Building Smart Factories through Advanced Analytics
By Lidiane Cunha
We are living in the fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, a new world powered by smart, interconnected technologies that allow us to store and share a massive amount of information at an incredible pace. From artificial intelligence to cloud computing, from machine learning to big data, these disruptive technologies have affected how we live our daily lives, communicate and work. They have also transformed the way entire industries operate and produce services and products.
For example, Industry 4.0 is reshaping the manufacturing process, creating what experts call “smart manufacturing.” The tedious, repetitive operations of traditional manufacturing are now being transformed by advanced analytical tools. These tools allow production and maintenance engineers and other professionals to harvest an incredible amount of data, create predictive and descriptive models, and design decision support systems to address complex challenges. Companies from different areas, including telecommunications, automobile manufacturing and health care, have reinvented their manufacturing processes by employing these tools.
What’s this research about?
Bijan Raahemi, full professor at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, has partnered with Ciena Canada, a well-known telecommunications equipment vendor that provides digital platforms and advanced professional services to support the delivery of 5G services. The company was looking into implementing a “smart factory” with AI processes. Raahemi will develop state-of-the art analytic tools to help Ciena automate its manufacturing facility and processes, increase efficiency and improve service quality. His research will be funded by the ENCQOR 5G Ontario Centre of Excellence Academic Technology Development Program.
What’s the potential impact of the project?
Ciena has collected extensive data from its manufacturing facilities, which Raahemi’s team will analyze using big data analytics. “Ciena is looking for ways to leverage new insights that can be derived from its centralized data repository, and we will explore and design novel techniques and innovative solutions to analyze such a large amount of data using machine learning and big data,” says Raahemi. “The developed predictive and descriptive models can be used to make data-driven decisions on Ciena’s manufacturing lines.” he adds. For instance, insights gained from this research partnership could help production and maintenance engineers at Ciena plan resource use and manage bottlenecks more effectively.
This research collaboration will also have a great impact on the lives of Matin Ashtiani and Waeal Obidallah, doctoral students in uOttawa’s Digital Transformation and Innovation program. The two are affiliated with Raahemi’s Knowledge Discovery and Data mining lab. Part of the team working with the Ciena researchers, they stand to gain both academic and industry experience working on innovative solutions for Ciena.
What determines the success of startups?
By Rania Nasrallah-Massaad
Harshit Rajaiya, an assistant professor of finance, is our newest faculty member. He completed his PhD at Boston College. We interviewed him to learn more about his research on entrepreneurial finance.
Why did you choose to study finance?
I enjoy thinking about problems, whether mathematical or real-world problems. There was a boom in startup firms in India around the time I graduated from college. While some of the startups succeeded, many failed. I was especially curious about the factors determining investments in startups and their eventual success or failure. My finance PhD program equipped me with the theoretical understanding of the actions of individuals, e.g., entrepreneurs or investors, and the empirical tools to pursue my research endeavours.
Can you discuss a recent publication that you are particularly excited about?
My recent study examines the impact of employee ratings on a public firm’s external financing and investment policies. The explosive growth of the internet has led to a spike in information produced by non-traditional sources, e.g., non-executive employees or consumers. My study analyzed the role of Glassdoor ratings — anonymous online reviews by employees — on a firm’s decision to issue equity versus debt to raise external financing and on the stock market’s reaction to those equity issues. While Glassdoor ratings may not convey “hard information” like financial ratios, they convey relevant “soft information,” e.g., work culture, which affects a firm’s financing and investment decisions.
How can your research influence business communities in Canada?
My research focusses on the external financing decisions of public firms, the role of intellectual properties in success of startup firms and the role played by venture capitalists and angel investors in startup ecosystems. My work suggests that intellectual properties like patents and trademarks may not only benefit Canadian startups to raise external financing and enable their future success but will also help Canadian public firms enhance their access to the equity market. Further, better online employee ratings may help Canadian public firms raise equity financing for their valuable projects. Lastly, investors (retail or institutional) must pay attention to a firm’s intellectual properties and online reviews before executing their stock market decisions.
Using Analytics to Allocate Elective Surgery Resources during the Pandemic
By Lidiane Cunha
The pandemic has had a major impact on health care. Earlier this year, hospitals were forced to halt non-urgent services such as elective surgeries. While the numbers of COVID-19 cases gradually dropped during the summer, Ontario hospitals are still working hard to resume elective services. It hasn’t been easy: thousands of patients have been waiting for surgeries that were cancelled or postponed.
