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The literature on knowledge management in sustainable supply chain (KMSSC) has witnessed significant growth in the past two decades. However, a scientometric review that consolidates the primary trends and clusters within this topic has been notably absent. This paper aims to scrutinize recent advancements and identify the intellectual underpinnings of KMSSC research conducted between 2002 and 2022.

The present review employs a scientometric analysis approach via visualization maps of prolific contributions, co-citation, co-occurrence and thematic networks to examine a total of 114 articles and conference papers on KMSSC.

Emerging research frontiers and hotspots are revealed and a state-of-the-art framework of KMSSC research structure is developed.

The review provides significant implications that guide KMSSC research and better inform sustainability decisions in the supply chain context.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first review to thoroughly synthesize the intersected domain of KMSSC using scientometric analysis.

The introduction of automation for the assembly of aircraft wing box structures will require individual components to conform closely to the CAD design specification with regard to shape geometry and dimensional tolerances. Often, due to a variety of previous manufacturing processes, the 3D shape of these large components lose the accuracy of their designed dimensional specifications. Under these circumstances part‐to‐part assembly becomes tedious and it would be impossible to rely on robots to achieve precise assembly in an automated system. For this reason, variations need to be accurately quantified in order to provide a reliable prediction model in aid of any future automated assembly. This paper describes the measurement method used to record the possible variations occurring during the assembly process. The measurements were made using a laser tracker where the results are expected to offer some explanations as to the causes of the variation. The suitability of a laser tracker in a large assembly jig environment is then assessed. This study is based on the work that was carried out at BAE Systems UK, where the Airbus commercial aircraft wings are manufactured.

This paper results from research carried out to survey the various large commercial aerospace engineering component measurement systems. The commercial aircraft manufacturing industry is special due to the size of the components involved. Accuracy constraints remain very close, despite the size, and therefore accurate methods of measurement are necessary to control the quality of the final product. A survey of various current methods of measurement for such components is presented. These methods are based around three main principles: theodolites, photogrammetry, and laser technology. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of accuracy, repeatability, range and cost. It is also often necessary to consider what each technique provides in terms of data storage and analysis. Most techniques use computer‐based systems to store results and perform various calculations. These systems also have their own requirements in terms of the environment in which they are used. It is important to consider whether a particular system can be installed in an area suitable to measure the required component, as well as ensuring that the stability requirements are met. In this paper the principles and characteristics of conventional optical tooling, electronic triangulation, electronic trilateration, photogrammetry, laser trackers, and laser scanners are reviewed.

This paper aims to present a method for predicting dimensional variation in assembly processes of a wingbox structure concentrating on the assembly of skin panels to rib feet.

Finite element modelling and experimental tests are conducted on the rib structure based on the site measurement gathered from the Airbus assembly factory.

The results have shown that the simulated model has the capability of predicting to an acceptable degree of accuracy the overall geometrical variations of the ribs and skin panels, as well as the positional variations of each individual rib foot.

The authors believe that no previous research has offered a similar prediction method for large aerostructures.

Gender disparity is a global phenomenon where females outnumber male participants. It has been observed that males are the early leaver from higher education, thus reflecting a severe concern about social instability. Malaysia is a prominent example where females outnumber males in higher education. In this context, this paper aims to examine the effect of individual, social and financial factors on the higher education self-efficacy of male and female students. It develops a comprehensive understanding of gender-based decision factors in pursuing higher education.

The hypothesis was formed based on a comprehensive literature review following the hypothetico-deductive positivist approach. These hypotheses were tested based on a sample of 250 respondents. A multiple regression analysis was deployed to test the relationship between the dependent variable and its predictors.

The results suggest that male and female students’ self-efficacy depends on five determinants, i.e. family influence, peer influence, career expectancy outcome, gender roles and institutional factors. Male students tend to be influenced more by these five determinants than females. Additionally, male students with better financial backgrounds are more likely to have higher self-efficacy, whereas gender roles negatively affect male and female students’ self-efficacy for higher education.

The breakout of COVID-19 resulted in the selection of limited students in Malaysia. Due to restricted movement orders, it was impossible to reach out to the students for data collection. Future research could include a broader area to include multiple other regions of Malaysia. For a broader aspect, the study could be conducted in other areas/countries where the problem of less male participation exists.

The relationship between higher education self-efficacy is assessed with social, financial and institutional factors for male and female students. It will enable the stakeholders and policymakers to make better decisions in increasing the self-efficacy of students to attain equity in higher education institutions.

The finding of this paper will assist in increasing male participation in higher education institutions to avoid any social instability.

This paper contributes to the literature in understanding the causes of gender gap reversal, focusing on Malaysian higher education institutions. It also provides empirical evidence to look at potential factors that affect the higher education self-efficacy of male and female students.

The agriculture sector is crucial for all economies, especially the developing ones. However, agricultural production is influenced by government intervention, which outshines the significant role of good governance indicators in agricultural productivity. In addition to this, the major climate changes also posed various challenges and led to water shortages and yield losses. Thus affecting agricultural production. In this paper, we address the issue by determining the association between state governance and agricultural productivity in N-11 countries.

