Purchase Requirements Research Articles

Measuring self-reported food loss in primary production: Survey-based insights from Central and Eastern Europe

Food loss and waste occur along the whole food supply chain and need to be addressed by dedicated strategies. Among all the stages of the food supply chain, food loss in primary production has been the least studied to date. In order to address this gap, this paper focuses on on-farm food loss, using Lithuania as a case study. The research comprises eleven crop products and five livestock products prevailing in Lithuanian agricultural production. A survey-based method is utilized to collect primary data from farmers. The final data set consists of 408 completely answered questionnaires. The survey-based data are merged with those from the Farm Accountancy Data Network in order to devise an effective framework for estimating self-reported on-farm food loss. The results show that there exists substantial variation in on-farm food loss rates ranging from less than 1% for milk to slightly more than 20% for beets. Environmental factors and those related to consumer and buyer requirements are the main reasons for losses of crop products, while diseases appear as the main causes of death for animals. The food loss and waste reduction measures are derived based on the results of the survey.

Purchasing and supply management skills and personality traits across roles: a job advertisements perspective

This paper contributes to a growing trajectory of research on purchasing and supply management skills and requirements and uses job advertisements as a novel source of data and research perspective. Our findings broadly corroborate the extant literature in showing which skills are required across different hierarchical organisational levels. Our analysis also identified the key and hitherto underexplored personality traits required by PSM professionals. At a holistic level, the findings show that employers have a clear and consistent view of PSM personality: being conscientious and able to work independently, willing to travel, flexible, proactive and stress-resistant. However, traits generally associated with innovativeness, such as intellectual curiosity, boundary spanning, sociability or teamwork and cooperation, were not found in the data. Although advertisements for junior buyers featured less combined skills, a higher number of advertisements than those for more senior jobs featured at least one personality trait and they were more heavily emphasised.

Chinese Economic Statecraft and China's Oil Development Finance in Brazil

Over the last years, Brazil and China's oil-related finance activities have expanded substantially. Between 2007 and 2019, Brazilian companies received approximately one-fourth of Chinese policy banks overseas oil-related loans, and Chinese financial institutions became Brazil's biggest oil company Petrobras’ main creditor. A deep analysis of these loans highlights their usage as economic statecraft tools, with impacts on the bilateral crude trade and investments. Loan-for-oil mechanisms, content purchase requirements, and a countercyclical lending pattern have helped to influence Brazilian players to behave in a manner conducive to the Chinese state's energy security objectives and strategic goals, namely increase of imports, diversification of sources, and internationalisation of firms. With these loans, China has satisfactorily guaranteed a stable oil supply over time and has helped Chinese equipment makers and service providers to expand their footage in Brazil.

Технологии эффективного проектного менеджмента в сельскохозяйственной отрасли

Despite the significant need to streamline and improve the efficiency of systemic project management, its basic concepts and methods remain little known in many sectors of economy, especially in agricultural sector of the republic. The goal -is to study the possibilities for the development of project management in the field of the agro-industrial complex. Methods – observation and collection of facts, comparative analysis to assess the rate of development of agriculture in Kazakhstan, logical, as well as analogies. Results - the advantages of technology of the project approach are determined and the possibility of its use in the field of agricultural production is being considered. The assessment of the rates of development of the AIC of the republic is presented. The authors state that high qualifications, special knowledge and skills are required from the manager and project participants. The reasons for the low level of efficiency of some design solutions are explained by imperfect management activities. In the context of increased competition in product markets, increased requirements of buyers for the quality of products and services, changes in organizational structure of enterprises in agricultural sector, the role of risk management and contracts increases significantly. It shows the importance of applying modern project management methods in information systems when developing programs for personnel development. Conclusions - the elements of project management contribute to achieving the goals of increasing production efficiency and reducing risks in agro-industrial complex, i.e. the opportunity not only to use the available internal resources of agricultural enterprise, to increase its profitability, but also to actively attract additional investments. The authors note that the most important condition for successful planning in agribusiness is a quick payback of the project, which can happen if several rules are observed: increase in the volume of production; reduction of material and labor costs per unit of the product received. There is a need for effective government support for agricultural projects, as well as formation of project thinking among the heads of enterprises and training of relevant personnel.

