The role of high-performance people management practices in Industry 4.0: The case of medium-sized Spanish firms

Purpose: This paper wants to build the case for the key role of high-performance people management practices in the development of I4.0 in SMEs. The research upon which this paper is based wants to prove that the consolidation of those practices should be a priority for any company willing to embark in this journey. The paper deals specifically with medium-sized Spanish firms which, on top, are already having significant issues with digitization. Design/methodology: The paper starts by digging into the literature to see how past technologies have impacted productivity, followed by a review of the material available on digitization and Industry 4.0. It moves on to explore the relationship between people management practices, productivity and innovation. Finally, the focus is placed on Spanish medium-sized companies, understanding their current levels of consolidation of high-performance people management practices as well as digitization. With all this information, several propositions are posited for validation using the Delphi methodology. Findings: I4.0 is, at its core, about productivity improvements through business process and business model innovation. People management practices are found to be strongly correlated with both productivity and innovation. It has also been found that Spanish medium-sized firms already have a significant initial gap compared to those of other OECD countries not only in productivity, but also people management practices and digitization. The experts seem to agree on the key role of people management practices and that they should be a high priority for any firm seriously thinking about industry 4.0. This is not to say that strategy or leadership will not play a paramount role in any digital transformation, but to emphasize the fact that the normally-forgotten people management practices will be important enablers in this process. Originality/value: It is believed that this is a topic that has been mostly neglected in the I4.0 literature. In that sense, the findings of this paper could be relevant for small and medium-sized businesses embarking on the industry 4.0 journey. This will entail a significant investment of time and money and, if the key role of people management practices is not on the radar screen, it may have significant implications for the success of those ventures.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The role of high-performance people management practices in Industry 4.0: the case of medium-sized Spanish firms

Purpose: This paper wants to build the case for the key role of high-performance people management practices in the development of I4.0 in SMEs. The research upon which this paper is based wants to prove that the consolidation of those practices should be a priority for any company willing to embark in this journey. The paper deals specifically with medium-sized Spanish firms which, on top, are already having significant issues with digitization. Design/methodology/approach: The paper starts by digging into the literature to see how past technologies have impacted productivity, followed by a review of the material available on digitization and Industry 4.0. It moves on to explore the relationship between people management practices, productivity and innovation. Finally, the focus is placed on Spanish medium-sized companies, understanding their current levels of consolidation of high-performance people management practices as well as digitization. With all this information, several propositions are posited for validation using the Delphi methodology. Findings: I4.0 is, at its core, about productivity improvements through business process and business model innovation. People management practices are found to be strongly correlated with both productivity and innovation. It has also been found that Spanish medium-sized firms already have a significant initial gap compared to those of other OECD countries not only in productivity, but also people management practices and digitization. The experts seem to agree on the key role of people management practices and that they should be a high priority for any firm seriously thinking about industry 4.0. This is not to say that strategy or leadership will not play a paramount role in any digital transformation, but to emphasize the fact that the normally-forgotten people management practices will be important enablers in this process. Originality/value: It is believed that this is a topic that has been mostly neglected in the I4.0 literature. In that sense, the findings of this paper could be relevant for small and medium-sized businesses embarking on the industry 4.0 journey. This will entail a significant investment of time and money and, if the key role of people management practices is not on the radar screen, it may have significant implications for the success of those ventures.Peer Reviewe

Fostering circular economy through the analysis of existing open access industrial symbiosis databases

Digital evolution underwent great progress in the late 20th century, democratizing the use of the Internet and, therefore, access to public sources of information. This technological shift caused great impacts on different fields, including Industrial Symbiosis (IS). IS stems from the concept of Circular Economy and requires well-structured information to encourage waste reuse. Under these premises, this investigation aimed at processing and analyzing existing open-access IS databases from several perspectives, including types of business areas, waste and new uses involved. In addition, existing IS data were explored with the support of different tools, such as correspondence, network and correlation analyses. The application of this methodology to a set of 496 shortlisted IS exchanges led to several findings, highlighting the strong relationship between metallurgy and the production of cement, the key role played by the electricity production sector both as a donor and a recipient, the versatility of the agriculture area due to their capacity for reusing a variety of waste as fertilizers and the importance of chemical products and steam and hot water as new uses. Overall, these results provide companies with efficient and understandable knowledge to donate or receive materials.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, grant number DPI2017-88127-R (AEI/FEDER, UE)

