3,738 research outputs found
Collaborative improvement as an inspiration for supply chain collaboration
The battlefield of competition is today moving from the level of\ud
individual firms to the one of the extended enterprises, that is, networks of customers and their suppliers. This paper discusses how learning and continuous improvement today take place in processes based on daily collaboration at intercompany level, i.e. Extended Manufacturing Enterprises (EMEs). The purpose of the paper is to present a preliminary theory on Collaborative Improvement (CoI), i.e. continuous improvement at the EME level. Based on a literature review on Supply Networks, and Continuous Improvement and on evidence from two explorative case studies, the paper proposes a model for Collaborative Improvement in EMEs and discusses a research approach based on Action Research and Action Learning to further develop preliminary theory and actionable knowledge on how to foster and sustain CoI in EMEs
Design Challenges for Innovation Management on Agro-Food Sector
Current status of research indicates that we assist to location-specific factor supremacy as determinants in regional attractiveness and sustainability being territorial driven, we offer strong arguments for policy makers in order to enable this long term strategy. We also address another issue heavily disputed between academics-that is the return to local and regional offerings as complementary to global assumption. Assisting today to a hybrid innovation process, relying upon territorial marketing-an umbrella for too many issues cvasi- exploited: eco-clusters, local and regional offerings; traditional products/services exploiting, regional clusters competing for funds; we are focusing on complex industrial -rural system reconfiguration relying upon dynamic evolution of territorial branding into competitive identity, as the disruptive behavior we need in sustainable development. Successful development strategies are based on the ability to build an institutional territorial coherence-social and environmental sustainability being inextricably interdependent, such a complex coordination structure relies on territorial knowledge sharing through expertise polls consultation- as key concept of good governance. This model of innovational resource allocation coordination on agro food chains, relying upon clusterisation through patterns of innovational management deficit, offers a relevant solution for synergic orientation of assistance and mentoring efforts on the sector, enable the capitalization of relevant capabilities and increase the addressability from innovation demand side. Based upon auditing 500 SMEâs from agro food sector in Europe and 51 in SE region, the paper is fully documented on there years of data analyzing from Agro Food sector on 10 European countries in the framework on FP6 SPAS European Project.territorial knowledge sharing, innovation resource allocation, disruptive territorial solution, community supported agro food chains
Meeting the challenge of zero carbon homes : a multi-disciplinary review of the literature and assessment of key barriers and enablers
Within the built environment sector, there is an increasing pressure on professionals to consider the impact of development upon the environment. These pressures are rooted in sustainability, and particularly climate change. But what is meant by sustainability? It is a term whose meaning is often discussed, the most common definition taken from the Bruntland report as âsustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needsâ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). In the built environment, the sustainability issues within the environment, social and economic spheres are often expressed through design considerations of energy, water and waste. Given the Stern Reportâs economic and political case for action with respect to climate change (Stern, 2006) and the IPCCâs Fourth Assessment Reportâs confirmation of the urgency of the climate change issue and itâs root causes (IPCC, 2007), the need for action to mitigate the effects of climate change is currently high on the political agenda. Excess in carbon dioxide concentrations over the natural level have been attributed to anthropogenic sources, most particularly the burning of carbon-based fossil fuels. Over 40% of Europeâs energy and 40% of Europeâs carbon dioxide emissions arise from use of energy in buildings. Energy use in buildings is primarily for space heating, water heating, lighting and appliance use. Professionals in the built environment can therefore play a significant role in meeting targets for mitigating the effects of climate change. The UK Government recently published the Code for Sustainable Homes (DCLG, 2006). Within this is the objective of development of zero carbon domestic new build dwellings by 2016. It is the domestic zero carbon homes agenda which is the focus of this report. The report is the culmination of a research project, funded by Northumbria University, and conducted from February 2008 to July 2008, involving researchers from the Sustainable Cities Research Institute (within the School of the Built Environment) and academics, also from within the School. The aim of the project was to examine, in a systematic and holistic way, the critical issues, drivers and barriers to building and adapting houses to meet zero carbon targets. The project involved a wide range of subject specialisms within the built environment and took a multi-disciplinary approach. Practitioner contribution was enabled through a workshop. The focus of this work was to review the academic literature on the built environment sector and its capabilities to meet zero carbon housing targets. It was not possible to undertake a detailed review of energy efficiency or micro-generation technologies, the focus of the research was instead in four focussed areas: policy, behaviour, supply chain and technology.What follows is the key findings of the review work undertaken. Chapter One presents the findings of the policy and regulation review. In Chapter Two the review of behavioural aspects of energy use in buildings is presented. Chapter Three presents the findings of the review of supply chain issues. Chapter Four presents the findings of the technology review, which focuses on phase change materials. A summary of the key barriers and enablers, and areas for future research work, concludes this report in Chapter Five. Research is always a work in progress, and therefore comments on this document are most welcome, as are offers of collaboration towards solutions. The School of the Built Environment at Northumbria University strives to embed its research in practical applications and solutions to the need for a low carbon economy
