1,720,963 research outputs found
Green warehousing: Exploration of organisational variables fostering the adoption of energy-efficient material handling equipment
Full text linkThe lithium-ion battery (LIB) represents a useful lever for reducing material handling equipment’s (MHE) environmental impact. The exploitation of opportunity charging might improve LIB adoption, which is still prevented by the high investment cost. Since opportunity charging is affected by the system organization, the relationship between LIB and organizational variables is a meaningful work direction to reduce warehouses’ environmental impact, which is underrepre-sented by the current literature. The present paper aims at filling this gap by investigating the im-plications of organisational variables on LIB adoption in warehouses where handling activities are performed with forklift trucks. Based on an in-depth review of the literature and semi-structured interviews, the research presents an input-process-output model linking organisational variables and LIB forklift related costs with an application to a real case. This paper is original as it extends findings from the research fields of production and mobility to the warehouse arena, and it opens room for further research on warehouse sustainability. The paper also offers insights to warehouse managers making decisions about LIB adoption for their electric forklift fleets. This is particularly meaningful to reduce warehouse environmental impact, since MHE power source significantly contributes to greenhouse gases emissions
Exploring the relationship between the adoption of lithium-ion battery forklifts and warehouse organisational patterns
No full textThe introduction of the lithium-ion technology boosted the market for electric forklifts, by providing high performing batteries that guarantee greater energy efficiency in warehouse operations. On top of the substantial savings obtained in terms of both operational and environmental costs, lithium-ion batteries offer the possibility to perform fast partial charges – known as ‘opportunity charging’ – that can be carried out during idle times such as operator breaks. Opportunity charging increases forklift availability and enables to leverage on warehouse organisation for reducing the battery lifecycle cost. So far, the interest of the scientific literature towards forklift lithium-ion batteries has mainly focused on technological aspects, neglecting the implications of organisational factors on the system performance. In addition, contributions have mostly tackled the adoption of lithium-ion batteries on Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) serving manufacturing processes, without deeply examining warehouse applications. The present paper aims at investigating the relationship between the adoption of lithium-ion battery forklifts and warehouse organisational patterns. The research was structured into three main steps. First, a review of the literature on lithium-ion batteries in industrial applications was performed. On one hand, contributions related to the characteristics of lithium-ion batteries were investigated, highlighting how technological, contextual, and organisational variables affect lithium-ion battery lifecycle costs. On the other, the relationship between the use of lithium-ion batteries and organisational patterns was explored. In a second step, semi-structured interviews were conducted with both material handling providers and Third Party Logistics (3PL) providers to test and extend the literature findings. Finally, an analytical model was developed to study the relationship between the lithium-ion battery forklift lifecycle cost and different organisational patterns. Results showed that the opportunity charging is turning operators’ downtimes into levers to improve warehouse operational performance, and opened room for further research on the sustainability of warehouse activities
What drives the adoption of Logistics 4.0 by Logistics Service Providers? An Innovation Diffusion Theory perspective
No full textThis paper aims to investigate the adoption of Logistics 4.0 by logistics service providers (LSP) in logistics distribution processes. Although the promise of Logistics 4.0 to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability of logistics, LSP still struggle in integrating 4.0 concepts into their operations. Thus, the need emerged to support companies in the adoption and exploitation of Logistics 4.0. The adoption of Logistics 4.0 innovation goes beyond the acquisition of technology, as it is a complex process that starts with the identification and evaluation of organisation needs and available 4.0 solutions, goes on with the actual adoption of the 4.0 solutions through accessing and integrating them into the organisation’s processes, and ends when 4.0 is widely used as an integral part in a firm’s value chain activities. In this regard, understanding the factors affecting Logistics 4.0 adoption might be critical to improving its diffusion rate for LSP. So far, research has just started investigating the diffusion of Logistics 4.0 innovation among LSPs. To advance research in this area, the present paper develops a conceptual model based on the Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) to investigate the factors affecting the successful adoption of Logistics 4.0 solutions, by building on established Logistics 4.0, Industry 4.0, and innovation diffusion literature. With our research, we contribute to a better theoretical understanding of Logistics 4.0 and innovation diffusion and provide insights to LSP from a practical perspective
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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