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Solar Cold Chain Optimization Research – An Integrated Multidisciplinary Project Agenda
No full textCold supply chain facilities are essential to the producers and suppliers of perishablecommodities especially for farmers and fisheries to protect their agricultural and fish productsfor a long period during transportation from origin to destination. The traditional ‘Solution’ hasbeen put in place for small Cold Storage facilities connected to the Grid or running from DieselGenerators – these though are dependent on stable electricity and in the case of Diesel poweredit is expensive to maintain and run and have an environmental impact. Solar Powered ColdChain through combined developments in battery technology, can provide uninterrupted ColdStorage and Cold Chain solutions that are economic to operate, environmentally friendly, andable to be located in rural places where electricity supplies cannot be relied on. It is observedthat there is a research gap in practical and applied research in the area of fully integrated SolarCold Chains. The research proposal highlights the opportunities associated with Solar PoweredCold Chain, particularly the positive economic impact that can deliver to the actual farmers andfishermen that grow and catch foodstuffs – enabling larger amounts of income to be earned andretained in the rural economies. The research provides the idea of adopting and managing SolarCold Chain facilities for perishable commodities like farming and fisheries in developingcountries through its systematic analysis using ABCD framewor
The Post COVID-19 World: Efforts Needed to Build Back a More Resilient Society
No full textThe first half of the year 2020 will be well remembered and recollected by historians,researchers, thinkers over the years for the disruption caused the world over by the coronavirus pandemic. The largest economies of the world were on lockdown to contain the virus. Itpitted the whole of humanity against the virus. There has been severe irretraceable damage toeconomic and human health, wealth and prosperity. These histories of pandemics that haveamputated nations over the years have also seen different measures that have been taken up toarrest the spread of the pandemics. Some of these measures are isolation, quarantine,confinement and more significantly nationwide or region wise lockdown. These measureshave a severe impact on the social, political and economic facets of the nation/nations. PostCOVID-19 there will be a lot of lessons to learn and pick up from and the impact this virusand measures are taken to contain its spread has had on the nation. This paper is intended tolook at living communities and some important dimensions that we believe need attention to create a minimally disruptive ecosystem to sustain such pandemics in the near future
Optimal Category Mix in Multi-Category Retailing – Insights from an Experiment
No full textIn brick-and-mortar retailing format, retailers need to ensure minimum level of inventorydisplayed at each store for each category irrespective of the revenue or profit generated by aparticular category. It is observed that majority of bricks-and-mortar retailers in India assume;(a) existing category mix is ideal for their stores, (b) any modification in the existing categorymix could possibly lead to loss of sale of an existing category, (c) it is preferred to havecategories generating higher average transaction values and most importantly,(d) categorieswith lower average selling price products and generating lower average transaction valuesnegatively impact store’s revenue. Such assumptions and widely followed practice havecreated a predisposition and mindset in store managers and they believe that, their storedelivers revenue and profit to the best of its potential with the existing category mix. In thisresearch, we have analysed the existing category mix of a select retailer, attempted to alter theexisting category mix through an experiment and evaluated change in (a) category levelprofitability, and (b) overall store profitability
Extending the Margin of Safety Concept to Brick-and-Mortar Retailing in India (MoSR-b)
No full textThe Margin of Safety (MoS) concept is predominantly used in Investment, Accounting, Structural Engineering, and Medicine domains of study. Irrespective of the domain of study the MoS concept plays a crucial role in accounting for any uncertainty. We could simply assert that the concept of MoS is relevant and necessary for brick-and-mortar (B&M) retailers in India. In the context of B&M retailing we define MoS as the level of immunity developed by a B&M retailer over unexpected short-term market disruptions such as (a) the shutdown of specific locality forced by political parties or other organizations; (b) entry of new competitors in a catchment; (c) lucrative offers floated by competitors in the catchment, etc., and long-term market disruptions such as (a) lockdown of a locality owing to public health safety