Purpose – The aim of this paper is to propose and analyse policies capable of generating left-skewed pension distributions. Such policies can deliver large pension values with high probability and hence are of interest to practical fund managers. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses...

Purpose – To describe research and development (R&D) as a tool of strategic growth. The world's top performing companies share a common characteristic: their superior ability to develop and introduce new products faster and cheaper than their competitors. As a matter of fact, effective product...

Purpose – Double pressing systems have recently been introduced to speed up and improve the pressing step of porcelain stoneware tiles. This paper aims to analyze double pressing systems using discontinuous pre‐compaction, both technically and economically. Two operative conditions are...

Purpose – This paper aims to present a model of complex production processes, witch allows permanent optimisation of manufacturing technology to be accomplished. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents theoretical fundamentals of building the model of manufacturing technology....

Purpose – This paper seeks to provide business process redesign (BPR) practitioners and academics with insight into the most popular heuristics to derive improved process designs. Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was carried out in the years 2003‐2004 among a wide range of...

Purpose – The purpose is to show that it is necessary for a company to choose a business strategy that relies on a thorough understanding of the company setting. Design/methodology/approach – The Strategic States Model is presented and illustrated by the Ericsson case. Advices on application...

Purpose – The existing business paradigm in the sawmill industry is that improvements are achieved by enhancements at each individual sawmilling plant. The authors investigate a collaborative approach, and propose a model for optimizing production and inventory planning decisions within a...

Purpose – In the Norwegian oil and gas industry the upstream logistics includes providing the offshore installations with needed supplies and return flow of used materials and equipment. This paper considers a real‐life routing problem for supply vessels serving offshore installations at...

Purpose – This study aims to develop a decision making model and approach for logistics planning problem which naturally involves two or more decision units at a hierarchical structure. Such a decision problem in practice often involves uncertain and imprecise factors with the parameters of a...

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the development of an integrated management system (IMS) by linking quantitative and qualitative decision parameters with a view to rank and optimise capital projects. Roles and impacts of the non‐financial criteria have been combined with traditional...