Systemic analysis of the contributions of co-located industrial symbiosis to achieve sustainable development in an industrial park in Northern Spain

Resource efficiency is a strategy with great potential to make progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), since it can contribute to meeting a variety of economic, environmental and social targets. In this context, this investigation developed a systemic analysis of co-located Industrial Symbiosis (IS) synergies in an industrial park formed of four companies. To this end, public data showing that the main activity in this park concerned materials, water and steam flows were supported with short visits to the companies for verification purposes. Then, the effects of nine exchange and twelve share synergies were analysed at different scales according to their impacts on sustainable development. The changes caused by these synergies in the flows in the industrial park enabled saving more than 10 k tonnes of raw materials and waste disposal and almost 10 Mm3 of raw water per year, as well as six auxiliary service systems. In the end, these figures might be translated into more than 200 kt CO2 eq. and EUR 6M saved per year, which in turn corresponds to 0.05% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the region in which the park is located. In terms of sustainable development, these modifications were translated into contributions to nine SDGs and 14 of their specific targets, proving the domino effect associated with the application of IS policies by governments and public entities.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, grant number DPI2017-88127-R (AEI/FEDER, UE)

Plataforma web de gestión de encuestas para usuarios Facebook

El siguiente proyecto presenta una nueva plataforma de creación, control y gestión de encuestas orientadas a los usuarios de la conocida red social Facebook. Esta plataforma permite administrar todo su contenido de una forma sencilla por parte de los administradores del sitio, así como la generación de contenido nuevo. Gracias a su modo de creación, no es necesario un nivel avanzado de programación para la creación de encuestas ni de su gestión de respuestas. La plataforma web consta de un diseño estudiado que permite al usuario un fácil acceso y uso de la misma. Debido a que las preguntas están orientadas al modo en que se usa la red social, todo usuario que tenga una cuenta en Facebook, podrá acceder al área de la encuestas para poder completarla. De este modo, no se necesita un registro previo y los resultados serán más fiables ya que estarán basados en un uso real de la red social. Para una mayor penetración en distintos países, la plataforma está dotada de una configuración que permite crear el sitio en multilenguaje. De este modo, se pueden obtener unos resultados segmentados por países y poder hacer comparativas entre distintas ubicaciones. Además de esto, la plataforma web cuenta con una serie de características adicionales expuestas en el siguiente proyecto, que hacen, junto con las características principales, que sea la mejor opción frente a las alternativas actuales de generación de encuestas.The following project presents a new platform for setting, controlling and managing surveys, oriented for the well-known social network Facebook users. This platform allows you to manage all your content in a simple way by the site administrators, as well as the generation of the new content. Thanks to the way how it has been created, it is not necessary advanced programming skills to create the surveys or the management of answers. The web platform consists of a studied design that allows the user to have an easy access and use of it. Because the questions are oriented to the way the social network is used, every user who has an account on Facebook, can access the area of the surveys to complete it. In this way, an additional registration is not necessary and the results will be more reliable since they will be based on an actual use of the social network. For a higher penetration in different countries, the platform is equipped with a configuration that allows to create the site in multilanguage. In this way, results can be obtained by country and can be compared between different locations. In addition to this, the web platform has a series of additional features exposed in the following project, which, together with the main features, make it the best option compared to the current generation of surveys.Ingeniería de Telecomunicació

Using Reinforcement Learning in the Path Planning of Swarms of UAVs for the Photographic Capture of Terrains

Presented at the 4th XoveTIC Conference, A Coruña, Spain, 7–8 October 2021.[Abstract] The number of applications using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is increasing. The use of UAVs in swarms makes many operators see more advantages than the individual use of UAVs, thus reducing operational time and costs. The main objective of this work is to design a system that, using Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) techniques, can obtain a good path for each UAV in the swarm and distribute the flight environment in such a way that the combination of the captured images is as simple as possible. To determine whether it is better to use a global ANN or multiple local ANNs, experiments have been done over the same map and with different numbers of UAVs at different altitudes. The results are measured based on the time taken to find a solution. The results show that the system works with any number of UAVs if the map is correctly partitioned. On the other hand, using local ANNs seems to be the option that can find solutions faster, ensuring better trajectories than using a single global network. There is no need to use additional map information other than the current state of the environment, like targets or distance maps.This research received no external funding