
Adrian SmallNorthumbria University · Newcastle Business School
Adrian Small
Business
About
27
Publications
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Introduction
My early academic background focused upon managing intangible goods and services. With a keen interest in technology, I obtained an MSc in Business Information Technology. This led into my PhD research. The work provided a detailed evaluation of how organisations can design and implement information systems. Through my PhD research I was able to engage more with Operations Management challenges and how such challenges impact on organisations. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriansmall/
Additional affiliations
Education
September 2002 - August 2007
September 2001 - September 2002
Publications
Publications (27)
Multimethodologies are now an established area of ‘soft’ operations research (OR). Adopting appropriate OR methods to tackle unstructured and complex problems is a promising field of inquiry and potential application. Research in the areas of energy and utilities, education, UK public services, and healthcare has demonstrated the success of applyin...
Purpose – This paper evaluates the European Regions for Innovative Productivity (ERIP) project that established Innovative Productivity Centres (IPCs) to assist SMEs in the North Sea Region of Europe to develop a process improvement capability. A conceptual framework explains how a process improvement methodology developed for large firms was adapt...
Growing competition and economic recession is driving the need for more rapid redesign of operations enabled by innovative technologies. The acquisition, development and implementation of systems to manage customer complaints and control the quality assurance process is a critical area for engineering and manufacturing companies. Multimethodologies...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine a bold and ambitious scheme known as the North East transformation system (NETS). The principal aim of the NETS is the achievement of a step-change in the quality of health services delivered to people living in the North East region of England. The paper charts the origins of the NETS and its earl...
Background
The North East Transformation System (NETS) was conceived as an experiment in adopting large-scale transformational change across a NHS region in England. Although the NHS in the North East performs well, the health of the population ranks among the poorest in the country. The NETS was viewed as a means of addressing this conundrum. It...
Purpose
This pathway paper highlights how geopolitics, risk and ethics affect critical minerals (CMs) supply chains (SCs). It identifies pathways to enable operations and SC management scholars to support this under-researched industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative research was undertaken in partnership with the Critical Minerals Intern...
Rare earth Elements (REEs) are a subset of Critical materials (CMs) and are found in numerous modern electronic products and advanced technologies where, due to their unique physical and chemical properties, they cannot be substituted. Disruption in their supply chain has the potential to cause devastating impacts on production and consumers. To he...
Healthcare systems face increasing demand and expectations due to globally aging populations and new technologies which will increase the demand for medical technology products. The ‘value’ of health technologies is based upon health technology assessment rather than customer perceptions. This research contributes to product delivery strategy and m...
Critical studies of ‘lean’ work regimes have tended to focus on the factory shop floor or public and healthcare sectors, despite its recent revival and wider deployment in neoliberal service economies. This paper investigates the politics of the workplace in a United Kingdom automotive dealership group subject to an intervention inspired by lean me...
Critical studies of ‘lean’ work regimes have tended to focus on the factory shop floor or public and healthcare sectors, despite its recent revival and wider deployment in neoliberal service economies. This paper investigates the politics of the workplace in a United Kingdom (UK) automotive dealership group subject to an intervention inspired by le...
This article analyses the pilot of an anonymous question and answer mobile application with a large cohort of undergraduate students (460) enrolled on an Operations Strategy Management module. The mobile application allowed students to pose anonymous questions to both peers and staff, create replies and vote on questions posted by other users. The...
The demand for healthcare services has risen due to ageing populations, changing lifestyles, increased expectations and advances in medicine. Throughout the world, there has been a steady increase in expenditure on healthcare. However, since the economic crisis in 2008, there has been pressure from governments to comply with budgetary constraints....
The focus of Lean Production in the automotive sector has been on upstream manufacturing with limited consideration of downstream service activities. The automotive manufacturers’ national sales companies manage the sale of new cars through franchising agreements with automotive distributors. A typical dealership will have multiple value streams be...
The automotive manufacturing industry has historically been at the forefront of initiatives that have sought to increase efficiency. The focus of Lean Production has been on the upstream manufacturing with limited consideration of downstream service activities. This paper develops a supply chain model of the UK automotive industry that explains the...
The NHS capital budget total is approximately £4 billion per year. This is spent on improvements to premises or the development of new premises. The design of facilities has a large impact on efficiency and outcomes. Healthcare is a service environment in which patients are part of the system. It is therefore necessary to incorporate a sociotechnic...
The research project ‘An Evaluation of Transformational Change in NHS North East’ examines the progress and success of National Health Service (NHS) organisations in north east England in implementing and embedding the North East Transformation System (NETS), a region-wide programme to improve healthcare quality and safety, and to reduce waste, usi...
SMEs find it difficult to implement and sustain Lean tools. Larger companies have more resources that make it easier to provide employees with time to engage in Lean training and improvement activities. The European Regions for Innovative Productivity Project (ERIP) was established to develop a Lean change and implementation methodology that is sui...
The research project ‘An Evaluation of Transformational Change in NHS North East’ examines the progress and success of National Health Service (NHS) organisations in north east England in implementing and embedding the North East Transformation System (NETS), a region-wide programme to improve healthcare quality and safety, and to reduce waste, usi...
One of the main problematical operational issues in construction projects is the co-ordination of building materials to arrive on site at the right time, in the right quantities, and at an acceptable quality level. The number and details of the steps involved in the material life cycle indicate the complex nature of the process and the potential fo...
The NHS capital budget total is approximately £4 billion per year. This is spent on improvements to premises or the development of new premises. The design of facilities has a large impact on efficiency and outcomes. Healthcare is a service environment in which patients are part of the system. It is therefore necessary to incorporate a sociotechnic...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to set out an argument for a way to design, implement and manage IS with an emphasis on first, the learning that can be created through undertaking the approach, and second, the learning that may be created through using the IS that was implemented. The paper proposes joining two areas of research namely, techno...
Purpose
Many tools exist to chart the progress of an organisation in its quest to become a learning organization or achieve organizational learning. Aims to expand a tool already developed to include learning organization conditions as they occur through dialogue between individuals within an organisation with an emphasis on social learning theory....
This paper explores the role that language can play in the development of technologies or other processes within an organisation. Examples and lessons from the literature of the learning organisation are looked as a key in the development of language. The paper uses a practical example of a customer complaints management system to demonstrate how t...