This paper presents evidence to show how vocational qualifications act as boundary objects in the stimulation of learning at work and how they, in turn, become the catalyst for the creation of artefacts that have a purpose and existence beyond the life cycle of an accreditation process....

This report summarizes the work that has been carried out as part of the FLAVIIR project, a 5 year research program looking at technologies for future unmanned air vehicles. A novel classication of aircraft product defnition is utilised and a framework to estimate the life cycle cost of aircraft...

In this paper, we introduce the cross-border logistics problem with fleet management. A major phenomenon of implementation of open-door policy in China is the move of Hong Kong-based manufacturers’ production lines to China, crossing the border to take advantages of lower production costs,...

We examine the trade credit linkages among firms within a supply chain to reckon the effect of such linkages on the propagation of liquidity shocks from downstream to upstream firms. We choose a sample appropriate for this task, consisting of a large data set of Italian firms from the textile...

Various models for predicting discharge rates have been developed over the last four decades by many research workers (notably Beverloo [1], Johanson [2], Brown [3], Carleton [4], Crewdson [5], Nedderman [6], Gu [7].). In many cases these models offer comparable approaches to the prediction of...

Purpose – This paper aims to draw attention to the weakness inherent in the current theoretical model underpinning built asset maintenance and to propose a new performance based model that aligns maintenance/refurbishment expenditure to corporate performance. Design/methodology/approach – An...

Business Environments need to react more efficiently and quickly to demand in today’s global markets. Previous research by the authors entailed reviewing the current understanding of the different types of generic business improvements that are applicable to the production environment through...

This paper challenges the critical articles that have classified thematic initiatives as 'fads' or 'fashions' of their period with little real value. Using business process reengineering (BPR) as an example, the paper suggests that it is important to 'unpack' thematic initiatives into their key...

To make rapid progress in manufacturing business processes have to be rigorously designed by teams of people with a passion for how they will operate. Businesses are dependent on operating systems, but many companies have never designed the fundamental business processes defining how the company...

Manufacturing organisations recognise that the business environment has varying levels of unpredictability. To serve such unpredictability, they utilise forecasting and decision modelling techniques at all levels (strategic to operational), but with business and customer demands intensifying,...