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The short/fast-food and perishable food supply chains (PFSC) have similar characteristics of lower lifespan and variable demand, leading to significant waste. However, the global population surge and increased health awareness make it impossible to continue wasting food because it is responsible for the loss of economy, resources, and biodiversity. A sustainable transition in short and PFSC is necessary; thus, addressing challenges is critical to explore the best strategy for redesigning PFSC.

An extensive literature review helped to identify 40 challenges, while a Delphi study highlighted 21 critical challenges. The fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method establishes a causal relationship between sustainable development (SD) challenges to help redesign PFSC.

From a strategic development perspective, frequent transportation disruption is the main critical challenge. Lack of supplier reliability is the most substantial cause of independence, with a causal value of 2.878. Overhead costs and lack of green maintenance strategies are part of the performance-oriented challenges. As it belongs to the driving zone, the second quadrant requires control while transforming PFSC for better sustainable development.

The study has several implications, such as lack of supplier reliability and frequent transportation disruption, which have the most robust causal value used as short-term strategy development. For short- and fast-food supply chains, it is necessary to study market and consumer behavior patterns to optimize inventory and customer service. Combating transportation disruption and supplier reliability challenges is vital in both PFSC and short and fast-food supply chains to reduce waste and promote sustainability.

The study’s findings are unique and put value toward the sustainable transition of PFSC by revealing critical challenges and their impact.

This paper aims to highlight how the six sigma methods helped the medical equipment manufacturing company in finding and analysing the root causes that lead to the reduction in production rate, rejection rates, quality and other major causes that lead to the reduction in productivity of the blood bags manufacturing unit.

Given the critical nature of blood bag manufacturing Six Sigma was chosen as the primary methodology for this research since Six Sigma’s data-driven approach provides a structured framework to identify, analyse and rectify inefficiencies in the production processes. This study proposes the Six Sigma DMAIC (D-Define, M-Measure, A-Analyse, I-Improve, C-Control) encompassing rigorous problem definition, precise measurement, thorough analysis, improvement and vigilant control mechanisms for effectively attaining predetermined objectives.

The paper demonstrates how the Six Sigma principles were executed in a blood bag manufacturing unit. After a detailed and thorough data analysis, it was found that a total of 40 critical-to-quality factors under the five drivers such as Machine, Components, Inspection and Testing, People and Workspace were influential factors affecting the manufacturing of blood bags. From the study, it is identified that the drivers such as inspection and testing, components and machines contribute significantly to increasing productivity.

The paper offers valuable strategic insights into implementing Six Sigma methodologies within the specific context of a blood bag manufacturing unit. The Six Sigma tools and techniques used by the project team to solve issues within the blood bag manufacturing unit can be used for similar healthcare organizations to successfully deploy Six Sigma. The insights from this research might not be directly applicable to other manufacturing facilities or industries but can be used as a guiding reference for researchers and managers.

The current state of scholarly literature indicates a significant absence in the examination of Six Sigma methodologies designed specifically to improve production output in healthcare equipment manufacturing. This paper highlights the application of Six Sigma principles to enhance efficiency in the specific context of blood bag manufacturing.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that drive superior social enterprise performance for women-led social enterprises. The authors examined the role of individual entrepreneur cognitive characteristics contributing to social enterprise performance and recommended a framework for women's social entrepreneur development.

The authors conducted an exploratory qualitative study of 22 women founders of social enterprises using a semi-structured questionnaire. In-depth interviews were conducted, and the transcripts were analyzed using thematic content analysis.

This study found a significant impact of self-efficacy on the performance of social enterprises among the studied subjects. Social support in the form of material, information and emotional support enhanced the ability of women social entrepreneurs to better achieve business sustenance and continuance of operations. The business skills of the women social entrepreneurs led them to move from just social impact generators to becoming thought leaders. The strong prosocial motivation of the founders contributed to building their resilience in the face of adversity.

This study extended the existing theories on social entrepreneurship by bringing the dimensions of entrepreneurial resilience in driving social enterprise performance along with business skills. Thus, it provided an enhanced explanation to the existing body of knowledge on contributors to superior social enterprise performance.

This study gathered insights into the role of entrepreneurship education focused on business skills, especially for women social entrepreneurs in achieving superior performance for their social ventures. This also reconfirmed the role of social support and how structurally this could be provided by educational systems to aspiring women social entrepreneurs.

The practice of social entrepreneurship by women social entrepreneurs has been growing. Its importance in developing economies because of its ability to make grassroots changes at the lower levels of society was substantive. Women have shown more inclination toward social business with an affinity for prosocial contribution. By focusing on nurturing these social enterprises, governments as well as global agencies like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum could accelerate social change. Furthermore, support for the current women social entrepreneurs as change-makers making a difference in society could be achieved.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research study was one of the first studies on women social entrepreneurs focusing on the factors of self-efficacy, social support and entrepreneurial resilience contributing to social enterprise performance. This study combined the social entrepreneurship intention theory with entrepreneurial resilience and business skills to understand the factors leading to successful social enterprise performance for women social entrepreneurs.

Recently, mHealth apps for COVID-19 have emerged as a new research area due to the diverse efforts to control the COVID-19 epidemic. Although there are many bibliometric studies on mHealth and its applications, no bibliometric study sheds light on mHealth apps for COVID-19 as a new research area. To address the above-mentioned research gap, the current study conducts a bibliometric analysis of research in mHealth apps for COVID-19. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the new area and its directions.

The study uses a bibliometric approach to provide an analysis of the overall status of research in mHealth apps for COVID-19. The Scopus database provided by Elsevier was used to extract the analyzed data in this study. SciVal was used to perform the analyses, while VOSviewer was used for scientific mapping.

A total of 457 publications were published between 2020 and 2021 (until Tuesday, June 1) and cited 3,559 times. Publications were written by 2,375 authors, with an average of 5.20 authors per publication. Articles play a pivotal role in the literature on mHealth apps for COVID-19 in terms of production and impact. The research area of mHealth apps for COVID-19 is multidisciplinary. The United States made the largest contribution to this area, while the UK was the most influential. This study reveals the most productive and influential sources, institutions and authors. It also reveals the research hotspots and major thematic clusters in mHealth apps for COVID-19, highly cited publications and the international collaboration network.

mHealth apps for COVID-19 are gaining more and more importance due to their influential role in controlling the COVID-19 epidemic. Using bibliometric analysis, the study contributes to defining the knowledge structure of global research in mHealth apps for COVID-19 as a new, interdisciplinary area of research that has not previously been studied. Therefore, the study results and the comprehensive picture obtained about research in mHealth apps for COVID-19, especially at the level of Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence applications, make it an effective supplement to the expert evaluation in the field.