Fungi have the ability to transform organic materials into a rich and diverse set of useful products and provide distinct opportunities for tackling the urgent challenges before all humans. Fungal ...biotechnology can advance the transition from our petroleum-based economy into a bio-based circular economy and has the ability to sustainably produce resilient sources of food, feed, chemicals, fuels, textiles, and materials for construction, automotive and transportation industries, for furniture and beyond. Fungal biotechnology offers solutions for securing, stabilizing and enhancing the food supply for a growing human population, while simultaneously lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Fungal biotechnology has, thus, the potential to make a significant contribution to climate change mitigation and meeting the United Nation's sustainable development goals through the rational improvement of new and established fungal cell factories. The White Paper presented here is the result of the 2nd Think Tank meeting held by the EUROFUNG consortium in Berlin in October 2019. This paper highlights discussions on current opportunities and research challenges in fungal biotechnology and aims to inform scientists, educators, the general public, industrial stakeholders and policymakers about the current fungal biotech revolution.
Indonesia has great potential in developing the furniture industry sector. The abundance of raw materials and high labor numbers should be optimized to encourage the furniture industry in Indonesia ...in the international furniture trade. However, in reality, the Indonesian furniture industry has increasingly been eliminated in the arena of international furniture trade. Therefore, it is necessary to consider how the furniture industry actually manages the company. One of the influential factors in furniture exports is how to manage the supply chain or logistics of the furniture industry, where one of them is related to the process of packaging and stuffing of furniture products. As a representation, this study tries to describe how the packaging and stuffing process is carried out by UD Surya Abadi Furniture, one of the furniture industries located in Sukoharjo Regency, Central Java. This research is a descriptive study, where data is collected by observation, interview, and documentation techniques. The results of this study discuss the packaging procedures, materials used and feasibility tests, and how the procedures and benefits obtained from the stuffing process at UD Surya Abadi Furniture. The conclusion obtained is that the description of the packaging and stuffing process that is carried out is quite good with the use of materials that meet the standards. Nevertheless, the process of packaging and stuffing at UD Surya Abadi Furniture is still done with manual counting so that it is not optimal.
O setor moveleiro é significativo e tradicional na industria de transformaçâo, obtendo os insumos necessários a sua produçâo do meio ambiente, utilizando como principal fonte de matéria-prima a ...madeira e seus derivados e, pelas características destas, gera elevado índice de residuos sólidos. A Mesorregiäo Oeste de Santa Catarina comporta o maior polo de fabricaçâo de móveis do Estado. Em vista disso, este estudo objetivou analisar as práticas de responsabilidade ambiental utilizadas pelas industrias do setor moveleiro de Chapecó (SC). Para isso uma pesquisa mista através de multicasos foi realizada, e as práticas ambientais realizadas por 8 das 13 industrias associadas foram analisadas a partir de dois modelos teóricos: o primeiro deles proposto por Jabbour e Santos (2006) que visa identificar o nivel de integraçâo das práticas ambientais realizadas e o segundo proposto por North (1992) que permite avaliar o posicionamento da empresa frente ao meio ambiente. Os resultados revelam que as práticas adotadas pelas industrias säo muito similares, e visam atender principalmente a legislaçâo vigente, sendo a principal prática utilizada por elas a separaçâo e destinaçâo dos residuos gerados. Observa-se que as industrias que possuem melhores práticas säo as que estäo mais bem posicionadas como amigáveis na escala de North (1992), no entanto suas açöes säo pontuais e näo envolvem outras áreas das organizaçöes. Salienta-se também que neste estudo o porte das industrias näo tem influencia na qualidade das práticas adotadas, uma vez que as microempresas apresentaram práticas mais avançadas que as empresas de médio porte.
