Integration Of Production Activities Research Articles

Industrial symbiosis for more sustainable, localised industrial systems

Regionally distributed, small-scale production units prioritising the use of local resources and markets are likely to make a more solid contribution to regional sustainability than their centralised large-scale counterparts. We argue that the concept of Industrial Symbiosis (IS) can be refocused to support the development of such systems. To be useful in this way, better integration of production activities with the regional resource base and local consumption systems should be given increased consideration in IS developments. The potential held by IS to contribute to the emergence of more sustainable production and consumption systems at the regional level is demonstrated by a hypothetical example that considers the integration of localised paper recycling, waste management and energy production systems. Organisational and political difficulties facing such developments are also discussed and suggestions are provided to address these.

Computationally Efficient Approach for the Integration of Design and Manufacturing in CE

Today, companies are faced with fierce competition which is characterized by the necessity to bring the higher quality prod ucts and lower priced products to the market in shorter times than their competitors. The key to the success of organizations is the effec tive integration of design and applications following design such as machining, process planning, analysis, assembly, inspection etc. It was seen that effectiveness of the traditional CIM systems is not satisfactory to ensure competitiveness and high productivity. Recently, the concept of CE has been proposed to overcome the problems exist in integration. However, it has been recognized by both academic and industrial environments that efficient application of CE is still not achieved. In this research, STEP based feature recognition using neural networks is presented to develop feature based model and to enhance the integration of production activities in CE.

The effects of monetary instability on the extent of vertical integration

Ronald Coase [1937] provided the theoretical foundation for all subsequent studies of the determinants of business integration. Although the transaction-costs paradigm he developed has been accused of lacking empirical conten t -of being tautological-even by some of Coase's admirers [Alchian and Demsetz, 1972, p. 783; Williamson, 1985, p. 4], its influence is beyond question. Coase's article remains modern because the particular causal factors that he specified as determining the size of firms continue to be emphasized in recent work. The Coasean tradition is preserved in the present paper. The general goal is to examine the effects of monetary instability on the extent of vertical integration. A major theme of the paper is that, according to the transactioncosts paradigm, the effect of such instability on optimal firm size is ambiguous: distortions in price signals caused by price fluctuations set in motion two distinct forces. One of these forces tends to increase the extent of intrafirm integration of production activities, while the other tends to reduce this integration. The special object of this paper is to investigate empirically the relative strengths of these opposed forces. This paper is not a test of the transaction-costs theory of the firm. Rather, the authors use this theory as the basis for an empirical investigation of the effects of monetary instability on the extent of vertical integration. With these ends in mind, the paper proceeds as follows: Section II reviews the transaction-costs theory of the firm. Section II I