4101 research outputs found
Sort by
An Overview of Smart Manufacturing for Competitive and Digital Global Supply Chains
No full textThis research study aims to examine and review the key advantages of smart manufacturing to achieve and improve performance within global supply chain environments. In recent years supply chain has been arisen as one of the major areas to gain a competitive edge in manufacturing industries. The current business methodologies of short product life cycle, increased outsourcing, expanding product variety, improved customer focus and improved technologies has led supply chain to be some challenging and complex tasks. Smart Manufacturing has been considered as a successful advancement in industrial revolution featuring resource efficiency, adaptability, agitability with wide application of internet and other innovative engineering technologies integrating of customers and business value processes creating a better manufacturing environment. The research is at its preliminary stages and will aim to examine and evaluate existing literature within the areas of smart and digital manufacturing and compare examples of best practices and methods towards creating a detailed comprehensive and systematic finding of the key research studies. This paper is a literature review which aims to review the benefits of smart manufacturing and its influence to achieve an improved performance in supply chain
Sustainability adoption in project management practices within a social enterprise case
No full textPurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the preliminary findings on the use of sustainable project management practices within social enterprise projects. The research gaps within this field have proposed the authors to address the challenges rising from lack of sustainable infrastructures in social-based projects both within for-profit and non-profit organisations. On the other side, behavioural needs and sustainable awareness of different stakeholders will be examined.Design/methodology/approach Secondary research consists of conducting a literature review clarifying the existing knowledge of the research topic within the body of literature. The stakeholders’ behavioural needs towards acting and implementing sustainable practices led to the adoption of sustainable practices within projects which are managed across profit and non-profit organisations.Findings The lack of sustainable behaviour and its adoption within organisations is also highlighted. The limitation of the research is the importance of integration of sustainable development (SD) within social projects. Such projects were identified as the drivers towards educating the society towards future generations’ sustainability awareness. However, if the adoption of sustainable practices is well established in some sectors (such as construction), literature tends to demonstrate a lack of information regarding other sectors, especially within social enterprises.Originality/value The novelty of the research is to develop an early understanding regarding linkages between sustainable practices and project management programmes within the social projects. The particular focus is given to corporate social responsibility and the comparative analysis has been made among for-profit and non-profit organisations in terms of SD metrics. The study results would be beneficial to the researchers and practitioners exploring within the same field
The global perception of industry 4.0 for reverse logistics
No full textIndustry 4.0 (I 4.0) is currently recognised as a collective expression for different technologies. The gradual but steady adoption of different technologies in industry 4.0 plays a vital role in different areas of industries. Reverse logistics has been now a growing research area including identifying ways for industries to operate efficiently with industry 4.0. The potentials for cost reduction and profit maximisation have been realised by the involved corporations and a significant number of them is already investing heavily on the new technologies that result in efficient reverse logistics and performance. Researchers now believe that improving the reverse logistics results in sustainable developments in the current competitive market. In this paper researcher aims to focus on the impacts of Industry 4.0 over the reverse logistics
An overview of digitalisation in conventional supply chain management
No full textRapidly growing technology and a digitally focused world have opened the door for a new wave of automation to enter the work force in the industry. Industry 4.0 plays a vital role in Supply chain management (SCM) which requires constant research and improvements due to high demand to meet their global competitive markets. As part of achieving this high demands, SCM has been incorporating the latest evolving technologies by digitalizing and automating themselves to increase their financial profits and competitiveness in the market. This paper aims to have a review on Supply Chain Management (SCM) and latest technologies in Industry 4.0 revolution
'Make ‘em laugh!’- The use of laughter in the language classroom – Affective Aspects on Teaching and Learning’.
