Abstract
More than ever, the economic globalization is creating the need to increase business competitiveness. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy oriented to the elimination of activities that do not create any type of value and are thus considered a waste. One of the main differences from other management philosophies is the shop-floor focus and the operators' involvement. Therefore, the training of all organization levels is crucial for the success of lean manufacturing. Universities should also participate actively in this process by developing students' lean management skills and promoting a better and faster integration of students into their future organizations. This paper proposes a single realistic manufacturing platform, involving production and assembly operations, to learn by playing many of the lean tools such as VSM, 5S, SMED, poke-yoke, line balance, TPM, Mizusumashi, plant layout, and JIT/kanban. This simulation game was built in tight cooperation with experienced lean companies under the international program "Lean Learning Academy,"1 and its main aim is to make bachelor and master courses in applied sciences more attractive by integrating classic lectures with a simulated production environment that could result in more motivated students and higher study yields. The simulation game results show that our approach is efficient in providing a realistic platform for the effective learning of lean principles, tools, and mindset, which can be easily included in course classes of less than two hours. © 2013 IEEE.

Abstract
This work addresses a case study in an intercontinental supply chain. The problem emerges in a company in Angola dedicated to the trade of consumable goods for construction building and industrial maintenance. The company in Angola sends the replenishment needs to a Portuguese company, which takes the decision of which products and in which quantities will be sent by shipping container to the company in Angola. The replenishment needs include the list of products that reached the corresponding reorder point. The decision of which products and in which quantity should take into consideration a set of practical constraints: the maximum weight of the cargo, the maximum volume the cargo and financial constraints related with the minimum value that guarantees the profitability of the business and a maximum value associated with shipping insurance. A 2-stage hybrid method is proposed. In the first stage, an integer linear programming model is used to select the products that maximise the sales potential. In the second stage, a Container Loading Algorithm is used to effectively pack the selected products in the shipping container ensuring the geometrical constraints, and safety constraints such as weight limit and stability. A new set of problem instances was generated with the 2DCPackGen problem generator, using as inputs the data collected in the company. Computational results for the algorithm are presented and discussed. Good results were obtained with the solution approach proposed, with an average occupation ratio of 92% of the container and an average gap of 4% for the solution of the integer linear programming model.

Abstract
In an increasingly competitive and globalized world, companies need effective training methodologies and tools for their employees. However, selecting the most suitable ones is not an easy task. It depends on the requirements of the target group (namely time restrictions), on the specificities of the contents, etc. This is typically the case for training in Lean, the waste elimination manufacturing philosophy. This paper presents and compares two different approaches to lean training methodologies and tools: a simulation game based on a single realistic manufacturing platform, involving production and assembly operations that allows learning by playing; and a digital game that helps understand lean tools. This paper shows that both tools have advantages in terms of trainee motivation and knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, they can be used in a complementary way, reinforcing the acquired knowledge. © 2013 IEEE.

Abstract
A Shopping Centre (SC) is a "shop open to the public", installed in a building, which include parking, several shops, technical, management, and shopping arcade. In the current economic climate, the maintenance of complex buildings, like shopping centres, is performed under a tight budget context, and is essentially based on systems conditions. A maintenance model, to be effective, requires that maintenance service performance, covering the different building systems and components, is measured. This paper presents a methodology to measure the performance of SCs maintenance management through two major performance indicators: the Building Performance Indicator (BPI); and the Maintenance Efficiency Indicator (MEI). The results of its implementation to seven shopping centres, in Portugal, show that the general condition of the facilities is good (overall BPI= 86,45%) but the low MEI values (<0,37) indicates that insufficient resources are allocated to maintenance activities and this can compromise the future condition of the facilities.

Abstract
The problem of routing and scheduling of technicians is a problem that technical assistance and maintenance companies face nowadays, market competitiveness requires quick response, service diversification, and customer satisfaction. The relationship between competitiveness and profitability of companies involves the effective management of their resources. The work developed addresses a real problem of a major Portuguese company providing technical assistance to the home, a varied set of services (need for specific skills and execution times) must be scheduled for a set of technicians with heterogeneous skills and geographical locations (start and end of the route) based on their different places of residence. The results show a considerable increase in the efficiency levels of the solution obtained when compared to the company's current solution and reveals that the lack of homogeneity of skills among technicians and the variation in service flows are factors that should be considered in the operational management of resources and the contracting of work, and that the increase in working hours can also contribute to improving the efficiency of the process.

Abstract
Production scheduling generates a direct impact on several aspects of manufacture, such as the number of delays in delivery to customers, total flow time, as well as the percentage of equipment used. It must, therefore, constitute a priority in production management, which should seek to implement scheduling techniques that will lead to positive results from the perspective of the quality of the solution. However, the methodology cannot overlook the functional aspect of the time which has elapsed until the solution is reached. This study is based on a real and specific module software improvement into a company devoted to the development of ERP software systems (Enterprise Resource Planning). It presents a solution for the production scheduling module focused on flow-shop operations, comprising a total of nine dispatching rules. An additional solution for scheduling is also proposed, which resorts to metaheuristic simulated annealing. Both solutions are compared to each other by using the quality-functionality binomial approach. These two environments are further contrasted with a third, where no effective solution for production scheduling exists. The environment which includes scheduling through dispatching rules was compared to the environment where no production scheduling was implemented. The results obtained from this analysis show an improvement of 13%. The simulated annealing solution presents an improvement of 3,6% when compared to a solution which uses dispatching rules. This improvement implies one extra minute in the calculation of the final solution.