This study aims to construct a work procedure framework for classifying diagnoses based on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. This classification system was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for categorizing injuries, diseases and health-care services. The WHO classifications are increasingly applied to the basic data of clinical research in Japan, including epidemiological investigation and medical insurance. The classification process should be properly executed independently of the classifier or classification environment. The WHO guidelines are intended to enable proper classification by all member states of the WHO. However, whether the descriptions in the guidelines are sufficient for work procedures has not been verified. This study clarifies the improvement points of the WHO guidelines and constructs a new work procedure framework for classifying diagnoses.

A firm's customer base is its “ultimate management asset” because of the existence of loyal customers. These customers make a significant contribution to profits because of their repeat purchase behavior. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors that influence repurchase intention and to invest effectively by analyzing overall corporate activity. However, only a limited number of cases have been evaluated across various business activities and touchpoints with customers. In this study, factors that contribute to repurchase intention were evaluated from the perspective of corporate brand images, products, and sales in the automobile industry using covariance structure analysis. It was found that the attractiveness of sales staff was the most effective factor, followed by the attractiveness of products and lastly, corporate brand images. Each factor can be further decomposed into the following influential sub-factors: products (“comfort performance, safety performance, and status”); sales staff (“reliability, quick response, and ease of consultation”); and corporate brand images (“advanced, creative, and challenging”). It has been pointed out that in many companies, a large number of projects is causing a decline in productivity and employee morale. One reason is that although the priority of each department can be determined, it may be difficult to do so from a company-wide perspective. Therefore, it is useful to have a standard that can approximately determine the priorities regarding the project plans of each department from a company-wide perspective.

Determining an efficient layout is very important to increase the productivity of a factory with multiple departments. There are many papers about facility layout problems, but there are few papers about facility layout problems involving hazardous materials defined in the Fire Service Act. Among them, there is no literature considering the safety space required for hazardous materials as defined in the Fire Service Act. Therefore, in this research, we propose a facility layout problem that considers providing a safety space for hazardous materials as defined in the Fire Service Act. In addition, hazardous materials storage facilities are classified into two types, indoor storage facilities and outdoor storage facilities, and the width of the safety space changes based on the type of storage facility selected. In this research, we realize the optimal solution to the facility layout problem by incorporating the change in safety space required based on the storage facility type selected. We conduct multiple experiments utilizing virtual data compiled by the authors and actual data obtained from collaborating company.

It is very important to increase the productivity of picking operations in e-commerce in order to satisfy customer demand in the shortest possible time. There are two work methods for shipping, order picking and inverse order picking, that are commonly used in distribution centers. An inverse order picking system has two major tasks before shipping. One is picking the total amount of each item from the shelves, and the other is properly placing items into the correct container based on the customer that ordered them. This placement operation is also called “sorting”. In a traditional sorting method, the workers place items into the container by type one at a time. When there are many different types of items, workers must walk long distances because the route the worker must walk is decided based on each type required to fill the order. In this paper, we propose a sorting method that consolidates multiple types of apparel items. Walking time is reduced by consolidating items together. However, the selection time increases because worker must choose the items required, sorting them out from multiple items. Therefore, it is not easy to determine which sorting method is best. In this paper, we reveal the effect of make-span and total working time, such as walking time and blocking time using simulation. The simulation approach is effective in modeling blocking. The experimental results indicate that the sorting method needs to be selected according to situation and purpose.