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Lean management is a way to satisfy the increasing customer demands while maintaining production efficiency. This paper aims to map and analyze the level of use of lean management methods in the manufacturing industry in the Czech Republic. It searched for links and dependencies between company size, production type, and lean management methods in operational processes. The data were obtained from a nationwide survey within the manufacturing industry companies and were presented using descriptive statistics. A structured questionnaire was sent to 469 manufacturing companies with a return rate of 18.8%. Nonparametric statistical analysis (Fisher’s exact test) was used to confirm or reject the hypotheses. The research results confirmed the dependence of lean management methods on company size and production type. Lean management methods are used mainly by large enterprises, while micro- and small enterprises rarely employ them. Considering production typology, lean management is applied in serial production, and Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) prevails. The most used techniques in mass production include the method of order in the workplace (5S) and Kaizen. The findings suggest that the future of industrial output should focus on sustainability and rationalization of production resources, which is offered by the synergy of lean management and Industry 5.0. AcknowledgmentThis paper is co-financed by IGA/FLKR/2023/002 Rationalization and Sustainability of Resources in Production-Logistics Processes the Czech Republic and RVO/FLKŘ/2024/01 Logistic Systems Safety.

This study is an in-depth analysis using Lean Six Sigma tools to improve the workflow aspects specific to Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedures. TAVR involves several steps that must be executed to achieve optimal results. The analysis began with a comprehensive evaluation of each segment of the procedure. Timestamps were compared with national standards for each segment of the procedure. The analysis showed a total in-room time of 108.6 minutes compared to the standard of 110 minutes. The one area significantly worse than the standard was the in-room to first-stick time of 47 minutes versus the standard of 37 minutes. Using the Lean Six Sigma tools of spatial layout and movement tracing analysis helped identify inefficient intraoperative equipment and supplies placement. Repositioning resulted in a 30% reduction in average segment time, enabling the hospital to increase daily TAVR procedures by 50%.

Effective business process management is one of the key tasks of every organization if it wants to compete successfully on the market and satisfy the needs of its customers. Although there are many established best practices, techniques, and more or less complex methods in business process management, no approach can fulfill a typical organization’s needs and wants. The key to success lies in developing new or adapting existing approaches for business process management to suit the unique characteristics of individual organizations and projects. This demands a solid methodological framework and a clearly defined work process. The aim of the paper is to apply situational method engineering concepts within the realm of business process management, thereby tackling the challenge mentioned above. As a result, a situational method engineering framework is defined to construct and customize business process management methods. The study proposes the conceptual foundations of the framework and a set of processes for constructing holistic and tailored methods that cover various aspects of business process management (analysis, modeling, management, etc.). The basis of the framework is represented by general method components at a higher level of abstraction, which are assembled into holistic methods via interfaces and are transformed into versions adapted to specific situations using tailoring rules. The practical applicability of the proposed framework is validated through its implementation in a project at a large manufacturing company, where it is used to develop both a general and customized business process management method.

More than 50 process-based approaches, methods, and techniques have been developed in recent decades to achieve more efficient operation of organizational systems. Due to increasingly rapid changes in the business environment, the question of which method or technique will have the most significant impact on increasing the organizational system’s competitive advantage is becoming increasingly important.In the presented research, we focused on identifying methods and techniques often cited in the literature and most often used in practice as efficient for improving business processes.We prepared a 4-phase structured review of the available literature and supported the findings with survey research.Based on the results, we designed a set of appropriate, most frequently used, and efficient methods and techniques for improving business processes. The completed research can serve as a starting point for answering the question about the appropriate methods and techniques for the chosen approach. In continuing the research, it would be reasonable to check other properties and the use of methods and techniques.

It is proposed that employees craft their jobs by changing cognitive, task and/or relational boundaries to shape interactions and relationships with others at work. These altered tasks and relational configurations change the design and social environment of the job, which, in turn, alters work meanings and work identity. A job crafting model is offered that specifies: 1. the individual motivations that spark this activity, 2. how opportunities to job craft and how individual work orientations determine the forms job crafting takes, and 3. its likely individual and organizational effects.

