Nengsheng Bao, Yuchen Fan, Chaoping Li and Alessandro Simeone
Lubricating oil leakage is a common issue in thermal power plant operation sites, requiring prompt equipment maintenance. The real-time detection of leakage occurrences could…
Abstract
Purpose
Lubricating oil leakage is a common issue in thermal power plant operation sites, requiring prompt equipment maintenance. The real-time detection of leakage occurrences could avoid disruptive consequences caused by the lack of timely maintenance. Currently, inspection operations are mostly carried out manually, resulting in time-consuming processes prone to health and safety hazards. To overcome such issues, this paper proposes a machine vision-based inspection system aimed at automating the oil leakage detection for improving the maintenance procedures.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach aims at developing a novel modular-structured automatic inspection system. The image acquisition module collects digital images along a predefined inspection path using a dual-light (i.e. ultraviolet and blue light) illumination system, deploying the fluorescence of the lubricating oil while suppressing unwanted background noise. The image processing module is designed to detect the oil leakage within the digital images minimizing detection errors. A case study is reported to validate the industrial suitability of the proposed inspection system.
Findings
On-site experimental results demonstrate the capabilities to complete the automatic inspection procedures of the tested industrial equipment by achieving an oil leakage detection accuracy up to 99.13%.
Practical implications
The proposed inspection system can be adopted in industrial context to detect lubricant leakage ensuring the equipment and the operators safety.
Originality/value
The proposed inspection system adopts a computer vision approach, which deploys the combination of two separate sources of light, to boost the detection capabilities, enabling the application for a variety of particularly hard-to-inspect industrial contexts.
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Hassan Sadeghi Naeini and Mahdiyeh Jafarnejad Shahri
Nowadays, product and service design play a crucial role in people’s daily life and marketing settings; however, both of the product and service design process have always been…
Abstract
Nowadays, product and service design play a crucial role in people’s daily life and marketing settings; however, both of the product and service design process have always been affected by various factors, including the growth of technology, economic tensions and endemic and pandemic health challenges. Undoubtedly, the importance of service and product design is increasing in the near future, and these changes are also associated with customers' experience. In this regard, some factors have a prominent place such as customer preferences, marketing improvement, technology push-marketing pull and different aspects of sustainability. Since the development of product–service systems (PSSs) should be based on the requirements and needs of users on the one hand, and environmental and technological considerations on the other hand, the role of product and service designers in the context of presenting creative and innovative ideas is important. The mentioned features are known as the main pillars of industrial design. Industrial design as an integrated science of art and technology concerns customers' experience, user experience (UX) design, innovative design, customer-oriented service development and so on. Industrial design make value not only for customers but also for producers. Besides, some new designscape may develop by industrial design considerations. In this chapter, authors explain the industrial design scope towards customer experience orientation in service design, enhance the experiencescape, design thinking (DT), PSS approaches and sustainability.
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Christine Barber, Andrew Laing and Marilyn Simeone
The following article reports the results of a global benchmarking/trend survey conducted among 127 senior level real estate and facilities executives from North America and…
Abstract
The following article reports the results of a global benchmarking/trend survey conducted among 127 senior level real estate and facilities executives from North America and Europe. The results reveal a collective five‐year vision for the workplace, exploring trends occurring in several key areas that impact space utilization and workplace design. Findings compare selected trends in North America with trends taking place in Europe. Areas examined include expected changes in the use of information technology, anticipated growth in new work styles such as telecommuting, collaboration and work‐at‐home, and the inevitable impact these will have on real estate and workplace design. The findings show that organizations expect work to become more collaborative (both ace‐to‐face and virtually), information technology ill enable growth in distributed working, and the workplace will be re‐designed to support collaboration rather than individual work activity. The research is followed by an interview with Marilyn Simeone, Vice President of Corporate Services for Merrill Lynch, who describes how the company is leveraging these directions of change to create more efficient, innovative workplaces in North America that meet the changing needs of employees as well as the company.
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Livingstone Divine Caesar, Mark Eshun, Frank Mawuyome Kwame Gamadey and Akinyele Okeremi
High failure rates characterise the experience of new entrepreneurial ventures in Nigeria and other emerging economies. Reliance on strategic tools such as entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
High failure rates characterise the experience of new entrepreneurial ventures in Nigeria and other emerging economies. Reliance on strategic tools such as entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is critical to the growth and survival of new ventures. This empirical study aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between EO and performance of new venture logistics firms in Nigeria. It further explores the contingent effects of social capital and marketing capabilities on the hypothesised direct relationships from a transport industry perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Managers of 650 new venture logistics service providers in selected Nigerian cities were Web-surveyed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed. Regression analysis was further performed. Common method variance and other validity checks were assessed.
Findings
The 469 valid responses showed a positive relationship between EO and new venture performance (NVP). Social capital and marketing capabilities positively moderate the direct relationship between EO and NVP. Managerial implications suggest that context-specific dynamics must be considered when making strategic EO decisions to aid firm growth and survival.
