Large-scale Manufacturing Industries Research Articles

Lessons from Germany for levelling up in the UK

This paper suggests how lessons from Germany’s national-level, comprehensively focused place-based regeneration (or levelling up) efforts could be applied in the UK. It draws the direct linkage between spatial inequality and the decline of large-scale heavy manufacturing industry at the end of the 20th century in Germany and the UK. It also posits that rapid deindustrialisation, poor-quality education and other indices of poverty and economic inequality have fuelled political fragmentation — including loss of public trust in government, national and civic institutions — in both countries. The paper explores and compares two sets of German redevelopment efforts over time, in the industrial heartland of the former West German Ruhr region and across the former East Germany, to assess their impacts on reducing political polarisation as well as bolstering redevelopment. It highlights which elements of these efforts have been most successful and why. The German experience, as described in the paper, clearly demonstrates that it takes decades to achieve measurable positive economic outcomes from redevelopment programmes. Political outcomes can also be mixed, even negative, if grassroots sentiment and public well-being are ignored or discounted in the process. In the former East Germany, despite huge transfers of development funds, grievances rooted in the economic and political dislocation of German unification in the 1990s have fuelled anti-establishment politics. The paper also examines how grassroots, philanthropic and private sector actors work alongside regional and federal governments in Germany in shaping positive political as well as socio-economic outcomes and how this might be most effectively adapted for the UK.

Multi-group decision-making approach for evaluating brand collaboration requirements of large-scale manufacturing industrial value chain

Brand collaboration requirement (BCR) evaluation is a key premise for core manufacturing enterprises to lead the collaborative brand construction of a large-scale manufacturing industry value chain (LSMIVC). Because brand collaboration (BC) in LSMIVC requires interaction with other businesses, BCRs are interactional and decision-makers come from multiple groups. However, existing requirement evaluation approaches rarely consider the interactional nature of requirements and the multiple groups nature of decision makers, producing unstable, easy-to-fail, and inaccurate results. Therefore, this study presents a multi-group decision-making approach based on a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory and analytic network process (DEMATEL-ANP). This approach integrates the assessment information of BCRs from group decision-makers and prevents unstable and easily invalid assessment results owing to an incomplete decision-maker team. Additionally, DEMATEL-ANP was used to rank the interaction BCRs, which improved the accuracy and effectiveness of the requirement evaluation. Finally, the developed approach and model were tested against the air-conditioning industry value chain. The case study shows that the proposed method can determine requirement ranking. Comparative tests show that the proposed approach is effective and superior, and is more consistent with real-world BC situations. Therefore, the proposed approach provides a direction and theoretical basis for core manufacturing enterprises to implement BC.

SKILLS MISMATCH IN TRANSITION TO INDUSTRY 4.0 IN THE CONTEXT OF LARGE-SCALE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES IN TÜRKİYE

The present study addressed skills mismatch in the context of large-scale manufacturing industries adopting Industry 4.0 technologies in Türkiye. In this qualitative study, we held face-to-face interviews with 41 participants consisting of senior managers, human resources directors, and experts implementing the Industry 4.0 process of 19 large-scale manufacturing companies operating in seven provinces of Türkiye (Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Izmit, Kayseri, Bursa, and Gaziantep). The findings demonstrated four main categories where we discussed the reasons for skills mismatch in the companies in the transition to Industry 4.0: difficulties in labor supply, difficulties in retaining the labor force, labor force’s Adaptation to Industry 4.0, and the emergence of novel business models.

