The Status and Development of Eco-businesses in Romania

The eco-businesses are poorly represented in Romania, in comparison with the average of EU. The increase of weight of eco-industries is among the development objectives in medium and long run. Romania has to implement a plan of 28 actions for promotion of eco-technologies and increase their competitiveness. Economic changes had main impact on ecological protection and on the general public as an entire. Almost all eco-food Romanian products are for export because inside the country it is only a small niche of consumers. The customers are that who used to consume this type of products on European markets, others see it as a trend and a third category is occasional consumers who introduce in their diet about 5-10 percent organic products There continue to exist obstacles in the manner of the expansion of this market such as the still low-scale production, a reduced range of products, higher prices (up to 150 % more) than for standard products, low level of consumer information and low promotion level. In spite of all these aspects it is a great potential in the medium and long term. An exploratory research was carried out in order to evaluate the state of Romanian ecological producers. The survey had 18 questions but here will be presented only some of the results. The aim of this exploratory research is to offer information for the set-up of a new eco-business. The Romanian eco-businesses understood the necessity of development and implementation of the latest patterns in order to assure a sustainable development of the business. The entrepreneurs are conscious about the poor state of it in comparison with other European companies.eco-business, eco-market, eco-product, exploratory research, sustainability, survey

THE IMPACT OF IT ADVANCE OF SMES� FOR THE ROMANIAN ECONOMY

The advance of IT is a powerful force of economic developments. The developing countries perceive IT as an opening to achieve access to knowledge and services. The internet is one of the IT parts that bring value added for organizations as well as for whole economy. Even though internet was created as a medium to distribute information, it became an instrument for the organisations to promote and sell their services and products around the world. It was initiated an exploratory research in order to determine the state of IT within the Romanian organizations and its impact for the Romanian economy, making an allowance for the fact of considering as starting point the idea that between IT and economical development is a positive relation, and that IT development requires and generates high skilled educated labour,. Mainly, the targeted companies were SMEs.Competitiveness, development, IT, management, SME

The Development and Implementation of New Technologies in Agri-Food Systems: The Case Study of Modularized Solution for Water Filtering Equipments

The outcomes of the evolution in the area of informatics, sensory science, data processing or non conventional technologies started to be transferred and successfully used in the field of the agro-industrial equipments and applications. The new generation of water filtering equipments is among them and the importance of the self-cleaning filtering battery is obvious. The system has to answer both to the requirements of industrial users as well as private users. A lot of work was done to improve the existing solutions with a new model which accomplishes the needs of the small users. The work is focused on this sector in the view of designing a modularized solution with a simple geometry which is able to incorporate the back-flushing valve, the filter and all the associate pipelines. Simultaneous these modules have to be easily connected for materializing the filtering batteries with two, three or more filters. The study presented in this paper is conducted in order to solve the problem of a part included in a hydraulic system – a self-cleaning filtering battery prototype. Further research has to be done in order to provide reliable information for long run strategies.Agricultural and Food Policy,

The Changes in Romanian Food Supply Chain Due to the Development of Industrial Agri- Production Systems

The primary objective of supply chain management is to fulfill customer demands through the most efficient use of resources, including distribution capacity, inventory and labor. A variety of optimizing aspects of the supply chain include acts as a go-between with suppliers to reduce bottlenecks. The sales and operation planning is becoming a requirement for doing well supply chain implementation. There are many key opportunities for improving the export and competitive performances of the sector of certified food products and eco-products. Romania has great openings for promoting and developing the ecological agriculture due to an agricultural area of 14.8 million hectares and unpolluted soils. One of the major points is to confine and maintain a greater part from the nationwide element of value chain during the orientation of production and sales towards primary products. It is also required a better promotion of Romanian food products on external markets, as well as a more intensive niche marketing and consolidation of the existing ones. Another concern is to create a suitable manufacturing, processing and marketing system for food products, aimed to suit the needs of national and foreign markets. The development of the research area of activities related to food products and markets has to be also increased.Agri-production systems, Quality, Supply Chain, Management, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Forecasting Unemployment Rate Using a Neural Network with Fuzzy Inference System