measures (for instance, Covid-19 lockdown); (b) shutdown of a locality for civil and infrastructural development works; (c) entry of new retailing formats (for instance, Online stores), etc. In this paper, we have developed a conceptual framework (MoSR-b) that would enable B&M retailers in India to develop a margin of safety to overcome short and long-term market disruptions and uncertainties. In developing the MoSR-b, we have adopted recommendations from existing literature that are known and suitable for Indian retailing in the context of MoS, in addition to identifying (i) new elements capable of developing the MoS, and (ii) borrowing insights from multiple empirical and qualitative studies, field experiments, and evaluation of consumer-level transactions. Instead of limiting the scope of MoS to just a few financial aspects of the business, our MoSR-b framework extends the scope of MoS in becoming the core of achieving business operational efficiencies in addition to providing early indications on the immunity level of a retail organization against short and long-term market disruption
The Three Cs of Administrative Office Management: Conceptions, Challenges, and Coping Mechanisms
No full textThe main aim of the study was to investigate different conceptions, challenges, and coping mechanisms with regards to administrative office management. To achieve this aim, the researcher selected three administrative officers within the Schools Division of City of Malolos, Bulacan during the school year 2019-2020. The study utilized a qualitative research design which aimed to describe the lived experiences of individuals in a certain phenomenon or human condition. Using transcriptions, codes, and triangulations of the data gathered, themes were extracted in the data analysis. Findings revealed that: (1) AOM was conceived as management of various documents for smooth transactions between teachers and school administrators, (2) AOM challenges were noted as encountering naughty teachers, unreturned office supplies, noisy location of the office facility and the office which is sometimes turned out to be a storage room, and (3) As AOM coping mechanisms, the respondents keep their strict mood and maintain a happy atmosphere to obtain a less stressed and a peaceful workplace. Conclusions were drawn and recommendations were offered
Design of “Industry 4.0 readiness model” for Indian Engineering Industry: Empirical Validation Using Grounded Theory Methodology
Get PDFIndustry 4.0 has the potential to transform the Indian Engineering Industry to be globally competitive to satisfy the customer needs. However, Industry 4.0 implementation is gradually making its entry into the Indian markets. The first step before application of Industry 4.0 is to assess whether the organization is ready to apply Industry 4.0. There is a plethora of Industry 4.0 model‘s assessment models, however, recent research suggests none of them captures then dynamics of the modern business environment. Therefore, there is a need for a study to design the ―Industry 4.0 readiness model‖ in Indian Engineering Industry. Through our previous study, we had conceptualised the ―Industry 4.0 readiness model‖, this study extends the work by empirically validating the same using the grounded theory methodology. This is the first empirically validated ―Industry 4.0 readiness model‖ for Indian Engineering Industry
Chemical Additive Cascading System – A new Scheme for Enhancing Optical Nonlinearity
No full textNanophotonics is an emerging area where nanotechnology is used to change the physical andchemical properties of photonic materials or the effectiveness of photonic processes that havemajor applications in optical communication and computation. Though many photonic devicesare developed using nonlinear optical materials, efforts are still going on to increase theirefficiency toward 100% and other device characteristics toward their optimum level. In orderto improve the efficiency of the third harmonic process further, we have a plan to use dyesensitized metal nanoparticles doped in PMMA films. It is expected that the ability ofnanotechnology in tailoring the physio-chemical properties of the materials will give rise to theoptimum nonlinear devices to be used in nanophotonics. A considerable improvement in bothnonlinear optical susceptibility and laser damage threshold is expected based on the resultspublished in the case of dye-sensitized metal nanoparticle doped solar cells. Such a researchmay contribute to the efficient nanophotonic devices such as all optical switches, which are thebasic building blocks of the final dream of realizing all optical computers. In this paper, atheoretical study is carried out on the effect of sensitization of some well-knownnanocomposites TiO2/Au and ZnS/PVA by nonlinear DASPB dye-doped PMMA-MA polymermatrix in order to change the dielectric and nonlinear susceptibility. This is achieved by thesystematic study of the size of nanoparticles used for the sensitization study, various donoracceptor combinations,andconcentration of dyes & nanoparticles in the sample films. Thenonlinear absorption coefficient for each case and the theoretical optical limiting properties areexpected to be modified based on cascaded nonlinear susceptibility for Type 1, Type 2, andType 3 Z-scan configurations