Impact of foreign direct investment on the exports of five major sectors of Pakistan’s economy: A governance perspective

This study investigates and analyses empirically the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows on the exports for a panel series of five large-scale manufacturing industries of Pakistan during the period 2000-2020. For this purpose, we establish export production function as based on endogenous growth theory in which role of FDI is considered as additional determinant of export. The Pedroni residual-based co-integration test and Error Correction Model (ECM) are applied for the long and short-run relationships. Pedroni residual based approach highlighted that human capitals, domestic capitals, foreign direct investments, exports, and domestic sales are co-integrated in the long run. According to results of ECM, coefficient of FDI appears to have statistical significant impact on exports and has a positive sign in the long run. Whereas, FDI does not contribute to export growth in the short run but it takes time to influence the growth patterns of the sector. On the basis of theoretical notion of endogenous growth theory, long-run coefficient of FDI may be interpreted as evidence in favour of the hypotheses that FDI has an impact on exports via export development. Thus, it can be concluded that “FDI-based endogenous growth theory” is valid in the case of Pakistan.

The Impact of Green Human Resource Management on Employee Empowerment and Pro-Environmental Behaviour in Pakistan’s Manufacturing Industry

This study examines the correlation between green human resource management (GHRM), environmental performance (EP), and pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) among Pakistan’s large-scale manufacturing industry employees. GHRM is a management approach to improve EP and encourage PEBs. The study assesses the influence of GHRM on EP and employee behaviours and the moderating effect of employee empowerment. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis evaluates the measurement model. The study finds a significant and positive association between GHRM and PEBs. However, there is no direct impact of GHRM on EP. Instead, the study reveals an indirect positive impact of GHRM on EP through PEBs. Employee empowerment moderates the direct impact of GHRM on EP. The findings highlight the importance of PEBs and employee empowerment in the relationship between GHRM and EP in Pakistan’s manufacturing industry. The study suggests that manufacturing firms should adopt GHRM practices, incentivise and recognise PEBs, and empower employees to drive environmental initiatives. It has theoretical and practical implications for researchers and practitioners in the manufacturing industry.

A Supply Chain Inventory Management Method for Civil Aircraft Manufacturing Based on Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

Effective supply chain inventory management is crucial for large-scale manufacturing industries such as civil aircraft and automobile manufacturing to ensure efficient manufacturing. Generally, the main manufacturer makes the annual inventory management plan, and contacts with suppliers when some material is approaching critical inventory level according to the actual production schedule, which increases the difficulty of inventory management. In recent years, many researchers have focused on using reinforcement learning method to study inventory management problems. Current approaches were mainly designed for the supply chain with single-node multi-material or multi-node single-material mode, which are not suitable to the civil aircraft manufacturing supply chain with multi-node multi-material mode. To deal with this problem, we formulated the problem as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) model and proposed a multi-agent reinforcement learning method for supply chain inventory management, in which the dual-policy and information transmission mechanism was designed to help the supply chain participant improve the global information utilization efficiency of the supply chain and the coordination efficiency with other participants. The experiment results show that our method has about 45% performance improvement on efficiency compared with current reinforcement learning-based methods.

Humanoid Loco-Manipulations Using Combined Fast Dense 3D Tracking and SLAM With Wide-Angle Depth-Images

To efficiently achieve complex humanoid loco-manipulation tasks in industrial contexts, we propose a combined vision-based tracker-localization interplay integrated as part of a task-space whole-body optimization control. To achieve good perception complementarity between manipulation and localization, a new fast dense 3D model-based tracking using wide-angle depth image is developed and used in conjunction with a simultaneous localization and mapping software. Our approach allows humanoid robots, targeted for industrial manufacturing, to manipulate and assemble large-scale objects while walking. It is assessed with experiments consisting in rolling and assembling in an unwinder a heavy and wide bobbin using bimanual grasping and bipedal locomotion at a time. This experimental use-case is found in some large-scale manufacturing where bobbins are enrolled with various materials (cables, papers, rubbers, etc.). The same experiments are made using two different humanoid robots of the same family. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —This paper aims at deploying humanoid robots in large-scale manufacturing industries. We consider non-added value tasks related to transporting large tools or objects such as large bobbins by means of locomanipulation skills, similarly to human workers. We developed a task-space control framework that has been successfully applied in the aircraft industry. In the frame of a current collaboration with other major industrial sectors, we enhanced our control framework to interplay between SLAM and visual tracking to realize robust loco-manipulation tasks. Our approach can be applied and ported to any humanoid robot or bi-manual wheeled mobile robots with minor programming effort as the software is made open. Preliminary experiments with two different humanoids and use-cases suggest that our approach is feasible. In future research, we will address the problem of performance to reach at least human-speed in the execution of locomanipulation tasks in large-scale industry and automation contexts.

