Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management

Management of globally distributed software projects is one of the biggest challenges of the IT industry worldwide. Distributed software development involves teams working in different geographic locations and even in different countries. These distributed projects may involve teams from the same organization or have collaborative teams from different organizations that work together on a specific project. The dimension of distribution greatly enhances the complexity of managing these projects in globalized work environments. Therefore, there is a need to explore novel solutions to address this growing challenge. Research and practice have accentuated the need to embrace flexibility in management practices. This can potentially offer novel insights in unraveling the distributed work complexity. This paper is conceptual in nature and its objective is to propose a flexible management approach for globally distributed software projects. It also presents an in-depth review of literature and makes a case for embracing flexibility in management practices to address the challenges of distribution in today’s global work environments.

The increase in competitiveness and environmental challenges drive manufacturing industry to change in layout frequently. Moreover, due to environmental challenges, use of scarce resources like electrical energy consumption (EEC) is a major issue. To tackle these rapidly changing conditions, a layout must be efficient and effective. This work proposes a bi-objective robust stochastic sustainable cellular facility layout mathematical model and embedded meta-heuristic to solve it. The proposed model simultaneously minimizes material handling cost for both inter/intra-cellular movement and EEC in cellular manufacturing systems. In today’s sensitive market, demand fluctuates very frequently, so a layout must be robust so that it can tackle all these market fluctuations. To cure the problem, robust facility layout has been designed and solved using simulated annealing (SA)-based embedded meta-heuristic. To show the validity of proposed SA-based embedded meta-heuristic, twenty-five data instances have been used and solved.

The flexibility in manufacturing system is required so it is called flexible manufacturing system (FMS), but in FMS, there is different flexibility, which is incorporated. So, in manufacturing system which flexibility has more impact and which is less impact in FMS is decided by combined multiple attribute decision making method, which are analytic hierarchy process (AHP), technique for order preference by similarity to ideal situation, and improved preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations. The criteria weights are calculated by using the AHP. Furthermore, the method uses fuzzy logic to convert the qualitative attributes into the quantitative attributes. In this paper, a multiple attribute decision making method is structured to solve this problem and concluded that production flexibility has the most impact, and programme flexibility has the least impact in FMS based on factors, which affect the flexibility in FMS by using combined multiple attribute decision making method.

The success of e-learning courses is normally measured in terms of the learning outcomes delivered, but when it comes to the success of the organizations that are in the business of delivering commercial e-learning courses, delivering learning outcomes only does not suffice. Commercial e-learning providers, to remain successful, have to meet the main expectations of the learners hidden behind the successful completion of the e-learning courses. The main expectation for a learner could mean obtaining a skill certification leading to a better paying job or a successful attempt at securing a place in a reputed university which uses tough entrance examinations in the admission process. This study based on an ‘Action Research’ conducted on two commercial e-learning providers belonging to the non-formal education domain in India and conducted over a period of 3 years concludes that organizational flexibility plays a very important role on the strategic performance indicators of commercial e-learning providers.

The global upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic posed unprecedented challenges for various industries and organisations. Among one of the most severely impacted were those in the hospitality sector, grappling with distinctive adversities to ensure their survival. This research delves into the financial hardships faced by the hospitality sector in the Pacific, with a specific focus on strategies employed for resilience. Utilising a qualitative methodology, the study offers a narrative drawn from the experiences of a luxury resort in Fiji. The insights derived from this investigation contribute to a framework for building resilience during times of uncertainty. This framework, rooted in a case study, stands poised to guide other organisations facing similar crises by pinpointing essential activities and formulating pertinent strategies and operational plans.

Iteration is the essence of flexible systems management by repeating the same set of steps with improvement over each previous cycle. Flexible systems management imbibes and balances the hard systems thinking (focused on optimization) and soft systems thinking (focused on learning). The optimization process has two basic steps, i.e. define goals and engineer the system to achieve these goals. The management as an optimization process is also to be carried out using an iterative approach. The other paradigm of management (soft systems thinking) keeps focus on learning which by definition is an iterative process. It is an experimental approach, which caters to the multiple perspectives in a given context. Both learning and optimization, though having different approaches of management, are seen to be iterative in nature. Flexible systems management balances the learning and optimization paradigms in a mutually supportive way. This, thus, takes the iteration at a meta-level between the two inherently iterative processes.

In today’s world of fierce competition, lean manufacturing practices enable companies to meet challenges and be competitive. Uncertainties and dynamic changing situations in the market condition pose problems towards achieving aim of becoming lean. Manufacturing flexibility empowers companies to efficiently tackle these uncertainties and ever changing market conditions. In the present work, the effect of manufacturing flexibilities such as labour flexibility, machine flexibility, volume flexibility, routing flexibility, product flexibility and material handling flexibility on lean manufacturing has been studied and analysed by using structural equation modelling. Structural model depicting relationship between lean manufacturing and various elements of manufacturing flexibility was tested using AMOS and modified to attain the best fit. The study brings out the importance of managing machine flexibility and its significant impact on lean manufacturing. The study focuses on automobile component industry in Pune region in India.

A potential solution to the high failure rate in distributed agile development and enhance the success of projects is through implementing agile enterprise architecture, though the success is still to be established. The present paper empirically investigates the gap, by defining the role and commitment of implementing agile enterprise architecture on distributed agile development. The data were collected by interviewing 12 key team members and observing four team meetings over 2 months and analyzing using thematic analysis. The present study suggests that implementing agile enterprise architecture is possible in distributed agile development and may have a positive impact on project success. However, many questions demand further investigation.

Although sustainability and its adoption have been talked about for many years, attention to social sustainability in the literature as well as practice has been rather limited. In the developing countries, glaring social issues, such as inequality, poor living conditions, child and bonded labour, inappropriate wages and gender discrimination, combined with increased stakeholder awareness, are exerting pressure on the corporates for social sustainability. This research identifies the social sustainability barriers and their inter-relationships, so as to determine the practices that can lead to the adoption of social sustainability in the supply chain of manufacturing industries. The barriers to social sustainability have been identified through an extensive literature review and their relevance has been ascertained through a questionnaire survey and interviews with the experts. The interpretive structural modelling approach has been used to model the contextual relationships among the barriers. The findings show that lack of pressure from the employees’ unions, with high driving power and low dependence, leads at the bottom of the digraph. Lack of pressure by stakeholders occupies the second level, while lack of customer requirements, lack of pressure from social organisations and lack of zeal on the part of the skilful policy entrepreneurs are positioned at the middle level. The fourth level is occupied by lack of social concern and inadequate competitive pressure, while at the top of the digraph come lack of regulatory compliance and lack of awareness of social sustainability. The model has been developed based on the opinions of the academics and industry experts, yielding a hierarchical structure of the social barriers and their interrelationships, which is expected to help the supply chain practitioners and policy makers to address the problems in the adoption of social sustainability in manufacturing supply chain.