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Examines the benefits of following an implementation plan when designing and building an assembly machine in‐house, to control the progress of a project. Uses the example of a real life project undertaken at Brunel University [to design and build a chain assembling machine] describing the various steps followed during the design and building process through to testing and control systems. Concludes that although an implementation plan often requires some thought and effort at the beginning of a project it proves worthwhile by the end.

Examines how Mars Electronics International Ltd of Wokingham, expanded into transaction electronics [the handling of money] investing heavily in equipment for the automatic assembly of printed circuit boards and subsequently investigating ways of minimizing work in progress and lead time, with the eventual aim of producing single boards with zero change‐over time and no loss of efficiency. Discusses how MEI have progressed from bench assembly to fully automated robotics assembly via an interim flexible guided manual assembly line for small batch production. Concludes that with its wide range of assembly automation experience, MEI has learnt the importance of flexibility in a system and predicts that in the future attention will focus on “machines built around people” with concern for access, servicing and the environment.

The main aim of this chapter is to analyse the impact of labour market security on contemporary Polish labour migrants’ choices and perceptions of their destination countries. Qualitative and quantitative empirical data were used to explain the differences between two main states enjoying popularity as destination countries for the migrants from Poland: the United Kingdom and Germany. The concepts of Varieties of Capitalism and of social models were used to explain differences between the analysed countries. Presented data confirm that some of the migrants choose countries where they can accomplish labour market security through job security (i.e. Germany), while others find their way better in countries where the model based on employment security is favoured (i.e. the United Kingdom). Special attention was also paid to Ukrainian workers in Poland, who prefer some elements of employment security alongside income security.

Projective identification occurs when an individual or group, unable to bear certain features of their own reality, unconsciously splits these features off and projects them into another individual or group. As these features do not reside in the conscious minds of those who do the projecting, they are not available in their minds for scrutiny, understanding or learning. These projections also endow the recipients with unmanageable feelings and characteristics which are not of their own making, and may thereby have a detrimental effect on them and their relationship with those who do the projecting. This paper examines two case examples attempting to throw light on the implications of this concept for management education. The first emerges from a supervisory relationship with a mature student, while the second looks at an experiential group in a “working conference”.

Wars can lead to massive migration waves, e.g. the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011 led to the European refugee crisis. Discussions about labour integration often accompany huge spikes in asylum applications. Since many refugees experience traumatic events, such as torture, health problems must be considered in the work context. Unfortunately, the relevance of the post-traumatic experiences of refugees to specific job performance facets has mainly been ignored. To close the research gap, a study with refugees living in Germany was conducted to examine to what extent trauma-related variables are relevant to performance variables.

The relationship between post-traumatic stress (PTS), post-traumatic growth (PTG) and adaptive performance (social and task-oriented adaptive performance) was examined as, nowadays, many activities require dealing with changes (e.g. new colleagues, new technologies). Sixty-nine people met the inclusion criteria (e.g. refugee status, traumatic experiences) and completed the survey. Data were analysed using the Bayesian approach.

Bayesian analyses revealed that PTG might promote both social and task-oriented adaptive performance. In contrast, PTS was negatively related to task-oriented adaptive performance. Furthermore, there was no substantial evidence that PTG moderates the relationship between PTS and adaptive performance. Furthermore, there is preliminary evidence that refugees do not differ substantially from the general population with respect to social adaptive performance.

The present study demonstrates for the first time the relevance of post-traumatic experiences to the adaptive performance of refugees.

This paper aims to present a design methodology to enable product design for ease of assembly. It is corroborated by means of a case study. The methodology is based on standard time data. This enables quick computation of assembly time as well as comparing different design options for ease of assembly.

Component design that is easy to assemble is likely to take less time and vice versa. Assembly time is a function of product design attributes such as geometric shape, weight, center of gravity, type of material, number of fasteners and types of fasteners. The methodology uses standard data to achieve its objective. Numeric scores are developed for each design feature based on the aforementioned design attributes. This enables not only computation of assembly time for a brand new product but also comparison of two or more alternative design configurations from the point of view of ease of assembly.

The value of the system is corroborated by means of case studies of actual product designs. It is demonstrated that changing any of the underlying design attributes (such as type of fastener used, number of fasteners used, material of the component and component shape) is likely to result in changing the amount of time taken to assemble the product. The scoring system facilitates the quick computation of assembly time

The amount of time to assemble a product before the product is ever designed is facilitated by this system. Assembly time is a direct function of product design attributes. Process time is calculated using standard data, specifically, the Methods Time Measurement (MTM) system. This is accomplished by converting design features into time measurement units (TMUs). Assembly cost can then be easily computed by using assembly time as the basis. The computation of assembly time and cost is important inasmuch as its role in influencing productivity. This is of obvious value not only to the designer but the company as a whole.

The product design that is best for function, for manufacturing, for assembling and for servicing results in the best product. Such a design is an ideal so difficult to achieve that it has to be tackled in stages, which ultimately have to be successfully integrated. The stages of Design for Manufacture (DFM) and Design for Assembly (DFA) combine towards that integration in the form of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA). Some broad guidelines for DFMA are given in Table I.

Studies the work of Concentric Production Research Ltd, a company which combines several activities by factoring equipment from overseas, manufacturing its own metal cutting equipment and undertaking assembly automation projects from inception via design through to installation and training. Gives a brief history of the company and examines some of its current projects including a gearbox assembly line and a cassette sealing machine.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of a firm’s customer base concentration on its loan contract terms and how this effect varies with the strength of its customer relationship.

This study is an archival research based on a sample of US public firms that have loan contract data between 1990 and 2008. Major customer sales data are used to construct customer concentration and customer relationship measures. A debt contract model is employed to relate loan spread and other contract terms to customer concentration and relationship.

This study finds that firms with more concentrated customer bases have higher loan spread and shorter loan maturity and are more likely to issue secured loans. These negative effects disappear when the supplier firm maintains strong relationship with its customers.

Additional forward-looking measure of customer relationship could benefit future research.

A firm’s customer base characteristics can have significant impacts on the terms of its loan contracts. Findings from this study support the notion that customer relationship is an important intangible asset that is informative to stakeholders of the firm.

This study proposes a new measure of customer relationship based on the past repeated relationships between a firm and its major customers. It shows that customer characteristics may affect firms’ contracts with creditors: customer base concentration increases credit risk whereas strong customer relationship improves credit quality.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, a case study on applying lean principles in manufacturing operations to redesign and optimize an electronic device assembly process and its impact on performance and second, introducing cardboard prototyping as a Kaizen tool offering a novel approach to testing and simulating improvement scenarios.

The study employs value stream mapping, root cause analysis, and brainstorming tools to identify root causes of poor performance, followed by deploying a Kaizen event to redesign and optimize an electronic device assembly process. Using physical models, bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement were identified by the Kaizen approach at the workstations and assembly lines, enabling the testing of various scenarios and ideas. Changes in lead times, throughput, work in process inventory and assembly performance were analyzed and documented.

Pre- and post-improvement measures are provided to demonstrate the impact of the Kaizen event on the performance of the assembly cell. The study reveals that implementing lean tools and techniques reduced costs and increased throughput by reducing assembly cycle times, manufacturing lead time, space utilization, labor overtime and work-in-process inventory requirements.

This paper adds a new dimension to applying the Kaizen methodology in manufacturing processes by introducing cardboard prototyping, which offers a novel way of testing and simulating different scenarios for improvement. The paper describes the process implementation in detail, including the techniques and data utilized to improve the process.