PurposeThis study investigates the competencies required for quality management professionals to meet the needs of industry 4.0. The authors use a case study strategy at an electronics manufacturer ...in southern Malaysia, to adapt their role to be relevant in the industry 4.0 environment. In doing so, this study answers the following four questions: (1) How are the changing technological trends expected to impact the future role of quality in industry 4.0? (2) What are the competencies gap between current and future roles of quality professionals? (3) What are the views and practices related to quality roles? (4) How can the gaps identified be closed to meet the quality challenges of industry 4.0?Design/methodology/approachThe research methods consist of a comprehensive review of literature on the technological trends towards industry 4.0 and the impact on the role of quality and competence that may be required in the future, as well as internal document review on the current roles of quality professionals in an electronics manufacturer in southern Malaysia, to identify the competence gap. Empirical data was collected based on surveys conducted on 64 quality professionals with a response rate of 96.88%. Interviews were conducted on three decision-makers from critical areas in the electronics manufacturer for viewpoints from three different perspectives: finance, operations and talent development.FindingsQuality professionals will require technical competencies to interpret large amounts of data from processes to make strategic decisions, the use of new AR tools and be aware of data security risks. Methodological competencies will be required to use data to identify the source of problems, to access reliable sources of learning and the ability to use new tools for solving complex problems efficiently. Social competencies will be required in communications across multi-sites, suppliers and customers in new collaborative virtual platforms, with the ability to retain tacit and explicit knowledge, in a decentralized environment that will require leadership ability to make decisions. Personal competencies required will be the ability to work in a flexible workplace and time and more frequent work-related changes.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of the study is based on what the authors currently know of the future, which may not be much for the quality professionals in the electronics manufacturer, who have not been exposed much to the technology yet. The potential for the future landscape to change dramatically with rapid technology changes may also result in a different set of skills for future quality professionals. The quality professionals who were involved in this study were the quality executives, engineers and managers, irrespective of their gender, age, length of service and experience in the field of quality. Therefore, these variables were not taken into consideration for this research.Practical implicationsThis research helped to identify the role of quality in industry 4.0 and key competencies that the quality professionals in the electronics manufacturer will require to adapt to their role in industry 4.0. However, based on the questionnaire and the interview comments of key personnel, it can be concluded that quality professionals lack awareness of their new roles in industry 4.0. This could be due to the fact that the new technology is not implemented by quality professionals but by the innovation team based in Singapore headquarters, as was also advised by the operations head.Social implicationsThe benefit of industry 4.0 technology is clearly shown by Philips's new Dutch factory with robotized technology that was able to produce the same output with one-tenth of the workers of its China factory (Rifkin, 2014, chapter 8). Rojko (2017, p. 80) also shared a similar view that industry 4.0 is expected to reduce production costs by 10–30%, logistics costs by 10–30% and quality management costs by 10–20%. The importance of this research can be seen from the findings of “The Future of Jobs” (2018, p. 22), which suggests that the window of opportunity for organizations to leverage the new technology to re-skill is within the period of 2018–2022, in order to enable employees to reach full potential in the high value-added tasks. The electronics manufacturer may need to keep to this timeline to maintain its competitive advantage.Originality/valueThe purpose of this paper was to determine the competence gap of current quality professionals in the electronics manufacturer with the competencies required in industry 4.0. This led to the third objective, to identify the views of stakeholders based on the propositions derived from the gaps identified, to triangulate the findings, to conclude the competency gaps of the current quality professionals in the electronics manufacturer. Finally, the objective of this paper was to make a recommendation on how to prepare the quality professionals in the electronics manufacturer for their role in industry 4.0. The research identified the technical, methodological, social and personal competencies gap of the quality professionals in the electronics manufacturer by looking at the changes expected in industry 4.0 from four aspects, factory (people and process), business, product and customers.
Technology enables a firm to produce a granular record of every touchpoint consumers make in their online purchase journey before they convert at the firm's website. However, firms still depend on ...aggregate measures to guide their marketing investments in multiple online channels (e.g., display, paid search, referral, e-mail). This article introduces a methodology to attribute the incremental value of each marketing channel in an online environment using individual-level data of customers' touches. The authors propose a measurement model to analyze customers' (1) consideration of online channels, (2) visits through these channels over time, and (3) subsequent purchases at the website to estimate the carryover and spillover effects of prior touches at both the visit and purchase stages. The authors use the estimated carryover and spillover effects to attribute the conversion credit to different channels and find that these channels' relative contributions are significantly different from those found by other currently used metrics. A field study validates the proposed model's ability to estimate the incremental impact of a channel on conversions. In targeting customers with different patterns of touches in their purchase funnel, these estimates help identify cases in which retargeting strategies may actually decrease conversion probabilities.
The healthcare system is undergoing a fundamental transformation fueled by regulatory shifts that reward value over volume, coupled with unprecedented advances in technological capabilities. To ...address the processes involved in defining, measuring, and delivering value in this shifting landscape, we develop the framework of value-centered marketing (VCM). Building on existing approaches in both healthcare and marketing, we propose three core dimensions of value in VCM: preferences, precision, and process. We also provide an overview of a trifecta of technological advances including the digital capture of health data, improvements in methodologies for data analysis, and exponential increases in processing power and storage capacity, which have created a perfect storm of opportunity for VCM. We describe how these emerging technologies can be combined with insights from marketing science to develop successful VCM strategy and highlight critical research questions. Finally, we discuss potential unintended consequences in the use of tech- and analytics-enabled healthcare.