Electrospinning of botanicals for skin wound healing.

Being the first barrier between the human body and external environments, our skin is highly vulnerable to injuries. As one of the conventional therapies, botanicals prepared in different topical formulations have been applied as medical care for centuries. With the current increase of clinical requirements, applications of botanicals are heading towards nanotechnologies, typically fused with electrospinning that forms nanofibrous membranes suitable for skin wound healing. In this review, we first introduced the main process of wound healing, and then presented botanicals integrated into electrospun matrices as either loaded drugs, or carriers, or membrane coatings. In addition, by addressing functional features of individual botanicals in the healing of injured skin, we further discussed the bioactivity of botanical electrospun membranes in relevant to the medical issues solved in the process of wound healing. As achieved by pioneer studies, due to infrequent adverse effects and the diversity in resources of natural plants, the development of electrospun products based on botanicals is gaining greater attention. However, investigations in this field have mainly focused on different methodologies used in the preparation of nanofibrous membranes containing botanicals, their translation into clinical practices remains unaddressed. Accordingly, we propose that potential clinical applications of botanical electrospun membranes require not only the further expansion and understanding of botanicals, but also an establishment of standard criteria for the evaluation of wound healing and evolutions of technologies to support the large-scale manufacturing industry.

Multi-project scheduling with multi-skilled workforce assignment considering uncertainty and learning effect for large-scale equipment manufacturer

This study addresses a resource-constrained multi-project scheduling and multi-skilled workforce assignment problem for the large-scale equipment manufacturing industry. The goal is to help the production manager perform effective planning and decrease the production cost under delivery constraints. The deterministic duration is used in most past investigations in resource-constrained multi-project scheduling problems. Uncertainty in project execution is neglected. Additional related factors are included in the current study to be close to practical circumstances. The required processing duration and material arrival time are modeled as stochastic variables. The heterogeneous skill efficiency of the internal workforce is considered with the learning effect. Skill efficiency grows with the accumulation of experience. Actual processing time is calculated on the basis of skill efficiency and stochastic process duration. The external workforce is hired when the internal workforce fails to satisfy processing demand. The objective is to minimize the expected integrated cost, which is the sum of tardiness penalty and external workforce cost. A genetic algorithm with a heuristic workforce assignment method is also developed, and a case study is illustrated to explain the scheduling result. The proposed approach with uniform crossover and local search mechanism outperforms other comparative methods by approximately 10.34% considering total costs. Furthermore, the Taguchi method of design of the experiment is conducted to find the optimal parameter setting efficiently. Afterward, the sensitivity analysis of production-related parameters is discussed.

Various Dimensions of Quality Work Life and It’s Impact on Labours Emotional Attachment to the Organization: Critical Analysis of Large Scale Manufacturing Industries of Pune District

There are several dimensions of quality of work life stated by renowned authors in their studies. Further, researcher has gone through the diverse studies wherein it was found that, these dimensions has close relevance with the labours psychology at the workplace. Changing mindset and behaviour towards workplace and whole organization is the most important concern in today’s era. Because; it has a direct relation with labours productivity and turnover ratio which is already stated by various authors. However, it is also needing to study the emotional attachment of the workers towards the organization which is an affective commitment in context of quality work life. Therefore, researcher has considered the quality work life and emotional attachment i.e affective commitment as a core variable of this study. The main objective of this study was to identify the association of quality work life’s dimensions and it’s impact on emotional attachment of the labours to the organization of the large-scale manufacturing industries of Pune district. Data were collected from 390 respondents. Three independent structured close ended schedules were used as instruments for collecting primary data from respondents. Simple Linear Regression &amp; Multiple Linear Regression was used to find the impact of independent variable and dependent variable. Pearson Correlation Coefficient (r) test was used for analysis of relationship. All of the scales utilized in this investigation had acceptable levels of composite reliability, convergent and discriminate validity, according to the measurement model analysis.