Background/Objectives: This study presents a novel approach, based on a combination of radiomic feature extraction, data resampling techniques, and machine learning algorithms, for the detection of degraded bone structures in Dual X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) images. This comprehensive approach, which addresses the critical aspects of the problem, distinguishes this work from previous studies, improving the performance achieved by the most similar studies. The primary aim is to provide clinicians with an accessible tool for quality bone assessment, which is currently limited. Methods: A dataset of 1531 spine DXA images was automatically segmented and labelled based on Trabecular Bone Score (TBS) values. Radiomic features were extracted using Pyradiomics, and various resampling techniques were employed to address class imbalance. Three machine learning classifiers (Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and XGBoost) were trained and evaluated using standard performance metrics. Results: The SVM classifier outperformed the other classifiers. The highest F-score of 97.5% was achieved using the Grey Level Dependence Matrix and Grey Level Run Length Matrix feature combination with SMOTEENN resampling, which proved to be the most effective resampling technique, while the undersampling method yielded the lowest performance. Conclusions: This research demonstrates the potential of radiomic texture features, resampling techniques, and machine learning methods for classifying DXA images into healthy or degraded bone structures, which potentially leads to improved clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Quel est le meilleur moyen de susciter un changement de comportement chez un employé ? Selon Jonah Berger, auteur à succès et professeur à la Wharton School of Business de l’Université de Pennsylvanie à Philadelphie, le fait d’ordonner à quelqu’un de changer n’aurait que peu d’effet. Il suggère plutôt trois méthodes pour persuader cette personne d’acquérir de nouvelles habitudes

Background: Nowadays, as a result of globalization, markets are more competitive, and customers are more demanding. To respond to these challenges, organizations must develop mechanisms for continuous improvement in order to eliminate waste and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Thus, the present study carried out at an industrial unit responsible for the customization of cork stoppers for wines had as its main objectives to identify and eliminate or at least reduce waste; improve production and internal logistics flows; balance workloads; improve productivity; reduce lead time; motivate employees and promote the spirit of continuous improvement. Methods: The action-research methodology was used, whereby several cycles of data recovery and analysis, identification and implementation of opportunities for improvement, assessment and standardization were carried out. Therefore, the Total Flow Management (TFM) model was implemented, and several methods and tools were used, such as Value Stream Mapping (VSM), work measurement and 5S’s. Results: Several wastes and overloads were identified, and some actions were implemented, such as workload balancing, layout changes, implementation of visual management and supermarkets. That said, it was possible to reduce lead time by 4 days, improve productivity from 26.63 ML (a thousand cork stoppers)/h to 35.75 ML/h, and promote flexibility. In addition, employees were motivated, and a culture of continuous improvement was fostered. Conclusions: This project demonstrated that it is possible to implement improvement actions, with good results, without high investments, as well as motivating employees and taking advantage of their best capabilities. Additionally, it was demonstrated that the use of TFM can be very useful in continuous improvement, with evident improvements in production and internal logistics flows. So, this project demonstrated the practical implementation of TFM regarding basic reliability, production and internal logistics flow, and the simultaneous use of several methods and tools to implement continuous improvement. Thus, significant improvements were possible on the factory floor, as well as improving employee motivation their personal development and encouraging the focus on continuous improvement. Therefore, it responds to the gap identified in the literature.

A daily management system (DMS) can be used to implement continuous quality improvement and advance employee engagement. It can empower staff to identify problems in the care environment that impact quality or work flow and to address them on a daily basis. Through a DMS, improvement becomes the work of everyone, every day. The authors of this 2-part series describe their work to develop a DMS. Part 2 describes the implementation and outcomes of the program.

Understanding how to implement software process improvement (SPI) successfully is arguably the most challenging issue facing the SPI field today. The SPI literature contains many case studies of successful companies and descriptions of their SPI programs. However, the research efforts to date are limited and inconclusive and without adequate theoretical and psychometric justification. This paper extends and integrates models from prior research by performing an empirical investigation of the key factors for success in SPI. A quantitative survey of 120 software organizations was designed to test the conceptual model and hypotheses of the study. The results indicate that success depends critically on six organizational factors, which explained more than 50 percent of the variance in the outcome variable. The main contribution of the paper is to increase the understanding of the influence of organizational issues by empirically showing that they are at least as important as technology for succeeding with SPI and, thus, to provide researchers and practitioners with important new insights regarding the critical factors of success in SPI.