PurposeThe Covid-19 pandemic and the related closures and lockdowns have changed how consumers shop for products and how they consume them. In this paper, the authors focus on how customers' journeys ...from the awareness stage down to purchase and loyalty stages have been impacted by the pandemic across different product categories and markets and how they affect the same post-pandemic. The authors propose directions for future research based on our analysis.Design/methodology/approachAnalyzing the components of customer utility, the authors provide the basis for the rapid shift towards online and digital touchpoints and the nature of emerging interactions between firms and consumers. The authors highlight those areas where changes could be permanent.FindingsThe authors show why some of the changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic could be permanent and irrevocable and what this implies for firms' strategies to acquire, retain, and grow their business with their customers.Originality/valueThe authors highlight why omnichannel strategies are the way for firms to thrive in the post-pandemic marketplace, and outline areas for future research that will allow researchers to examine how customer journeys will evolve post-pandemic.
We propose an innovative procedure by exploiting the physical meaning of natural strain or Lode invariants with the following salient contributions: 1) Uniaxial data for human brain tissue is used to ...stipulate the mathematical structure of the potential in terms of the Lode invariant that quantifies the magnitude of distortion along with the modulus term being an unknown function of the Lode angle that quantifies the mode or type of distortion. 2) By a priori analysis using the Baker-Ericksen inequalities, the mathematical form of the modulus function is determined in a novel manner. 3) The derived modulus function is corrected by adding a constant, which in turn is determined using analysis involving sufficient conditions of the stronger Hill inequality. 4) In addition, we also prove that any potential that satisfies Hill inequality also satisfies true-stress-true-strain monotonicity condition in plane stress. Compared to Mihai-Ogden model, besides excellent quantitative agreement with data for human brain tissue (see Mihai et al., 2017), the constructed model also emulates the observed non-linear behavior of shear stress with respect to the amount of shear as opposed to the nearly linear response predicted by the antecedent model. Additionally, when only tension-compression data is available for determining material parameters, the predicted combined tension and shear response associated with the proposed constitutive relation shows monotone decreasing Poynting stress (compressive), while the former predicts an unexpected non-monotone response for certain levels of tension.
Phthalates are known endocrine disruptors and associated with decreased fecundity, pregnancy loss, and adverse obstetrical outcomes, however the underlying mechanisms remain to be established. ...Environmental factors can influence gene expression and cell function by modifying epigenetic marks, impacting the developing embryo as well as future generations of offspring. The impact of phthalates on placental gene methylation and expression is largely unknown. We studied the effect of maternal phthalate exposure on the human placental DNA methylome and transcriptome. We determined epigenome-wide DNA methylation marks (Illumina Infinium Human Methylation 850k BeadChip) and gene expression (Agilent whole human genome array) associated with phthalate exposure in first trimester placenta. Integrative genomic analysis of candidate genes was performed to define gene methylation-expression relationships. We identified 39 genes with significantly altered methylation and gene expression in the high phthalate exposure group. Most of these relationships were inversely correlated. This analysis identified epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) as a critical candidate gene mediating the effects of phthalates on early placental function. Although additional studies are needed to determine the functional consequences of these changes, our findings are consistent with the model that phthalates impact placental function by modulating the expression of critical placental genes through epigenetic regulation.
•Propose an adaptive phase field method for quasi-static brittle fracture.•Adaptive refinement based on combination of recovery type error indicator and a quadtree decomposition.•Hanging nodes due to ...quadtree decomposition are treated within the framework of the polygonal finite element method.•Proposed framework yields comparable results with fewer degrees of freedom when compared to standard approaches.
An adaptive phase field method is proposed for crack propagation in brittle materials under quasi-static loading. The adaptive refinement is based on the recovery type error indicator, which is combined with the quadtree decomposition. Such a decomposition leads to elements with hanging nodes. Thanks to the polygonal finite element method, the elements with hanging nodes are treated as polygonal elements and hence do not require any special treatment. The mean value coordinates are used to approximate the unknown field variables and a staggered solution scheme is adopted to compute the displacement and the evolution of the phase field variable. A few standard benchmark problems are solved to show the efficiency of the proposed framework. It is seen that the proposed framework yields comparable results at a fraction of the computational cost when compared to standard approaches reported in the literature.
Plastics constitute an important part of our life for many decades. All the wastes produced from human activities finally enters into the aquatic ecosystem. Microbial degradation of plastic is a ...promising eco-friendly strategy which represents a great opportunity to manage waste plastic materials with minimum adverse impacts. In this present study, totally 248 bacterial isolates were isolated from the plastic waste dumped sites in the coastal region districts of Tamil Nadu, India and screened for HDPE degradation. Based on the results obtained from the weight loss, viability and FT-IR, 10 bacterial isolates were considered to be potent HDPE degraders. The identification of efficient HDPE degrading isolates confirms that most of the bacterial isolates belong to the genus Bacillus spp. and Pseudomonas spp. The present study suggests that the isolated efficient bacterial strains can be used as cost-effective, eco-friendly and safe approach for the elimination of plastic wastes from the environment.
•248 bacterial isolates were isolated and screened for HDPE degradation efficiency.•Bacillus spp. and Pseudomonas spp. were considered to be potent HDPE marine biodegraders.•The study demonstrated the degradation ability of marine bacteria without any pre-treatments.•The current findings provide promising evidence for the biodegradation of polyethylene.
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