Modélisation et étude d'approches collaboratives dans les réseaux de création de valeur de l'industrie des papiers fins

Pourquoi collaborer -- Comment mettre en oeuvre une collaboration -- Comment favoriser la coordination des opérations -- L'Industrie canadienne des produits forestiers -- Présentation du cas pratique -- Comparaison de quatre approches collaboratives -- Utilisation d'incitatifs pour accroître les profits -- Implantation des approches collaboratives barrières -- Collaboration and Decision Models for a Two-echelon Supply Chain : a Case Study in the Pulp and Paper Industry -- Collaboration approaches and decision models -- Experimental design and numerical study -- Collaboration for a two-echelon supply chain in the pulp and paper industry : the use of incentives to increase profit -- Decision models and case study -- Computational study -- Dynamique des relations interentreprises : Mécanismes, barrières et cas pratique -- Les collaborations interentreprises -- Les stratégies logistiques -- Barrières associées aux stratégies logistiques -- Les incitatifs comme mécanisme de coordination -- Utilisation d'incitatifs pour un cas pratique

Comparative case study research: an international analysis of nine home warranty schemes

Purpose – Construction defects in residential buildings are causing significant impacts both on consumers and the industry. As a consequence, several countries have established new home warranty schemes. However, designing a public policy for domestic building warranties can become a difficult task. In fact, many of these programs in the past have failed, collapsed or gone bankrupt. Therefore, the purpose of the current research is to provide a systematic comparative representation of various active programs internationally. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology relied on a multiple-case study research design. The case selection covered a total of nine jurisdictions with compulsory home warranty programs. Those included Japan, France, United Kingdom, three provinces in Canada (Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta), and three states in Australia (New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland). The study applied a data collection protocol to gather all the evidence in a replicable manner for each individual case. Subsequently, a cross-case analysis was conducted to identify similarities and variations between programs. Findings – The findings unveiled institutional practices that aimed to resolve, compensate, or rectify defects in residential constructions within these countries. The review mostly suggested that every home warranty program presents certain unique characteristics. At the end, this paper proposed an analytical illustration representing the diversification of components adopted by each jurisdiction. Originality/value – Nowadays, there is still not a consensus within the academic community on what is an optimal solution when conceiving a new home warranty program. Hence, the current study aims to fill this knowledge gap by presenting the plurality of methods employed by several countries. This paper seeks to help policy makers and industry leaders to improve their home warranty scheme based on awareness derived from observations and analyses of what has been accomplished elsewhere in the world

A method to qualify the impacts of certifications for prefabricated constructions

In the province of Quebec, Canada, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in manufactured timber construction seeking to expand their market must necessarily go beyond the local trade. By exporting their products and manufactured building sections to another country, Quebec manufacturers must deal with significant regulations and certification constraints. The aim of this study is therefore to propose a method to qualify the impacts of these constraints on the export of manufactured buildings to New England in order to create a decision support tool. Since construction regulations vary depending on the location of the project, those relating to Massachusetts were analyzed, as this is currently the main destination for manufactured building sections. Considering the federal and local regulations in effect, a content analysis of the Quality Assurance Manual (QAM) set up by an industry partner and a third-party certifier enabling exports to Massachusetts was performed. In particular, the six-step method proposed by L’Écuyer was exploited for extracting and examining relevant information from regulatory texts. Through this analysis, the importance of quality control was confirmed as a keystone for certification. It also led to a better understanding of the relationships between quality control, the construction pr

Main features of the timber structure building industry business models

The use of timber as structural building material is growing and a greater number of firms are looking to enter this raising market. Erecting a complex timber building usually involves combining the work of architects, structural engineers, builders, suppliers and/or supplier–builders, all of them having their own business models. The purpose of this research was to uncover the specific nature of business models in the timber structure building industry. First, a thorough mapping of these business models was undertaken. Second, underlying patterns were uncovered within these models. A triangulation method of secondary data, semi-structured interviews and participant observation was used to allow for an in-depth study of 23 stakeholder business models. The analysis shows that knowledge sharing appears as crucial and may be achieved through sustained collaboration. As a result, collaborative contract procurement modes seem to be the most appropriate for timber construction. Tight relationships with suppliers and supplier–builders also appear as prerequisites. Furthermore, stakeholder partnerships with universities appear common in the field, while prefabrication is increasing in popularity. These findings can be useful to grasp the prevailing business models in this industry given the sustained growth of the timber structure building market

Barriers, trategies, and best practices for BIM Adoption in Quebec prefabrication small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

Prefabricated construction has long faced problems due to the industry’s fragmentation. Building Information Modeling (BIM) has thus appeared as an efficient solution to provide a favorable environment for efficient completion of projects. Despite its benefits, implementing BIM successfully in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which represent the vast majority of manufacturers in Quebec, requires deep risk analysis and rigorous strategies. Hence, this work aims to study BIM implementation barriers, strategies, and best practices in wood prefabrication for SMEs through a literature review, semi-structured interviews, and an online survey. After qualitative content analysis, 30 critical barriers, 7 strategic milestones, and 31 best practices to maximize BIM benefits were revealed. One of the critical barriers concerns the effort required to develop BIM software libraries and programs to translate information from the BIM model to production equipment. Among the best strategies, it is essential to start by analyzing the current business model of the SMEs and to appoint a small BIM committee whose main responsibilities are management, coordination, and modeling. The prevalent best practices were to support the implementation team and encourage communication and collaboration. Previous studies show that BIM is not fully exploited in prefabrication for various reasons. This study highlights the critical barriers, strategies, and best practices for BIM adoption and proposes a framework for BIM implementation in prefabrication SMEs in Quebec, Canada. It also provides a summary of current knowledge and guidelines to promote BIM adoption in this sector

