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Business Process Reengineering (BPR) eliminates non-value-added (NVA) and essential non-value-added (ENVA) waste through radical process redesign to improve organizational operations. Comprehensive research integrating BPR tools is needed to understand their benefits for manufacturing firms. This research presents an integrated BPR-simulation framework tailored to the manufacturing sector to maximize process improvements and operational excellence.

The BPR design methodology adopts a systematic, multi-stage approach. The first phase involves identifying a specific improvement process aligned with BPR's core objectives. This phase analyses and redesigns workflows to optimize task sequences, roles, and stakeholder interactions while eliminating redundancies and inefficiencies via Workflow Process Reengineering. Visual process mapping tools, including VSM and simulation, pinpoint areas of waste, delay, and potential enhancement. The second phase follows the workflow analysis and aims to improve efficiency and effectiveness by redefining roles, rearranging tasks, and integrating automation and technology solutions. The redesigned process undergoes evaluation against key performance indicators to ensure measurable improvements are achieved. The final phase validates the proposed changes through simulation models, assesses the impact on key performance metrics, and establishes the necessary infrastructure for successful implementation. The proposed model is empirically validated through a case study of a leading apparel company in Vietnam, confirming its effectiveness.

The findings reveal that NVA activities are being eliminated, and ENVA activities in key departments are significantly reduced. This yielded a substantial improvement, reducing 25 out of 186 combined ENVA and NVA operations in the sewing facility, involving a decrease of 15 ENVA operations and the removal of 10 NVA operations. Consequently, this led to an 8.5% reduction in the proportion of ENVA operations, accompanied by a complete 100% elimination of NVA activities.

The single case study limits generalizability; thus, expanded implementation across diverse manufacturing sub-sectors is required to establish validity and broader applicability of the integrated framework.

The experimental results highlight the proposed model's effectiveness in optimizing resource utilization and its practical implementation potential. This structured BPR methodology enables organizations to validate, evaluate, and establish proposed process changes to enhance operational performance and productivity.

Adopting digital technology could facilitate the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some analysts argue that countries that adopted digital technology in their health sector have managed to control the virus better (Whitelaw et al., 2020). For instance, countries with more comprehensive contact tracing have significantly lower fatality rates (Yalaman et al., 2021). Moreover, World Health Organization (WHO) believes this technology is a crucial enabler for countries to meet the current challenge (WHO. Regional Office for the Western Pacific & University of Melbourne, 2021). In this regard, this study aims to quantitatively find the relationship between the technological advancement of countries and COVID-19 health outcomes, using seven technological indices that measure technological advancement.

The authors used the multiple linear regression method to answer the research questions. The first analysis focuses on a cross section of all countries worldwide, and the second focuses on European countries for which weekly death statistics exist after the pandemic.

The findings support those countries with more technological abilities managed to control the virus’s mortality better, as evidenced by the negative link between the mortality rate of COVID-19 and the technological factors at the national level. Results also reveal that technology adoption decreases the death risk due to COVID-19 in countries with more elderly people. The authors may argue that technological advancement positively correlates with the number of deaths and diagnosed cases because the authors can better collect data or because the virus spreads due to higher economic and business activities. However, such technological advancement significantly decreases the death risk (lower mortality rate in the first analysis and lower mortality rate for elderly people in the second analysis).

Three important conclusions could be made from the results: a lower mortality rate is generally expected for countries adopting advanced technology; technological advancement significantly decreases the death risk for elderly people; and a higher technology adoption level does not necessarily result in fewer diagnosed cases of/death due to COVID-19.

Although some studies have focused on e-health applications in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, no studies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, have tried to quantify its efficacy, most especially on the global level.

This study aims to explore worldwide innovative solutions that have been proposed to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on people’s mental health.

A qualitative methodology is adopted, which performs an exploratory study considering the innovative projects identified by the Observatory for Public Sector Innovation framework. Additionally, the analysis of the relevance and characteristics of these projects are explored considering a multidimensional framework composed of five dimensions: novelty level; social need; improvement of society; sector neutrality; and level of emergence.