Although research on the adoption of lean manufacturing in the furniture industry in emerging economies is slowly progressing, its implementation has been emphasized by researchers and practitioners. ...Research on this scope is therefore limited, particularly when compared to the vast amount of scholarly studies contributed to successful implementation of lean in the developed countries. To support the narrow body of knowledge on this under-researched scope, this paper presents the current shortfalls of implementing the lean manufacturing in terms of motives, barriers, challenges, and applications. To address these issues, a methodological approach was implemented in two tiers. Firstly, a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art literature on the issues was performed followed by an analytic approach using a survey on 148 companies in Malaysia to finalize the research. Upon validation of the analyses, the results revealed that most of the lean companies agreed that the reasons for lean implementation are to increase efficiency, to clean up and organize the workplace, and to increase utilization of space. Non-lean companies believe that issues related to knowledge are the reasons for not undertaking lean implementation. However, lean companies believe that the obstacles are more about employee-related issues including lack of labor resources, lack of implementation know-how, and employee resistance to change. Lean companies also face challenges in the form of technical knowledge, training, and financial resources during the early phase of lean implementation. In addition, only three applications – 5S, employee training, and quality control – were found to be useable in the Malaysian wood and furniture industry. These findings present a critical view of the current shortfalls of lean implementation in the wood and furniture industry throughout Malaysia and other emerging economies.
•Key reasons for lean adoption are improving efficiency, organizing the workplace, and increasing the utilization of space.•Knowledge-related issues have been stressed as the main barriers for both lean and non-lean companies.•Knowledge and resources related issues posed serious challenges to lean practitioners.•5S, employee training, and quality control have often been applied in the Malaysian context.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the global competitiveness of the top ten wooden furniture exporting countries with several approaches and to test the effect of export prices (EXPRs) ...on the global competition.
Design/methodology/approach
Countries' competitiveness levels were measured with revealed comparative advantage (RCA), normalised RCA (NRCA), revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) and trade balance index. Furthermore, panel regression analysis techniques were used to test the effects of EXPR on RCA, NRCA and RSCA in the wooden furniture industry (WFI).
Findings
Although the comparative advantage approaches give different results, the global competitiveness of Poland and Vietnam is at a high level in all approaches. Canada has been the country with the weakest global competitiveness in all approaches. According to the results of the analysis, EXPRs positively affect all the competitive advantage indexes. As a result, the competitiveness of the WFI is affected by the non-price factors instead of the EXPR.
Research limitations/implications
The framework allows us to measure and illustrate the export competitiveness of the WFI and permits a global comparison. Similar analyses can be made for different labour-intensive sectors. In addition, analysis can be made to identify non-price factors for the WFI sector. Thus, more specific inferences can be made.
Practical implications
This study is useful for policymakers, government officials, the industry associations and the company executives to assess their export competitiveness in the WFI. Thus, they can determine whether to shift scarce resources to this industry or other industries. In addition, this study may affect the price competition policy of the sector representatives in the global market.
Originality/value
This study deals with the competitiveness of the WFI with different approaches. And this study determines the importance of price for global competition in this sector.
RESUMO O polo moveleiro de Linhares possui destaque no cenário nacional, sendo que o principal produto da região é o móvel retilíneo produzido em série. O layout da fábrica é a disposição física dos ...equipamentos industriais e dos departamentos ou setores, relacionando-se com a otimização do fluxo de informações, materiais e pessoas. Neste estudo, foi considerado o setor de usinagem de uma empresa situada no polo moveleiro de Linhares. O setor de usinagem apresenta um problema com resíduos liberados pelas lixadeiras que chegam até a cabine de pintura e setor de secagem das peças. Ao aplicar o método da matriz de relacionamentos, foi possível obter o melhor arranjo físico para a produção. Para solucionar o problema, foi indicado um novo layout e, com os resultados, foi possível concluir que o novo arranjo soluciona o problema, porém o custo de transporte tende a aumentar, devido ao maior uso de mão de obra para o deslocamento das peças.
This research examined the influence of quality dimensions and various other factors on consumer choices in the Turkish furniture market, aiming to bridge a literature gap by leveraging theoretical ...insights and empirical data. Utilizing a detailed survey, the study captured consumer perceptions of factors influencing furniture purchases, focusing on Garvin's eight quality dimensions: Suitability, Perceived Quality, Features, Aesthetics, Service, Durability, Reliability, and Performance. The methodology included a 19-question survey targeting Bursa's population to gather data on demographic characteristics and purchasing influences, which was analyzed via Microsoft Excel. The findings underscored the paramount importance that consumers placed on durability and performance, suggesting a pragmatic approach to furniture buying where functionality trumped aesthetics. A notable preference for sustainable and eco-friendly furniture emerged, aligning with broader environmental trends. Demographically, most respondents were young, university-educated adults, indicating a market segment with distinct tastes and preferences, particularly toward modern-style furniture. These insights advocated for furniture industry stakeholders to adopt marketing strategies emphasizing product durability, performance, and environmental friendliness, aligning with consumer expectations for quality and sustainability. This alignment could be crucial for guiding product development and design to cater to contemporary consumer needs.