A Global Supply Network Design Model: A Resilient Management Approach

We propose a design model for creating a resilient supply network applicable for local and global markets. It addresses the ineffectiveness and failure of existing supply network that resulted current economic, food and hospital supply crisis during this ongoing COVID 19 Pandemic situation. The research includes resilience creation approach for the known previously experienced as well as unknown and unforeseen disruption situations. This research considers resilience management-based steps and methods covered in the literature to building abilities of supply networks for absorption, adaptation and recovery for containing disruptions that have severe negative effect on supply chain operations and society. The research studies the options for including SC intermediaries to take the role of supply agent or supply contractors (SCON) to manage supply of items when traditional/classical supply networks known to us were almost inoperative or ineffective to fulfill buyer requirements during this COVID 19 like pandemic situations. A numerical example is solved for illustrating applicability of the model.

A matching method for second-hand goods exchange considering loss aversion of buyer and seller in e-brokerage

The second-hand goods exchange matching problem with intelligent exchange platform is a valuable research topic, while research in the related field is relatively lacking. Thus, the goal of this paper is to develop a two-sided matching method for the second-hand goods exchange matching. In the method, not only the characteristic of loss aversion of buyers/sellers and the benefit of e-brokerage are considered, but also the suggested exchange prices that meet the requirements of buyers and sellers are determined. Specifically, the description of second-hand goods exchange matching problem is firstly presented, in which the 2-tuple including the ideal level and the lowest acceptable level is used to quantify the expected demands of buyers and sellers for attributes. Then, several models maximizing the perceived values of buyers and sellers are derived to determine the suggested exchange price of goods. Next, according to the expectation information of buyers and sellers, and the real information of goods, the perceived value matrix for each attribute of buyers and sellers can be obtained by using the prospect theory. Furthermore, a model can be constructed and solved to determine the maximum number of exchange of buyers and sellers in e-brokerage, and an optimization model with the constraint of the exchange number threshold is constructed, and the optimal exchange matching results can be obtained by solving the optimization model. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the practicality of the proposed method. The method can be used to improve the operational performance of intelligent exchange platforms.

KEY INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY OF SUPPLY CHAINS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY

The article considers key information and communication technologies used in the supply chains of the fashion industry. The author segmented these technologies into several groups, including selected programs that ensure effective communication between the company’s functional departments and supply chain links; software resources aimed at maintaining logistics operations, such as production, warehousing, cargo transportation; operational and strategic planning systems. The main purpose of the considered information technologies is to take into account the specific characteristics of the “fashion” business, such as a high range and a short product life cycle, the need to take into account the rapidly changing requirements of buyers of goods in the fashion industry, the geographical distribution of supply chain participants. The author performs a review of key software products and technologies that improve the efficiency of business process management in the supply chains of the fashion industry, including CAD and CAM systems, ERP systems on the example of SAP AFS, SAP Fashion Management and some other software resources and technologies.

Moderating effect of requirements uncertainty on task interdependence and NPD performance

PurposeThis study aims to validate whether enhancing interorganizational task interdependence among tier 2 suppliers can act as an effective approach for the tier 1 supplier to enhance collaborations among these suppliers in the buyer-tier 1 supplier-tier 2 supplier triadic new product development (NPD) project when buyer's requirements are unstable.Design/methodology/approachBased on social interdependence theory, a model linking interorganizational task interdependence to interorganizational collaboration and NPD product performance is built. The authors conducted a survey study to collect data from 169 automotive tier 1 suppliers and performed regression analysis to empirically test the hypotheses.FindingsThe test results suggest that interorganizational task interdependence among tier 2 suppliers can promote interorganizational promotion-oriented information sharing and interorganizational joint decision making among these suppliers. These improvements can ultimately improve supplier’s NPD product performance. However, the buyer’s requirements uncertainty can reduce the positive effects of such an interdependence arrangement.Originality/valueThis study provides new insights into the role of a tier 1 supplier to enhance the collaboration among tier 2 suppliers in the limited condition of this relationship while providing an alternative explanation regarding contradictory ideas about task interdependence among suppliers.

