Proceedings of the Conference on Production Systems and Logistics: CPSL 2022

[no abstract available

Sustainability in fashion supply chains: Examining the dynamics of small and medium enterprise sustainability in fashion industry multitier supply chains

Sustainability in supply chain management (SSCM) has become established in both academia and increasingly in practice (Fraser, Müller and Schwarzkopf, 2020). As stakeholders continue to require organisations to take more responsibility for their entire supply chains, this has led to the development of multitier SSCM. Despite small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs’) pivotal impact on the global economy, environmental and social responsibility commitments and SSCM have been largely overlooked (Chow et al., 2017). Little attention has been paid to the convergence of sustainability dimensions in SMEs. This thesis examines how sustainability-inspired SMEs in the fashion industry in Scotland implement sustainability and diffuse sustainability across the diverse supply chain. This leads to an investigation of the factors that influence sustainability practices along the supply chain and practices adopted to verify sustainability in the supply chain, with an overall view to improving multidimensional performance. This research adopts an exploratory multiple case study approach that combines multiple data sources: semi-structured interviews, observation, and secondary data analysis. The empirical study includes two SME fashion retailers registered in Scotland and their respective supply chain partners. This thesis contributes to SSCM research in SMEs by exploring from both the conceptual and empirical points of view, investigating fashion SMEs’ sustainability and SSCM and developing a conceptual sustainability performance rating model. This conceptual model uses multidimensional sustainability measurement criteria derived from the literature to determine sustainability performance levels from the farm to the retailer. Evaluation of the supply chain is likely to aid supplier selection, sustainability comparison and transparency. The investigated fashion SMEs and their supply chains are used to exemplify the usefulness of the proposed conceptual sustainability performance model. Based on the supply chains investigated, both retailers’ sustainability performances are similar, while one supply chain outperformed the other. In addition, the research findings show that SME retailers face the greatest challenge in managing supply chain sustainability, while the most influential suppliers can develop creative approaches to diffuse sustainability within the supply chain. This thesis suggests that there is considerable need for further qualitative research and the proposed model perhaps needs to be implemented in various business models to evaluate its validity

Vietnam's garment manufacturers: conditions for upgrading in global value chains

This research aims to assists Vietnam’s garment manufacturing sites as well as global leading buyers, who are looking for garment outsourcing opportunities in better understanding the target market, how to recognize buyers’ expectations and which direction and which direction to take garment manufacturing business to meet the buyers' needs. Some other areas author delve into are current industry trends, shifts, challenges and opportunities. Some of the open and downright contributions from global buyers and practical information are aggregated from audit reports give Vietnam’s garment factories the insights about their weaknesses and strengths as well as transfer them the inspiration and encouragement for the future developmen

Industry 4.0 for SMEs

This open access book explores the concept of Industry 4.0, which presents a considerable challenge for the production and service sectors. While digitization initiatives are usually integrated into the central corporate strategy of larger companies, smaller firms often have problems putting Industry 4.0 paradigms into practice. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) possess neither the human nor financial resources to systematically investigate the potential and risks of introducing Industry 4.0. Addressing this obstacle, the international team of authors focuses on the development of smart manufacturing concepts, logistics solutions and managerial models specifically for SMEs. Aiming to provide methodological frameworks and pilot solutions for SMEs during their digital transformation, this innovative and timely book will be of great use to scholars researching technology management, digitization and small business, as well as practitioners within manufacturing companies

1-D broadside-radiating leaky-wave antenna based on a numerically synthesized impedance surface

A newly-developed deterministic numerical technique for the automated design of metasurface antennas is applied here for the first time to the design of a 1-D printed Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA) for broadside radiation. The surface impedance synthesis process does not require any a priori knowledge on the impedance pattern, and starts from a mask constraint on the desired far-field and practical bounds on the unit cell impedance values. The designed reactance surface for broadside radiation exhibits a non conventional patterning; this highlights the merit of using an automated design process for a design well known to be challenging for analytical methods. The antenna is physically implemented with an array of metal strips with varying gap widths and simulation results show very good agreement with the predicted performance

Beam scanning by liquid-crystal biasing in a modified SIW structure

A fixed-frequency beam-scanning 1D antenna based on Liquid Crystals (LCs) is designed for application in 2D scanning with lateral alignment. The 2D array environment imposes full decoupling of adjacent 1D antennas, which often conflicts with the LC requirement of DC biasing: the proposed design accommodates both. The LC medium is placed inside a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) modified to work as a Groove Gap Waveguide, with radiating slots etched on the upper broad wall, that radiates as a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA). This allows effective application of the DC bias voltage needed for tuning the LCs. At the same time, the RF field remains laterally confined, enabling the possibility to lay several antennas in parallel and achieve 2D beam scanning. The design is validated by simulation employing the actual properties of a commercial LC medium

Sustainable Fashion in a Circular Economy

The promotion of sustainable fashion within a circular economy is a vital contemporary topic. This publication presents up-to-date research about the various levels of circularity at work in the fashion industry. Experts of design, consumption, business and industry explain how circularity in the production and consumption of fashion can be approached in manifold ways. This collection of texts highlights the fresh, critical thinking that is currently influencing the fashion industry to adopt the practice of sustainable transformation within a circular economy. The publication addresses the following themes: How to include consumers within the changing process of fashion consumption?New design and business strategies for the circular transformation of fashion.Developing a systems approach to circularity, which includes the recycling and recovering of materials at an industrial level