Alexander Spieske, Maximilian Gebhardt, Matthias Kopyto, Hendrik Birkel and Evi Hartmann
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unveiled resilience deficits in supply chains. Scholars and practitioners aim to identify supply chain resilience (SCRES) measures…
Abstract
Purpose
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unveiled resilience deficits in supply chains. Scholars and practitioners aim to identify supply chain resilience (SCRES) measures suitable for this unique disruption; however, empirical evidence on a pandemic's specific characteristics, resulting challenges, and suitable countermeasures is scarce.
Design/methodology/approach
A single-case study on an automotive supply chain network (ASCN), including eight nodes, was conducted. Based on current research and interviews with 35 experts, characteristic pandemic challenges for the ASCN were identified. Moreover, promising SCRES measures were determined along the most prominent SCRES levers. The findings lead to five central propositions and advance organizational information processing theory in the context of SCRES.
Findings
This study’s results confirm unique pandemic characteristics along the supply chain disruption's duration, severity, propagation, and volatility. The resulting unprecedented challenges made the ASCN apply novel SCRES measures, particularly regarding collaboration and risk management culture. However, well-known visibility and flexibility strategies were also suitable. Overall, agility and collaboration measures showed the highest capacity to address characteristic pandemic challenges. A lack of preparedness impeded some measures' application, calling for enhanced proactive risk management following the pandemic.
Originality/value
This paper addresses several research calls by providing in-depth empirical evidence on hitherto conceptually researched pandemic characteristics, challenges, and suitable SCRES measures from a network perspective. The study uncovers the different perceptions of individual tiers, emphasizing the need to analyze supply chain disruptions from multiple angles.
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Maximilian Hugo Kunkel, Andreas Gebhardt, Khumbulani Mpofu and Stephan Kallweit
This paper aims to establish a standardized, quick, reliable and cost-efficient method of quality control (QC) in metal powder bed fusion (PBFM) based on process monitoring data.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to establish a standardized, quick, reliable and cost-efficient method of quality control (QC) in metal powder bed fusion (PBFM) based on process monitoring data.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on destructive testing results that emerged from a statistical investigation on powder bed fusion process exceeding reproducibility of mechanical properties, it was investigated if the generated monitoring data from a concept laser machine allows reliable deductions on resulting mechanical properties of the manufactured specimens.
Findings
The application of machine learning on generated melt pool images, under-recognition of destructive testing results, enables enhanced pattern recognition. The generated computational model successfully classified 9,280 unseen layer images by 98.9 per cent accuracy. This finding offers an automated approach to quality control within PBFM.
Originality/value
To the authors knowledge, it is the first time that machine learning has been applied for the purpose of QC in additive manufacturing. The ability of deep convolutional neural networks to recognize patterns, which are imperceptible to the human eye, shows high potential to facilitate activities of QC and to minimize QC-related costs and throughput times. The achieved processing speed for image analyses also points a way for future developments of self-corrective PBFM systems.
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Katrin Wudy, Maximilian Drexler, Lydia Lanzl and Dietmar Drummer
The thermal history during laser exposure determines part properties in selective laser sintering (SLS). The purpose of this study is to introduce a new measurement technique…
Abstract
Purpose
The thermal history during laser exposure determines part properties in selective laser sintering (SLS). The purpose of this study is to introduce a new measurement technique based on a CO2 laser unit combined with a high-speed DCS. A first comparison of the thermal history during laser exposure measured with Laser-high-speed-(HS)-differential scanning calorimetry-(DSC) and in SLS process is shown.
Design/methodology/approach
This Laser-HS-DSC allows an imitation of the SLS-process in a very small scale, as the sample is directly heated by a CO2 laser. For this study, the laser power and the impact time is varied for determining temperature and achieved heating rates. Consequently, the temperature levels measured by the Laser-HS-DSC are compared with measurements in SLS-process.
Findings
The influence of laser power and impact time on resulting maximum temperatures und heating rates during laser exposure are investigated. With increasing laser power and impact time the maximum temperature rises up to approximately 450°C without material degradation. The heating rate increases up to an impact time of 3 ms and stays almost equal for higher durations.
Research limitations/implications
The Laser-HS-DSC experiments are based on few particles limiting a complete comparison with SLS process. In SLS, one volume element is exposed several times. In this study the PA12 material was exposed only once.
Originality/value
For the first time, laser sintering experiments can be transferred to a laboratory scale to analyze the influence of laser exposure on resulting temperature field during laser exposure without superimposing effects.
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Mark Trappmann, Bernhard Christoph, Juliane Achatz and Claudia Wenzig
This paper aims to introduce a new large‐scale panel study (“PASS”) for research on the labour market, the welfare state and poverty that combines a sample of 6,000 recipient…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to introduce a new large‐scale panel study (“PASS”) for research on the labour market, the welfare state and poverty that combines a sample of 6,000 recipient households with an equally large sample of the general population.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors show how research goals and the specific population of the survey are accounted for in a tailored survey design.
Findings
The authors point the reader to new research potential created by the new study. The new potential is mainly derived from the sampling design (large recipient sample combined with a population sample), the direct measurement of poverty by a deprivation index, the detailed measurement of the migratory background, additional information (like attitudes, search intensity) for models of recipiency dynamics, and the linkage of the survey data with administrative data.
Originality/value
The data set described fills a major gap in the data‐infrastructure available for labour‐market research. From a methodological point of view it presents an innovative sampling design.
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The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that systematically captures the ambiguity of different understandings about science, the university and its relation to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that systematically captures the ambiguity of different understandings about science, the university and its relation to society, while conceptualising sustainability. Following Corley and Gioia (2004, p. 174) on identity ambiguity and change, it seems pivotal to better understanding the ambiguity of sustainability in relation to academic cultures and university models to manage the transition more effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
The nature of this paper’s objectives as well as the wide thematic scope leads to the need of exploring a broad knowledge base. This was best addressed by an exploratory literature review with data collection from primary and secondary sources. The data was interpreted through a hermeneutic analysis and resulted in the inductive development of first categories and goals (further referred to as category development). In addition, a multi-method approach further adjusted the categories and raised their empirical validity and social robustness.
Findings
Implementing sustainability involves dealing with a double bound ambiguity due to organisational and individual identity reasons. Five fields of ambiguity were developed to systemise the conceptualisation of a sustainable university along contradictory understandings of science, the university and sustainability. These fields offer a framework to qualitatively assess the degree of sustainability in higher education institutions. Arguments for and against sustainability in universities have been categorised around five criteria and associated to the fields of ambiguity. The finding indicates that meaning in organisational change management for sustainability can be considered both, a potential driver and barrier for a sustainability transition in universities.
Research limitations/implications
This paper exclusively focussed on the internal perspective and left aside any external factors that influence the sustainability transition, such as political measures to stimulate sustainability in higher education. In addition, the operational dimension of a sustainable university has been neglected, which is by all means a necessary and important aspect. The interrelation of the identified goals has not been discussed.
Originality/value
This paper focusses on the conceptualisation and understanding of sustainability within the institution, an often-forgotten but fundamental aspect of implementation. The fields of ambiguity are designed to be applied for assessing the “degree of maturity” of a sustainable university. The fields reveal the different understandings about the role, the mission and the governance of universities, stemming from competing preferences about goals and their assumed relations by various stakeholders of a higher education institutions. The five fields are not an attempt to resolve the hidden contradictions and tensions in a sustainability transition, but to state them clearly to anticipate resistances and conflicts that hinder the development of a shared understanding.