Alessandro Tufano, Riccardo Accorsi and Riccardo Manzini
This paper addresses the trade-off between asset investment and food safety in the design of a food catering production plant. It analyses the relationship between the quality…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper addresses the trade-off between asset investment and food safety in the design of a food catering production plant. It analyses the relationship between the quality decay of cook-warm products, the logistics of the processes and the economic investment in production machines.
Design/methodology/approach
A weekly cook-warm production plan has been monitored on-field using temperature sensors to estimate the quality decay profile of each product. A multi-objective optimisation model is proposed to (1) minimise the number of resources necessary to perform cooking and packing operations or (2) to maximise the food quality of the products. A metaheuristic simulated annealing algorithm is introduced to solve the model and to identify the Pareto frontier of the problem.
Findings
The packaging buffers are identified as the bottleneck of the processes. The outcome of the algorithms highlights that a small investment to design bigger buffers results in a significant increase in the quality with a smaller food loss.
Practical implications
This study models the production tasks of a food catering facility to evaluate their criticality from a food safety perspective. It investigates the tradeoff between the investment cost of resources processing critical tasks and food safety of finished products.
Social implications
The methodology applies to the design of cook-warm production. Catering companies use cook-warm production to serve school, hospitals and companies. For this reason, the application of this methodology leads to the improvement of the quality of daily meals for a large number of people.
Originality/value
The paper introduces a new multi-objective function (asset investment vs food quality) proposing an original metaheuristic to address this tradeoff in the food catering industry. Also, the methodology is applied and validated in the design of a new food production facility.
Details
Keywords
Rozaimah Zainudin, Nurul Shahnaz Mahdzan and Ming-Yee Yeap
The concept of “buy now pay later” leads Malaysian Generation Y (Gen Y) to excessively use their credit cards for spending. To gauge the extent of this worrisome scenario, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of “buy now pay later” leads Malaysian Generation Y (Gen Y) to excessively use their credit cards for spending. To gauge the extent of this worrisome scenario, the purpose of this paper is to attempt to investigate the factors, including credit attitudes, knowledge on credit card, materialism, social norm and self-efficacy, that influence credit card misuse amongst Gen Y in Malaysia.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have collected responses from a total of 501 respondents in two urban areas in Malaysia and estimated six multiple regression models to test five hypotheses.
Findings
The results suggest that credit card knowledge and self-efficacy are negatively related to credit card misuse amongst Gen Y in Malaysia. In contrast, positive relationships were found to exist between credit card attitudes, materialism and social norm and the dependent variable.
Research limitations/implications
In this study, the authors limit the data collection to the two biggest urban areas in Malaysia, namely, Klang Valley and Ipoh.
Practical implications
For the regulator’s perspective, the results can be used to understand the alarming indebtedness behaviour amongst working members of Gen Y and outline appropriate and effective policies to reduce their serious indebtedness. Financial service providers, however, can collaborate with regulators to curb credit card misuse amongst Gen Y, so that the latter can avoid high bad debt from line of credit facilities and bankruptcy.
Originality/value
The study’s findings will further enrich the existing literature on the factors affecting the credit card misuse, especially for the unique Gen Y cohort in Malaysia.
Details
Keywords
Ani Caroline Grigion Potrich and Kelmara Mendes Vieira
Financial literacy has been recognized as a key competency. However, there are some gaps such as the relationship with other behavioral factors. Thus, this paper aims to develop a…
Abstract
Purpose
Financial literacy has been recognized as a key competency. However, there are some gaps such as the relationship with other behavioral factors. Thus, this paper aims to develop a model that would be able to identify the integrate effect of financial literacy on the behavioral factors: materialism, compulsive buying and propensity to indebtedness.
Design/methodology/approach
The study investigated 2,487 individuals in Brazil. For an analysis, the authors used confirmatory factorial analysis and structural equations modeling and six research hypotheses.
Findings
The main findings showed that the impact of financial literacy on compulsive buying behavior was the greatest of the direct relationships proposed, as well as the total effects of financial literacy on behavioral aspects.
Practical implications
The outcomes of this study are important for the development of public policies and to other interested agents, as financial literacy goes beyond the fact that it impacts on the individuals’ financial health only and also helps those who suffer from other psychosocial behaviors.
Originality/value
This study is unique and innovative, to the extent that it measures the actual direct and indirect impact of financial literacy on other behavioral factors, which have been so far analyzed in separate. It concluded that financial literacy has much more significant impacts than other academic studies have shown, because under the academic point of view, the central focus up to now has been identifying only its impact on other behaviors.