Integrated FANP-f-MIGP model for supplier selection in the renewable energy sector

The available integrated models for choosing efficient suppliers developed so far are mostly specific to companies with mass production capabilities. However, in some sectors involved in project-type manufacturing, the same decision-making criteria cannot be applied and, plus, there is no point in determining the quantity of orders. For instance, in wind power plant projects, a single turbine supplier needs to be selected for each project. This study proposes an integrated FANP-f-MIGP model that ensures the selection of the optimal supplier for each project by applying the model to an energy firm. The criteria specific to the selection of wind power plant turbine suppliers are established, and the criteria weights are obtained by fuzzy analytic network process (FANP). As a result of the analysis, the most important criterion of all is cost. These weights constitute the coefficients of the f-MIGP model’s objective function. Under the defined constraints, by minimizing cost and risk and maximizing quality and services of the firm, the selection of an optimal wind turbine supplier from three suppliers for each of three projects is ensured. This study contributes to the literature both by the specific criteria it establishes and its proposed integrated model which allows for the selection of the best supplier in wind turbine and similar project-based productions

The composition of foreign direct investment and protection of intellectual property rights : evidence from transition economies

While existing literature has examined the impact of intellectual property protection on the volume of foreign direct investment (FDI), little is known about its effect on the composition of FDI inflows. The author addresses this question empirically, using a unique firm-level data set from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. She finds that weak protection deters foreign investors in technology-intensive sectors that rely heavily on intellectual property rights. The results also indicate that a weak intellectual property regime encourages investors to undertake projects focusing on distribution rather than local production. The latter effect is present in all sectors, not justthose relying heavily on intellectual property protection.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Legal Products,Trade and Regional Integration,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Legal Products,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research

The Composition of Foreign Direct Investment and Protection of Intellectual Property Rights: Evidence from Transition Economies’,

Abstract While existing literature examined the impact of intellectual property protection on the volume of foreign direct investment (FDI), little is known about its e ect on the composition of FDI in ows. This paper addresses this question empirically using a unique ÿrm-level data set from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It ÿnds that weak protection deters foreign investors in technology-intensive sectors that rely heavily on intellectual property rights. Moreover, the results indicate that a weak intellectual property regime encourages investors to undertake projects focusing on distribution rather than local production

An Institutional View of Resource Integration Misalignment in Projects

Projects as the most tangible manifestation of temporary organizations are playing a significant role in mobilizing resources and navigating constant changes and disruptions in the business environment. Project actors with different institutional affiliations usually join together to accomplish tasks within a limited period of time. Due to the inherent tension between projects’ temporariness and the institutions’ stability, actors with their heterogeneous institutional prescriptions often encounter institutional misalignments, which may be the obstacles in ensuring on-time, on-quality, and on-budget project deliveries. Given the theoretical sophistication and fragmentation in project literature, an integrated framework of project research is provided in this work. In response to the weakness in current theorizing about how institutional forces manifest themselves in projects and how project processes interact with the wider institutional context, this research proposes a new ontology of temporary organizations by drawing implications from institutional theory and service-dominant logic. The micro-level interactions in both intra- and inter-organizational projects are examined with the qualitative methodology. This research reveals the actuality of projects’ multilevel-embeddedness and provides a framework of 18 dimensions of institutional (mis)alignments. A toolkit solution comprising four categories of 27 resource integration enabling practices (RIEP) aggregated from 376 actions taken by practitioners is also presented for the reconciliation of the institutional misalignments in practice

Managing the impact of product variety and customisation on business function and supply chain performance: A comparison between the UK and South Korea