The findings reveal that the number of projects in the field of mental health is low, despite their strong relevance to their communities. These projects arise from a strong social need to protect especially the most vulnerable groups in this pandemic and involve a large number of partners in the public sector, business and civil society. The role of volunteering in the revitalization and growth of these initiatives is also recognized.

This study is relevant in both the theoretical and practical dimensions. It allows the exploration of these projects considering the dimensions of social innovation and offers practical implications that allow these projects to be replicated in other countries and regions.

The purpose of this paper is to study and analyze the effects of fly ash (FA) as a mineral admixture on compressive strength (CS), carbonation resistance and corrosion resistance of reinforced concrete (RC). In addition, the utilization of inexpensive and abundantly available FA as a cement replacement in concrete has several benefits including reduced OPC usage and elimination of the FA disposal problem.

Reinforcement corrosion and carbonation significantly affect the strength and durability of the RC structures. Also, the utilization of FA as green corrosion inhibitors, which are nontoxic and environmentally friendly alternatives. This review discusses the effects of FA on the mechanical characteristics of concrete. Also, this review analyzes the impact of FA as a partial replacement of cement in concrete and its effect on the depth of carbonation in concrete elements and the corrosion rate of embedded steel as well as the chemical composition and microstructure (X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning electron microscopy) of FA concrete were also reviewed.

This review provides a clear analysis of the available study, providing a thorough overview of the current state of knowledge on this topic. Regarding concrete CS, the findings indicate that the incorporation of FA often leads to a loss in early-age strength. However, as the curing period increased, the strength of fly ash concrete (FAC) increased with or even surpassed that of conventional concrete. Analysis of the accelerated carbonation test revealed that incorporating FA into the concrete mix led to a shallower carbonation depth and slower diffusion of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the concrete. Furthermore, the half-cell potential test shows that the inclusion of FA increases the durability of RC by slowing the rate of steel-reinforcement corrosion.

This systematic review analyzes a wide range of existing studies on the topic, providing a comprehensive overview of the research conducted so far. This review intends to critically assess the enhancements in mechanical and durability attributes (such as CS, carbonation and corrosion resistance) of FAC and FA-RC. This systematic review has practical implications for the construction and engineering industries. This can support engineers and designers in making informed decisions regarding the use of FA in concrete mixtures, considering both its benefits and potential drawbacks.

This chapter describes challenges that students, faculty and administrators at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, ITESM) experienced related to remote learning and isolation. The authors document experiences and strategies of different management teams to act flexibly in times of uncertainty and to support society in general. Ultimately, technology, experience and trust in various levels of leadership as well as horizontal and inclusive communication changed the educational status quo and strengthened the university community.

This chapter examines the current educational provision in Brazil, with a specific focus on inclusive education and how this is provided in the country. Students who experience disadvantage due to disabilities, living in poverty, gender and geographic isolation are often most at risk for not accessing education, or being provided with poor quality education which may not meet their needs. Supports and barriers to inclusive education are examined within Brazil's existing political and social context. The role of technology in supporting inclusion is also examined.

The literature that is presently available on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) combining optimization and industry 4.0 techniques falls short in its depictions of the recent developments, budding pertinent areas and the importance of SSCM in the growth of industrial economies around the world. This article's main objective is to analyze current trends, highlight the latest initiatives and perform a meta-analysis of the literature that is currently accessible in the SSCM area with a special focus on optimization and industry 4.0 techniques. The paper also proposes a conceptual framework that will assist in illuminating how the ideas of optimization and industry 4.0 may contribute to realizing sustainability in supply chains.

The proposed study systematically reviews 85 research publications published between 2010 and 2022 in referenced peer-reviewed journals in diverse fields, including engineering, business and management, services and healthcare. Numerous categories are considered throughout the examination of the literature, including year-wise publications, prominent journals, type of research design, concerned industry and research technique used.

The study demonstrates a deeper comprehension of the literature in the field and its evolution throughout numerous industry sectors, which is helpful for both practitioners and academics. The results from the content analysis highlight various future research opportunities in the domain.

