Amir Karbassi Yazdi, Peter Fernandes Wanke, Thomas Hanne and Eleonora Bottani
This paper aims to assess and prioritize manufacturing companies in the healthcare industry based on critical success factors (CSFs) of their reverse logistics (RL). The research…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess and prioritize manufacturing companies in the healthcare industry based on critical success factors (CSFs) of their reverse logistics (RL). The research involves seven medical device companies located in the Tehran Province, Iran.
Design/methodology/approach
To identify and prioritize companies based on CSFs of RL, the study proposes a three-phase decision-making framework that integrates the Delphi method, the best-worst method (BWM) and the Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) method with Z-numbers. The weights required for this method are obtained by a variant of the BWM based on Z-numbers, denoted as Z-numbers Best-Worst Method, or ZBWM. Since decision-makers face an uncertain environment, Z-numbers, which are a kind of fuzzy numbers, are applied.
Findings
First, after customizing CSFs by the Delphi method and obtaining 15 CSFs of RL, these are ranked by the hybrid BWM-ARAS method with Z-numbers. Results reveal which company appears to perform best with respect to their RL implementations. Based on this result, healthcare device companies should choose the highest priority company based on the selected RL CSFs and results from using the BWM-ARAS method with Z-numbers.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper is using a hybrid ARAS-BWM method based on Z-numbers. Each of these methods has some merits compared to other similar methods. The combination of these methods contributes a new approach for prioritizing companies based on RL CSFs with high accuracy and reliability.
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Amir Karbassi Yazdi, Thomas Hanne and Juan Carlos Osorio Gómez
The aim of this paper is to find and prioritise multiple critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of LSS in the oil and gas industry.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to find and prioritise multiple critical success factors (CSFs) for the implementation of LSS in the oil and gas industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a preselected list of possible CFSs, experts are involved in screening them with the Delphi method. As a result, 22 customised CSFs are selected. To prioritise these CSFs, the step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) method is applied to find weights corresponding to the decision-making preferences. Since the regular permutation-based weight assessment can be classified as NP-hard, the problem is solved by a metaheuristic method. For this purpose, a genetic algorithm (GA) is used.
Findings
The resulting prioritisation of CSFs helps companies find out which factors have a high priority in order to focus on them. The less important factors can be neglected and thus do not require limited resources.
Research limitations/implications
Only a specific set of methods have been considered.
Practical implications
The resulting prioritisation of CSFs helps companies find out which factors have a high priority in order to focus on them.
Social implications
The methodology supports respective evaluations in general.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the very limited research on the implementation of LSS in the oil and gas industry, and, in addition, it suggests the usage of SWARA, a permutation method and a GA, which have not yet been researched, for the prioritisation of CSFs of LSS.
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Thomas Berker, Hanne Henriksen, Thomas Edward Sutcliffe and Ruth Woods
This study aims to convey lessons learned from two sustainability initiatives at Norway’s largest university. This contributes to knowledge-based discussions of how future…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to convey lessons learned from two sustainability initiatives at Norway’s largest university. This contributes to knowledge-based discussions of how future, sustainable higher education institutions (HEIs) infrastructures should be envisioned and planned if the fundamental uncertainty of the future development of learning, researching and teaching is acknowledged.
Design/methodology/approach
This study was submitted on 24 January 2023 and revised on 14 September 2023. HEIs, particularly when they are engaged in research activities, have a considerable environmental footprint. At the same time, HEIs are the main producers and disseminators of knowledge about environmental challenges and their employees have a high awareness of the urgent need to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. In this study, the gap between knowledge and environmental performance is addressed as a question of infrastructural change, which is explored in two case studies.
Findings
The first case study presents limitations of ambitious, top-down sustainability planning for HEI infrastructures: support from employees and political support are central for this strategy to succeed, but both could not be secured in the case presented leading to an abandonment of all sustainability ambitions. The second case study exposes important limitations of a circular approach: regulatory and legal barriers were found against a rapid and radical circular transformation, but also more fundamental factors such as the rationality of an institutional response to uncertainty by rapid cycles of discarding the old and investing in new equipment and facilities.
