RESUMO
Outsourcing of health-commodity supplies to third-party logistics providers is one of the ways of reducing costs and/or improving service levels in the public sector. This paper evaluates three forms of outsourcing: full outsourcing of inventory management, partial outsourcing of specific activities, and contingent partial outsourcing of specific logistics activities. It notes that, in Africa, contracting-out supply logistics has mostly taken the form of partial outsourcing of transportation only or storage and transportation of specific health commodities to all or selected geographical regions. Partial outsourcing offers limited benefits since it cannot provide adequate pressures on public-sector logistics to be efficient or maintain uninterrupted supplies in times of catastrophes. Improvements in logistics performance achieved through partial outsourcing should not mask the need for more expansive arrangements that support not only partial outsourcing but also full outsourcing in situations of inefficiency and in times of supply-disruption catastrophe.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Serviços Terceirizados/organização & administração , África , Humanos , Equipamentos e Provisões/provisão & distribuição , Meios de TransporteRESUMO
This paper develops an outsourcing collaboration model from a firm's perspective operating in a developing economy. The model considers that producers of the final goods residing in a developed country, and operators of manufacturing plants in a developing country collaborate with each other. The final goods producer supplies headquarter services for the production of intermediate goods in the developing country. The operators of manufacturing plants also supply their services in the domestic economy. This arrangement leads to foreign outsourcing collaborations (FOC) between firms of developed country and developing country. The operators of manufacturing plant maximize revenue subject to the cost constraint. The first order conditions suggests that an increase in wages of skilled labor, price of domestic inputs, and cost of production deter FOC. On the other hand, an increase in demand for and price of foreign headquarter services increases the FOC. Empirical analysis based on data collected from 217 clothing (textile and apparel) firms in the city of Faisalabad (Pakistan) reveals that an increase in wage to labor-productivity ratio reduces FOC. An improvement in skilled of the labor and foreign headquarter services give rise to FOC, whereas an increase in economies-of-scope enhances FOC. Additionally, an inverted U-shaped relationship is found between the cost of production and FOC, which shows that at the initial stage, the firm's cost of production increases with an increase in the level of FOC, but soon after the tipping point, the firm's cost starts decreasing with a further increase in FOC.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Indústria Têxtil , Humanos , Paquistão , Comércio , Salários e BenefíciosRESUMO
O estudo objetiva identificar as percepções dos gestores em saúde do município de Francisco Morato (SP) e dos gestores de Unidades Básicas de Saúde (UBS), além de médicos atuantes nessas unidades, sobre os desafios e estratégias para a provisão médica na Estratégia Saúde da Família (ESF). A coleta dessas percepções foi realizada, por intermédio de entrevistas semiestruturadas. O trabalho pôde indicar uma tendência à escassez de médicos e demais profissionais da saúde, como consequência da ausência de materiais, baixa infraestrutura, da sobrecarga dos profissionais e financiamento inadequado, fatores agravados no período da pandemia e pela revisão de parâmetros de alocação de profissionais a partir do Programa mais Médicos pelo Brasil. Dentre as estratégias para lidar com esse cenário, os entrevistados relataram utilizar estratégias externas como a retomada do Programa Federal Mais Médicos (PMM) e estratégias internas de gestão. Conclui-se com o estudo a importância de usar no município moratense, algumas estratégias propostas pela Organização Mundial da Saúde (OMS), para minimizar a escassez de profissionais da saúde.
