INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT
Examines performance indicators
Bianca Groen, a PhD candidate in the Finance and Accounting Department, joined the School of Management and Governance in 2008.
The researcher graduated with high distinction from the University of Twente for her Masters" thesis on Industrial and Organisational Psychology while simultaneously exploring academic topics of Human Resource Management and Production Logistics.
Through her research, she hopes to increase employees" performance by involving them in developing their own performance indicators: Groen says, "The quality of performance indicators depends upon whether employees were involved in the process of developing them."
Groen examines why employee involvement in developing their own performance indicators leads to more employee initiatives and better employee performance. Before long, the results of her research work could shed light on better tools to actually measure employee performances.
She found "performance indicators do not always measure what is really important for an organization. When you involve employees in developing their own performance indicators, it leads to a win-win situation for both employees and the companies they work for."
Anyone interested to participate in her research study can still do so until the summer of 2011. Participants will learn how involved employees feel with the performance indicators, and whether improvements are to be expected if these employees get more influence on the performance indicators" design. Click here for more information.
Hans de Groot Professor F&A
New Roadmaps for Service Logistics
Ahmad Al Hanbali was born in Lebanon and holds an assistant professorship in the Operational Methods for Production and Logistics Department at the University of Twente. In France, he attended the University of Nice and earned his PhD in Computer Science, graduating with high distinction.
Hanbali researches effective strategies and tactical approaches to establish and extend services offered by manufacturers in the Netherlands. In particular, his theories contribute to advance Dutch High-tech companies. In his own words, "Ownership of capital goods can become less expensive when the responsibility of maintenance is shifted to the manufacturer."
In his first study, he suggests to share spare parts that are owned by different companies or belong to different service contracts. His other study proposes a new concept to deal with last-buy decisions and ways on how to facilitate the re-use of parts, modules and systems.
Ultimately, his results could create a more efficient service supply chain, operating under the target availability of any given system. For owners and consumers of capital goods, the efficiency of a different "roadmap" for service logistics could result in a decrease of their ownership costs, while at the same time, manufacturers benefit from increased market shares and new jobs are created.
Before settling in Enschede, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Twente and EURANDOM Research Institute in Eindhoven. He is a full member of the Beta Research School of Operations Management and Logistics that is recognised by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Netherlands (KNAW). The preliminaries of his study are already complete and he expects the first research results to be available in July 2011.
LogiDOC: Networked patient care pathways
PhD Candidate Peter Hulshof participates in a research project called LogiDOC (Logistical Design for Optimal Care) that focuses on optimizing health care processes and is financed by STW.
His research project is under the Center for Health Care Operations Improvement and Research (CHOIR), a knowledge center for the optimization of health care processes and research based at the University of Twente.
Due to an increase in demand for health care and increasing expenditures and spurred by public opinion, health care organizations are trying to re-organize processes more efficiently and effectively. Hulshof sees the need for improvements in practice as some resource capacity planning functions are ill-defined and overlooked. "This specifically holds for the tactical planning function, which translates strategic objectives in intermediate-term plans for resource allocation and patient admission," he concludes.
His method determines a tactical resource and admission plan for multiple resources and multiple patient groups with various uncertain care pathways by integrating decision making for a whole chain of hospital resources.
In short, available knowledge about the state of waiting lists, available resource capacities and the patient care pathways can be incorporated to ensure shorter access times for patients and to reduce costs. Results of this project will be known by spring 2011.
Acting in transparency, CHOIR has an online discussion forum on LinkedIn, providing an international open platform and gateway for people to join and contribute to a broader conversation on the topic. The department is accessible through utwente.nl/choir.