Bespoke bike maker harnesses AM

Circular economy has become a prominent topic in scientific discourse and has gained significant presence as a strategic factor for business and industry. Both, as crucial enabler of a sustainable economy, and as lever for overcoming resource dependencies. Previous studies have identified multiple benefits of implementing circular principles, as well as enablers for a transformation to circular economy. However, studies with a focus on a specific industry and regional context that offer practical guidance for the transformation to a circular economy are still somewhat underrepresented. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing major obstacles to a transformation to circular economy, in the context of the Austrian manufacturing industry. It is based on a literature review, in which 369 articles were reviewed, complemented by a structured online survey in which 229 managers from 192 companies in the manufacturing industry participated. In the survey, the obstacles were ranked according to their relevance on two levels: assessing 10 clusters of obstacles on a higher level, followed by a deep-dive evaluation of specific obstacles within the clusters. Based on the research findings, it is evident that the circular economy plays a significant role in long-term corporate success and most surveyed companies recognize its strategic importance. The results also reveal that market and customer demand are the biggest drivers of a transformation to circular economy, followed by general concerns about the environment and regulatory pressure. The biggest barriers on the way toward circular economy are the need for more financial government support, challenges with setting up an effective circular supply chain, economic challenges resulting from customer behavior and barriers in the redesign of products. The interdisciplinarity of the challenges leads to a high complexity in the transformation process. This means that most of the major barriers are external, and therefore companies cannot tackle these barriers by themselves. Governments should consider developing more incentive systems to support companies in their transition to the circular economy. To effectively navigate the transition, companies should adopt integrated strategies that encompass supply chain optimization, in-depth analysis of customer buying behaviors, and investment in sustainable and recyclable product design.

The study examines the relationship among service quality, perceived service value, perceived sacrifice, customer satisfaction, behavioral intention, customer loyalty, word-of-mouth and variety seeking by investigating the purchase of hot spring spa service and hot spring resort hotel. Modern marketing of service industry attributes to the demand of customers. Therefore, the study focuses on the customer aspects. Though issues on”how perceived service value and service quality affects customer royalty and repurchase intention” have been widely discussed, there are still issues worthy further research, especially the derivative factors in individual industries. Hence, the study explores a model that elucidates how service quality and perceived service value affect customers in the repurchase of hot spring service. Especially deserve to be mentioned is that the study also makes further investigation about non-monetary perceived price. In addition, exploring how customer repurchase intention and royalty affect variety seeking as well. This explication may give corporate and managers some suggestions in making marketing program decisions. The study establishes a model to examine the relationship between each construct built in this study by LISREL. The study is to provide references to hot spring hotel managers in making future strategy decision and improving the hot spring resort service to customers. The following is the main conclusion in the study: 1. When the hot spring resort hotel is positioning in luxury segment, there is positive relationship between perceived sacrifice and perceived service value. 2. In the perceived service value model of hot spring resort hotel, the factor to affect customer repurchase intention is mainly through perceived service quality which is determined by customer satisfaction. 3. Among the various kind of hot sprig resort hotel, the royalty of customers expresses in the positive Word of Mouth behavioral intention. 4. The customers positioned in middle or high price level tend to make variety seeking behavior to reduce the uncertainty of the change of their taste.

Supply chain management (SCM) in semiconductor manufacturing poses significant challenges that arise from the presence of long throughput times, unique constraints, and stochasticity in throughput time, yield, and customer demand. To address these concerns, a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm is developed which relies on a control-oriented formulation to generate daily decisions on starts of factories. A multiple-degree-of-freedom observer formulated for ease of tuning is implemented to achieve robustness and performance in the presence of nonlinearity and stochasticity in both supply and demand. The control algorithm is configured to meet the requirements of meeting customer demand (both forecasted and unforecasted), and track inventory and starts targets provided by higher level decision policies. Unique features of semiconductor manufacturing, such as capacity limits, packaging, and product reconfiguration, are formally addressed by imposing different constraints related to starts and inventories. This functionality contrasts that of standard approaches to MPC and makes this controller suitable as a tactical decision tool for semiconductor manufacturing and similar forms of high-volume discrete-parts manufacturing problems. Two representative case studies are examined under diverse realistic conditions with this flexible formulation of MPC. It is demonstrated that system robustness, performance, and high levels of customer service are achieved with proper tuning of the filter gains and weights, as well as the presence of adequate capacity in the supply chain.

