Iot based laundry services: an application of big data analytics,intelligent logistics management,and machine learning techniques

The authors propose an innovative Internet of Things (IoT) based E-commerce business model Cloud Laundry for mass scale laundry services. The model utilises big data analytics, intelligent logistics management, and machine learning techniques. Using GPS and real-time update of big data, it calculates the best transportation path and update and re-route the logistic terminals quickly and simultaneously. Cloud laundry intelligently and dynamically provides the best laundry solutions based on the current state spaces of the laundry terminals through the user's specifications and thus offers local hotel customers with convenient, efficient, and transparent laundry services. Taking advantage of the rapid development of the big data industry, user interest modelling, and information security and privacy considerations, cloud laundry uses smartphone terminal control and big data models to maintain customers’ security needs. Different from the traditional laundry industry, cloud laundry companies have higher capital turnover, more liquidity, and stronger profitability. Therefore, this new generation of smart laundry business model could be of interest to not only academic researchers, but E-commerce entrepreneurs as well.     

A study on investments in the big data-driven supply chain,performance measures and organisational performance in Indian retail 4.0 context

The use of digital technologies such as ‘internet of things’ and ‘big data analytics’ have transformed the traditional retail supply chains into data-driven retail supply chains referred to as ‘Retail 4.0.’ These big data-driven retail supply chains have the advantage of providing superior products and services and enhance the customers shopping experience. The retailing industry in India is highly competitive and eager to transform into the environment of retail 4.0. The literature on big data in the supply chain has mainly focused on the applications in manufacturing industries and therefore needs to be further investigated on how the big data-driven retail supply chains influence the supply chain performance. Therefore, this study investigates how the retailing 4.0 context in India is influencing the existing supply chain performance measures and what effect it has on the organisational performance. The findings of the study provide valuable insights for retail supply chain practitioners on planning BDA investments. Based on a survey of 380 respondents selected from retail organisations in India, this study uses governance structure as the moderating variable. Implications for managers and future research possibilities are presented.     

Beyond the trade-off and cumulative capabilities models: alternative models of operations strategy

Organisations are expected to develop sound strategies relating to their core operations capabilities of cost efficiency, quality, delivery, flexibility and innovation, to gain and maintain competitive advantage. However, there is a paucity of specific models that can be used to explain and predict how organisations combine and use these capabilities. Previous research has primarily focused on the ‘trade-off’ and the ‘cumulative capabilities’ models. In this study, data from an international sample of 1438 manufacturing plants are used to explore other models that organisations are using in addition to the two predominant models. This analysis shows that, in practice, the trade-off model is not used, but the cumulative capabilities model is used extensively. Further, our proposed new models, the ‘threshold’, ‘average’ and ‘multiple’, are prevalent in many plants. Also, a small proportion of the plants have in place the ‘uncompetitive’ model. In terms of relative effectiveness, there are no significant differences between the models with respect to several measures of operational performance. Overall, this study provides empirical evidence that there are other operations strategy models beyond the trade-off and cumulative capabilities dichotomy that organisations deploy.     

Pricing structures for solutions: an exploratory study within the oil and gas industry†

A growing number of companies have begun to realise the potential for differentiating their product offerings by integrating services to provide customised solutions. Although there is now an extensive and growing literature on this trend, researchers have only recently begun to consider the pricing structures for such solutions. To address this shortcoming, the present study adopts an exploratory case-based approach to investigate a buyer (drilling contractor) and two suppliers of offshore capital equipment, each of whom provides condition-based maintenance solutions for offshore drilling units in the upstream oil and gas industry. The findings of the study identify a number of underlying mechanisms for solution offerings (i.e. innovativeness, benchmarking alternatives, measurability, replicability and operational risk) that are important considerations in the process of determining appropriate pricing structures based on the buyer’s business model, procurement practices and maintenance strategy vis-à-vis the supplier’s capabilities and the buyer–supplier relationship. The present study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on and insight into the complexity of determining the pricing structure for solution offerings from the perspective of the supplier as well as the buyer.     