Originality/value
This study directly responds to the contingency approach recommendation of past studies (Anwar et al., 2022; Van Stel et al., 2021; Covin and Wales, 2019) using the logistics service and emerging economy context. It also introduces social capital and marketing capabilities as moderators.
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Marriage is often compared to a “contract.” This analogy purports to proceed from a settled concept called “contract,” under which legitimate obligations derive from consent. The…
Abstract
Marriage is often compared to a “contract.” This analogy purports to proceed from a settled concept called “contract,” under which legitimate obligations derive from consent. The analogy creates confusion when applied in the legal context. In law, “contract” refers to a broad category of legal obligation. Many legal theorists believe “contractual” enforceability should be based solely on consent. But as a matter of positive legal doctrine, consent is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish enforceability. A contract's enforceability also depends on its relationship to public welfare.
Thus the “contract” analogy does not constitute a legal justification for an approach to marriage based solely on the consent of the parties. It merely expresses a normative preference for a consent-based approach. The chapter illustrates this point using examples of current marriage-related issues, such as covenant marriage, prenuptial agreements, and same-sex marriage.
Jennifer Franczak, Robert J. Pidduck, Stephen E. Lanivich and Jintong Tang
The authors probe the relationships between country institutional support for entrepreneurship and new venture survival. Specifically, the authors unpack the nuanced influences of…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors probe the relationships between country institutional support for entrepreneurship and new venture survival. Specifically, the authors unpack the nuanced influences of entrepreneurs' perceived environmental uncertainty and their subsequent entrepreneurial behavioral profiles and how this particularly bolsters venture survival in contexts with underdeveloped institutions for entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Coleman (1990) ‘bathtub’ framework is applied to develop a model and propositions surrounding how and when emerging market entrepreneur's perceptions of their countries institutional support toward entrepreneurship can ultimately enhance new venture survival.
Findings
Entrepreneurs' interpretations of regulatory, cognitive and normative institutional support for private enterprise helps them embrace uncertainties more accurately reflective of “on the ground” realities and stimulates constructive entrepreneurial behaviors. These are critical for increasing survival prospects in characteristically turbulent, emerging market contexts that typically lack reliable formal resources for cultivating nascent ventures.
Practical implications
This paper has implications for international policymakers seeking to stimulate and sustain entrepreneurial ventures in emerging markets. The authors shed light on the practical importance of understanding the social realities and interpretations of entrepreneurs in a given country relating to their actual perceptions of support for venturing—cautioning a tendency for outsiders to over-rely on aggregated econometric indices and various national ‘doing business' rankings.
Originality/value
This study is the first to create a conceptual framework on the mechanisms of how entrepreneurs in emerging economies affect new venture survival. Drawing on Coleman's bathtub (1990), the authors develop propositional arguments for a multilevel sequential framework that considers how developing economies' country institutional profiles (CIP) influence entrepreneurs' perceptions of environmental uncertainty. Subsequently, this cultivates associated entrepreneurial behavior profiles, which ultimately enhance (inhibit) venture survival rates. Further, the authors discuss the boundary conditions of this regarding how the national culture serves to moderate each of these key relationships in both positive and negative ways.
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Paola Mancini, Andrea Marchini and Mariarosaria Simeone
This is an exploratory study on consumer information and behaviour towards green, health, local, social and environmental credentials on labels. It focusses on many dimensions of…
Abstract
Purpose
This is an exploratory study on consumer information and behaviour towards green, health, local, social and environmental credentials on labels. It focusses on many dimensions of sustainability in the food products that affect consumer choices with a dual purpose: to identify and define “sustainable consumption” behaviour in broad sense and to investigate empirically the factors affecting the real consumption behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on consumers’ understanding, motivation and use of sustainable labelling in order to understand the role sustainability information plays in the food products market.
Design/methodology/approach
Two focus groups in order to investigate consumer motivation and behaviour in-depth and to prepare the questionnaire. Identification of the outcomes that could summarize sustainable consumption combining: purchase of local products, consume only seasonal fruit, prefer products with recyclable packaging, attention to the fat content in foods, give importance to traceability and purchase products only in the place of origin. Identification of the “at risk” virtuous consumer, using a binary logistic regression approach, taking into account demographic characteristics, the food and nutrition value system, experience, knowledge, institutional factors and marketing.
Findings
Results from the focus groups are mainly in line with the empirical analysis, highlighting the key role of education in influencing consumer attitude and behaviour. Consumers give little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection and have little knowledge of environmental problems. The virtuous consumer appears to give importance to a better food nutrition value system, to pay more attention to ingredients and instructions on the label, to be more attentive to environmental and sustainable attributes, to be concerned about product quality and to be slightly influenced by brands and special offers.