Mass customisation is displacing mass production, and a conspicuous trend is for businesses to extend the variety of their products in order to provide more tailored solutions and choice for customers. Flexibility-enhancing initiatives have been implemented in order to help businesses adopt customer-centric strategies to satisfy their high-variety ambitions. Such strategies can require major changes to the way businesses and key business functions are organised; yet it is imperative that these initiatives are implemented and high-variety solutions are profitably achieved without an overall deterioration of business function performance. In particular, most manufacturers have started to recognise that a trade-off exists between product variety and supply chain performance. In order to manage the impact of product variety, numerous variety-related strategies to improve supply chain performance have been suggested. However, different levels of customisation require different strategies and approaches and affect business function and supply chain performance differently. This research aimed to assess the potential impact of product variety on business function performance and test a model designed to manage that impact on supply chain performance qualified by the level of product customisation. Further investigation aimed to determine typical differences in focus on variety-related strategies and supply chain performance according to the level of customisation. Lastly, the research findings compared the UK and South Korea. By adopting a quantitative research method, a survey of 364 manufacturing sector companies from the UK and South Korea was conducted. The results provide theory developments that support and contradict exiting views on product variety-related issues. The key findings and contributions of this research are fourfold: First, the analysis examined the impact of product variety on the performance of five business functions including engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, logistics and marketing according to the type of customisation. The research also investigated the relationships between business function performance, degree of customisation and the level of product variety offered. An increase in product variety was found to influence business functions differently depending on the combination of customisation and variety offered to customers. The findings demonstrate that low customisation types typically had a more significant impact on business function performance than high customisation types with an increase in product variety. In addition, high variety with low customisation displayed the highest negative impact on business function performance due to a mismatch between the level of variety and customisation offered. The results support organisational decision-making by providing managers working in manufacturing environments with guidance on how to provide more supportive business function design for heterogeneous market requirements and responses. In particular, specific findings have important managerial implications for the adoption of different approaches to variety under different customisation profiles. Second, the research tested models designed to support the management of product variety increases on supply chain performance, that is, it examined the relationship between variety control strategies including modularity, cellular manufacturing and postponement and supply chain performance including supply chain flexibility, agility, cost efficiency and customer service. Adopting the agility concept as an external competence of supply chain performance, this research also attempted to develop a procedure to manage variety-related impacts according to the level of product customisation. In addition, the relationship between a variety control strategy and supply chain performance was explored further by considering the level of customisation. In this scenario, supply chain flexibility and agility resulting from a variety control strategy in the model had a positive effect on supply chain cost-efficiency and customer service. However, supply chain agility in a low customisation context played a relatively insignificant role compared to a high customisation context. These findings provide guidance for manufacturers by explaining the structural procedure to manage the trade-off between product variety and supply chain performance. Third, the research is dedicated to addressing differences in variety-related strategies and supply chain performance according to the level of customisation. The results revealed that a high customisation context is associated with a higher level of customer relationships, variety control strategy, differentiation, flexibility and agility than a low customisation context, while a low customisation context is associated with a higher level of cost leadership than a high customisation context. The findings prove the general theory related to characteristics for high and low customisation; however, partnership with suppliers revealed contradictory results and displayed a higher performance in the case of high customisation through joint product development and problem-solving. Finally, the research compares its findings for the UK and South Korea. As expected, the UK exhibits a higher level of product variety, customisation, customer relationships, customer service and differentiation than South Korea, while South Korea displays higher cost leadership and cost-efficiency than the UK. The comparison reveals the weaknesses and strengths of the two countries. For South Korea, higher manufacturing cost due to increased variety with a relatively low level of customisation is a major issue that needs to be overcome. On the other hand, the UK has relatively lower supply chain agility compared to its level of customisation. These findings can help international companies set up specific variety-related strategies in order to achieve global competitiveness. Generally, the results from the research support the proposition of variety management and its relationship to customisation in the supply chain. It also contributes to the current literature by arguing that the complex relationship between product variety and supply chain performance varies depending on the level of customisation. Finally, the research reveals that appropriate variety-related strategies for managing variety qualified by the manufacturer’s level of customisation are imperative for effective and efficient supply chain performance

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing

Ergonomics plays an important role in occupational safety, productivity and occupational diseases. For this reason, the creation of the auxiliary equipment or the machine and the work place designs to improve human life quality and working conditions is necessary at every area where manufacturing is made. Musculoskeletal System Diseases (MSDs) constitute 50% of new cases in occupational diseases. Unproper postures and ergonomic inadequacies in repetitive work activities in the formation of these diseases which may be painful during work or at rest are the main factors. Ergonomic improvements made are not only protect from occupational diseases, but also provide job satisfaction. This study has been carried out in a dairy-processing machine manufacturer where labor-intensive project-type manufacturing is conducted according to the customer orders. Human continues to be the most important element of manufacturing in this industry. So, ergonomic problems were determined by observing the all manufacturing process and suggestions were made by RULA analysis to improve existing problems by considering anthropometric data

Supply chain management based on modern standards for data exchange and data representation: implementation to the ship repair industry

