Recent research on Agile Manufacturing (AM) has examined its relationship with Total Quality Management (TQM), Just in Time (JIT), and different levels of firm performance. Mixed results have been ...reported, probably due to non-availability of well validated AM constructs. This research develops a 3-stage model and examines AM's direct and/or indirect relationship with common infrastructures, TQM, and JIT and its effects on different levels of firm performance in the context of the Pakistani industrial sectors, specifically the apparel export industry. Data is collected from 248 Pakistani apparel export firms and the model is estimated using structural equation modelling. The results indicate that common (internal) infrastructure and TQM has a positive relationship with AM specifically in the apparel export firms in a third world economy where the industrial sector is in a nascent state. Whereas, JIT relationship is positively mediated through external infrastructure, TQM and JIT did not seem to contribute directly in operational performance. However, this relationship is significant when it is mediated through AM. Market performance positively mediates the relationship between operational performance and financial performance of the firm. The implications of the findings for researchers and practitioners, looking at the industrial sectors in the developing world, are discussed and research directions offered.
•Supply chain sustainability assessment of the U.S. food manufacturing sectors is studied.•A joint research method that consists of EIO-LCA and Data Envelopment Analysis is utilized.•Supply chains of ...food manufacturing are found to have over 80% impact share on the environment.•More than half of the food manufacturing sectors are not efficient in terms of sustainability performance.•Forestry is found as the most sensitive environmental indicator on the sustainability performance of food manufacturing sectors.
Due to the fact that food manufacturing is one of the major drivers of the global environmental issues, there is a strong need to focus on sustainable manufacturing toward achieving long-term sustainability goals in food production of the United States. In this regard, current study assessed the direct and indirect environmental footprint of 33 U.S. food manufacturing sectors by using the Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) model. Then, a non-parametric mathematical optimization tool, namely Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), is utilized to benchmark the sustainability performance of food manufacturing sectors by using the results of the EIO-LCA model. Next, sustainability performance indices (SPIs), rankings, target improvements, and sensitivity of environmental impact indicators are presented. The average SPI score of U.S. food manufacturing sectors is found as 0.76. In addition, 19 out of 33 food sectors are found as inefficient where an average of 45–71% reduction is indicated for various environmental impact categories. Analysis results also indicate that supply chains of food manufacturing sectors are heavily responsible for the impacts with over 80% shares for energy, water and carbon footprint, fishery and grazing categories. Especially, animal (except poultry) slaughtering, rendering and processing sector is found as the most dominant sector in most of the impact categories (ranked as 2nd in fishery and forest land). Sensitivity analysis indicated that forest land footprint is found to be the most sensitive environmental indicator on the overall sustainability performance of food manufacturing sectors.
This paper proposes a framework to assess the status of sustainable development performance of OECD countries towards reaching the 2030 agenda based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ...Each SDG addresses a critical area of sustainable development and is represented with several social, economic, or environmental indicators. As a result of data collection efforts, 17 SDGs are represented with total of over 90 variables following the guidance of United Nation’s (UN) recent reports. Using such a high number of variables to create a benchmark score for each of the 35 OECD countries is a challenging and complex task due to the degree of correlation among the indicators and unit of measurement differences. To cope with these challenges, we proposed a Goal-Specific Principal Component Analysis (GS-PCA) approach and compared statistically with the UN reports for experimental validation purpose. It was found that SDG1 No Poverty, SDG7 Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG17 Partnerships to Achieve the Goal and the group mean of 17 SDGs were found to be improving. On the other hand, SDG4 Quality Education and SDG8 Decent Work and Economic Growth were in decline. The highest performance was observed in SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth (78.06) and the lowest performance was observed in SDG 17 Partnerships to Achieve the Goal (29.93). In addition, substantial differences were observed in the scores and ranks of mediocre and poor performing countries compared to the benchmark reports, while both the results of this study and benchmark reports were found to be strongly positively correlated.
•OECD countries’ sustainable development performance was investigated.•A Goal-specific Principal Component Analysis approach was proposed.•Majority of sustainable development goals were not found to be improving.•The highest performance was observed in SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth (78.06).•The lowest performance was observed in SDG 17 Partnerships to Achieve the Goal (29.93).