Research limitations/implications
The findings from the empirical analysis confirm the results from focus groups even if it was not possible from the empirical analysis to investigate in-depth the marketing aspects concerning the food choice. This limit probably comes from the low number of observations. Further research will focus on these marketing aspects.
Practical implications
Products with sustainable attributes can become a strategic variable and allow companies to gain a competitive advantage, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises. This may encourage the development of new marketing channels based on the direct relationship between producer and the new consumer demand, increasingly sensitive to the food security issues.
Social implications
There is a potential interest and sensitiveness to having sustainable behaviour in a broad sense, but there is a lack of knowledge about how to behave to be sustainable. In the absence of binding rules, it is necessary that government promote information and campaigns to generate greater awareness on sustainability, aiming at increasing knowledge to drive the consumer’s choices. This may lead to virtuous results in terms of reducing social costs related to an unhealthy diet, food waste and unsustainable consumption.
Originality/value
The results show that despite the appearance of attention to the environment and to healthy food which is associated with this emerging critical consumer in the literature, there remains the problem of the consumer giving little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection. This is the problem of “rules of thumb” in purchasing decisions that prevail in the following situations: when consumers have an overload of information that exceeds their processing limits; when they tend to base their decision making on heuristics, focussing their choices on brands as a proxy for high-quality, product-related characteristics.
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Nicola Marinelli, Mariarosaria Simeone and Debora Scarpato
– The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the factors that affect consumer choices for both policymakers and food companies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the factors that affect consumer choices for both policymakers and food companies.
Design/methodology/approach
Four hundred questionnaires were administered in the city of Florence (Tuscany, Italy). Data analysis was carried out according to a two-step procedure in a multivariate statistical framework: in the first stage, a multiple correspondence analysis was performed; in the second step, the single-link (nearest neighbour) cluster analysis allowed three homogeneous groups of consumers to be identified on the basis of their specific socio-demographic characteristics.
Findings
Three consumer clusters were obtained: the first, “critical but non-philanthropic consumers”, who may have pathologies that require a particular diet; the second, “marginally critical consumers”, for whom freshness, the label and the assortment count for much; the third, “agnostic consumers”, who choose a product according to its origin and the price/quality relationship, while ethical aspects, health claims or information on the use are not considered as important.
Social implications
From the results it may be deduced that although recent regulations will lead to greater transparency, in many respects consumers may not be able to grasp aspects of higher quality from the label among competing products.
Originality/value
The results seem to run contrary to the trends identified in other studies with regard to critical and socially responsible production attributes. Except in cases where consumers are sensitised by the presence of food-related diseases encountered within their own family, they may not be able to grasp higher-quality aspects from the label among competing products. From the results it is evident that both educational and generational issues come into play with regard to food choices, closely linked to the media from which information is obtained.
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Mathilda van Niekerk and Melville Saayman
The aim of this paper is to investigate whether tourism awareness can be created through introducing tourism as a subject in high schools in South Africa. It also explores if…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to investigate whether tourism awareness can be created through introducing tourism as a subject in high schools in South Africa. It also explores if studying tourism as a high-school subject has an influence on the travel patterns of students and their parents, and if it stimulates students to pursue a career in the tourism industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is exploratory in nature. Based on a literature review, a questionnaire was developed and administered to 250 students with tourism as a high-school subject (research group), 250 students without tourism as a high-school subject (control group), 250 parents whose children have tourism as a high-school subject (research group) and 250 parents (control group) whose children do not have tourism as a high-school subject in South Africa.
Findings
Data revealed that introducing tourism as a high-school subject created tourism awareness among students. The travel patterns of those parents whose children studied tourism were also influenced. Results also indicated that students who studied tourism at high-school level are likely to pursue a career in the tourism industry.
Research limitations/implications
The study was conducted on learners who had been exposed to the tourism curriculum for only a year-and-a-half and therefore did not measure the full impact of the three-year curriculum. The study was also conducted in only one of the nine provinces of South Africa and the demographic location of the learners could have had an influence on the findings. More advanced statistical analysis could have been performed to increase the value of the study. The Bartlett Tests of Sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin overall measure could also have been reported. The study can be replicated in other countries, where tourism is currently being offered as a school subject to measure the effectiveness of the tourism curriculum as an awareness tool. The influence of children on their parents' travel patterns should also be further studied as it can assist in strategic development, planning and marketing of tourism attractions.
Practical implications
Introducing tourism as a high-school subject in other developing countries can be considered as a way of creating tourism awareness, and to stimulate the domestic tourism market and the tourism industry as a whole. If tourism can be introduced as a subject at a younger age students will be able to influence their parents' travel patterns and are likely to pursue a career in the tourism industry.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to measure the effectiveness of a tourism curriculum as a tourism awareness tool. It also adds to a limited body of knowledge on how children influence their parents' travel patterns. Last, it shows the effect that tourism awareness has on students in their decision to pursue a career in the tourism industry in South Africa.