Integration of Sustainability in Engineering and Architectural Studies in Spanish Universities

The recommendations of the UN and other international bodies on the need to transform university curricula to incorporate sustainability values, content and competencies have met with a warm reception from universities all over the world. However, the actual state of the integration of sustainability in higher education is, in general, somewhat more modest than one would expect. This article proposes a method of measuring the extent of sustainability-oriented curricular change in the Spanish University as a whole and applies it to the degrees in engineering and architecture. The method entails a documentary analysis of the teaching guides related to 1050 subjects. The results obtained do not invite optimism: curricular transformation is slow and insufficient and its results are still incomplete

A Bibliometric Analysis in Industry 4.0 and Advanced Manufacturing: What about the Sustainable Supply Chain?

During the last decade, different concepts, methodologies, and technologies have appeared, evolving industry toward what we know today as the fourth industrial evolution or Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and Advanced Manufacturing (AM). Based on both, Supply Chain (SC) is presented as the relevant process that sets the sustainability of manufacturing and, therefore, is defined as a key term in a sustainable approach to I4.0. However, there are no studies that analyze the evolution of science in the fields of I4.0 and AM together. In order to fill this gap, the aim of this research work is to analyze the tendencies of science research related to I4.0 and AM by conducting a bibliometric and network analysis and also to generate a new contribution through the analysis of scientific trends related to SC and Sustainable Supply Chain (SSC) within this scientific context, for the time span 2010–2019. The results show that the number of publications is growing exponentially and the most active countries are Germany and the U.S., with Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University being the most productive organization and Tecnologico de Monterrey the most collaborative. The analysis of the scientific terms allows us to conclude that the research field is in a growth phase, generating up to almost 4500 new terms in 2019

A Method for the Detection and Characterization of Technology Fronts: Analysis of the Dynamics of Technological Change in 3D Printing Technology

This paper presents a method for the identification of the "technology fronts"-core technological solutions-underlying a certain broad technology, and the characterization of their change dynamics. We propose an approach based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model combined with patent data analysis and text mining techniques for the identification and dynamic characterization of the main fronts where actual technological solutions are put into practice. 3D printing technology has been selected to put our method into practice for its market emergence and multidisciplinarity. The results show two highly relevant and specialized fronts strongly related with mechanical design that evolve gradually, in our opinion acting as enabling technologies. On the other side, we detected three fronts undergoing significant changes, namely layer-by-layer multimaterial manufacturing, data processing and stereolithograpy techniques. Laser and electron-beam based technologies take shape in the latter years and show signs of becoming enabling technologies in the future. The technology fronts and data revealed by our method have been convincing to experts and coincident with many technology trends already pointed out in technical reports and scientific literature

Design and implementation of a cloud computing adoption decision tool: Generating a cloud road

Migrating to cloud computing is one of the current enterprise challenges. This technology provides a new paradigm based on "on-demand payment" for information and communication technologies. In this sense, the small and medium enterprise is supposed to be the most interested, since initial investments are avoided and the technology allows gradual implementation. However, even if the characteristics and capacities have been widely discussed, entry into the cloud is still lacking in terms of practical, real frameworks. This paper aims at filling this gap, presenting a real tool already implemented and tested, which can be used as a cloud computing adoption decision tool. This tool uses diagnosis based on specific questions to gather the required information and subsequently provide the user with valuable information to deploy the business within the cloud, specifically in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. This information allows the decision makers to generate their particular Cloud Road. A pilot study has been carried out with enterprises at a local level with a two-fold objective: To ascertain the degree of knowledge on cloud computing and to identify the most interesting business areas and their related tools for this technology. As expected, the results show high interest and low knowledge on this subject and the tool presented aims to readdress this mismatch, insofar as possible. Copyright: © 2015 Bildosola et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This work is funded by the program INNPACTO 2011; Project: (2011–2013) Plataforma Inteligente de Gestión Empresarial Basada en Cloud Computing y la WEB 2.0; Project Reference: IPT-2011-1805-430000. The Financing Entity was: Ministerio de Economía y Competitivida

Estudio de la fidelidad de clientes aplicado al sector hotelero

En un sector tan competitivo como es el hotelero, la excelencia de productos y servicios juega una importancia decisiva. Ponerse en la piel de los consumidores finales del producto y servicio es vital para comprender mejor de qué manera perciben estos cada uno de los componentes que forman el total. La utilización de estas técnicas tiene un único objetivo: la mejora constante de la calidad y el compromiso pleno con la satisfacción de sus clientes. La gestión de las relaciones con los clientes, y en especial la gestión de su satisfacción, es determinante para el éxito o fracaso de cualquier empresa, tanto en las relaciones con el mercado como en el ámbito de la propia empresa. Las iniciativas para la mejora de la calidad del servicio, basadas únicamente en resultados internos, en las que falta información de los clientes, están inevitablemente condenadas al fracaso. Estas iniciativas se frustran por el desconocimiento de los requerimientos de los clientes y la necesidad de conectar la satisfacción y la medida de los avances internos. Palabras clave: Fidelidad, Clientes, Hoteles

Yield management applied to the hotel industry: a mathematical modeling approach

Las empresas del sector servicios, caracterizadas por la simultaneidad de la producción del servicio y su consumo, no disponen de un sistema de almacenamiento de su producto, por ser perecedero. La filosofía de la técnica de yield management es vender cada unidad de inventario al tipo de cliente adecuado, en el instante adecuado y al precio adecuado. Con estos criterios se asignan los clientes a las distintas categorías de inventario, de manera que se aproveche la demanda existente, con el objetivo de maximizar los ingresos o los beneficios. Mediante modelos matemáticos, en este trabajo se aplica y valida esta técnica en el caso de las empresas del sector hotelero español.Service sector companies, characterized by the simultaneous nature of service production and consumption, do not have a product storage system because their products are perishable. The philosophy behind the yield management technique is to sell each unit of stock to the right type of customer, at the right time, and at the right price. Using those criteria, customers are assigned to distinct stock categories, to take the best advantage of the existing demand, for the purpose of maximizing revenues or profits. Using mathematical models, this article applies the yield management technique to hotel industry companies in Spain and validates it