Investigating risks of outcome-based service contracts from a provider’s perspective

Outcome-based contracts (OBC) refer to agreements between providers and customers where providers are paid based on the outcomes they deliver to customers. OBCs have become common for manufacturing firms that are servitising, especially those firms providing advanced services focusing on availability and capability. Whilst many authors acknowledge the importance of understanding risks in OBCs from a provider’s perspective, there are relatively few in depth extant studies. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted 24 interviews with 11 companies to explore risks and risk factors in OBCs from the provider’s perspective. The case studies reveal that the two major risk categories in OBCs are commercial risk regarding the contract negotiations and contract decisions at the contracting stage, and operational risk regarding the implementation and the delivery of OBCs. Our study identifies 23 risk factors that can lead to commercial risk and operational risk in five dimensions: (i) complexity and (ii) dynamism regarding the context of OBCs, (iii) capability, (iv) alignment and (v) dependency regarding the stakeholders of OBCs. The paper explores the links between these risk factors and commercial and operational risk. In doing so, the paper provides a framework for understanding risk in OBCs.     

Robust optimisation approach applied to the analysis of production / logistics and crop planning in the tomato processing industry

The soluble solids content in the tomato fruit, also known as ‘brix’, and the crop yield are the most relevant uncertain parameters to determine technical and economic performance in the tomato processing industry. This paper presents a linear programming model and three robust optimisation models to deal with data uncertainty in the analysis of crop, logistics and industrial tactical planning in this industry. We focused the analysis on the production and logistics costs due to the impacts of unfavourable disturbances on the amount of soluble solids and the quantity of tomatoes processed in the system. A typical industry in this sector collaborated with this study by providing real data of its production, logistics and crop plans and with in-depth discussions. From the results, some general conclusions were outlined and we discuss the benefits of adopting the robust optimisation approach instead of a deterministic one. The robust approach proved to be a powerful tool for elaborating scenarios for uncertainty analysis in medium-term decisions, as described in this study, and clearly has potential to be employed in real contexts.     

Innovating in the medical device industry – challenges & opportunities ESB 2015 translational research symposium

The European Society for Biomaterials 2015 Translational Research Symposium focused on ‘Innovating in the Medical Device Industry – Challenges & Opportunities’ from different perspectives, i.e., from a non-profit research organisation to a syndicate of small and medium-sized companies and large companies. Lecturers from regulatory consultants, industry and research institutions described the innovation process and regulatory processes (e.g., 510K, PMA, combination product) towards market approval. The aim of the present article is to summarise and explain the main statements made during the symposium, in terms of challenges and opportunities for medical device industries, in a constantly changing customer and regulatory environment.     

Incorporating end-user models and associated uncertainties to investigate multiple stakeholder preferences in system design

The essence of systems engineering lies in enabling rational decision-making that is consistent with the preferences of the system’s stakeholders. Modern approaches, such as value-driven design, attempt to convey the true preferences of the stakeholder using mathematical formulations like value models. A critical step to the formation of value models is the identification of the stakeholders. A primary stakeholder must be identified and then it must be determined how the other stakeholders’ preferences impact the preference of the primary, if they do at all. This paper looks at three stakeholders of an electric vehicle system, all of which could be considered the primary stakeholder dependent on the situation. Novel customer, commercial, and government-oriented value models are created. To understand the impact of customers on the primary stakeholder’s designs, an end-user value-based demand model is developed and a method for integrating end-user preferences into the manufacturer’s value model is demonstrated. Uncertainties associated with the end-users, including those associated with the economy, are quantified and incorporated into a value-based design framework through Monte Carlo simulations. Possible stakeholder risk attitudes are discussed and a rational decision-making strategy to maximize stakeholder’s system value under uncertainty is presented. The resulting designs and the influences of the multiple stakeholders are discussed, showing that the identification and incorporation of the important stakeholders are critical to the systems engineering process and value-based design in particular.     

People Pillars: Re‐structuring the Toyota Production System (TPS) House Based on Inadequacies Revealed During the Automotive Recall Crisis

Toyota has long been recognized as a leader in lean manufacturing and production quality through a dedicated practice of continuous process improvements and waste elimination techniques hallmarked within their Toyota Production System (TPS) and the ‘Toyota Way’ principles. Toyota's long list of successes and quality achievements has inspired companies within all industry sectors, not just automotive, to seek application of the coveted TPS into their process models in hopes of achieving the rewards that lean production promises. However, a recent series of automotive recall announcements associated with Toyota quality control have led many industry experts and students to reflect on possible inadequacies of the TPS House model. This article seeks to identify potential structural shortcomings and possible deficiencies of the TPS House in light of the root causes of recall crisis and suggest potential re‐structuring to better achieve continuous improvement. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing International Business Relationships in a Russian Context

The collapse of the former Soviet Union has opened up a wealth of business opportunities for companies seeking new markets in the Russian Federation. Despite this, firms intending to do business in Russia have found themselves hampered by cultural differences in business practices and expectations. As Russia integrates into the global economy, understanding such practices and the managerial mindset of business people is crucial for managers who hope to navigate Russia’s complex markets. This study draws on the trust literature and adopts quantitative tools to deconstruct the Russian ‘Sviazi’ system of social capital business networking. We develop a model isolating three dimensions of Sviazi: one an affective or emotional component; the second, a conative component; and the third, a cognitive component. The model provides a useful guide for helping foreign firms to succeed in Russia, while also serving as a basis for further research in the field.     