Panel data have been collected from 2000 to 2021 through the Governance Indicator, World Development Indicator and World Bank databases. For data analysis, the researcher has utilized the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimations.

Through ARDL estimations, it is suggested that corruption (CC), employment in agriculture (EAG), political stability and violence absence (PS), rule of law (RL), regulatory equality (RQ) and water quality (WQ) significantly impact agricultural productivity (AGP) in the long run. In the short run, the impact of RL on AGP has been significant.

This study follows the method of data collection from secondary sources, which hinders the effectiveness of this study as, on the basis of the respective data, the potential of the researcher to get specific answers to research questions has been affected. Also, this study examines the context of N-11 countries from 2000 to 2021, which exerts a geographical limitation. While exploring the association between state governance and agricultural productivity, this study neglects the internal aspects of implementing state policies in firms.

On practical grounds, the significant association demonstrated by this study encourages agricultural firms to keenly consider state policies to gain sustainable agricultural development. Moreover, this study encourages agricultural firms to efficiently follow governance policies for efficient productivity. The outcomes of the study have shown that agricultural employment and governance infrastructure can efficiently enhance agricultural productivity. Besides, as per the results, water quality also positively impacts agricultural productivity; thus, relevant steps can be taken by the agricultural sector to improve the quality of water.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to identify sources of variation in horizontal stabilizer assembly using FEA (finite element analysis) and PCA (principal component analysis).

The horizontal stabilizer is assembled by long and thin‐walled deformable aluminum components. Part‐to‐part assembly of these compliant components regularly causes difficulties associated with dimensional variations. Finite element modeling and PCA are employed to predict the propagation of variation from edge to horizontal stabilizer.

The variation analysis combined with pattern fitting method is demonstrated in a case study of the horizontal stabilizer assembly system and good performance is obtained. The results have shown that the FEA and PCA method has the capability of predicting, to an acceptable degree of accuracy, the overall geometrical variations propagation of the edges and trailing edge.

The results of this research will enhance the understanding of the compliant components deformation in assembly, and help to systematically improve the precision control efficiency in civil aircraft assembly.

Flexible materials are used extensively in a wide range of industrial applications including the manufacture and assembly of garment and footwear products, the packaging industry and aircraft manufacturing. These applications are often extremely labour intensive requiring fast and accurate manipulation of materials by skilled human operators. This has resulted in numerous international research and development efforts to automate certain handling and manipulation processes involving flexible materials. Much of the research has been inspired by real industrial problems, and thus has been mainly sponsored by industry. A variety of innovative techniques and methods have emerged either addressing specific industrial problems, or suggesting a number of generic solutions. This paper closely examines the international research effort of automatic manipulation of flexible materials through a classification of workpieces in terms of their broad geometric shape, industrial applications, and individual processes.

Tolerance simulation’s reliability depends on the concordance between the input probability distribution and the real variation. The prescribed clamp force introduced changes in parts’ variation, which should be reflected in the input probability distribution for the tolerance simulation. The paper aims to present a tolerance analysis process of the composite wingbox assembly considering the preloading-modified distribution and especially focuses on the spring-in deviation of the thin-walled C-section composite beam (TC2B).

Based on finite element analysis model of TC2B, the preloading-modified probability distribution function (PDF) of the spring-in deviation is obtained. Thickness variations of the TC2B are obtained from the data of the downscaled composite wingbox. These variations are input to the computer-aided tolerance tools, and the final assembly variations are obtained. The assembly of the downscaled wingbox illustrates the effect of preloading on the probability distribution of the spring-in deviation.

The results have shown that the final assembly variations estimated with the modified probability distribution is more reliable than the variation of the initial normal distribution.

The tolerance simulation work presented in the paper will enhance the understanding of the composite parts assembling with spring-in deviations, improve the chance to choose assembling processes that allow specifications to be met and help with tolerance allocation in composites assembly.

The purpose of this study is to design and optimize copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells.

A novel bi-layer CIGS thin film solar cell based on SnS is designed. To improve the performance of the CIGS based thin film solar cell a tin sulfide (SnS) layer is added to the structure, as back surface field and second absorbing layer. Defect recombination centers have a significant effect on the performance of CIGS solar cells by changing recombination rate and charge density. Therefore, performance of the proposed structure is investigated in two stages successively, considering typical and maximum reported trap density for both CIGS and SnS. To achieve valid results, the authors use previously reported experimental parameters in the simulations.

First by considering the typical reported trap density for both SnS and CIGS, high efficiency of 36%, was obtained. Afterward maximum reported trap densities of 1 × 10¹⁹ and 5.6 × 10¹⁵cm⁻³ were considered for SnS and CIGS, respectively. The efficiency of the optimized cell is 27.17% which is achieved in CIGS and SnS thicknesses of cell are 0.3 and 0.1 µm, respectively. Therefore, even in this case, the obtained efficiency is well greater than previous structures while the absorbing layer thickness is low.

Having results similar to practical CIGS solar cells, the impact of the defects of SnS and CIGS layers was investigated. It was found that affixing SnS between CIGS and Mo layers causes a significant improvement in the efficiency of CIGS thin-film solar cell.