Education and Training Needs in the Field of Local Development in the Lower Danube Macro Region

The present paper is the result of an effort made by the authors to explore the needs of education and training in the field of local development, according to the situation in Romanian and Bulgarian Danube bordering regions, aiming at designing joint projects to address such needs between the universities to which authors are affiliated. Local development is here understood as a deliberately induced process of improving the welfare of local communities, which should be democratic, inclusive and sustainable, in particular with regard to creating competitive local economies, stimulating economic growth and ensuring better living conditions for the inhabitants. Local development is an important part of a governance process which involves complex interactions at various territorially defined levels: local, regional, national, cross-national, international. In the case of the regions considered in the present paper a historical opportunity is provided for them by the so called European Union Strategy for the Danube Region. In order to fully exploit this opportunity, the capacity to address local development issues should be strengthened in both countries, especially by well designed education and training programmes. This is why local development was considered a priority topic for the cooperation between the two universities. In the same framework, taking into consideration the challenges which are specific to the Lower Danube Region, other topics of interest were considered: logistics, tourism, consumer affairs or rural development. The authors of the present paper had to avoid overlapping with the work of the other teams. In particular, there are many common points between local development and rural development, because in both countries the regions on the border of Danube are predominately rural and significantly dependent on agriculture. Therefore, here, the needs for education and training are defined in strict correlation with the required capacity for understanding the development process and its priorities, designing, planning, implementing and assessing development policies with a favourable local impact in a regional context. The paper presents as in a mirror the Romanian and the Bulgarian points of view. The two perspectives are quite different but complementary. Briefly said, while the Romanian approach is bottom-up, with a focus on the local capacity to take initiatives that will contribute at shaping the regional development process, the Bulgarian one considers first the priorities of the region, in order to define the capacities required for a proper response at AE Education and Training Needs in the Field of Local Development in the Lower Danube Macro Region local level. Both perspectives are valid, and it should not be any contradiction between them. This is why we consider they are complementary. The studies rely on documentary research and secondary analysis of data in order to assess the capacity gap in addressing local development issues, and to identify education and training needs in economics and business matters related to local development. They discuss the rationale of cooperation between universities from Bulgaria and Romania in responding to such needs, and, finally they propose an inventory of joint initiatives in this respect. The paper emphasizes the factors which explain the reasons why cooperation between universities in raising the expertise in local development maters on both sides of Lower Danube is required and desirable, such as the vicinity, the common opportunities and responsibilities related to having Danube as a common asset, the similarities in development patterns, the common challenge of European integration, use of EU support and better exploitation of the Internal Market, the need to speed up the modernisation process and to achieve some economies of scope and scale. Among other proposals, authors propose the establishment of a university hub to coordinate networking among higher education institutions from Bulgaria, Romania and other countries of the Danube Macro-region in the field of local and regional development related research, education and training and a joint master program in local development.local development; education and training; Danube Region, cross-border cooperation; macro-regional strategy

Collaborative networks: A pillar of digital transformation

UID/EEA/00066/2019 POCI-01-0247-FEDER-033926The notion of digital transformation encompasses the adoption and integration of a variety of new information and communication technologies for the development of more efficient, flexible, agile, and sustainable solutions for industrial systems. Besides technology, this process also involves new organizational forms and leads to new business models. As such, this work addresses the contribution of collaborative networks to such a transformation. An analysis of the collaborative aspects required in the various dimensions of the 4th industrial revolution is conducted based on a literature survey and experiences gained from several research projects. A mapping between the identified collaboration needs and research results that can be adopted from the collaborative networks area is presented. Furthermore, several new research challenges are identified and briefly characterized.publishe

Redesigning work organizations and technologies: experiences from European projects

Currently distributed business process (re) design (resulting in components of business networks) basically relies on technical criteria. And that are the main purposes of most research projects supported by EC. Through the process of building a European Research Area, this means a strong influence in the national research programmes. However it is generally accepted that it should also take into account social criteria and aspects such as the quality of working life, or participation in decision processes. Those were some of the objectives of projects in de 80s decade, and framed some of the main concepts and scientific approaches to work organisation. The democratic participation of network and organisations members in the design process is a critical success factor. This is not accepted by everyone, but is based in sufficient case studies. Nevertheless, in order to achieve an optimization that can satisfying the requirements of agility of a network of enterprises, more complex design methods must be developed. Thus, the support to the collaborative design of distributed work in a network of enterprises, through a concurrent approaching business processes, work organisation and task content is a key factor to achieve such purposes. Increasing needs in terms of amounts of information, agility, and support for collaboration without time and space constrains, imposes the use of a computer-based model.business process; networks; decision processes; collaborative design;

Education and Training Needs in the Field of Logistic Structures and Services in the Lower Danube Region