COVID-19 hasn’t gone away, either. Health care managers and professionals still face uncertainty as they make decisions around elective surgeries. They must not only consider the patient situation and the nature of the procedure but also the supply and use of scarce resources such as masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment (PPE). Efficient resource use and distribution can make a critical difference.
The team’s solution
Working with The Ottawa Hospital’s orthopedics division, a team of Telfer researchers has come up with a tool to help health organizations seeking to distribute and use PPE and other surgical resources efficiently. Sajjad Dehnoei and Dr. Stephen Kingwell, students in the MSc health systems program, worked with Professors Antoine Sauré and Wojtek Michalowski. Kingwell is also an assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine and a surgeon in the Ottawa Hospital’s orthopedics division.
The research team analyzed data on PPE and other resource supply, usage and availability during the elective surgery shutdown in the orthopedics division. Based on this information, they developed an analytics tool that not only helps health managers and professionals resume elective surgeries but also considers the limited availability of PPE during the pandemic.
Help in making complex decisions in a rapidly evolving scenario
The challenges faced by health professionals and managers represent a classic resource allocation problem, one that can be addressed by what analytics researchers refer to as a “knapsack” model. For Sauré, this model “is useful for situations in which decision makers are given a limited capacity, a set of items to account for, their capacity requirements and benefits. He offers an example: “Think of the hospital that has to conduct several elective surgeries but faces limited availability of PPE.” After analyzing the requirements for each surgery, health managers and professionals must determine what to include in a portfolio of services (the “knapsack”) to offer the best outcome for all and use limited resources efficiently.
Hospital managers must consider very complex information as part of their normal decision-making. However, this has become even more challenging given the unpredictable nature of a pandemic. Because of recurring supply chain issues, reduced staff and increased use of PPE during the first wave of the pandemic, many hospitals have struggled to get elective services up and running. The availability of PPE and other surgical resources may still change in the months ahead, depending on how the pandemic evolves.
The tool developed by Telfer professors and graduate students allows health care managers and professionals to simulate different “what-if” scenarios. “(It) accounts for a pre-specified use of PPE for a variety of orthopedic surgeries and helps determine the number of procedures of each type that can be conducted based on the availability of PPE,” explains Sauré.
The team is currently upgrading the tool to sync it with the actual COVID caseload at the Ottawa Hospital. Once upgraded, it should automatically update information about the availability of PPE and other resources.
Impact
The researchers mention two major benefits of the tool. “First, the model can help The Ottawa Hospital optimize the use of PPE in the operating room,” says Kingwell. Second, it could be used to more effectively plan elective surgeries going forward. “It’s anticipated that waves of COVID-19 cases will affect scheduling of surgeries, so there might be ramp-ups or reductions,” adds Kingwell. Using the tool, hospital managers could quickly re-adjust the allocation of resources for different types of surgeries, an outcome that could improve the patient experience.
This research project has also enriched the student experience. For Dehnoei, it’s been “a thrilling opportunity” to be involved. “As a graduate student, I learned a lot about the challenges of doing practical research, especially in the health care analytics field.” He also discovered that “research can play a crucial role facilitating decision-making for health care organizations.”
Once fully developed and tested, the model could be implemented in other surgical departments during COVID-19 and support their health care managers in developing safer, more effective plans to allocate PPE and other elective surgery equipment.
Work-life Balance: What Does It Mean and How Do We Achieve It?
Do I feel positive about my work and life roles? Do I feel effective and sufficiently involved in them? Do I feel like they fit together?
According to Professor Laurent Lapierre of the Telfer School of Management, answering these questions can help us determine whether or not we are achieving work-life balance.
So how do we avoid role incompatibility when the COVID-19 pandemic has forced our work and home lives to collide?
According to Telfer Professor Jane O’Reilly, who specializes in organizational behaviour and human resource management, work-life balance is all about finding ways to effectively and simultaneously attain our personal work and home goals.
Examining Primary Health Care for Patients with Mental Illness
For those living with serious mental illness, ensuring primary care providers do not overlook their chronic health problems is essential because hospitalization and, even, death from chronic health issues is a real risk. In fact, people with serious mental illness live lives that are 30% shorter than the rest of the population.
A Telfer-led research project titled “Primary Care for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness” is receiving nearly $1 million in funding over five years from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) to examine how primary care providers can offer better primary health care for people living with serious mental illness. Professor Agnes Grudniewicz and the research team hope their analysis will better explain the primary health care experience of this population group, what types of primary care service this population uses, and how to improve the primary care system.