Environmental Informatics: Educational Opportunities at Bachelors level - International Context and Indian Potentialities
No full textEnvironmental Informatics is an interdisciplinary subject and it is the combination of Environmentrelated subjects and Informatics related subjects. It is the utilization and applications ofInformatics and IT principles and tools in Environmental Management, EnvironmentalMonitoring, and Science. In other words, it is the practice of Sustainable Computing andInformation Technology. Environmental Informatics is responsible for the applications ofInformation Technology in Environment, Nature and various allied subjects and areas likeGeology, Agriculture, Forestry, Geography, Climatology, Oceanography and all these arevaluable stakeholders of Environmental Informatics. Ecology Informatics in some contexts isrelated with Eco Informatics. Environmental Informatics is broader than EnvironmentalInformation Technology; as it interconnects both environmental as well as information science forthe complete natural processes with language common to both humans and computers.Internationally Environmental Informatics has become a field of study in many universities. Apartfrom PG degree in recent past Environmental Informatics has also started at Bachelors level andmany universities have started an initiative on this. This is a conceptual paper and also analyticalstudy regarding Environmental Informatics including its basic feature and importance as anacademic program. The paper shows about the universities which offer Bachelors degree in brief
Rational Organizational Structure: For Brickand-Mortar Lifestyle Retailers in India to Overcome Diseconomies of Scale and Protect Firm’s Sustainability (ROLS-b)
No full textA majority of organized brick-and-mortar lifestyle retailers in India believe that the brick-and-mortar retailing model ensures economies of scale as they keep opening new stores. Having more stores might help retailers to gain product sourcing advantages in addition to generating additional revenue to the firm but at the same time, it fails to provide any other benefits towards economies of scale as every new store comes with new one-time capital expenditures and recurring fixed expenses. Another misconception is that lifestyle retailing must follow an organizational structure (OS) that is adopted by their parent company and hence a majority of OS adopted by lifestyle retailers in India is dependent on organizational form. This study was not limited to just recommending a rational OS based on exploratory research and existing theories in the OS domain. Once the ROLS-b was designed, we have experimented with the proposed rational OS on one of the ten lifestyle r
etailers in the study to test the validity and reliability. Experimentation results empirically and qualitatively demonstrate that the existing belief of brick-and-mortar lifestyle retailers in India which assumes economies of scale and long-term firm’s sustainability as the retailer increases the store count is just a misconception and does not hold. On the other hand, when we experimented the ROLS-b for over twelve months at over 25 percent stores of a select retailer, results demonstrate that these stores which have gone through the treatment have shown 5.34 times improvement in the store-level profit and 1.97 times in the firm-level profit in addition to eliminating a majority of gaps found in the existing OS that was leading to diseconomies of scale and deteriorating firm’s performance
Changes in Consumer Perspective towards Discount at Brick-and-Mortar Stores owing to Emergence of Online Store Format in India
Get PDFEnd-of-season sale (EOSS) has been one of the most important long duration sales promotion/discountingevents for brick-and-mortar retailers and consumers in India. But, ever since the online retailing format has emerged in India, consumers now have wider options available for them to buy a product at a discounted price and notably, as online stores in India are following the product discounting as one of the key drivers for consumer acquisition, consumers’ perspective towards discount at brick-and-mortar store is expected to have changed.This change in consumers’ perspective has put the majority of brick-and-mortar retailers in India into a quandary and they are losing out their market share slowly to online retailers. In this research, authors have attempted to investigate; (a) proof, (b) pattern, (c) magnitude, (d) significance and (e) impact of this change in perspective towards discount across stakeholders and transpired the research outcomes into suggestions to enable brick-and-mortar retailers to design appropriate sales promotions