117,356 research outputs found
Can lean systems engineering enhance the value of astrophysical projects
No full textThis paper reports the findings of a research carried out at INAF (the Italian Institution of Astrophysics), aimed at checking whether a cultural barrier concerning the concept of “value” can prevent the effective implementation of Lean Management principles in organizations where Systems Engineering is adopted. Our hypothesis concerns the possibility that this barrier could threaten the integration of such two approaches and prevent the effective introduction of Lean Management. To investigate this issue, we have conducted a survey among the projects leaders of INAF and 40 usable questionnaires have been collected and analyzed. The empirical evidence shows that INAF project leaders consider the technical perfection of the product a key goal of their organization. Furthermore, data analysis points out a kind of overlap between the concepts of “value” and “perfection”, which can prevent a more appropriate understanding of what “value” is in the eyes of the stakeholders of the project
Lean Systems Engineering: Evidence from Astrophysical Projects
No full textThis paper reports the preliminary findings of a research carried out at INAF (the Italian Institution of Astrophysics), aimed at checking whether Lean Management can be integrated with Systems Engineering. Our hypothesis concerns the possibility that a cultural barrier could threaten the integration of such two approaches. The empirical evidence shows that INAF project leaders consider the technical perfection of the product a key goal and this can prevent a more appropriate understanding of what is “value” in the eyes of the stakeholders of the project
Mapping wastes in complex projects for Lean Product Development
Get PDFLean Product Development (LPD) is suggested as an approach that can reduce waste in projects aimed at developing technically complex items, which typically present substantial uncertainty about their output, as well as higher costs and longer development times. However, how can LPD be implemented in complex projects, where some redundancies in the development process are considered necessary in order to guarantee the quality of the final outcome? This paper answers this question, through a survey conducted at INAF, the Italian Institute of Astrophysics, that runs complex projects. The evidence shows that complex projects can actually be affected by the types of waste reported in LPD literature. Still, researchers may fail to determine the real priorities of intervention as they have trouble distinguishing between value-adding and value-destroying activities. Furthermore, they do not perceive the relevance of addressing the wastes generated by their own work; on the contrary, they place considerable attention on inefficiencies that are beyond the scope of their direct responsibilities. Recommendations to overcome this problem are proposed
Boosting the performance of the ASTRI SST-2M prototype: reflective and anti-reflective coatings
Get PDFASTRI is a Flagship Project of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, led by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, INAF. One of the main aims of the ASTRI Project is the design, construction and verification on-field of a dual mirror (2M) end-to-end prototype for the Small Size Telescope (SST) envisaged to become part of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. The ASTRI SST-2M prototype adopts the Schwarzschild-Couder design, and a camera based on SiPM (Silicon Photo Multiplier); it will be assembled at the INAF astronomical site of Serra La Nave on mount Etna (Catania, Italy) within mid 2014, and will start scientific validation phase soon after. The peculiarities of the optical design and of the SiPM bandpass pushed towards specifically optimized choices in terms of reflective coatings for both the primary and the secondary mirror. In particular, multi-layer dielectric coatings, capable of filtering out the large Night Sky Background contamination at wavelengths nm have been developed and tested, as a solution for the primary mirrors. Due to the conformation of the ASTRI SST-2M camera, a reimaging system based on thin pyramidal light guides could be optionally integrated aiming to increase the fill factor. An anti-reflective coating optimized for a wide range of incident angles faraway from normality was specifically developed to enhance the UV-optical transparency of these elements. The issues, strategy, simulations and experimental results are thoroughly presented
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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