РОЗВИТОК ІНТЕГРОВАНОЇ СИСТЕМИ УПРАВЛІННЯ ЯКІСТЮ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ АВІАТРАНСПОРТНОЇ СФЕРИ

The article considers how the development of the quality management system affects the market position of air transport enterprises. The development of an integrated management system will ensure a stable level of quality of airport services, its full compliance with the established requirements, taking into account the needs of consumers, mostly airlines, to achieve maximum satisfaction, and reduce the negative impact of airports on the environment. Improving the quality management system will take into account the requirements and needs of service consumers, control the level of customer satisfaction, avoid possible mistakes in planning and performing work at each stage, regularly monitor the effectiveness of actions taken to ensure quality, and generally improve the entire enterprise , ensure coordination of requirements of buyers of services and normative documents, find and make efforts to eliminate discrepancies as soon as possible, and promptly prescribe methods to eliminate their cause and do everything possible to avoid their recurrence; manage important aspects of ecological activity of the enterprise, plan measures for environmental protection. However, quality management has a great influence on the following processes of the enterprise: production management, project management, corporate management, investment management, personnel management, financial management. But in practice to achieve the desired quality is much more difficult than it seems. Because the appropriate managers must control all processes in production. And their work can be facilitated only by subordinates. That is, a fully covered quality improvement can be achieved only through the interest and motivation of workers at all levels. This is confirmed by the activities of the world's leading companies, which in recent years have begun to pay more attention to corporate policy, feedback from their customers and improving production technology. Modern production technologies are increasingly confirming that the concept of quality must be embedded in the product from the very beginning of its creation and continue its implementation at all stages of its development. That is, a comprehensive quality assurance system at the enterprise can be considered as a set of all organizational structures, processes, measures and techniques for its improvement, as well as stakeholders. Therefore, this article will also consider how global international quality standards have changed, in particular the ISO 9001 series over the past few years, and what they have changed in approaches to quality management.

Allocation Policies to Fulfil Heterogeneous Service Requirements under Resource Pooling

ABSTRACTDesigning effective settings for performance measures (e.g., fill rate) of a service‐level agreement (SLA) is challenging. This challenge is intensified when a firm adopts the pooling inventory model to allocate inventory/capacity to multiple buyers. Each buyer has its own service‐level contract outlining the required service level, the penalty structures, and the performance review period (PRP) length, which might not be the same as other buyers. This means the supplier requires an effective resource allocation policy whereby the different requirements of multiple buyers are integrated into a pooling model and capacities/inventories are allocated in the most effective way. Given a base‐stock replenishment policy and finite time horizon PRP, in this study we propose two new (anticipative) allocation policies—foresight linear programming (FLP) and two‐stage stochastic (TS)—and compare them with existing allocation policies. These allocation policies are developed for different penalty structures of linear, lump‐sum, hybrid, and no‐penalty settings. Results show that suppliers benefit from longer PRPs if linear or hybrid penalty structures are employed. We also find that when the length of PRP of buyers is not identical, TS is the recommending policy. Further, results provide a guideline for selecting the best resource allocation policy under various SLA terms, in particular, where buyers' PRP lengths are not identical.

Strategic decisions to join group purchasing organizations

Group purchasing organizations (GPOs) aim to aggregate the purchasing requirements of many buyers and utilize economies of scale to save costs and obtain quantity discounts from suppliers. This paper extends the application of GPOs to the chain stores industry. A new retailer is going to enter the market and faces decisions on joining chain stores (as a GPO) or independently working with a supplier, product pricing, and serving different segments of the market (i.e., informed and uninformed customers). When joining the GPO, a membership fee must be paid to the GPO. The supplier offers a quantity discount schedule that depends on the contract administration fee paid to the GPO. Using nonlinear programming, the optimal decision-making policy is established in a closed-form format. The results show that all decisions are significantly affected by the proportion of informed customers in the market. Accordingly, when the proportion of the informed customers is less than a threshold, not joining the GPO is a great choice for the retailer. When this proportion is growing, the retailer is advised to join the GPO as soon as possible. Our findings indicate that, in the presence of rapid growth of information technologies which leads to an increase in people’s awareness of the market, GPOs play a strategic role in the chain stores industry nowadays. We demonstrate that GPOs not only provide many benefits for customers and retailers but also other players in the group purchasing chain would also profit.

