According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management

The Social Psychology of Organizations.

The circular economy concept has gained momentum both among scholars and practitioners. However, critics claim that it means many different things to different people. This paper provides further evidence for these critics. The aim of this paper is to create transparency regarding the current understandings of the circular economy concept. For this purpose, we have gathered 114 circular economy definitions which were coded on 17 dimensions. Our findings indicate that the circular economy is most frequently depicted as a combination of reduce, reuse and recycle activities, whereas it is oftentimes not highlighted that CE necessitates a systemic shift. We further find that the definitions show few explicit linkages of the circular economy concept to sustainable development. The main aim of the circular economy is considered to be economic prosperity, followed by environmental quality; its impact on social equity and future generations is barely mentioned. Furthermore, neither business models nor consumers are frequently outlined as enablers of the circular economy. We critically discuss the various circular economy conceptualizations throughout this paper. Overall, we hope to contribute via this study towards the coherence of the circular economy concept; we presume that significantly varying circular economy definitions may eventually result in the collapse of the concept.

Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions

With digital equipment becoming increasingly networked, either on wired or wireless networks, for personal and professional use alike, distributed software systems have become a crucial element in information and communications technologies. The study of these systems forms the core of the ARLES' work, which is specifically concerned with defining new system software architectures, based on the use of emerging networking technologies. In this context, we concentrate on the study of distributed systems which bring to life the vision of ubiquitous computing systems, also known as ambient intelligence.

반도체 공정 overview

Ships transport goods between geographical points and facilitate global trade activities (Lun and Browne in Int J Shipping Transp Logistics 1(2):103–18, 2009). Shipping, which involves the movement of cargo between different physical locations, is one of the world’s most internationalized industries that support global trade as a cost-effective means to move large volumes of cargo around the world (Lun and Marlow in Int J Shipping Transp Logistics 3(1):57–71, 2011). Shipping includes all activities that move cargo to, from, and between the key actors in the transport chain (Zhang et al. in Int J Shipping Transp Logistics 3(3):312–322, 2011). Shipping activities contribute to the specialization of industrial activities and allow for mass production (Wong et al. in Int J Shipping Transp Logistics 4(1):5–16, 2012). The importance of shipping has increased in the past centuries with industrialization, globalization, e-commerce, and the adoption of offshoring and outsourcing strategies.

Relativity Between Greening and Performance

In the digital era, green supply chain management (GSCM) is undergoing transformations associated with innovation and performance improvements. Manufacturers adopt these innovative GSCM practices, called green supply chain digital transformation (GSCDT), by applying emergent digital technologies to GSCM for specific purposes. This study identifies and develops GSCDT practices with support from the literature and case studies of six manufacturers with operational GSCDT in diversified industries to explore the practice adoption enablers of GSCDT and contingency factors for performance improvement through GSCDT for manufacturers. We analyze the emergence and adoption of GSCDT and find that the practices are: a) unevenly implemented among the five dimensions of GSCM; b) highly reliant on top management to coordinate internal coordination among organizational units; c) more intensive in manufacturing operations with large suppliers; and d) implemented at a higher level for external practices than for internal practices. Our research findings contribute to academic knowledge by unraveling critical factors that affect the digital transformation process in GSCM and managerial insights by identifying pathways for the successful adoption of GSCDT practices. 

Digital transformation for green supply chain innovation in manufacturing operations

This chapter focuses on the collaboration of environmental management between suppliers and customers, with the selected topics ranging from environmental information integration, supplier operational adaptation, supplier/customer environmental integration, and consumer preferences. Environmental information integration (EII) is the information sharing infrastructure that supports environmental information exchange and coordination, which covers internal EII, supplier EII, and customer EII. EII is important factor for organizations to increase flexibility and promote their environmental adaptability to the changing environmental demands and requirements. Establishing a long-term supplier relationship and cooperatively investing in development and innovation with supply chain partners can be beneficial to enhance an organization’s operational flexibility, which in turns improves the organization’s environmental and economic performance. On the other hand, customer’s involvement in implementing environmental practices participation facilitates the firm’s extended producer responsibility practices and asset recovery processes. Since consumers care about the environment protection which enables their descendants to have a better life, sustainable consumption such as energy conservation, resource savings, food waste reduction, and the use of recyclable products have been gaining growing public awareness. Sustainable consumption behavior may prompt organization to rethink about environmental management practices to fulfill their final consumers’ requirements.

Collaborative environmental management

Railways generally offer a low-cost and environmentally friendly transportation mode choice for raw material transportation from raw material sources (e.g., oil, coal, metals, etc.) to sea ports. Quite often in oil transportation, railways compete side-by-side with pipelines, so productivity and frequency are the main concerns, and eventually infrastructure is tried to be utilized in the best possible manner. In this chapter, we present the simulation of the oil transportation infrastructure investment need in Estonia, a country that transports eastern transit oil to Europe from its sea port of Muuga for the last two decades. Our ‘system dynamics simulation application’ shows how growth, delays, and connections between different affecting variables result in railway-based transportation chain infrastructure needs in next decade. The developed method could be used elsewhere in the same branch, but also in other transportation subsectors.

Kee-hung Lai

Papers

Relativity Between Greening and Performance

Digital transformation for green supply chain innovation in manufacturing operations

Collaborative environmental management

Railway-Based Oil Transportation Chain Infrastructure Needs: A System Dynamics Approach

Designing the Customer Variety-Seeking Behavior-Based Recommendation Algorithm: a Psychological Perspective