Measuring RFId Benefits in Supply Chains
RFId systems hold great potentials in enhancing supply chain performances. Some of the major retailers in the World (Wall Mart, Metro Group, Tesco) made sounding campaigns promoting the benefits they were able to attain. Despite the growing number of researches concerning RFId benefits, a study investigating their measurement in the supply chain context is still lacking. This paper proposes to associate qualitative RFId benefits identified in literature with corresponding measures by designing three tools: (1) an RFId oriented Performance Measurement System for the identification of all RFId related supply chain performance indicators on the base of the SCOR Model. (2) A benefits-processes-measures matrix linking the benefits identified in literature with SCOR model process to identify supply chain measures impacted by the RFId system implementation. (3) A reference framework summarizing benefits measures
Innovation landscape and challenges of smart technologies and systems - a European perspective
Latest developments in smart sensor and actuator technologies are expected to lead
to a revolution in future manufacturing systemsâ abilities and efficiency, often
referred to as Industry 4.0. Smart technologies with higher degrees of autonomy
will be essential to achieve the next breakthrough in both agility and productivity.
However, the technologies will also bring substantial design and integration
challenges and novelty risks to manufacturing businesses. The aim of this paper is
to analyse the current landscape and to identify the challenges for introducing
smart technologies into manufacturing systems in Europe. Expert knowledge from
both industrial and academic practitioners in the field was extracted using an online
survey. Feedback from a workshop was used to triangulate and extend the survey
results. The findings indicate three main challenges for the ubiquitous
implementation of smart technologies in manufacturing are: i) the perceived risk
of novel technologies, ii) the complexity of integration, and iii) the consideration
of human factors. Recommendations are made based on these findings to transform
the landscape for smart manufacturing
The Effect of Electronic Commerce in Business Value and Supply Chain Process: Evidence from Iran
This paper aims to develop and test a model to analyze the relationships between three aspects of technical electronic commerce (EC)-based information system (IS) resources and, the supply chain process integration, and business value. The paper is consistent with the perspective on IS-enabled organizational capabilities and resource based view of the firm. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to collect data from 204 supply chain, logistics, or procurement/ purchasing managers of manufacturing firms. Findings show that supply chain process integration, a key EC-enabled organizational capability, can enhance business value. Additionally, the capability serve as a catalyst in transforming technical EC-based IS resources (technical quality of EC applications, EC advancements, EC alignment and E-branding) into higher value for a firm. Our results suggest that supply chain process integration is an important intermediate organizational capability through which value of EC-based IS resources can be materialized. However, the technical aspects of EC-based IS resources needs to developed to effectively form supply chain capabilities.Key words: Supply chain integration; Business value; Electronic commerce; Business performance; Resource-based view; Information system; E-brandin
Enabling late-stage translation of regenerative medicine based products
The primary aim of the thesis is to contribute to demonstrating how established and emerging science in the regenerative medicine (RM) domain can be translated into profitable commercial practice, and generate clinically- and cost-effective therapies. It achieves this by exploring and assessing underlying economics, including investment readiness and economic assessment, exploring regulatory and reimbursement frameworks, developing stem cell culture systems and assessing fit with clinical practice.
The thesis is the first public domain wide-ranging analysis of business trends in the production, manufacturing and supply segments of the RM industry. It analyses the clinical potential of the domain as well as the translational and commercial challenges facing the industry. The industry is at a turning point as big pharmaceutical companies engage with RM in order to explore technologies as potential therapeutics and discovery tools. This unlocks the industry by confirming an exit path for RM based small- and medium-sized enterprises. Translation has come to be recognised as a core issue in the overall space and translation of regenerative therapies into the clinic is presently challenging, high-risk and expensive.
This research addresses the question what are the mechanisms required to enable translation of emerging scientific knowledge into commercially viable clinical RM products? These mechanisms are particularly important as their creation involves and requires major investment decisions, which can determine the success or failure of RM developments and indeed of the companies concerned. The lack of well-established business models and the complexity of the domain suggested a conceptual approach drawing upon relevant literature from product and process development, applied business and revenue models, technological evolution and capital market ingenuity.