Optimisation of traceability and operations planning: an integrated model for perishable food production

The food industry has been under pressure regarding improving food safety, implementing efficient risk management, and managing quality ‘from farm to fork’. Individual parties in a food supply chain must make appropriate strategic and operational adjustments, enhance product quality and increase operational efficiency and profits. In this paper, an optimisation model is developed integrating traceability initiatives with operation factors to achieve desired product quality and minimum impact of product recall in an economic manner. A case study with numerical example is provided to illustrate the theory. Sensitivity analyses are conducted. A comparison between the proposed model and the existing model operating in the case company is also presented.     

Bridging customer knowledge to innovative product development: a data mining approach

In the big data era, firms are inundated with customer data, which are valuable in improving services, developing new products, and identifying new markets. However, it is not clear how companies apply data-driven methods to facilitate customer knowledge management when developing innovative new products. Studies have investigated the specific benefits of applying data-driven methods in customer knowledge management, but failed to systematically investigate the specific mechanics of how firms realised these benefits. Accordingly, this study proposes a systematic approach to link customer knowledge with innovative product development in a data-driven environment. To mine customer needs, this study adopts the Apriori algorithm and C5.0 in addition to the association rule and decision tree methodologies for data mining. It provides a systematic and effective method for managers to extract knowledge ‘from’ and ‘about’ customers to identify their preferences, enabling firms to develop the right products and gain competitive advantages. The findings indicate that the knowledge-based approach is effective, and the knowledge extracted is shown as a set of rules that can be used to identify useful patterns for both innovative product development and marketing strategies.     

SNT-TC-1A within a UK quality assurance system

Training and certification of ndt personnel is discussed within the framework of an overall system of quality assurance in industry. The authors argue that SNT-TC-1A, a Recommended Practice for inspection and testing with guidelines laid down by ASNT, should be integrated into the quality system of individual companies to assure customers of the quality of inspection personnel. The requirements of SNT-TC-1A are outlined and compared with other operator certification schemes.     

International seal standards — do they affect us?

Many people have a negative reaction when faced with International Standards, which are often considered unnecessary, bureaucratic and a restriction to design innovation and market flexibility. In a world, however, where quality, reliability and safety are ill defined and investment in ‘company standards’ is a debatable value-added cost, they are becoming increasingly attractive to the seal industry’s main customers. To ignore International Standards is thus a high-risk business strategy.     

我国开发并推广无氟防油植物纤维食品包装的现状和紧迫性

植物纤维作为一种天然高分子材料,常被加工成各种纸和纸板制品用于一次性食品包装,有望替代传统塑料材料。但植物纤维防油性能不佳,目前常使用含氟有机化合物（PFAS）进行处理以提升防油性。然而,因为食品安全风险和环境保护原因,国外已有部分国家和地区制定了法规禁止在食品包装中使用PFAS,转而推广无氟（PFAS-free）防油食品包装。目前,我国无氟防油植物纤维食品包装主要有两条技术线路,能提供无氟防油解决方案的企业有十几家,但无氟产品在我国推广还存在几个方面的难点：检测标准未统一、产品性能不足、成本偏高、推广力度不够。作为大众消费品的食品包装,使用短链PFAS也存在安全风险;PFAS释放到环境中的途径多样,因而阻止PFAS释放很难;允许部分PFAS成分在食品包装材料中使用,增加了监管的难度。因此,我国应当尽快推广无氟植物纤维食品包装,利用好这次从有氟到无氟的切换过程,换道超车,孵化出拥有中国自主知识产权的食品防油技术,打造世界知名品牌。     

A data-driven ensemble ranking system of production quality across manufacturers—A case study for risk assessment in the solar industry

In many production industries, quality assurance and risk analysis are important aspects of the procurement of products. Such analysis often takes the form of during and after production inspections performed by quality assurance companies. These inspections give insight into the quality level of each individual production batch; however, it is also often important to understand a manufacturer's overall production quality and how its quality compares to other manufacturers. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a data-driven method to rank the production quality across manufacturers. The method is based on data from quality assurance inspections and consists of three steps. In the first step, a failure mode and effects analysis is applied for each individual manufacturer. This results in a risk assessment for identified failure modes. In the second step, the risk assessments are combined to create an overall failure index for each manufacturer. Step 2 can be designed in various ways. To ensure our final ranking is robust to the selected method, in step 3 we combine all methods into a unified rank of each manufacturer. We validate our proposed ensemble ranking method using a case study from the solar industry, where we compare our final ranking with the experts’ knowledge of manufacturer quality. It is shown that our data-driven method identifies the high-risk manufacturers in accordance with experts’ knowledge.     