Greece is a low-productivity economy with an ineffective welfare state, relying almost exclusively on low wages and social transfers. Failure to come to terms with this reality hampers both the appropriateness of EU recommendations and the Greek government's capacity to deal with unemployment. Rather than finding a job in a family business or through relationship contacts, young people stay unemployed. Nor can people move back to their village of origin so easily. The underground economy, and the mass of small companies which characterize the Greek economy are booming, on paper. One in three members of the workforce are "self-employed", compared to one in seven in the EU as a whole. (International Viewpoint) An unemployed person in Greece is 2,15 times more likely to suffer poverty than a person in employment. Yet in Greece there are perhaps even more influential factors in determining increased risk of poverty. Thus while unemployment is a crucial factor in the risk of poverty, it is neither the only nor the most significant factor. The paper presents a new technique in the field of unemployment modeling in order to forecast unemployment index. Techniques from the Artificial Neural Networks and from fuzzy logic have been combined to generate a neuro-fuzzy model. The input is a time series. Classical statistics measures are calculated in order to asses the model performance. Further the results are compared with an ARMA and an AR model.forecasting, neural network, unemployment

Forecasting Mortality Rate Using a Neural Network with Fuzzy Inference System

Various methods have been developed to improve mortality forecasts. The authors proposed a neuro-fuzzy model to forecast the mortality. The forecasting of mortality is curried out by an ANFIS model which uses a first order Sugeno-type FIS. The model predicts the yearly mortality in a one step ahead prediction scheme. The method of trial and error was used in order to decide the type of membership function that describe better the model and provides the minimum error. The output of the models is the next year�s mortality. The results were presented and compared based on three different kinds of errors: RMSE, MAE, and MAPE. The ANFIS model gives good results for the case of two gbell membership functions and 500 epochs. Finally, the ANFIS model gives better results than the AR and ARMA model.ANFIS, Forecasting, Mortality, Modeling.

Implementation of Lean Manufacturing in Romanian Organisations

The implementation of lean manufacturing is one of the main tools for attaining a higher performance level in the Romanian organisations. The study uses data collected at middle management level from organisations located in Transylvania. The organisations come from different fields of activity and are in different stages of lean implementation. The article makes use of quantitative and qualitative instruments for the evaluation of lean in the above mentioned companies. Characteristics as waste reduction, cost, quality, product design have different approaches in the companies. Their way of approach gives useful information regarding the type of company from the point of view of lean manufacturing implementation. This knowledge provides a useful support at different managerial levels in the process of decision making

Implementation of Lean Manufacturing in Romanian Organisations

The implementation of lean manufacturing is one of the main tools for attaining a higher performance level in the Romanian organisations. The study uses data collected at middle management level from organisations located in Transylvania. The organisations come from different fields of activity and are in different stages of lean implementation. The article makes use of quantitative and qualitative instruments for the evaluation of lean in the above mentioned companies. Characteristics as waste reduction, cost, quality, product design have different approaches in the companies. Their way of approach gives useful information regarding the type of company from the point of view of lean manufacturing implementation. This knowledge provides a useful support at different managerial levels in the process of decision making

PERFORMANCE INDICATOR EVALUATION FROM THE HUMAN RESOURCE POINT OF VIEW FOR A SALES TEAM WORKING IN PANDEMIC

<p><strong>Purpose</strong> – The goal of this study is to evaluate the performance expressed by motivation and work security, for a sales team which worked in the pandemic. </p><p><strong>Methodology/approach</strong> – A model based on a non-financial methodology was used for evaluation of performance. The level of satisfaction and motivation of workforce defined the performance level and was computed as a function of five elements. The evaluation was done for the year 2021.</p><p><strong>Findings</strong> – The average value of performance was 92,82%. According with literature review, a value higher than 80% characterize a high level of performance. </p><p><strong>Research limitations/implications</strong> – The analysis was done only for one sales team. It can be extended to other teams from the same company, in order to compare them and see if such a high level of performance is specific just for one team, or is similar to all teams. </p><p><strong>Practical implications</strong> – The model offers a high degree of flexibility for its implementation. It is a step towards evaluation of total performance of the organization. The model provides a clear and measurable assessment of performance. </p><p><strong>Originality/value</strong> – Performance indicator from the point of view of human resources allows to evaluate the performance indicator as a function of personnel fluctuation, absence due to different reasons, work satisfaction and employees degree of participation with implemented ideas. </p&gt

Improving Performance in Supply Chain

The performance has different meanings and ways of defining and measurement. One cannot evaluate the supply chain of a company without using the concept of performance. There are two ways of measuring it: with qualitative and with quantitative instruments. The quantitative measures include financial and non-financial appraise. This article analysis some of the most used metrics. Resources, flexibility and output are listed among them. The non-financial performance measurements will be analysed from the point of view of the company as well as from the point of view of several of its main customers. The customer evaluation will be used in the second stage for describing the qualitative performance of the analysed supply chain. Customer satisfaction score, customer effort score and net promoter score will be calculated as framework for the qualitative performance of supply chain. The results will provide managerial information for the improvement of this supply chain