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The drum‐buffer‐rope/buffer management approach radically changes the content of production management practice, research and pedagogy. Documents the major impacts that drum‐buffer‐rope has on production management study and practice. In summary it provides a framework which distils the complexities of material flow into an understandable format; reduces drastically the number of resources that must be explicitly scheduled; warns of potential disruption to the production plan; controls lead time; guides continuous improvement efforts; offers a significantly improved alternative to the kanban production system; aligns local resource performance measures with global organizational performance; and makes traditional job shop capacity management techniques obsolete.

Direct product profitability (DPP) is a performance measure that was designed to show each SKU′s contribution to profit. Used by food retailers to assist with shelf‐space allocation and pricing decisions, DPP has been adopted only very slowly since it was first implemented in 1979. Operators cite DPP′s labour‐intensity and complexity as barriers to its use. Shows that, besides being difficult to implement, DPP distorts a product′s contribution to profit. Drawing from the theory of constraints, a systems management philosophy, develops measures that accurately reflect a product′s contribution to profit and compares these to DPP using data from a major supermarket chain. The measures are simple and can be implemented easily on existing space management systems.

John Brown, a colonial American merchant‐adventurer, was unwilling to settle for the status quo. The Blackstone Canal typifies his interest in anticipating – and even precipitating – change so as to promote the growth of business. Measured in terms of creativity and innovation, his management style could probably benefit industry today.

There is a puzzle at the heart of the history of the English criminal trial. Defendants accused of serious crimes were denied counsel, but not defendants accused of minor crimes. Why? Sir William Blackstone could find no explanation and denounced the rule as contrary to the “face of reason.” This article proffers an answer. The rule is traced to the thirteenth century and a strong view of the royal prerogative. Royal interests were at stake, and counsel would not be permitted against the king acting ex officio. The rule seems to have been distinctly English; it does not appear to have been transplanted from the Roman-canon law. The rule continued in England, bolstered by new justifications, long after its original rationale had been forgotten.

This case study draws on interviews conducted with officials from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), City of Woonsocket and Town of North Smithfield. Additionally, it pulls from relevant legal documents, recordings and minutes from meetings of the Woonsocket City Council and North Smithfield Town Council, City Council resolutions, state legislation and local press coverage.

From 2012–2017, the communities of Woonsocket and North Smithfield engaged in a protracted dispute concerning wastewater disposal. For 30 years, the two jurisdictions had maintained a signed service agreement. Following its expiration; however, Woonsocket imposed a new host fee on North Smithfield. Woonsocket needed to upgrade the facility to comply with mandates from the RI DEM. Over the next five years, leaders from both jurisdictions vociferously fought over the new fee. At the same time, leaders within communities experienced their own divisions. This case study highlights the challenges that decision-makers faced in both communities.

This case is appropriate for graduate and executive level courses in environmental policy, communication and leadership.

Nancy MacLean’s book, Democracy in Chains, raised questions about James M. Buchanan’s commitment to democracy. This chapter investigates the relationship of classical liberalism in general and of Buchanan in particular to democratic theory. Contrary to the simplistic classical liberal juxtaposition of “coercion vs. consent,” there have been from Antiquity onward voluntary contractarian defenses of non-democratic government and even slavery – all little noticed by classical liberal scholars who prefer to think of democracy as just “government by the consent of the governed” and slavery as being inherently coercive. Historically, democratic theory had to go beyond that simplistic notion of democracy to develop a critique of consent-based non-democratic government, for example, the Hobbesian pactum subjectionis. That critique was based firstly on the distinction between contracts or constitutions of alienation (translatio) versus delegation (concessio). Then, the contracts of alienation were ruled out based on the theory of inalienable rights that descends from the reformation doctrine of inalienability of conscience down through the Enlightenment to modern times in the abolitionist and democratic movements. While he developed no theory of inalienability, the mature Buchanan explicitly allowed only a constitution of delegation, contrary to many modern classical liberals or libertarians who consider the choice between consent-based democratic or non-democratic governments (e.g., private cities or shareholder states) to be a pragmatic one. But Buchanan seems to not even realize that his at-most delegation dictum would also rule out the employer–employee or human rental contract which is a contract of alienation “within the scope of the employment.”

Although there are contradictory reports in regard to the tinned meat scandal in America, there is not the least doubt that an appalling condition of things prevails, and to the ordinary person who knows little or nothing of the extent to which food adulteration and other such malpractices exist in this country as well as elsewhere, such revelations as those which have recently been made by the daily press must come as a shock. To those whose duty it is to acquaint themselves with the nature and quality of the food supply of the people, the revelations are not so startling. The layman would hardly believe that the cases of obscure poisoning which repeatedly occur, sometimes resulting in death, and sometimes producing more or less severe attacks of illness, are largely due to the use of bad tinned foods. According to various reports from reliable sources, some of the practices in vogue at the Chicago packing houses are too disgusting to be given publicity to, but the malpractices which have been revealed in connection with the manufacture of tinned meat products, such as the use of diseased carcases, filthy offal and sweepings, putrid and decomposed meat artificially coloured and preserved with boric acid or some other chemical preservative, of potted ham made from mouldy flesh, of sausages made from the sweepings of the packing houses where it is the habit of the employees to expectorate freely on the floor, will tend to make people refuse to purchase any kind of tinned food, and unfortunately the manufacturer of good and wholesome products is sure to suffer. As might have been anticipated, denials as to the allegations made have been put forward and circulated, no doubt at the instance of persons more or less interested in the maintenance of the practices referred to. It has been alleged that protection is afforded to the consumer by certain labels, which read, “Quality Guaranteed, Government Inspected,” but it appears from recent official reports that this statement in reality means nothing at all, and affords no guarantee whatever—which is precisely what we should have expected. The absurdity and criminality of permitting the admixture of chemical preservatives with articles of food are well illustrated by these exposures, and we have more justification than ever in asking that our own Government authorities will make up their minds to take the action which has so long and so forcibly been urged upon them with respect to this form of adulteration.

This article critiques the major works of Jeremy Bentham as they apply to three areas: public policy, social reform and administrative theory. The article concludes that jeremy Bentham’s contributions to all three areas has been significant, but that in the area of administrative theory he has not received the recognition he deserves. The article points out that Jeremy Bentham developed a complete theory of administration more than a century before such figures as Henri Fayol and Luther Gulick.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.