Search results for "operations management"

On the ranking criteria for energy retrofitting building stocks: Which building goes first? The role of the building size in the establishment of pri…

2017

Abstract The energy retrofit of the existing building stocks is considered a preeminent strategy to lowering the energy consumption of the building sector. Other than the definition of the most successful combination of energy saving measures, the definition of a suitable ranking of all the buildings of the stock, on which implementing established energy retrofit measures, is quite a relevant issue. The most eligible criterion for prioritizing the buildings seems their energy consumption because it combines the building energy performance and their size. To investigate the role played by the building dimension in determining the order of priority of all the buildings of a given stock, this …

Automatic research of the capitalization rate for the residential automated valuation: an experimental study in Cosenza (Italy).

2017

When a market oriented approach is not applicable because of the lack of comparable sales data (Ciuna et al. 2014a), International Valuation Standards suggest the use of the Income Approach, which has the task of simulating the market through an economic and financial scheme. The central question of this approach is due to the quantification of the capitalization rate, whereas it is generally extracted in a market segment different from that of the subject. This paper intends to propose an automated valuation model of the capitalization rate based on a real estate database built through a computerized geocoding automatic procedure, starting from the application of statistical models of mult…

Product-related information for sustainable use of laundry detergents in Finnish households

2007

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to report on research on how product-related information can guide sustainable product use in the context of laundry detergents. More precisely, the purpose of the study was designed to analyse how the detergent package information and dosing instructions are read, understood and followed in the Finnish households. Data collection methods included interviews in 340 Finnish households in 2004 and 299 households in 2005 with a standardised questionnaire. Results show that the majority of respondents did not know if the washing water is hard or soft, which indeed has a direct effect on dosing amounts. However, package information per se was found to be eas…

CO2LD: An innovation educational project for High Degree Professional Training in Refrigeration

2013

EN] Refrigeration is one of the technology sectors that has sufered the most changes in the last twenty years, because of the negative impact of the fuids used in the refrigeration cycles, i.e., refrigerants, due to their impact on the ozone layer and their contribution to global warming. As a result of their negative efects, the European Union has established several directives to restrict the use of refrigerant fuids, and the sector therefore needs to adapt to the new regulations. This process of adaptation of the refrigeration sector to the new regulations must be carried out by all the agents involved, including those engaged in the training and education of the future refrigeration tec…

The Luenberger productivity indicator in the water industry: An empirical analysis for England and Wales

2014

Abstract We innovate in the field of water companies' performance with an application of the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity indicator (LPI) to the assessment of water companies' productivity growth. The advantage of our approach is that it takes into account both input contractions and output expansions. The analysis covered 22 water companies from England and Wales using data over the period 2001–2008. To the best of our knowledge, there are no prior studies applying the Luenberger productivity indicator to the water industry in England and Wales or other countries. For the sake of comparison, the traditional Malmquist productivity index (MPI) was also estima…

Cybernetics of Value Cocreation for Product Development

2016

Workforce active ageing case study in a Romanian manufacturing company

2017

Ageing workforce is a major trend that characterizes the demographic evolution of Europe, which generally affects the society, but also the organizations from economic and social point of view. Employers should change their negative perceptions of ageing workforce, whereas the changes that occur along with ageing are unable to influence the efficiency of work, assuming that a suitable strategy implemented to prevent and manage potential problems. The paper includes European and national statistics on the issue, a case study analysing the workforce ageing management in a Romanian manufacturing company, which has succeeded in achieving the active ageing target, and - on this basis - several g…

Negotiation in Distributed Production Planning Environments

2006

Mass customization and global competition push enterprises to adopt proper business models able to capture all the opportunities arising from emerging competition rules. An increasing number of industrial enterprises distribute their production capacity world wide to achieve lower production costs, lower distribution costs (due to the closer proximity to customers), and deeper knowledge of customer needs. As a drawback, coordination of the different production plants and the balance among plants and enterprise goals represent a critical issue in the network management. In this context the paper looks at the production planning problem, adopting a traditional hierarchical time-based perspect…

The SADC Standby Force and Its Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre: Uncertain Operational Readiness and Future of an Externally Fuelled Brigade

2017

This chapter offers a comprehensive explanation of why and how SADC countries engaged in military integration and put efforts in establishing a regional standby brigade with an associated peacekeeping training centre. This chapter pays special attention to the impact of extra-regional actors and donors’ funding in this regard since the development of the SADC Standby Force occurs at a time when the region lacks an actual external threat. Instead, the African Union, together with the EU, provides financial incentives and thus promotes the build-up of a SADC brigade. The EU’s external influence, however, has been ambivalent insofar as a freezing of donations paralysed the operational capacity…

Multidiscipline LCA application to an experience of industrial symbiosis in South of Italy

2007

The paper presents an application of the Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) to the planning and environmental management of an “eco-industrial cluster.” A feasibility study of industrial symbiosis in southern Italy is carried out, where interlinked companies share subproducts and scraps, services, structures, and plants to reduce the related environmental impact. In particular, the research focuses on new recycling solutions to create open recycling loops in which plastic subproducts and scraps are transferred to external production systems. The main environmental benefits are the reduction of resource depletion, air emissions, and landfilled wastes. The proposed strategies are also economically v…