“Give What We Have”: Mutualism Symbiosis in Local Food and Tourism (Review of conditions in Bali, Indonesia)

The role of tourism in Bali's development is unquestionable. The absence of natural resources such as oil and gas, forest products and large-scale manufacturing industries make tourism a mainstay sector in development. However, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, it has opened the eyes of the Balinese people that this island has 2 legs to stand on. What is meant in this case is, the island of Bali does not only rely on the tourism industry sector. The island also has a reliable agricultural sector. Ecotourism implemented by the Bali Provincial Government seeks to create a symbiotic mutualism between local food and tourism. The role of all stakeholders is also needed to make it happen. Because the tourism industry is very lucrative but fragile, now it really can't be a mainstay anymore and we must be able to utilize and preserve what we have to generate Bali tourism and long-term food self-sufficiency.

Determinants of the adoption of green manufacturing practices by medium- and large-scale manufacturing industries in northern Ethiopia

The barriers to and opportunities for adopting green manufacturing practices (GMP) have not been well investigated in Ethiopian manufacturing industries. The objectives of this study were to identify the potential barriers to and determinants of adopting GMP among medium- and large-scale manufacturing businesses in northern Ethiopia. To achieve the objectives, primary data were collected from 131 medium- and large-scale manufacturing companies through interviews. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple linear regression modelling were used to answer the research questions. Company specific characteristics: managers’ experience, number of persons engaged, scale size of the company, age of the company, and whether the company has an environmental management department or not have significant influence on adoption of GMP. Lack of environmental knowledge, business environment related barrier, societal influence, technological barrier, financial barrier, organizational barrier, and regulatory or government barrier were the significant barriers to adoption of GMP. The significant industry-specific characteristics and the adoption barriers identified as determinants of GMP can help medium- and large-scale manufacturing enterprises to change their manufacturing practices to GMP. In addition, the findings of this study can be used to promote environmental sustainability in manufacturing.

Crisis of Dominance: Understanding the Rural–Urban Roots of Maratha Caste Mobilisation for Reservation

The post-liberalisation era in India has witnessed mobilisations among socially superior castes for reservation/affirmative action. I examine why Marathas have intensified their mobilisation in the past few years by using qualitative and quantitative data gathered over a period of 14 months in 2008–2009 and several visits during 2010–2019 in Mumbai and Maharashtra. I argue that a crisis of dominance explains the Maratha’s mobilisation for reservation. Understanding this crisis involves paying attention to the link between two crises—‘urban’ and ‘rural’. The former arises from the rapid disappearance of well-paid jobs since the late 1990s in large-scale manufacturing and other industries in urban areas. The latter refers to the return of retrenched factory workers to their villages and the loss of their social status. It also refers to the inability of the rural youths with low or vernacular education to migrate to urban areas for well-paid employment, and the disturbance of caste hierarchy norms in rural settings. I conclude that the Maratha crisis of dominance will persist under the neoliberal Indian state due to the privatisation of higher education and absence of well-paid, secured jobs for individuals with low level or vernacular education. The price of this crisis will be paid by Dalits, who have been the victims of brutal atrocities carried out by the Marathas.

Linkage between TPM, people management and organizational performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore an empirical investigation of the linkage between total productive maintenance (TPM), people management (PEM) and organizational performance in the apparel industry of Bangladesh. This study also explores the direct and mediating effect of TPM on organizational performance.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical data were collected using a close-ended structured questionnaire from 227 small, medium and large-scale garment manufacturing industries. The causal relationships between PEM, TPM and organizational performance were examined using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe findings of this study have provided significant evidence that the PEM has both direct and indirect impact (through TPM) on organizational performance. The results of the analysis also indicated that TPM has direct and mediating effects on operational performance.Research limitations/implicationsData for measuring PEM practices and organizational performance were collected from the same source, assuming that PEM practices are uniform across the organization. Therefore, response bias is not unexpected.Originality/valueThis study explores the interdimensional linkage between PEM, TPM and organizational performance and argues based on the empirical data in the context of the apparel industry in Bangladesh. The apparel industry is a complex manufacturing system synchronizing man, machine and material. The findings provide empirical evidence that employee engagement and practice of TPM will enhance the operational performance of the apparel industries.