Failure analysis of idler roller bearings in belt conveyors

This paper analyses failures of one hundred idler roller bearings of a belt conveyor. It indicates possible causes of damage and proposes measures to eliminate them or at least minimize them. The bearings were collected for 6 months when idlers were disassembled for service. The bearings were carefully studied and each identified damage was classified in accordance with the ISO 15243:2017 standard photographed and described in terms of its manifestations and causes. The research has shown that the most dominant types of damage are plastic deformation in the form of gaps (42.3%) and corrosive wear (30.7%). Consequences of roller bearing damage are described and illustrated with photographs. The paper also examines impacts of the idler installation position (lateral or horizontal) on bearing damage. Possible main causes of roller bearing damage are represented by a fault tree analysis (FTA) diagram. The created fault tree can be a useful tool for engineers in defining requirements for purchase of new idlers.

Product recommendation for e-commerce business by applying principal component analysis (PCA) and K-means clustering: benefit for the society

Recommender system is a computer-based intelligent technique which facilitates the customers to fulfill their purchase requirements. In addition to this, it also helps retailers to manage the supply chain of their business and to develop different business strategies keeping in pace with the current market. Supply chain management (SCM) involves the streamlining of a business’s supply-side activities to remain competitive in the business landscape. Maximizing the customer value is another important activity of SCM to gain an advantage in the market. In this work, the K-Means clustering algorithm has been used for the effective segmentation of customers who have bought apparel items. PCA has been used for dimensionality reduction of different features of products and customers. The main focus of this work is to determine the different possible associations of customers in terms of brand, product, and price from their purchase habits. The result shows that the clusters made by the algorithm based on PCA and K-Means are similar and the results are acceptable on the basis of feedback received from existing customers and satisfies the customers’ requirements based on the amount of money (price range) the customers want to spend while doing online shopping. The features of products purchased by customers were combined together to generate a unique product key for business, and a model was prepared to segment products based on the volume of products sold and revenue generated, and the price of products sold and revenue generated. This work, in the long run, will help business houses to build a sustainable, profitable, and scalable e-commerce business. Environmental, social, and economic aspects are important to make e-commerce more sustainable for the benefit of the society.

Competitive Domestic Purchase Requirement

We consider the problem of allocating a tariff-rate quota among a small number of firms which act as middlemen between competitive producers and atomistic consumers and can import a perfect substitute at a fixed world price. We compare the traditional license-on-demand regime to administer such quotas with a domestic purchase requirement under which each firm is allocated a share of the quota that corresponds to the share of the total quantity bought from domestic suppliers. We give conditions such that the domestic purchase requirement strictly welfare-dominates the license system. Moreover, we show that for any binding import quota the welfare maximizing number of firms is finite.

Masking flavours for plant proteins

Masking flavours for plant proteins

Nova arhitektura i rizici u poslovanju sa platnim karticama

Digitalization in all spheres of social life, widespread distribution and numerous possibilities of smart phones as well as increasing amounts and scope of electronic contents and services lead to the emergence of new expectations and new requirements of banks, buyers and sellers, which refer to contemporary architecture of payment card operations. Payments make integral part of business operations regardless of whether we talk about traditional or on-line business operations, and this is why it is necessary to find the best manner to pay for goods or services using new technological and communications solutions. The subject of research in this paper is the analysis of characteristics of contemporary risks, development factors, economic effects and distribution of payment cards within the system of e-money, e-payment and e-banking, with a view to indicating the possible positive economic consequences and necessity to innovate and complete legal regulations in this area. The paper uses both general and specific scientific methods and procedures of logical conclusion, statistical, as well as positivist legal method. The manner of research includes the selection and application of scientific methods, the selection of data and the scope of research.

