Search results for " INGEGNERIA"

Explaining the relationship between socially responsible products and the operations of the firm: The case of equine assisted therapy

2018

Abstract Although there is a growing interest in social responsibility in research as well as in practice, the majority of studies on corporate social responsibility do not explicitly investigate operations management issues when adopting socially responsible practices under the “people” pillar of sustainability. This paper, dealing with the theme of social responsibility in operations management, aims at clarifying the complex relationship between socially responsible product/service and the operations of the company. The empirical context of the study is the sport industry, where the attention to social issues is well established. We used a mixed theoretical-empirical approach to develop …

Crowdfunding as a tool to support sustainability‐oriented initiatives: Preliminary insights into the role of product/service attributes

2019

A common goal of current research seems to uncover whether crowdfunding (CF) could be considered an effective way to support sustainability-oriented initiatives in securing funding, due to diverging results emerging from literature. We claim that the objective of proving whether CF may benefit sustainability-oriented initiatives could be misplaced; rather, we deem more fruitful to understand how critical are some attributes of products/services pursued within CF campaigns to benefiting sustainability-oriented initiatives and increasing their odds of success in CF. We focus on food-related projects as in this sector, sustainability issues apply more than to any other human activities and con…

Assessment of the embodied energy for manufacturing and laying a submarine outfall pipeline

2008

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to a submarine outfall pipeline intended for the disposal of treated MWW in the South Tyrrhenian Sea, on Western Coast of Sicily. The pipe serves 115 thousands inhabitants; it is 3,1 km long with an outer diameter of 800 mm and is allocated in a submarine trench down to 18 m bsl. The pipe ends with a multiport diffuser with outer diameter 500 mm. The whole pipeline is made in HDPE and is statically stabilized by cast iron rings and concrete anchor blocks. From the detailed constructive project of the pipeline the most relevant items involved were drawn and the most important ones were selected, both as materials employed and as laying …

Closed-loop supply chains: What reverse logistics factors influence performance?

2016

This paper analyses the inventory and order flow dynamics in closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs). In this kind of supply chains the reverse flow of materials entering the system for recycling purposes complicates the way in which inventories should be managed and replenishment policies should be designed. Specifically, we analyse the relationships between some reverse logistics’ factors (remanufacturing lead-time, return rate of recycled products, reverse order policy, and number of supply chain tiers) on the order and inventory variance amplification. We firstly perform a systematic literature review of the related studies. Secondly, by adopting a difference equation math approach and design…

Impact of reverse logistics on supply chain performance

2013

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of reverse logistics on order and inventory variance amplification in a single-echelon supply chain (SC) and to propose a new order policy for dampening such amplification. Design/methodology/approach – A general review of the literature on sustainable operations and on the impact of reverse logistics on SC performance provides the foundation for the study. The authors use difference equation math approach for modelling and analysing a closed SC. A proper design of experiment and data collected from the European Union statistics validate the obtained numerical results. Findings – The variability of reverse flow in a closed loop S…

Do horizontal relationships matter to production and operations managers?

2014

This paper shifts the focus of production, operations and supply chain management business relationships from the vertical to the horizontal side and calls for more research on this issue. The main intent is to provide managerially oriented arguments regarding the linkages between the achievement of operations-related goals and decisions related to horizontal business relationships. Specifically, we address the following research question: Does a linkage exist between production and operations objectives and the decisions a company makes about horizontal agreements, particularly horizontal governance mode choice? To answer this research question, we develop literature-based hypotheses and c…

R&D supply chain and innovation performance: the contingent role of the firm’s position in the network

2013

This paper conceptualizes the supply chain of innovation as a sub-set of the whole innovation network. We focus on the relationship between the activities of purchasing/selling R&D and the firm’s innovation performance. Specifically, we examine how the position of the firm within its innovation network moderates this relationship. Our empirical setting consists in cross-sectional data about 1772 agreements signed by biotech companies between 2006-2010. We find, first, anecdotal evidence of both the existence of the innovation supply chain and the phenomenon of firms’ positioning along it. Second, we find that information richness positively moderates the effect of purchasing R&D services on…

Product Recalls and Supply Chain Responsiveness

2015

The increase in product recalls which occurred in recent years is mainly due to the globalization of the supply chains, in particular the outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing and distribution. Besides being the main cause of recall, in this paper we argue that outsourcing (domestic and international) and offshoring may also affect the supply chain responsiveness in managing the recall itself. We test a number of hypotheses on this theme empirically on the pharmaceutical sector by using data collected from the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Inter-firm relationship design for achieving supply network responsiveness

2008

Information Exchange Supply Chain under inventory inaccuracy: a simulation study

2012

The objective of this paper is to contribute at quantifying the impact of inventory record inaccuracy on operational performance and customer service level in collaborative supply chains. To this purpose we analyse the impact of shrinkage errors in the inventory item recording activity in an “information exchange supply chain”, i.e. a supply chain in which companies share information about market demand and use such information for placing orders to their suppliers. We present the mathematical formulation of such a supply chain model and we conduct a numerical simulation and a sensitivity analysis over different level of errors.