Impact of the load angle on magnetic radial pressure and torque ripple of a low power PMSM with trapezoidal control

PurposeThis paper deals with the study of the influence of the phase shift between currents and back-electromotive forces (back-EMF) on torque ripple and radial magnetic forces for a low power synchronous machine supplied with 120 degrees square-wave currents. This paper aims to establish a good compromise between efficiency, harmonics of torque and harmonics of radial forces at the origin of the electromagnetic noise.Design/methodology/approachBased on a finite element approach, torque and magnetic pressure harmonics versus space and frequency are evaluated for different angle values. The evolutions of the different harmonics against the load angle are analyzed and compared to those of experimental measurements.FindingsDepending on the load torque, field-weakening or field-boosting can be used to reduce current harmonics contributing the most to the radial magnetic forces responsible for the noise. Besides, a compromise can be found to avoid deteriorating too much the performances of the machine, thus being suitable with an industrial application.Research limitations/implicationsThis study concerns low power permanent magnet synchronous machines with concentrated windings and driven with a trapezoidal control, while having sinusoidal back-EMF.Originality/valueThe use of a simple mean and suitable with a large-scale manufacturing industry to reduce the identified electromagnetic-borne noise of a specific electric drive makes the originality.

DAMPAK IMBALAN KERJA DAN HARGA POKOK PRODUKSI TERHADAP LABA BRUTO PT. UNILEVER INDONESIA, TBK.

&lt;p align="center"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;ABSTRACT&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The growth of large-scale and medium-scale manufacturing industries in Indonesia today is not yet encouraging and tends to slow down year on year in the first quarter of 2019 and in the 2018 quarter, become down 0.80 percent, due to political temperatures heating up ahead of the presidential election. The rejection of the Omnibus Law made the Company to recalculate the determination of employee benefits which would affect company profits. This study aims to analyze the magnitude of the impact between employee benefits and the cost of good manufacture to the gross profit of PT. Unilever Indonesia, Tbk.. Hypothesis test of this study becomes a reference in establishing the research method. By measuring the dependency between the influencing variables on the affected variable described the mind frame of the model. The analysis technique uses linear regression with the SPSS statistical program. The results of the study are: There is a significant impact between employee benefits on gross profit of 84.90 percent. There is a significant impact between cost of good manufacture on gross profit of 98.70 percent. And simultaneously there is a very significant impact of 99.10 percent between employee benefits and the cost of good manufacture to the gross profit of PT. Unilever Indonesia, Tbk.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Keywords: &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;Employee Benefits, Cost of Good Manufacture, and Gross Profit&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Rural Farm and Non-farm Linkages in a Predominantly Manufacturing Region: The Case of Semarang Regency, Indonesia

This paper aimed to explore the correlation between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors in the rural area affected by the manufacturing industry agglomeration of Semarang. Data on agricultural commodities, non-agricultural labor, and economic service facilities were reduced using factor analysis to form the typology of agricultural commodity areas and typology of rural diversification respectively. The two groups of score factors were correlated to predict the magnitude, direction, and significance of the inter-sectoral linkages. Data interpretation was made with the help of agricultural commodity flow data from the selected market. The study confirms the weak linkages between large-scale manufacturing industries and the agricultural economy in the hinterland. The study reflects weak linkages between the agricultural sector and rural diversification, as indicated by the weak correlation between factor scores. A rather strong linkage is shown by dryland agricultural areas associated with inland fisheries and rural diversification associated with tourism.