This is one of the first research articles that have attempted to establish, analyze and highlight the current trends and initiatives in the SSCM domain from an optimization and industry 4.0 techniques viewpoint. The cluster-based future research propositions also enhance the novelty of the study.

There are two main objectives in this study. First, we aim to develop a set of constructs for health task management support (HTMS) features to evaluate which health-related tasks are supported by mobile health application (mHealth app) functions. Second, drawing on innovation resistance theory (IRT), we examine the impacts of the newly developed HTMS dimensions on perceived usefulness, alongside other barrier factors contributing to technology anxiety.

Using a mixed-method research design, this research seeks to develop new measurement scales that reflect how mHealth apps support older adults’ health-related needs based on interviews. Subsequently, data were collected from older adults and exploratory factor analysis was used to confirm the validity of the new scales. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze survey data from 602 older adults.

The PLS-SEM results indicated that medical management task support, dietary task support, and exercise task support were positively associated with perceived usefulness, while perceived complexity and dispositional resistance to change were identified as antecedents of technology anxiety. Perceived usefulness and technology anxiety were found to positively and negatively influence adoption intention, respectively.

This study enriches the information systems literature by developing a multidimensional construct that delineates how older adults’ health-related needs can be supported by features of mHealth apps. Drawing on IRT, we complement the existing literature on resistance to innovation by systematically examining the impact of five types of barriers on technology anxiety.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of different AI models in accurately aggregating information about the protein quality (PQ) content of food items using four artificial intelligence (AI) models -– ChatGPT 3.5, ChatGPT 4, Bard AI and Bing Chat.

A total of 22 food items, curated from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) report, were input into each model. These items were characterised by their PQ content according to the Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS).

Bing Chat was the most accurate AI assistant with a mean accuracy rate of 63.6% for all analyses, followed by ChatGPT 4 with 60.6%. ChatGPT 4 (Cohen’s kappa: 0.718, p < 0.001) and ChatGPT 3.5 (Cohen’s kappa: 0.636, p: 0.002) showed substantial agreement between baseline and 2nd analysis, whereas they showed a moderate agreement between baseline and 3rd analysis (Cohen’s kappa: 0.538, p: 0.011 for ChatGPT 4 and Cohen’s kappa: 0.455, p: 0.030 for ChatGPT 3.5).

This study provides an initial insight into how emerging AI models assess and classify nutrient content pertinent to nutritional knowledge. Further research into the real-world implementation of AI for nutritional advice is essential as the technology develops.

This study aims to examine the factors influencing the intention of Muslim Millennial Generation in Indonesia to donate cash waqf digitally.

A quantitative approach was employed, surveying 284 Muslim Millennial Generation in Indonesia. The study integrated the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate the key factors driving the intention to contribute to cash waqf digitally. The researcher analyzed data using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings of this study indicate that all hypotheses related to the variables are supported, including both direct and indirect correlations, except for perceived religiosity. This study confirms that the decision of millennials to donate cash waqf online is influenced by various factors, including their attitudes, the environment they are in, their ability to control their behavior, their perception of the ease and usefulness of technology and the availability of suitable facilities. Knowledge of technology is also a decisive component. Nevertheless, this study yielded intriguing findings that the perceived level of religious devotion does not impact the millennials’ willingness to make online cash waqf donations.

This study’s findings offer valuable insights for waqf institutions, providing a better understanding of Muslim millennials’ characteristics and preferences regarding spending, donations and waqf activities. This understanding can be instrumental in enhancing innovative digital platforms for cash waqf in the digital economy era.

This study uniquely explores the determinants of digital cash waqf donations among Muslim Millennial Generation in Indonesia. Contributions include integrating the DTPB and the TAM for a comprehensive analysis. Cross-disciplinary perspectives from behavioral economics and digital marketing enrich the research. Comparative studies and potential longitudinal analysis enhance depth, providing nuanced insights into the dynamic factors shaping digital donation behavior among Muslim millennials.