Assuntos
Atenção Primária à Saúde , Área Carente de Assistência Médica , Serviços Terceirizados , Consórcios de Saúde , Seguro de Saúde Baseado na ComunidadeRESUMO
This study examines the cyber audience's perception of social media users' persona based on their online posts from a cognitive meaning-making perspective. Participants (N = 158) answered questions about their personal characteristics and provided their 20 most recent Facebook status updates. Two groups of viewers, who viewed either the text-only or multimedia version of the status updates, answered questions about the Facebook users' personal characteristics. The viewers' perceptions of Facebook users deviated from the users' self-perceptions, although user characteristics that serve social motives were more accurately perceived. Multimedia viewers were more accurate than text viewers, whereas the latter showed a greater consensus. Gender and ethnic differences of Facebook users also emerged in online person perceptions, in line with gendered and cultured characteristics. These findings shed critical light on the dynamic interplay between social media users and the cyber audience in the co-construction of a digitally extended self.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Mídias Sociais , Humanos , Autoimagem , MotivaçãoRESUMO
Objetivo: analisar aspectos positivos e negativos relacionados à autoestima de trabalhadores terceirizados de serviços de higiene e limpeza hospitalar. Método: estudo exploratório, de abordagem qualitativa, realizado em duas instituições hospitalares privadas. Os participantes foram trabalhadores terceirizados dos serviços de higiene e limpeza. Para a coleta de dados, utilizou-se um questionáriosociodemográfico e um roteiro de entrevista semiestruturada. Realizada análise temática indutiva. Resultados: a amostra constitui-se de 15 trabalhadores, do sexo feminino, que expressaram aspectos positivos e negativos que afetam sua autoestima, que estão relacionados à organização e ambiente de trabalho, às relações interpessoais e benefícios trabalhistas. Conclusão: aspectos positivos e negativos estão presentes entre esses trabalhadores e os gestores hospitalares devem refletir sobre o serviço de higiene e limpeza, estabelecendo estratégias educativas e coletivas para os trabalhadores relacionadas às práticas de trabalho realizadas neste contexto(AU)
Objective: to analyze positive and negative aspects related to the self-esteem of outsourced workers in hospital hygiene and cleaning services. Method: exploratory study, with a qualitative approach, carried out in two private hospital institutions. Participants were outsourced workers from hygiene and cleaning services. For data collection, a sociodemographic questionnaire and a semi-structured interview script were used. Inductive thematic analysis was performed. Results: the sample consisted of 15 female workers, who expressed positive and negative aspects that affect their self-esteem, which are related to the organization and work environment, interpersonal relationships and work benefits. Conclusion: positive and negative aspects are present among these workers and hospital managers should reflect on the hygiene and cleaning service, establishing educational and collective strategies for workers related to work practices carried out in this context(AU)
Objetivo: analizar aspectos positivos y negativos relacionados con la autoestima de trabajadores subcontratados en los servicios de higiene y limpieza hospitalaria. Método: estudio exploratorio, con enfoque cualitativo, realizado en dos hospitales privadas. Los participantes eran trabajadores subcontratados de los servicios de higiene y limpieza. Para la recolección de datos, se utilizó un cuestionario sociodemográfico y un guion de entrevista semiestructurada. Se realizó un análisis temático inductivo. Resultados: la muestra estuvo conformada por 15 trabajadoras, quienes expresaron aspectos positivos y negativos que inciden en su autoestima, los cuales están relacionados con la organización y clima laboral, las relaciones interpersonales y las prestaciones laborales. Conclusión: los aspectos positivos y negativos están presentes entre estos trabajadores y los administradores de hospitales deben reflexionar sobre el servicio de higiene y limpieza, estableciendo estrategias educativas y colectivas para los trabajadores, relacionadas con las prácticas de trabajo realizadas en este contexto(AU)
Assuntos
Humanos , Feminino , Adulto , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Autoimagem , Mulheres Trabalhadoras/psicologia , Saúde Ocupacional , Serviços Terceirizados , Zeladoria Hospitalar , Hospitais Privados , Pesquisa QualitativaRESUMO
This study provides new insights into the relation between the size of the territorial units for which the provision of waste services is entrusted to external operators and their efficiency. The need for a deeper investigation of this relation arises from the fact that on the one hand, the European Union is pushing its Member States towards the adoption of laws aimed at ensuring competition for the market whenever competition in the market is possible; on the other, both the theoretical and the empirical literature cautions policymakers against the risks associated with contracting out. This problem is addressed here through an efficiency analysis of Italian municipalities in the organization of waste services. The stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) is applied to estimate efficiency scores for the municipalities. Then, a regression analysis is carried out to investigate the relation between the efficiency scores and the size of the municipality. This analysis has been carried out using data on a sample of 6,916 Italian municipalities (87.39% of the entire population) for the year 2019. The method adopted here can also support regulatory authorities in defining the size of the territorial units in which other types of local public service should be outsourced.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Eliminação de Resíduos , Gerenciamento de Resíduos , Eficiência , União Europeia , Itália , Cidades , Resíduos SólidosRESUMO