Research limitations/implications
Being based on qualitative methods, the case studies do not claim representativity for HEIs worldwide or even in Norway. Many of the factors described are contingent on their specific context. The goal, instead, is to contribute to learning by presenting an in-depth and context-sensitive report on obstacles encountered in two major sustainability initiatives.
Originality/value
Research reporting on sustainability initiatives too often focuses descriptively on the plans or reports the successes while downplaying problems and failures. This study deviates from this widespread practice by analysing reasons for failure informed by a theoretical frame (infrastructural change). Moreover, the juxtaposition of two cases within the same context shows the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to infrastructural change particularly clearly.
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Thomas Reum and Hannes Toepfer
The purpose of this paper is to show the applicability of a discrete Hodge operator in the context of the De Rham cohomology to bicomplex-valued electromagnetic wave propagation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show the applicability of a discrete Hodge operator in the context of the De Rham cohomology to bicomplex-valued electromagnetic wave propagation problems. It was applied in the finite element method (FEM) to get a higher accuracy through conformal discretization. Therewith, merely the primal mesh is needed to discretize the full system of Maxwell equations.
Design/methodology/approach
At the beginning, the theoretical background is presented. The bicomplex number system is used as a geometrical algebra to describe three-dimensional electromagnetic problems. Because we treat rotational field problems, Whitney edge elements are chosen in the FEM to realize a conformal discretization. Next, numerical simulations regarding practical wave propagation problems are performed and compared with the common FEM approach using the Helmholtz equation.
Findings
Different field problems of three-dimensional electromagnetic wave propagation are treated to present the merits and shortcomings of the method, which calculates the electric and magnetic field at the same spatial location on a primal mesh. A significant improvement in accuracy is achieved, whereas fewer essential boundary conditions are necessary. Furthermore, no numerical dispersion is observed.
Originality/value
A novel Hodge operator, which acts on bicomplex-valued cotangential spaces, is constructed and discretized as an edge-based finite element matrix. The interpretation of the proposed geometrical algebra in the language of the De Rham cohomology leads to a more comprehensive viewpoint than the classical treatment in FEM. The presented paper may motivate researchers to interpret the form of number system as a degree of freedom when modeling physical effects. Several relationships between physical quantities might be inherently implemented in such an algebra.
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Thomas Reum and Hannes Toepfer
The purpose of this paper is to present the advantageous applicability of the bicomplex analysis in the context of the Finite Element Method (FEM). This method can be applied for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the advantageous applicability of the bicomplex analysis in the context of the Finite Element Method (FEM). This method can be applied for wave propagation problems in various environments.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the bicomplex number system is introduced and accordingly the differential equation for time-harmonic Maxwell’s equations in homogeneous media is derived in detail. Besides that, numerical simulations of wave propagation are performed and compared to the traditional approach based on classical FEM related to the Helmholtz equation. The appropriate error norm is investigated for different discretizations.
Findings
The results show that the use of bicomplex analysis in FEM leads to the higher accuracy of the electromagnetic field determination compared to the traditional Helmholtz approach. By using the bicomplex-valued formulation, the complex-valued electric and magnetic fields can be found directly and no additional FEM calculations are necessary to get the whole field.
Originality/value
The direct bicomplex formulation overcomes the use of the second order derivatives, which leads to the higher accuracy. In general, accurate calculations of the wave propagation in FEM is still an open problem and the approach described in this paper is a contribution to this class of problems.
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Melanie Schiemer, Thomas Reum and Hannes Toepfer
The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative modeling approach in terms of the determination of a physically equivalent circuit model for one-dimensional (1D) planar…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative modeling approach in terms of the determination of a physically equivalent circuit model for one-dimensional (1D) planar metamaterials in the high-frequency regime, without a postprocessing optimization procedure. Thereby, an efficient implementation of physical relationships is aimed.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, a method based on quasi-stationary simulations and mathematical conversions to derive the values for a physically equivalent circuit model is proposed. Because the electromagnetic coupling mechanisms are investigated in detail, a simplification for the considered multiconductor transmission line structure is achieved.