Chapter 19 - Algal lipids, lipidomics, and biosurfactants

Strict quarantine restrictions have caused a crisis in the hospitality industry both in Ukraine and around the world. The number of hotel and restaurant establishments are decreased, because a significant reduction in the number of domestic and foreign tourists. In additional, the population’s spending on recreation and culture, restaurants and hotels are decreased, because they are lost their jobs. This critical situation requires the improvement of hotel and restaurant management, their adaptation to new business conditions, flexibility and efficiency of decision-making. The concept of “hospitality industry” and negative factors that affect its development are considered in this article. Statistical data on the dynamics of the volume of services provided for temporary accommodation and catering and the number of incoming (foreign) and domestic tourists in Ukraine, the decrease in the level of effective demand of Ukrainian citizens are researched. The interpretation of the concept of “hotel and restaurant management in a crisis” in terms of the importance of using modern management tools to change the format of work with clients, in order to adapt to crisis conditions resulting from the pandemic, gain competitive advantage, meet customer demands and as a result of obtaining a high level of profitability. The staff is an important component of the success of the hotel and restaurant industry in the market and its competitiveness. Customer demands are constantly growing, so staffing requirements are also changing. Important competencies of the manager of the hotel and restaurant industry are: analytical, logical, strategic thinking, communication skills, and leadership skills. In the competition for customers, information and communication play an important role, and effective communication management helps to make optimal management decisions. Particular attention should be paid to external communications, namely marketing communication policy. The strategy of the hotel and restaurant industry in a pandemic includes: the development of an effective marketing policy, improving the expansion of sales channels, the formation of customer protection and safety.

In order to gain a competitive advantage in the globalised environment, a company has to operate with a high level of agility in terms of responding quickly and flexibly to changes in competitive criteria, the market, and customer demands. Agility has become an important strategic factor in competition. When the design stage of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM)'s or original design manufacturer (ODM)'s product is completed, and it starts to enter the mass production stage, a number of uncertain factors are often encountered, which may delay the manufacturing process and lead to lost business opportunities. Focusing on this issue, the present research establishes a hybrid approach to discovering the critical agility factors when launching a new product into mass production. In this research, interpretive structure modelling (ISM) is first utilised to identify the interactive causal relationships of the employed agility factors. Further, an analytical network process (ANP) model is applied to obtain the importance weights of the agility criteria based on the dependence or feedback relationships among the factors obtained from the results of ISM. As a result, both a visualised causal relationship and a quantified representation of the critical agility criteria can be provided to aid managers in effective decision-making.

The utilization of simulation modelling in supply chain management has proven to be a valuable tool for logistics service providers, enabling them to optimize their operations and meet customer demands efficiently. AnyLogic, with its diverse capabilities in discrete event simulation, system dynamics, and agent-based simulation, stands out as a powerful software solution for tackling complex supply chain challenges. This paper significantly contributes by demonstrating the practical implementation of AnyLogic in the modelling and simulation of agro-food product distribution network, particularly vegetable oils from the Cevital group. Additionally, the study integrates an optimization experiment to ascertain the optimal number of vehicles required to meet a specific customer demand while ensuring a high level of fleet utilization. The obtained results are very encouraging and demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach.

Corporate education in engineering firms is valued with varying degree depending on the nature of the economic sector, the climate of the firm, and the perspective of the leadership team. Organizations must cope with new customer demands, shifting employment pools, cyclical economic pressures, and their own internal needs to acquire the technical competencies to capture new business and deliver on contractual promises. Furthermore, the relentless advancement of the engineering practice has caused practitioners to grow increasingly out of synch with their earlier college education, which has created a serious education gap in firms with aging professional workforces. The corporate university offers aerospace and engineering firms an opportunity to align learning resources to strategic objectives by centralizing corporate education. The vision of the corporate university is to fill current need and to plan for future critical skill development in three content areas. These are critical skills development, leadership and management development and professional development. The scope of these content areas is integrative and overlapping. The paper posits why training is necessary to the strategic success of large aerospace firms, discusses the background of corporate universities in the international arena, presents a universally accepted comparison between the traditional view of decentralized training departments and the centralized corporate university perspective, outlines a working learning content model that encompasses a multi-tier approach, suggests critical activities for the startup, development and maintenance of the corporate university, and ends with a high level two-phase approach for creating and launching a corporate university

PurposeThis study aims to examine the impact of implementing target costing and continuous improvement techniques in industrial companies operating in southern Palestine on achieving sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The study mainly assesses the level of application of these techniques by Palestinian industrial companies (PICs). Furthermore, it evaluates the extent to which the integration of these two methods can impact SCA, by producing cost-effective and innovative products that meet customer demands and needs, while simultaneously achieving continuous development of the company and an SCA.Design/methodology/approachA descriptive analytical approach was used to study the target costing and continuous improvement techniques employed by industrial companies in southern Palestine. A questionnaire was administered to 415 companies in the southern West Bank to collect data on the application of target cost and continuous improvement and their impact on SCA, measured through market share, differentiation and cost reduction. Control variables, such as company age, size (measured by the number of employees) and industrial sector classification were also included in the study model.FindingsThe findings of the study revealed that the PICs apply target costing and continuous improvement at a high level. Furthermore, all dimensions of achieving SCA were found to be achieved at a high level, with market share being the most prominent. The study also found that the integration of the target costing and continuous improvement had a positive impact on achieving SCA in the PICs. However, the study found no impact on company size, age or industrial sector on achieving a competitive advantage in terms of market share or other results.Research limitations/implicationsThe current study was limited to the application of strategic management methods to companies within the industrial sector only. This may constitute a limitation because it neglected other sectors. Likely, another limitation was the difficulty of obtaining the quantitative numbers needed for some quantitative variables that pertain to that type of industrial companies, which are mostly family companies that could not be regulated by the local companies' law to disclose their financial statement.Practical implicationsIf industrial companies have ambitions to reduce production costs from the planning and design stage to set the target selling price. It is based on the understanding and awareness of customers' desires while maintaining the quality of products according to the best methods of improvement and innovation; therefore, this can be achieved by using the target costing and the continuous improvement techniques through reviewing the current study and its results.Social implicationsThe current study sought to link two methods, simultaneously and complementary, with each other of the strategic methods of managerial accounting, which helps the companies to offer their best to attract customers, develop the product or service and maintain their continuity in a changing labor market that enables it to achieve sustainable and competitive advantage.Originality/valueThis study is unique in that it explores the impact of the integration of target costing or continuous improvement techniques (Kaizen) on achieving SCA in Palestine industrial companies. While previous studies have examined either target costing or continuous improvement techniques separately, this study enhances the integration of these two methods to achieve SCA.