Dynamique des relations interentreprises : mécanismes, barrières et cas pratique

RÉSUMÉ: La compétition internationale, la hausse des coûts de production et d'énergie et les exigences sans cesse croissantes des clients sont quelques uns des facteurs qui forcent les entreprises manufacturières à revoir leurs processus d'affaires et à mieux adapter leur réseau logistique. Via l'établissement de collaborations avec leurs fournisseurs, distributeurs et détaillants, et la mise en place de stratégies logistiques reconnues comme le VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory ) ou le CPFR (Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment ), les entreprises peuvent mieux coordonner les activités du réseau et échanger plus efficacement les biens et l'information. Toutefois, pour qu'une collaboration interentreprises réussisse, il est nécessaire de suivre une démarche structurée lors de sa mise en œuvre. Ces collaborations impliquent que certains mécanismes de coordination soient déployés. Conséquemment, il s'agit de choisir le bon mécanisme à mettre en place selon le contexte et de porter une attention particulière aux différentes barrières pouvant être rencontrées durant l'implantation. Lors de nos recherches, nous nous sommes intéressés à la relation entre un producteur de pâtes et papiers et son marchand. Nous avons étudié différents incitatifs comme mécanisme de coordination pouvant favoriser une interaction plus efficace entre les partenaires. Nous avons alors constaté qu'il est essentiel de bien définir chaque incitatif et de l'ajuster suivant l'évolution de l'environnement. Autrement, la collaboration risque de nuire aux bénéfices du réseau et de chaque partenaire

Diverse perspectives on interdisciplinarity from the Members of the College of the Royal Society of Canada

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity”, which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is embraced by the current generation of academics, the benefits and risks for doing so, and the barriers and facilitators to achieving interdisciplinarity represent inherent challenges. Much has been written on the topic of interdisciplinarity, but to our knowledge there have been few attempts to consider and present diverse perspectives from scholars, artists, and scientists in a cohesive manner. As a team of 57 members from the Canadian College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (the College) who self-identify as being engaged or interested in interdisciplinarity, we provide diverse intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives. The goal of this paper is to share our collective wisdom on this topic with the broader community and to stimulate discourse and debate on the merits and challenges associated with interdisciplinarity. Perhaps the clearest message emerging from this exercise is that working across established boundaries of scholarly communities is rewarding, necessary, and is more likely to result in impact. However, there are barriers that limit the ease with which this can occur (e.g., lack of institutional structures and funding to facilitate cross-disciplinary exploration). Occasionally, there can be significant risk associated with doing interdisciplinary work (e.g., lack of adequate measurement or recognition of work by disciplinary peers). Solving many of the world’s complex and pressing problems (e.g., climate change, sustainable agriculture, the burden of chronic disease, and aging populations) demand thinking and working across long-standing, but in some ways restrictive, academic boundaries. Academic institutions and key support structures, especially funding bodies, will play an important role in helping to realize what is readily apparent to all who contributed to this paper—that interdisciplinarity is essential for solving complex problems; it is the new norm. Failure to empower and encourage those doing this research will serve as a great impediment to training, knowledge, and addressing societal issues

Collaboration and decision models for a two-echelon supply chain : a case study in the pulp and paper industry

With the current economic context, enterprises aim to improve collaboration and enhance information exchange with their suppliers or customers in order to better coordinate their activities and respond promptly to their customer. A demonstration of this trend is the development of formal collaboration models like Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) or Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) which are now used to facilitate product and information exchange between partners. However, the setup of efficient inter-firm collaborations requires time and investment with no guarantee of success or failure of the relationship. Although many of the emerging approaches are promising, the need to identify and apply the best collaboration model for the context considered remains. In this paper, we study different collaboration strategies between a producer and a retailer in the pulp and paper industry. For this industrial context, we define a methodology to analyze and compare the impact of collaboration modes on the network profit. Using a rolling horizon of two weeks and a total planning period of one year, we also proceed with numerical experiments. Our tests reveal that the CPFR method is the more gainful collaboration approach for the case studied providing up to 18% of transportation costs reduction over order-based relation

Scheduling of coupled tasks and one-machine no-wait robotic cells

Coupled task scheduling problems were first studied morethan 25 years ago. Several complexity results have beenestablished in the meantime, but the status of the identical task case still remains unsettled. We describe a new class of equivalent one-machine no-wait robotic cell problems. It turns out that scheduling of identical coupled tasks corresponds to the production of a single part type in a robotic cell. We describe new algorithmic procedures to solve this robotic cell problem, allowing lower and upper bounds on the production time, and discussing in particular cyclic production plans

Main motivations and barriers for using wood in multi-story and non-residential construction projects

Steel and concrete are traditionally used as structural materials for non-residential and multi-housing buildings. However, wood can meet the same structural property requirements, and a variety of multi-story buildings have recently been built all over the world using this key material. In this study, the main motivations and barriers to wood adoption for structural uses in non-residential buildings are highlighted, based on an analysis of grey literature concerning some well-known buildings and on scientific literature. The motivations found were linked to sustainability, lack of expertise, costs, rapidity of erection, and aesthetic of wooden structures. In contrast, the barriers preventing its use encompass building code implementation, technology transfer, costs, material durability and other technical aspects, culture of the industry, and material availability. Furthermore, an analysis of non-residential timber building meeting minutes for nine projects is also presented to support the identification of problems and concerns related to site assembly issues, the conception of the building, the scheduling, and stakeholders’ relationships. With a better understanding of the expectations and challenges concerning wood usage in non-residential construction projects, companies will be able to adapt their business models and use the resource even more in the future to develop innovative structures