Empowering Smallholder Farmers through Farmer Organizations: Insights from Kenya and Burkina Faso

The market-driven agricultural transformation of the global food system requires all, directly and indirectly, participating actors to compete efficiently and to adapt to changes in consumer demand and buyer requirements. Regarding product quantity and quality, smallholders, in particular, have to increase their reliability in order to be able to compete within the agricultural markets. Thus, innovative institutions are needed that integrate and strengthen the sustainability and linkage of and between each technological, economic, social, or political component of the value chain in order to (further) include smallholder farmers within the transforming food system. By adapting their approach and service portfolio both to changing market requirements and to scientific findings from empowerment research, farmer organizations (FO) could become one of the innovative key actors, increasing the competitiveness of their members SMEs' and reducing poverty, its impacts and its costs. The aim of this study is, on the one hand, to empirically test the previously constructed theoretical concept of empowerment and the applicability of the developed measuring scale. On the other hand, the study compares the current empowerment approaches of the surveyed FOs, in order to show by means of best practices, but also weak points, how applied empowerment approaches can be transferred and improved in the future. Theory-wise, the term "empowerment" is placed between the discussions of "repositioning" according to Bourdieu, the question of distribution and exercising economic, social, and political power according to Sen and recent findings from behavioral science on the changeability of mental models and thus behavior. By putting the theoretical findings into relation and into the context of agricultural development, the results are integrated into the broader discourse of reducing poverty and hunger. Thus, the overall objective of this study is to support the applied empowerment research and the interdisciplinary discourse on poverty and hunger reduction with some impulses for its further advancement.

The Invisible Side of Managing Sustainability in Global Supply Chains: Evidence from Multitier Apparel Suppliers

Supply chain scholars, industry leaders, and policy makers have begun to recognize the importance of managing sustainability in global extended supply chains. However, scant attention has been paid to investigating the implementation of sustainable supply management practices from the perspective of multitier suppliers located in challenging institutional contexts. Drawing on institutional theory, this qualitative study examines how institutional pressures, mechanisms, and challenges influence the sustainability implementation of a developing country’s multitier apparel suppliers. The study not only captures the viewpoints of 46 owner–managers across 33 multitier suppliers, but also provides complementary evidence from a wide range of institutional actors. The findings show that first‐tier and second‐tier suppliers experience more collective coercive pressures than mimetic and normative pressures toward sustainability implementation. However, only coercive pressure from second‐tier suppliers influences third‐tier suppliers’ sustainability implementation. The identified key collective coercive pressures were stemming from the selection and assessment requirements of direct buyers, followed by third‐party auditors, governments, and newly emerged collective buyers’ consortia. Finally, building on empirical findings, this study presents a framework and research propositions for understanding the diffusion of sustainability to multitier suppliers.

Availability of Naloxone in Pharmacies and Knowledge of Pharmacy Staff Regarding Dispensing Naloxone to Younger Adolescents

PurposeThis study assessed the immediate availability of naloxone in pharmacies and the knowledge of pharmacy staff regarding naloxone dispensing protocols, especially as it relates to younger adolescents. MethodsThe primary sample included pharmacies in the 10 states with the highest number of opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016; in addition, pharmacies in the 2 states with the highest prevalence of opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016 were also contacted. Researchers simulated a routine conversation between pharmacy staff and a potential customer about the immediate availability of and requirements to purchase naloxone. ResultsThe primary sample included 120 pharmacies (82.5% chain pharmacies; 50.8% rural). The majority (80.3%) had at least one form of naloxone in stock. Pharmacy staff were knowledgeable about prescription and third-party purchasing requirements. However, almost half incorrectly responded that there was a minimum age requirement to purchase naloxone. ConclusionThis study reveals barriers to obtaining naloxone, including a lack of immediate in-store availability and a common misperception that naloxone cannot be dispensed to minors.

Impact of Machine Parameters on Knit Fabric GSM and Shrinkage

Knitted fabrics have a tendency to undergo some dimensional changes and GSM variation due to different knitting parameters. The investigation was carried out to relate the effect of different yarn counts, stitch lengths, machine gauge on fabric thickness variation and shrinkage behavior of the fabric. In this study the experimental results showed that fabric GSM varies as machine gauge changes by using same yarn count. On the contrary, when machine gauge and yarn count was fixed, the changes of fabric GSM was very negligible. For finer yarn count with different machine gauge GSM variation is more compared to coarser yarn count. But with same machine gauge GSM was very closer for both of finer and coarser yarn count. Fabric shrinkage both in lengthwise and widthwise is more fore finer yarn count than coarser yarn count. This study supports that, selection yarn count and calculation of stitch length was not only the way to meet buyer requirements regarding fabric thickness and shrinkage properties. The results found from this work will guide the determination to pick up right machine gauge, management of correct yarn diameter along with meticulous stitch length estimation.