The approach of the subject concerning the training of specialists in the domain of logistic structures and services in the region of the inferior Danube is enlisted within a larger context, the Strategy of the Danube, but also in a more restrained one, the Program of Cross-Border Cooperation Romania – Bulgaria, 2007-2013. The Strategy of the Danube represents a project initiated in the year 2008 by Germany, Austria and Romania to which subsequently there adhered the other states on the Danube and which became a program of the European Commission. It shall have allotted a budget of 50 milliards euro until the year 2013. It shall be preponderantly addressed to the population in the Danube Basin, which is estimated at 115 millions, following to be developed through cross-border projects. In December 2010 there is foreseen the approval of the Action Plan for the program the Strategy of the Danube by the European Commission. The integration process needs premises and conditions for further development. One of them is the connectivity and it supporting system – the logistics. The problem of the connectivity is one of the pillars of the Danube strategy, which could play an important role in the Lower Danube Macro region’s development. Those problems need different approaches, specialized research and training. The situation of the two countries in the domain of fluvial logistics may be characterized as unsatisfactory in relation to their potential. At the present moment there is a single bridge which connects the two countries (Giurgiu – Ruse) and several travels with the passage boat. The harbour infrastructures are old and inefficient. There are no modern multi-modal platforms or a coherent vision in their design. The transportation on the Danube is insufficiently exploited. As well, the river is not capitalized in other domains, too: agriculture, pisciculture, energy, ecology, tourism, arrangement of the territory, etc.Within a more restrained context, but correlated with the Strategy of the Danube, Romania and Bulgaria cooperate within the Cross-Border Program 2007-2013. Within it, the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and thee Economic Academy Dimitar Apostolov Tsenov in Svishtov proposed themselves to collaborate in the domain “Cooperation concerning the development of human resources – the joint development of abilities and knowledge”.fluvial logistics, multi-modal platform, education, transportation, cross-border, Lower Danube Macro region, territorial connectivity

Digital twins: definition, application options in the product life cycle and marketing

Germany is in the digital transformation process of the economy and society. Digital transformation influences not only production and marketing, but also the consumption and use of goods. The development and use of digital twins accelerate the digital transformation process and increase the competitiveness of the German economy. So far, the focus of research has been on the use of digital twins in the production of industrial goods. This article analyzes the use of digital twins in consumer goods marketing. For this purpose, the concept of digital twins is explained, and its use is presented over the entire life cycle of durable consumer goods. Subsequently, the possibilities of use of the digital twin in marketing will be presented and an outlook on further research fields will be given

Technology and Society in Equilibrium:

This sector portrait of the design engineering sciences describes the common denominator of the various design disciplines in the Netherlands. In a future sector plan, the above investment areas will be further explored and purposefully developed. The implementation of technological innovations aligned to societal issues encompasses a design challenge. This increasingly demands science-based design methodologies. The broad Dutch design landscape can fulfil the role of connector well in this regard. In order to optimally strengthen this bridging function, three areas for further investment have been identified: Research More research and research funding are needed to meet the design challenges posed by Dutch societal missions, as well as for the further development of Key Enabling Methodologies (KEMs) as the basis for effective design. Educational Capacity Expanded teaching capacity and further development of design-driven didactics are needed to meet the growing demand for designers, This demand stems from the emerging need for design approaches in new research programmes within Horizon Europe and the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Access to Technology Continuous access to the rapidly evolving technological disciplines must be guaranteed for professionals who can both understand the technology and meet the investigative design challenge

Supply chain integration in the industry 4.0 era: a systematic literature review: Integração da cadeia de suprimentos na era industrial 4.0: uma revisão sistemática da literatura

From an Industry 4.0 perspective, supply chain actors (suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and third-party logistics operators) are integrated into a collaborative network based on information-sharing to improve the overall supply chain performance. Real data can be captured and systematically processed into information, hence dealing with uncertainty. Poor integration may lead to supply chain disruptions. This paper examines the role of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) for integrating the supply chain, to which a systematic literature review (SLR) has been applied. First, according to the research questions, the I4.0 technologies adopted for supply chain integration were identified. Second, the approaches for integrating the supply chain at I4.0 were examined and classified by strategy (vertical, horizontal, and end-to-end integration). Third, the functional and cross-functional approaches for supply chain integration at I4.0 were also examined. Finally, it was discussed which traditional SCI approaches can be upgraded to the Industry 4.0 era and the future research directions

Next generation smart manufacturing and service systems using big data analytics

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd This special issue explores advancements in the next generation manufacturing and service systems by examining the novel methods, practical challenges and opportunities in the use of big data analytics. The selected articles analyse a range of scenarios where big data analytics and its applications were used for improving decision making in manufacturing and services sector such as online data analytics, sourcing decisions with considerations for big data analytics, barriers in the adoption of big data analytics, maintenance planning, and multi-sensor data for fault pattern extraction. The paper summarises the discussions on the use of big data analytics in manufacturing and service sectors

An exploratory study into the use of hyper-interactive teaching technology in the logistics and transportation classroom

New technologies are being developed that can assist professors in the classroom. One is the Hyper-Interactive Teaching Technology or H-ITT. This is a system that allows instructors to gather instantaneous feedback from st udents for a variety of topics. The article examines the benefits and disadvantages of using H-ITT in the classroom and presents some initial findings