Sustainability has become an integral part of today's business environment and decision-making processes. At all levels of the organizational structure, awareness of sustainable supply chain ...management (SSCM) practices is now a priority. This paper investigates the potential relationships among environmental sustainability, innovation capacity, and stakeholder relationships of business organizations in the context of SSCM. A mixed methods approach is proposed and designed to understand and assess these complex relationships. Data were collected from 57 firms in Pakistan. The results show that organizational innovation and supplier relations are significant enablers of sustainable practices. Moreover, cluster analysis depicts that service industry lags the production industry in adopting sustainable practices. The analysis of the proposed model also reveals that the role of supply chains in Pakistan towards achieving credible environmental sustainability is still at its infancy and that supplier relationships and organizational innovation are the predecessors of environmental sustainability.
In supply chains, businesses compete to meet customer requirements by leveraging their competitive operational capabilities. In this paper, the manufacturer in its supply chain, faces uncertain ...market demand environment. Based on the products, operations and demand information, the manufacturer makes decisions to design its manufacturing system that saves time and effort in the production process. The methodology followed in this paper includes four phases. In Phase 1, the manufacturer benefits from the grouping of the similar products into families to save time and effort in the production and eventually the related machines are formed accordingly. In Phase 2, the decision of manufacturing system layout or design, considering a stochastic customer demand, is made including cellular manufacturing system design. In Phase 3, the expected profits generated by the system designed to meet the demand of product families are determined and optimal design is selected accordingly. In Phase 4, the problem of determining the optimal profits and quantities of the individual products in families, considering multi-demand coverage levels, is tackled using a proposed mathematical model, then results are analyzed. The results showed that similar products are grouped into four product families using p-median mathematical model and machine cells are formed accordingly. Consequently, the cellular manufacturing systems is designed for each family and the decision on the optimal number of cells is made based on the maximum expected profits generated by the system designed. Further, the problem of finding the optimal profits by individual products in families is studied considering three demand coverage probability scenarios: non-demand coverage restriction, only lower bound-demand coverage restriction and both lower and upper bounds-demand coverage restriction. Maximum profits are generated when the decision does not include any restriction on the demand; however, the product that has the lowest processing time is produced and sold where other products are not. This may leave the decision maker with either keep-the-winner perspective or not depending on the policy implemented in the competition process. Better decisions are made when more information is shared about the customer requirements.
From green buildings to green supply chains Mohamed Abdul Ghani, N. Muhammad Aslaam; Egilmez, Gokhan; Kucukvar, Murat ...
Management of environmental quality,
01/2017, Letnik:
28, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on tracing GHG emissions across the supply chain industries associated with the US residential, commercial and industrial building stock and provides ...optimized GHG reduction policy plans for sustainable development.
Design/methodology/approach
A two-step hierarchical approach is developed. First, Economic Input-Output-based Life Cycle Assessment (EIO-LCA) is utilized to quantify the GHG emissions associated with the US residential, commercial and industrial building stock. Second, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) based optimization framework is developed to identify the optimal GHG emissions’ reduction (percent) for each industry across the supply chain network of the US economy.
Findings
The results indicated that “ready-mix concrete manufacturing”, “electric power generation, transmission and distribution” and “lighting fixture manufacturing” sectors were found to be the main culprits in the GHG emissions’ stock. Additionally, the majorly responsible industries in the supply chains of each building construction categories were also highlighted as the hot-spots in the supply chains with respect to the GHG emission reduction (percent) requirements.
Practical implications
The decision making in terms of construction-related expenses and energy use options have considerable impacts across the supply chains. Therefore, regulations and actions should be re-organized around the systematic understanding considering the principles of “circular economy” within the context of sustainable development.
Originality/value
Although the literature is abundant with works that address quantifying environmental impacts of building structures, environmental life cycle impact-based optimization methods are scarce. This paper successfully fills this gap by integrating EIO-LCA and MILP frameworks to identify the most pollutant industries in the supply chains of building structures.
Purpose
Although an emerging field in work and family literature, organization cross domain intervention managing strategies (CDIMS) is an under-researched area. This study aims to investigate ...whether organization non-monetary CDIMS (control over work hours and supervisor support) have an impact on employee outcomes via the mediating effect work–family balance (WFB).
Design/methodology/approach
Data for the study have been gathered in two distinct surveys from 300 employees working at the managerial level in various manufacturing companies of Pakistan with a seven-week time interval to reduce common method variance. Data were collected during January and March 2020. Confirmatory factor analysis has been performed before testing the mediated model.
