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Actions to reduce emotional exhaustion at work include providing a positive and suitable work environment through social support. These strategies help prevent MC and improve professional efficacy, life quality at work, and productivity.

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Burnout syndrome (BS) and obesity are two growing conditions that affect employees’ health and company productivity. Recently, several studies have pointed to a possible relationship between both phenomena. However, such a relationship has not been clearly defined. This research analyzes the relationship between BS dimensions and body mass index (BMI), the latter being treated as a moderator variable among obese senior and middle managers in the Mexican maquiladora industry through a structural equation model. A total of 361 senior and middle managers (124 of them classified as obese under the World Health Organization’s criteria) completed both the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey [with emotional exhaustion (EE), cynicism, and professional efficacy (PE) as subscale dimensions] and a sociodemographic questionnaire (which included BMI). The results showed a statistically significant relationship between EE and PE (P < 0.001; β = -0.320), with BMI acting as a moderator variable. The results showed that when BMI increases as a moderator variable, the strength of the relationship between EE and PE also changes. For example, although PE had a negative value of 0.14 before the moderator effect, the value increased up to 0.32 when the BMI was factored into the relationship. Therefore, maquiladora industries are being advised to increase their investments on the identification and prevention of employees’ EE and obesity. Such interventions would promote a better quality of life and could prevent economic losses resulting from poor employee performance.

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During the last decades, the production systems have developed different strategies to increase their competitiveness in the global market. In a manufacturing and services systems, Lean Manufacturing has been consolidated through the correct implementation of its tools. The present paper presents a case study developed in a Food Packer company where a Simulation Model was considered as an alternative to reduce the waste time generated by the poor distribution of operations and transportation areas for a product within the factory. As a matter of fact, the company has detected problems on the layout distribution that prevents to fulfill the market demand. In addition, the principal aim was to create a simulation model to test different hypothetical scenarios and alternative designs for the layout distribution without modifying its facilities. Moreover, the implemented methodology was based on classical models of simulation projects and a compendium of the manufacturing systems optimization by simulation process used during the last ten years. Also, a mathematic model supported by the Promodel ® simulation software was developed considering the company characteristics; along with the model development, it was possible to compare the production system performance from the percentage of used locations, the percentage of resources utilization, the number of finished products, and the level of Work in Process (WIP). Finally, the verification and validation stages were performed before running the scenarios in the real production area. The results generated by the implementation of the project represent an increase of 68% in the production capacity and a reduction of 5% in the WIP. In addition, both outcomes are associated with the resources management, which were reassigned to other production areas.

La discapacidad de tipo motriz puede ser ocasionada por distintos factores y afectar a un número diferente de miembros del cuerpo, siendo la paraplejia la que origina la parálisis completa o parcial de las extremidades inferiores. Las personas que la padecen tienen grandes riesgos en la salud, dada su movilidad limitada, por lo que los ejercicios de rango de movimiento son muy importantes y pueden verse apoyados de ayudas técnicas y tecnologías de apoyo. La presente investigación surge de la necesidad de diseñar un producto que cumpla con los requerimientos de movilidad de miembros inferiores en personas con paraplejia. Dentro de esta primera fase de estudio se realizó una revisión de la literatura, una revisión de patentes, búsqueda de equipos a la venta en el mercado y entrevistas al grupo de estudio y a especialistas en el área, con la finalidad de comprender y especificar el contexto de la investigación.

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