Environmental sustainability has become one of the key issues for strategy, marketing, and innovation. In particular, significant attention is being paid by companies, customers, media, and ...regulators to development and consumption of green products. It is argued that through the efficient use of resources, low carbon impacts, and risks to the environment, green products can be essential to help society toward the environmental sustainability targets. The number of green product introductions is rapidly increasing, as demonstrated by the growing number of companies obtaining eco‐labels or third party certifications for their environmentally friendly products. Hundreds of companies representing most of the industries, such as Intel, SC Johnson, Clorox, Wal‐Mart, and Hewlett–Packard, have recently introduced new green products, underlining the need to develop products that create both economic and environmental values for the firm and customers. A review of the literature shows that academic research on green product development has grown in interest. However, to date, only a few empirical studies have addressed the challenge of integrating environmental issues into new product development (NPD). Previous empirical works have mainly focused on a set of activities for the green product development process at the project level. After years of paying no or marginal attention to environmental sustainability issues, most of the companies now generally realize that it would require knowledge and competencies to develop green products on a regular basis. These knowledge and competencies can be varied, such as R&D, environmental know‐how, clean technology/manufacturing process, building knowledge on measuring environmental performance of products, etc., that may be developed internally or can be integrated through external networks. Adopting a resource‐based view of the firm, this article aims at (1) investigating the role of capabilities useful for companies to integrate knowledge and competencies from outside of the firm on green product development in terms of both manufacturing process and product design and (2) understanding whether green product development opens new product, market, and technology opportunities, as well as leads to better financial performance of NPD programs. To this end, a survey was conducted in two Italian manufacturing industries in which environmental issues are becoming increasingly important, namely textiles and upholstered furniture. A questionnaire was sent to 700 firms, and 102 useable questionnaires were returned. Results show that (1) companies engage in developing external integrative capabilities through the creation of collaborative networks with actors along the supply chain, the acquisition of technical know‐how, and the creation of external knowledge links with actors outside the supply chain; (2) external knowledge links play a key role in the integration of environmental sustainability issues into the manufacturing process, whereas capabilities such as the acquisition of technical know‐how and the creation of collaborative networks prove to be more important for integrating environmental issues into product design; and (3) the integration of environmental sustainability issues into NPD programs in terms of product design leads to the creation of new opportunities for firms, such as opening new markets, technologies, and product arenas, though not necessarily leading to improved financial performance of the NPD programs.
•Green practices based on innovation are relevant for the environmental performance•Innovation plays a prominent role in the furniture industry•The study depicts three types of green innovation•Green ...innovation in product and eco-efficiency support competitive enablers•Green innovation in operation and process reduces cost and promotes differentiation
The purpose of this article is to define how green innovation supports competitive advantage in a cluster of furniture companies located in Southern Brazil. The cluster encompasses 245 companies located in Southern Brazil. The research method is a survey, which returned 98 valid responses from the companies sampled followed by a structural equation modeling by partial least squares executed by the SMART-PLS software. A literature review produced a reference model for green innovation comprising 30 manifest variables. Factor analysis by principal components deleted two manifest variables and classified the others in three factors, operation and process, product and customer, and eco-efficiency. The model includes two endogenous latent constructs. The first is competitive enablers, supported by corporate image, customer satisfaction, and market share. The second is competitive advantage, supported by cost reduction and differentiation. The main results are: green innovation focused on operation and process does not positively influence competitive enablers but influences competitive advantages; green innovation focused on product and customers, and eco-efficiency positively influence the competitive enablers; competitive enablers based only on product and customers and on eco-efficiency positively influences the competitive advantage.
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