This research delves into the application effects of Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE) and quantitative weight analysis in the structure management of human resources (SMHR) to optimize the structure management. The research begins by analyzing the existing problems in SMHR, such as incomplete performance feedback and error-prone outsourcing decisions. By leveraging human resource management (HRM) characteristics, the researchers construct the SMHR evaluation index system. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed to establish a hierarchical human resource structure model to determine the relative weight of each HRM indicator. Subsequently, the FCE method is utilized to build an SMHR optimization model, which is then scrutinized and assessed by means of an example. The findings indicate that the consistency ratio (C.R.) values of the first and second-level evaluation factors of the constructed model are less than 0.1, thus passing the consistency test and demonstrating credibility. Ultimately, the research effectively grades SMHR in the enterprise through the analysis of HRM optimization. Accordingly, this research presents a set of optimization suggestions and measures, including the establishment of a professional HRM operation team, acceleration of the construction of a professional talent team, enhancement of the intelligent level of the HRM center, and transition towards digital sharing. These proposed measures can serve as valuable experimental references for the optimization and improvement of HRM structures in future enterprises.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Humanos , Recursos HumanosRESUMO
In an era of significant human and fiscal constraints, hospitals increasingly rely on industry representatives to fill gaps related to practice-based education. Given their dual sales and support functions, the extent to which education and support functions are, or ought to be, fulfilled by industry representatives is unclear. We conducted an interpretive qualitative study at a large, academic medical centre in Ontario, Canada, during 2021-2022, interviewing 36 participants across the organization with direct and varied experiences with industry-delivered education. We found that ongoing fiscal and human resource challenges prompted hospital leaders to outsource practice-based education to industry representatives, which created an expanded role for industry beyond initial product rollouts. Outsourcing, however, generated downstream costs to the organization and undermined the goals of practice-based education. To attract and retain clinicians, participants advocated for re-investment in practice-based education in-house, with a limited and supervised role for industry representatives.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Humanos , Hospitais , Pesquisa Qualitativa , OntárioRESUMO
BACKGROUND: The responsibility of local authorities in England to provide children in care with stable, local placements has become increasingly difficult due to the rising number of children in need of care and a shortage of available placements. It is unclear if the trend of outsourcing children's social care to private companies has exacerbated this challenge. This paper examines how the outsourcing of children's social care to the private market has influenced placement locality and long-term stability over time. METHODS: We created a novel dataset of multiple administrative data sources on the outsourcing, placement locality and stability, and characteristics of children in care between 2011 and 2022. We conducted time-series fixed-effects regression analysis of the impact of for-profit outsourcing on placement locality and stability from 2011 to 2022. RESULTS: Our fully adjusted models demonstrate that for-profit outsourcing is consistently associated with more children being placed outside their home local authority and greater placement instability. We found that an increase of 1 % point of for-profit outsourcing was associated with an average increase of 0.10 % points (95 % CI 0.02-0.17; p = 0.01) more children experiencing placement disruption, and 0.23 % points (95 % CI 0.15-0.30; p < 0.001) more children being placed outside their home local authority. We estimate that an additional 17,001 (95 % CI 9015-24,987) out-of-area placements can be attributed to increases in for-profit provision. DISCUSSION: Our analyses show that placement stability and distance have deteriorated or stagnated over the last decade, and that the local authorities that rely most on outsourcing have the highest rates of placement disruptions and out-of-area placements.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Humanos , Criança , Proteção da Criança , Cuidados no Lar de Adoção , Inglaterra , Apoio SocialRESUMO
While bioanalytical outsourcing is widely adopted in the pharmaceutical industry, AbbVie is one of the few large biopharmaceutical companies having an internal bioanalytical unit to support nearly all its drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic studies. This article highlights our experience and perspective in building an integrated and centralized laboratory to provide early discovery and preclinical-stage bioanalytical support with high operational efficiency, cost-effectiveness and data integrity. The advantages of in-house nonregulated bioanalytical support include better control of data quality, faster turnaround times, real-time knowledge sharing and troubleshooting, and lower near- and long-term costs. The success of an in-house model depends upon a comprehensively optimized and streamlined workflow, fueled by continuous improvements and implementation of innovative technologies.