Measuring the performance of small, medium and large manufacturing in Punjab: A bootstrapped Malmquist index analysis

The manufacturing sector has played a pivotal role for the development of the economies. It generates jobs, earn foreign reserves by exports and serves domestic economy as well. Given the importance of manufacturing sector, the performance measurement of this sector has been the main interest of economists, researchers and policymakers. The objective of the present study is to measure the performance of small, medium and large scale manufacturing industries. We utilized non-parametric approach to measure the performance by using survey panel data during 1995-2005. Further, for hypotheses testing, we use bootstrapping approach to test the null of insignificant change in the performance measures. We found that small and large scale manufacturing industries do not significantly change their technological frontier during the study period, while, both are highly efficient due to the better operation and management. Further, for high efficiency, the contribution of scale efficiency is larger as compare to the operation and management in case of large scale manufacturing industries. On the other hand, medium scale industries significantly shifted their technological frontier and adopted new technology or innovations, this sector is also efficient due to the better operation and management. However, the performance of all these manufacturing industries in terms of productivity change is not satisfactory. We conclude that by and large, the manufacturing industry has been endeavoring to improve its efficiency by expanding production with the help of available resources and administrative strategies. The conspicuous element is that the firms are reluctant to put resources into R&amp;D which can shift production frontier upward. Keywords: Small, Medium and Large manufacturing, Performance, DEA, Bootstrapping, Punjab

Strategic impact of SCM and SCQM practices on competitive dimensions of Indian manufacturing industries

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the capabilities of total quality management (TQM) and supply chain management (SCM) and extract various significant factors which influence the implementation of SCM alone and synergy of both TQM–SCM in terms of business performance of Indian medium and large scale manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach In the present study, 116 Indian manufacturing organizations have been extensively surveyed to ascertain the inter-relationships between various success factors and competitive dimensions of SCM alone and for combined approach (TQM–SCM), through different statistical techniques. Further, to evaluate the significance of time period on competitive dimensions, two-tailed t-test has been deployed. Finally the discriminant validity test has been applied to extract highly successful and moderately successful organizations for both approaches. Findings The study compares the contributions played by only SCM initiatives and combined approach (TQM–SCM) initiatives toward realization of significant improvements of various competitive dimensions of Indian manufacturing organizations. Finally, this study reveals that synergistic relationship of TQM and SCM paradigms can be more helpful as compared to only SCM initiatives for Indian manufacturing industries to enhance overall business performance. Originality/value TQM and SCM are considered as performance improvement techniques by the manufacturing organizations. The present research work establishes that combined (TQM–SCM) initiatives have effectively contributed for realization of significant competitive dimensions, progressively from introduction to maturity phases. So, the study stresses upon the need for improving coordination between various manufacturing parameters as well as competitive dimensions of TQM and SCM paradigms to enjoy higher potential of business performance.

Poplar as Biofiber Reinforcement in Composites for Large-Scale 3D Printing.

The economic viability of the biofuel industry could be improved by adding a high-value revenue stream for biomass supply chains: bioderived composites for the rapidly expanding large-scale additive manufacturing industry (i.e., 3D printing). Using fibrillated fibers derived from biomass (e.g., Populus) to reinforce polymers for 3D printing applications would be less expensive compared to using conventional carbon fibers. Poplar fibers of different mesh sizes (<180, 180-425, 425-850, and 850-2360 μm) were used to prepare poplar-polylactic acid (PLA) composites. The poplar/PLA composites were successfully printed using a large-scale 3D printer to create a podium support. The tensile strength of the composites increased from 34 to 54 MPa as the poplar fiber size decreased. The fracture surfaces of composites derived from smaller poplar fibers (<180 μm) were more compact with fewer voids compared with the composites made with larger poplar fibers. Because of the porous and hollow microstructures, smaller poplar fibers contained more pores on their outer surfaces, which were available for the access and penetration of PLA. Poplar has potential for use as a thermoplastic reinforcement for large-scale 3D printing.