Findings
The results show that the proposed modeling approach is an efficient and physically meaningful alternative to classical full-wave simulation techniques for the investigated inhomogeneous transmission line structure in both the time domain as well as in the frequency domain. In the course of this, the effort is reduced while a comparable accuracy is maintained, whereby specific coupling mechanisms are considered in circuit simulations.
Originality/value
The process to obtain information about physically interpretable lumped element values for a given structure or to determine a layout for known ones is simplified with the aid of the proposed approach. An advantageous adaption of the presented procedure to other areas of application is well conceivable.
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Arne Schuhbert, Hannes Thees and Harald Pechlaner
The below-average innovative capacity of the tourism sector raises the question on the potentials of digital business ecosystems (DBEs) to overcome these shortages at a…
Abstract
Purpose
The below-average innovative capacity of the tourism sector raises the question on the potentials of digital business ecosystems (DBEs) to overcome these shortages at a destination level – especially within a smart city environment. Using the example of the German Capital Berlin, this article aims to discuss both the possibilities and inhibitors of innovative knowledge-creation by building scenarios on one specific design option: the integration of digital deep learning (DL) functionalities and traditional organizational learning (OL) processes.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the qualitative GABEK-method, major characteristics of a DBE as resource-, platform- and innovation systems are analyzed toward their interactions with the construction of basic action models (as the basic building blocks of knowledge).
Findings
Against the background of the research findings, two scenarios are discussed for future evolution of the Berlin DBE, one building on cultural emulation as a trigger for optimized DL functionalities and one following the idea of cultural engineering supported by DL functionalities. Both scenarios focus specifically on the identified systemic inhibitors of innovative capabilities.
Research limitations/implications
While this study highlights the potential of the GABEK method to analyze mental models, separation of explicit and latent models still remains challenging – so does the reconstruction of higher order mental models which require a combined take on interview techniques in the future.
Originality/value
The resulting scenarios innovatively combine concepts from OL theory with the concept of DBE, thus indicating possible pathways into a tourism future where the limitations of human learning capacities could be compensated through the targeted support of general artificial intelligence (AI).
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Daniel Hanne and Martin Zeller
We used the preceding definition to introduce our original article on resources in technology transfer that appeared in the fall 1994 issue of this publication. The emphasis is on…
Abstract
We used the preceding definition to introduce our original article on resources in technology transfer that appeared in the fall 1994 issue of this publication. The emphasis is on technology transfer as a process, a series of interconnected events along a spectrum, leading from the discovery of a technology with potential value conceived in one institution up through its ultimate use by another institution. Naturally the process is frequently not a smooth one. Obstacles arise at many points along the way. These include such problems as lack of funding (by either or both parties to the process), lack of a champion to promote the technology (again in either or both parties to the process), cultural barriers within organizations, including the “not invented here” syndrome, impatience on the part of management to see quick results when it may not be possible to produce them, and lack of good information upon which to base decisions about the discovery, acquisition, adaptation, and use of technology. Clearly the technology transfer process is often expensive, protracted, and difficult.
Daniel Hanne and Martin Zeller
The process by which technological innovations developed in one institution are discovered, acquired, and adapted for use by another institution.
Tourism is one of the upcoming service industry in India with high potentials for future growth, particularly in rural areas. Many potential barriers are affecting the growth of…
Abstract
Purpose
Tourism is one of the upcoming service industry in India with high potentials for future growth, particularly in rural areas. Many potential barriers are affecting the growth of tourism in rural India. Therefore, it is essential to explore and prioritize the barriers to tourism growth in rural India.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative and quantitative responses from “16” experts related to tourism and hospitality management from central India are collected for this study. An integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) based framework is adopted to identify and relate significant barriers to tourism growth in India.
Findings
The result of the study identified many significant barriers and their importance to tourism growth in rural India.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study add to the knowledge base of tourism research in line with the previous literature. This study offers an in-depth understanding of barriers focusing on rural tourism growth and devising both the plan of action and the suggestive measures in dealing with rural tourism.
Originality/value
The study provides a robust framework by integrating Interpretive Structural Modelling(ISM) and Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to explore and prioritizing the critical barriers to rural tourism growth in India. The results of this study can help the decision-maker to fundamentally improve the economy of India through the growth of rural tourism.