High level quantum chemical approaches are used to study the geometric and electronic structures of M(NH3)n and M(NH3)n + (M = Cr, Mo for n = 1-6). These complexes possess a dual shell electronic structure of the inner metal (3d or 4d) orbitals and the outer diffuse orbitals surrounding the periphery of the complex. Electronic excitations reveal these two shells to be virtually independent of the other. Molybdenum and chromium ammonia complexes are found to differ significantly in geometry with the former adopting an octahedral geometry and the latter a Jahn-Teller distorted octahedral structure where only the axial distortion is stable. The hexa-coordinated complexes and the tetra-coordinated complexes with two ammonia molecules in the second solvation shell are found to be energetically competitive. Electronic excitation energies and computed IR spectra are provided to allow the two isomers to be experimentally distinguished. This work is a component of an ongoing effort to study the periodic trends of transition metal solvated electron precursors.

The Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management (JTSCM) seeks to disseminate research results and to support high level learning, teaching and research in the areas of traffic and transportation (operations, policy, planning), customer service, warehousing, inventory management, procurement, packaging, materials handling, reverse logistics, demand forecasting, distribution communications and information technology.

The Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management (JTSCM) seeks to disseminate research results and to support high level learning, teaching and research in the areas of traffic and transportation (operations, policy, planning), customer service, warehousing, inventory management, procurement, packaging, materials handling, reverse logistics, demand forecasting, distribution communications and information technology.

A broadband common-aperture, and dual-polarized sub-array of Cavity-Backed Slot Antenna (CBSA) with two ports having a very high level of isolation is presented in this paper. The antenna is designed for wideband full-duplex wireless communication and FMCW radar systems. The antenna is composed of a thin rectangular cavity on which four cross-slots are cut out for radiation. The radiating cross-slots are fed by two concentric orthogonal slots on the back wall of the cavity. One polarization is excited by an end-launch coaxial to waveguide transition which is used to excite the cavity through a feeding slot. A two-pronged microstrip line symmetrically crossing over another feeding slot, oriented orthogonal to the feeding slot, is used to excite the other polarization. The microstrip line is designed such that each prong would couple to the waveguide feed out-of-phase and as a result, a very high isolation level is achieved between channels over a very wide bandwidth. Designed to be compatible with metal 3D printing, the devised antenna is fabricated out of aluminum using Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) technology. This sub-array slot antenna with dimensions smaller than 1. 28 λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">L</sub> ×1.28 λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">L</sub> ×0. 27 λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">L</sub> (where λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">L</sub> is the wavelength at the lowest frequency), provides a minimum gain of 10 dB for both channels and exhibits a polarization isolation better than 20 dB within the main beam and a channel isolation above 54 dB over 40% fractional bandwidth.

From the European perspective, the Polish retail market is characterised by the significant presence of foreign retail chains. This phenomenon is very special when comparing Poland to other European Union (EU) countries that shaped their retail structure through evolutionary approaches with a predominant share of entities being locally owned. Foreign retail groups are also the largest retail companies in Poland. The evident presence of top European retail chains in Poland was mainly due to the radical liberalisation of the Polish economy after 1989, which accompanied by the large scale of the Polish market (40 million consumers), had to attract the top European operators and global retail chains within a short time. The Polish retail internationalization is visible in all formats of the large-format stores. Its highest level is observed in the group of hypermarkets and discount chains, where all the operators represent foreign groups. In comparison to major EU member states, the Polish retail market is characterised by its significant disintegration, which results in a large number of small and medium-sized retail companies. The specificity of Polish retail also involves its very strong polarization, as next to traditional retail, there are also many international retail chains, which manage modern formats of large-format stores. The Polish retail model will however remain unique with traditional retail undergoing rapid change. In the context of challenges related with economic recession, a further growth of importance of discount stores should be anticipated. This results from the permanent shift of demand towards this format. Operators of other formats will respond to this shift by creating and developing a broader discount offer and concentrating more on developing more private labels for their chains. Permanent changes in the behaviour of Polish consumers will involve increasing rationalisation and increased demand for cheap products. This factor will contribute favourably to increased customer demand for private labels. These phenomena will change the perception of chains' private labels and contribute to the further improvement of their quality.

Tourism service quality improvement – ‘the early bird catches the worm’