The research was carried out in two phases. The first phase was concerned with identification of key challenges and mapping the overall industry emergence including emergence of related regulations to provide a context and framework for understanding the domain. Based on the emergence mapping a timeline of key parallel factors was identified, and their inherent connections explored to identify transforming events affecting and influencing multiple factors on the journey to clinical success within a business environment. This creates the reference model. The second phase was concerned with manufacturing a stem cell based therapeutic and applying health economic principles to determine available headroom for investment, cost of goods and return on investment, taking hearing disorders as a case exemplar, and exploring the behaviour of the net present value curve to identify key parameters affecting the economic positioning of this novel regime.
A key output of the research is the investment readiness reference model. It integrates key RM business issues against reducing uncertainty and increasing value. The model argues that the complex nature of RM products means that the issues affecting industry emergence and development go well beyond the primarily scientific and technological concerns on which much current research focuses. The performance of RM firms ultimately hinges upon the successful clinical application of their developed products, the key step for creating and realising value, and their ability to deal with the fundamental business issues specific to the area. The framework deals with these business issues, which are investment & technology readiness, business models, organisational challenges, public policy and industry emergence.
This thesis explores ideas that may bridge the chasm between the promise and reality of RM i.e. mechanisms to enable late stage translation of RM products. It links technological capability and business models for firms in the domain. Furthermore, it offers a unique perspective on the nature and characteristics of investment readiness and financial assessment, specifically identifying key parameters affecting economic positioning. The key contributions are therefore:
New insights into the key challenges involved in realising the commercial potential of cell based therapeutics.
Technology road mapping to link fundamental enabling technological capability for developing RM products with robust business plans integrating strategy, technology development and the regulatory and reimbursement framework.
A generic investment readiness reference model generated from the enabling technology, value and supply chain structures to identify key indicators and characteristics of industry readiness.
A novel experimental programme demonstrating expansion, maintenance and differentiation of human embryonic stem cells by manual and automated methods.
New insights into economic positioning by mapping net present value, and economic analysis by estimating available headroom, cost of goods and return on investment for a putative hearing therapeutic
Managing open innovation project risks based on a social network analysis perspective
In todayâs business environment, it is often argued, that if organizations want to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, they must be able to innovate, so that they can meet complex market demands as they deliver products, solutions, or services. However, organizations alone do not always have the necessary resources (brilliant minds, technologies, know-how, and so on) to match those market demands. To overcome this constraint, organizations usually engage in collaborative network modelsâsuch as the open innovation modelâwith other business partners, public institutions, universities, and development centers. Nonetheless, it is frequently argued that the lack of models that support such collaborative models is still perceived as a major constraint for organizations to more frequently engage in it. In this work, a heuristic model is proposed, to provide support in managing open innovation projects, by, first, identifying project collaborative critical success factors (CSFs) analyzing four interactive collaborative dimensions (4-ICD) that usually occur in such projectsâ(1) key project organization communication and insight degree, (2) organizational control degree, (3) project information dependency degree, (3) and (4) feedback readiness degreeâ and, second, using those identified CSFs to estimate the outcome likelihood (success, or failure) of ongoing open innovation projects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
A data-driven approach for a project management methodology for R&D Projects.
267 p.The thesis is based on the proposal of an R&D project management methodology based on the Earned Quality Method (EQM) and data analysis to improve the efficiency of R&D projects in a near-real production environment in a TRL 5 to 7. The thesis relies upon published papers that propose measuring and improving the management of R&D projects. The methodology leans on the formulation and gradual and recurrent evaluation of quality criteria as a performance indicator of the work carried out. The thesis stands on the concept that quality is a measurable quantity that accumulates throughout the project. The proposed project management methodology is built on three main aspects: Collaboration between the University and Industry; The correct interpretation of the TRL where research projects are developed; The study of different metrics for project management, such as the measurement of the success of projects, the KPIs of a project-based organisation, and the EQM. The methodology has been tested with three actual use cases with different characteristics in terms of project size, funding and team members; and validated on an R&D Centre in Advanced Manufacturing in Aeronautics. The pillars of the thesis are focused on the analysis of the mentioned components and their integration for the development of a methodology to improve the efficiency in the use of resources and the quality of obtained results in the R&D projects' framework. The key findings of these studies demonstrate the effectiveness of using quality criteria for measuring progress in the management of R&D projects, as well as providing a better understanding of several critical aspects of the realisation of these projects
Territory branding as a strategy for rural development: experiences from Italy
Many rural areas make increasing recourse to the use of territorial marks to achieve a development goal, foster reputation as well as preserve their identity, their cultural, social and environmental resources. Despite the growing interest of the literature on the topic, territorial marks have so far been analysed as individual tools, while in many areas a strategy of territory branding can be recognised. Drawing on research from two Italian case studies, the paper shows which are the pillars of such a strategy, which are the territorial conditions allowing its success and which effects this strategy produces under the economic, social, cultural and environmental point of view.
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