No full textPresentation for NATESOL conference workshop
Landscapes of Solitude: Some Reflections on the Free Spirit
No full textThe aloneness of creativity is quite unlike other solitudes. Time spent writing and thinking is time spent “away,” in a kind of exile from the daily clamor of life. For the migrant spirit of Emily Brontë’s poem, to be “most away” is to seek more than distance from the distractions of sociality. It is to slip out of existence for a while—to savor a kind of reprieve from a human location in things. “Wandering wide” the free spirit feels itself distributed through regions undetermined by the familiar co-ordinates of earth and sky. Night winds stir the starscape, tempting the wanderer with the promise of other suns. There is something both disarming and familiar about this freedom, as if in our creative solitude we reconnect with those domains guessed at and half-glimpsed in dreams
Students as co-creators of a mobile app to enhance learning and teaching in HE
No full textThis chapter considers how technology can enhance teaching and learning through technology within the higher education setting. The chapter considers findings and draws conclusions from a recent project conducted by the authors involved in this technologically innovative project. In particular this chapter aims to consider how mobile apps can be beneficial for learning and education purposes, consider the pedagogic value of technology use within higher education (HE), look at how students can be co-creators in their own learning, and provide an overview of the mobile app and the research findings that it was developed from. The chapter will also take into consideration the challenges associated with developing and implementing a technological intervention in HE
Graphene-Based Fully Transparent Thin Film Surface Acoustic Wave Devices for Sensing and Lab-on-Chip Applications
No full textThis paper explores to use graphene as transparent interdigital transducer (IDT) electrode for a fully transparent surface acoustic wave (SAW) device due to its extraordinary electrical, physical and mechanical properties. The number of graphene atomic layers was firstly optimized for its best performance as the SAW electrode, and a 4-layered graphene IDT electrode, with aluminum doped zinc oxide, AZO, as the bus bar and wire bonding pad, was selected to fabricate fully transparent ZnO/glass SAW devices. The SAW resonators exhibited obvious resonant response at different wavelengths, and resonance signals with amplitude up to 20 dB were obtained with the transparency above 80%. The graphene-based transparent SAW sensor has been used for different sensing applications. Temperature sensing tests showed that the frequencies increase linearly with the increase of temperature, which has an opposite trend compared to that obtained from a conventional LiNbO3 SAW device. The humidity sensing and human breathing detection have been demonstrated, and discontinuous respiration measurement can be used to distinguish the human respiration at the normal state or the state after exercise. Strong acoustic streaming and particle concentration using the transparent SAW devices have been achieved, which are suitable for microfluidic and lab-on-chip applications
Contextual analysis of educational monitoring and progression as a service (EMPaaS) system in Higher Education
No full textThe arrival of new technologies has opened a window of opportunity for UK higher education institutions. Although UK Higher education (HE) has recently become a huge phenomenon owing to an increase in students attending University, many UK universities are not investing enough in technology to facilitate teaching, management and research practices that aim to improve the student experience. This paper discusses the potential for an information system solution, which can facilitate the institutional practices in UK HEIs from multiple stakeholder perspectives. An existing system employed at a UK University known as “MyPGR” was evaluated in order to shed some light on the existing technical problems UK Universities are currently facing, with the support of a soft systems approach (CATWOE). The proposed solution is the Educational-Monitoring-and-Progression-as-a-Service (EMPaaS), which is based on the Cloud Computing model. EMPaaS has the potential to monitor student progression and key milestones relating to their PGR programme, in addition to enabling students to use free cloud applications to keep track of milestones and progressions. The highly accessible and flexible nature of cloud applications adds to the cost-effectiveness of adopting cloud services, which in turn frees up additional funds for UK Universities to pursue other important investments
Determinants of women's entrepreneurial attitude across European cultures
No full textThis chapter explores the factors affecting women entrepreneurial attitudes across a range of European cultures. It acknowledges that women's socio-cultural profile across Europe has become an interesting issue to consider. The findings show that getting an insight into the world of women entrepreneurs helps us to understand their roles, expectations, and the factors that influence their entrepreneurial attitudes across different cultures. In addition, gender-based differences and stereotypes are noted as prevalent in the enterprise and entrepreneurship. Despite the challenges, this chapter indicates the women's success in business ventures and why they are perceived as entrepreneurs operating in a European culture. This chapter concludes by calling for a change from the traditional masculinity and femininity validation to the modern perception of women entrepreneurship as the way for innovation and economic growth