This work examines the problem of synchronization of production processes and the problem of exchange of information during the collaboration of enterprises, for the realization of the business process within a supply chain. An integrated framework is described, based on the modern information technology for the synchronization of production processes performed by the manufacturing resources of cooperating enterprises as well as for the integration of their information technology (IT) systems. The objective of the framework, is to facilitate the collaboration of enterprises with the adoption of modern standards for data exchange and representation, as well as the management of information that is exchanged among them for the implementation of their commercial and production transactions, with the most efficient way so that to achieve reduction of total cost of operation of the overall supply chain. The proposed approach is applied to support the commercial and production operations in a real life shiprepair environment. In the shiprepair industry the implementation of IT systems, is still immature. The IT systems, which are used, are characterized as "islands of automation" because each one implements only partially the business process. In addition, the integration of existing software systems is difficult, because of the different storage mechanism used by each individual system and the different level of automation of each software application used. Furthermore, the large volume of the exchanged data creates additional complexity, because of the difficulty in the transmission and import of data in heterogeneous software systems used by each shiprepair partner, required to enable the essential data processing for the continuation of the shiprepair business process. Finally, during the shiprepair production process, subcontractors and suppliers are also involved; therefore the synchronization of their work with the work that is executed by the shipyard resources is complicated. The proposed framework, suggests an approach for the integration of IT systems, aiming at the structured management of information. In particular, the information that is exchanged, is modeled based on modern standards for data exchange and representation, aiming at the development of software that implements the exchange of data between the cooperating enterprises. Using such a system, the exchange of data is realized with precision and reliability, due to decreased human intervention in data typing operations. Moreover, with the use of the Internet, fast transmission of information is achieved in parallel to the minimisation of time and cost for data exchange. Finally, this work, describes the implementation of a scheduling methodology suggested in the literature, for planning of the work performed by the manufacturing resources of the cooperating partners in the project type manufacturing system. Finally, the implementation of the suggested approach in a real life shiprepair supply chain is described.Η παρούσα εργασία εξετάζει το πρόβλημα του συγχρονισμού των παραγωγικών διαδικασιών και το πρόβλημα της ανταλλαγής πληροφοριών μεταξύ οργανισμών και επιχειρήσεων κατά τη διάρκεια της συνεργασίας τους για την πραγματοποίηση της επιχειρηματικής διαδικασίας παραγωγής ενός προϊόντος και της παροχής υπηρεσιών. Παρουσιάζεται ένα ολοκληρωμένο πλαίσιο βασισμένο στην σύγχρονη πληροφορική τεχνολογία για το συγχρονισμό των παραγωγικών διαδικασιών που εκτελούνται από τους παραγωγικούς πόρους των συνεργαζόμενων οργανισμών και επιχειρήσεων καθώς και για την ολοκλήρωση των πληροφορικών τους συστημάτων. Ο στόχος του πλαισίου είναι η υποστήριξη της συνεργασίας των οργανισμών και επιχειρήσεων με χρήση πληροφορικής τεχνολογίας καθώς και η διαχείριση της πληροφορίας που ανταλλάσσεται μεταξύ τους για τη διεκπεραίωση των εμπορικών τους συναλλαγών με τον πιο αποδοτικό τρόπο προκειμένου να επιτευχθεί μείωση του συνολικού κόστους λειτουργίας της αλυσίδας των συνεργαζόμενων οργανισμών. Η προτεινόμενη προσέγγιση εφαρμόζεται για την υποστήριξη των εμπορικών δραστηριοτήτων που πραγματοποιούνται μεταξύ οργανισμών και επιχειρήσεων κατά τη διάρκεια της ναυπηγοεπισκευαστικής διαδικασίας. Στη ναυπηγοεπισκευαστική βιομηχανία η εφαρμογή της πληροφορικής τεχνολογίας βρίσκεται στα αρχικά της στάδια. Τα λογισμικά συστήματα τα οποία χρησιμοποιούνται, χαρακτηρίζονται ως "νησίδες αυτοματισμού" διότι το κάθε ένα αντιμετωπίζει τμήμα της όλης διαδικασίας. Ταυτόχρονα είναι δύσκολη η ολοκλήρωση και η επικοινωνία των υπαρχόντων συστημάτων λόγω του διαφορετικού τρόπου αποθήκευσης των δεδομένων και του διαφορετικού επιπέδου αυτοματισμού της κάθε εφαρμογής. Επίσης ο μεγάλος όγκος των δεδομένων που ανταλλάσσεται, δημιουργεί πρόσθετη πολυπλοκότητα λόγω της δυσκολίας μεταφοράς τους και της ανάγκης εισαγωγής τους σε διαφορετικά συστήματα προκειμένου να γίνει η απαραίτητη επεξεργασία τους για τη συνέχιση της επιχειρηματικής διαδικασίας. Επιπλέον στην πραγματοποίηση μιας ναυπηγοεπισκευής λαμβάνουν μέρος εξωτερικοί υπεργολάβοι και προμηθευτές με αποτέλεσμα η διαδικασία συγχρονισμού των εργασιών με τις εργασίες που εκτελούνται από τους παραγωγικούς πόρους του ναυπηγείου να περιπλέκεται. Στο προτεινόμενο πλαίσιο, περιγράφεται η προσέγγιση ολοκλήρωσης λογισμικών συστημάτων με σκοπό την οργανωμένη διαχείριση και δόμηση της πληροφορίας. Συγκεκριμένα η πληροφορία που ανταλλάσσεται μοντελοποιείται με βάση σύγχρονα πρότυπα ανταλλαγής και αναπαράστασης δεδομένων, με στόχο την ανάπτυξη λογισμικού που αναλαμβάνει την ανταλλαγή δεδομένων μεταξύ των συνεργαζόμενων οργανισμών και επιχειρήσεων. Με τη χρήση ενός τέτοιου συστήματος επιτυγχάνεται η ανταλλαγή δεδομένων με ακρίβεια και αξιοπιστία, λόγω της μειωμένης ανθρώπινης παρέμβασης. Επιπλέον με τη χρήση του διαδικτύου επιτυγχάνεται η γρήγορη μεταφορά της πληροφορίας και η ελαχιστοποίηση του χρόνου και του κόστους ανταλλαγής της. Τέλος γίνεται εφαρμογή μεθοδολογίας που προτείνεται στη βιβλιογραφία για τον χρονοπρογραμματισμό των εργασιών που εκτελούνται τόσο από τους παραγωγικούς πόρους του ναυπηγείου όσο και από τους παραγωγικούς πόρους εξωτερικών υπεργολάβων και προμηθευτών