Findings
Organization non-monetary CDIMS i.e. control over work hours and supervisor support has been associated positively with WFB, which has further mediated the relationship between workplace non-monetary CDIMS and employee professional outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
Both supervisor support and control over work hours improve employee outcomes by experiencing the satisfaction with WFB. It has been recommended that organizations embed cross-domain interventions in their job design to benefit all employees impartially. Thus, all employees can enjoy better WFB and show positive work behaviors.
Originality/value
This study demonstrates the effectiveness of non-monetary organization CDIMS in enhancing the experience of employee’s WFB and improving their professional outcomes.
Purpose - A major frustration for most policy researchers in the small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) area is the virtual non-existence of scientific data on this sector in the country. This paper ...aims to provide some data.Design methodology approach - A survey of 651 SMEs from the manufacturing sector of Pakistan was conducted in 2003 and statistical analysis was carried out to analyze the data. This paper focuses on the relationship between the health indicators namely, sales employee, increase decrease in sales, and investment plans and the different personal characteristics of the owner entrepreneur.Findings - This analysis suggests that education, generation setting up the business, and number of partners have a significant relationship with the health of SMEs. Health of the firm is also dependent on owner habits like watching television, reading newspapers and using computers for office work. Other factors like caste of the owner and occupation of the owner's relatives were also analyzed, but no significant relationship with the health of an SME was observed.Practical implications - The implications of this study are far reaching in understanding the profiles of owners of SMEs in Pakistan and how these profiles impact the profitability of the firms.Originality value - To date no other such study has been carried out in Pakistan. Similar studies on owner profiles have previously been carried out in other countries such as the UK and USA.
The circular economy (CE) has become one of the prominent topics in both natural science and management literature over the last few decades. CE is a dual-loop regenerative system that focuses on the ...effective and efficient utilization of resources in the ecosystem, which is beneficial to environmental and economic performance optimization. Dual CE initiatives allow firms to increased resource eco-efficiency, as well as resource effectiveness. CE has profound consequences for economic and operational advantage. This reinforces the need for reflection on the definition that may provide guidelines to assess and advance the depth and diversity of the field. We aim to provide a definitional analysis of the CE and suggest future research streams to advance the existing literature. For this purpose, we employed a systematic literature review to collect related publications in the CE. As a result of this, a total of 91 papers were selected, studied, and analyzed. We proposed a sound definition of a circular economy that includes the main identified elements, organizational planning processes, customers and society, utilization of the ecosystem, and economic resource flows. Moreover, future direction agenda, in CE research, is suggested considering three research streams: (1) circular design as value creation and capture, (2) antecedents of key activities, and (3) consequences of key processes. There is limited empirical research conducted on CE, and much of the existing research focuses on theoretical, conceptual, and normative. A few empirical research studies are mainly cross-sectional in their focus and are confined to developing and emerging economies. We hope this study’s findings will extend the field of CE, in which some of the most influential information regarding CE literature is provided. This study suggests that the development of CE initiatives plays an important role in the growing digital transformation in the value chain. There have been limited research studies in the interface of circular economy and Industry 4.0. Future research studies may investigate the extent to which digital transformation can increase the implementation of CE, and their influence on digital performance management.
Purpose - It has been suggested that much of the potential inefficiencies associated with supply chain management (SCM) costs can be traced to wasteful practices such as inefficient, unnecessary, or ...redundant stocking practices, or inefficient transportation. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model which reconciles many of these inefficiencies by integrating production factors, purchasing, inventory, and trucking decisions for optimizing supply chain costs between first-, and second-tier suppliers and subsequent OEM customers.Design methodology approach - The modeling technique is mathematical programming tested in a simulation model. In an effort to determine the significance of the transportation component of the proffered model, the fully developed model is differentially tested, including standard production variables varying transportation costs, paired with similar instances of the model in which the transportation costs are fixed.Findings - Significant differences are found in the predictive abilities of the respective models, and this supplies pragmatic evidence of the important role that transportation issues play in the consideration of integrated SCM costs.Research limitations implications - The key limitation to this finding lies in the validation process. As suggested by Sargent, Monte-Carlo studies are useful for validation purposes, and the supply chain optimization model (MHSCM) is certainly confirmed through this particular simulation.Practical implications - The managerial focus on transportation management and cost control in SCM can be highlighted as a critical implication of the study.Originality value - The structure of the MHSCM is robust, and may be useful for cost-control planning purposes in a dynamic environment, subject to certain limitations accruing to the methodology.
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