotherapeutic company’s new fill-finish facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, provides practical insights and steps for success for “j...

We analyze the intermediate buffer requirements in a tandem queue where service times of each customer are deterministically correlated between the servers and arbitrarily distributed between customers. The major issue at hand is the determination of intermediate buffer sizes assuring no blocking when the arrivals pattern is arbitrary and unpredictable. The analysis shows that the worst arrival...

Background. The Emergency Department (ED) is a daunting environment for the medical learner. Time pressures on the attending physicians mean that the learning needs of the medical student may, quite appropriately, be given a lower priority than the clinical needs of the patients. We propose that a collection of brief focused computer tutorials presented at the time of the patient encounter can ...