Evaluating the performance of US manufacturing and service operations in the presence of IT: a Bayesian stochastic production frontier approach

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of US manufacturing and service operations in the presence of information technology (IT) as measured by technical efficiency, using firm-level data from 133 companies over the period from 1999 to 2009. To gain insight into the phenomenon of the ‘IT productivity paradox’, or the history of inconsistent findings in the existing literature, we employ a Bayesian stochastic production frontier approach to model the relationship between performance and technical efficiency at the firm, industry and sector levels. Some results are indicative of a slight advantage of the manufacturing sector over the service sector in terms of technical efficiency and a significant positive contribution of IT-investment to firm output. However, other results do suggest the productivity paradox, because of a lack of any definitive association of high IT investment levels with either high- or low-technical efficiency. Indeed, the findings of this study suggest that the origin of some portion of the IT productivity paradox may exist at the industry level, in that the relationship between extreme levels of IT-investment and extreme levels of technical efficiency appear to work differently in sufficiently different industries.     

Partnership ecosystem of IC design service companies: The case of Taiwan

The continuously evolving IC industry has driven IC design service companies to become the niche players in the semiconductor value chain. These emerging companies, mostly SMEs, manage the entire chip development manufacturing process and apply third party's resources when and where its customers need them. To keep the customer as their main focus and deliver what the customer truly needs, a strong and committed partnership ecosystem is more important than ever.The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the partnership ecosystem of Taiwan's IC design service companies. A co-evolutionary theory in the business ecosystem is used as a theoretical background to explain the relationship in the investigated partnership networks. The partnership networks of the IC design service companies were analyzed together with the corporate data such as revenues and milestones. The findings show that the firms have accumulated and created their competitive advantage by forming strategic alliances with various leading foundries, IP vendors, and EDA tool providers to leverage their technological capabilities. While the production ecosystem was localized in Taiwan based on the benefit of the complete value chain, the IP ecosystem was more internationalized.The existing networks provide a new insight into opportunities for new entrants even in the highly competitive environment like the semiconductor industry. This study contributes to the understanding of the characteristics of the niche players. It will be useful as policy implications for the industry stakeholders and governments to setup direction for further support and investment in the IC design service business.     

An evaluation of the ability of RFID tags to withstand distribution of fresh produce in the RPC pooling system

This study focused on the ability of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags applied on reusable plastic containers (RPCs) to withstand repeated abuse due to physical distribution and storage environment related hazards. It also studied the effect of the chemical cleaning environments that RPCs are commonly exposed to in the pooling/rental systems commonly used to distribute fresh produce. RPCs are being successfully deployed in the US, Europe and Asia to ship fresh produce from growers to retailers. The increasing demand for traceability and tracking of fresh produce from ‘farm to fork’ requires these containers to be monitored and identified in the food supply chain, and RFID technology provides one of the solutions. This study compared eight commercially available RFID tags mounted on RPCs for use in fresh produce distribution and subjected them to repeated physical and climatic cycles representing the distribution and cleaning environments, and their effective ‘read’ capabilities were tested. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved new product development through enhanced design architecture for engineer-to-order companies

There are many challenges that face companies today in the new product introduction process. These can include reduced design times, fast times to market, improved quality and the need for constant price reductions in order to keep up with the competition. Engineer-to-order firms face even more challenges because of the ‘build to order’ way that they must do business. This study presents new ways for these companies to meet the challenges posed by the market using a business case relating to the product introduction process at a mid-size (～$75 million annual sales) engineer-to-order manufacturer of flexible printed circuits. The company has developed a new product introduction process that seeks to improve quality and delivery times as well as process development for the project at hand. These suggested outcomes of the improved process are generic and widely applicable to contract manufacturers involved in the new product introduction process enabling them to work closely with customers thereby effectively addressing their design concerns. The updated procedures are examined in-depth and the associated forms and record-keeping methods are presented and analysed. The new product introduction process utilises Deming's plan, do, check and act process improvement cycle. Finally, various contributions emanating from the study that enhance our understanding of any engineer-to-order new product development environment are presented.