Assuntos
Laboratórios , Serviços Terceirizados , Automação , Tecnologia , Indústria FarmacêuticaRESUMO
BACKGROUND: As one of the fundamental problems in bioinformatics, the double digest problem (DDP) focuses on reordering genetic fragments in a proper sequence. Although many algorithms for dealing with the DDP problem were proposed during the past decades, it is believed that solving DDP is still very time-consuming work due to the strongly NP-completeness of DDP. However, none of these algorithms consider the privacy issue of the DDP data that contains critical business interests and is collected with days or even months of gel-electrophoresis experiments. Thus, the DDP data owners are reluctant to deploy the task of solving DDP over cloud. RESULTS: Our main motivation in this paper is to design a secure outsourcing computation framework for solving the DDP problem. We at first propose a privacy-preserving outsourcing framework for handling the DDP problem by using a cloud server; Then, to enable the cloud server to solve the DDP instances over ciphertexts, an order-preserving homomorphic index scheme (OPHI) is tailored from an order-preserving encryption scheme published at CCS 2012; And finally, our previous work on solving DDP problem, a quantum inspired genetic algorithm (QIGA), is merged into our outsourcing framework, with the supporting of the proposed OPHI scheme. Moreover, after the execution of QIGA at the cloud server side, the optimal solution, i.e. two mapping sequences, would be transferred publicly to the data owner. Security analysis shows that from these sequences, none can learn any information about the original DDP data. Performance analysis shows that the communication cost and the computational workload for both the client side and the server side are reasonable. In particular, our experiments show that PP-DDP can find optional solutions with a high success rate towards typical test DDP instances and random DDP instances, and PP-DDP takes less running time than DDmap, SK05 and GM12, while keeping the privacy of the original DDP data. CONCLUSION: The proposed outsourcing framework, PP-DDP, is secure and effective for solving the DDP problem.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Humanos , Privacidade , Algoritmos , Biologia Computacional , EmoçõesRESUMO
PURPOSE: There is rising interest in Industry 4.0 as a factor in the competitiveness of the organization. Although many companies are aware of the importance of Industry 4.0, the development of such initiatives in Colombia is slow. Consequently, this research investigates the impact of additive technologies as part of the Industry 4.0 concept on operational effectiveness and, therefore, the competitiveness of the organization and tries to establish the factors that hinder the adequate implementation of such new, innovative technologies. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the antecedents and outcomes of operational effectiveness. To this end, 946 usable questionnaires were collected from managers and personnel from Colombian organizations. FINDINGS: Initial findings show that management is aware of Industry 4.0 concepts and implements strategies for such initiatives. Nevertheless, neither process innovation nor additive technologies have a significant impact on operational effectiveness and therefore on the competitiveness of the organization. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The implementation of new innovative technologies requires the closure of the digital gap between urban and rural areas and between large and medium and small enterprises. Similarly, the concept of Industry 4.0 as a new, innovative manufacturing concept requires a transversal implementation to increase the competitiveness of the organization. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The value of this paper lies in discussing the current technological and human capabilities and strategies that Colombian organizations, as an example of a developing nation, should improve to leverage the benefits of Industry 4.0 to remain competitive. The results are probably generalizable to other regions in developing countries throughout the world.
Assuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Humanos , Indústrias , Conscientização , Colômbia , ComércioAssuntos
Serviços Terceirizados , Humanos , Departamentos Hospitalares , Hospitais , Prática Privada , RadiologistasRESUMO
Production of defective products is a very general phenomenon. But backorder and shortages occur due to this defective product, and it hampers the manufacturer's reputation along with customer satisfaction. That is why, these outsourced products supply, a portion of required products for in-line production. This study develops a flexible production model that reworks repairable defective products and outsources products to prevent backlogging. A percentage of total in-line production is defective products, which is random, and those defective products are repairable. A green investment helps the reworking process, which has a direct impact on the market demand for products. A classical optimization solves the profit maximization model, and a numerical method proves the global optimal solutions. Sensitivity analysis, managerial insights, and discussions provide the highlights and decision-making strategies for the applicability of this model.