Organizational Engineering in Industry 4.0

The Single European Sky initiative was launched in 2000. Since then, the performance of the operations of the air navigation system in Europe has shown a clear tendency to improve. It is recognized that the use of EU funds in the related air navigation projects has a positive effect on this performance improvement. Nevertheless, the relation between the use of EU funds and the performance of the European air navigation system has not been clearly determined yet, despite the numerous studies done on this topic. This paper presents the result of applying a data envelopment analysis methodology (DEA) to assess the relative efficiency of the use of EU funds in research, development, innovation, and implementation projects aiming at improving safety, capacity, and the environmental impact of the European air navigation system. The results of this analysis confirm a positive evolution of the performance of the air navigation system in the last 15 years. Nevertheless, it is inferred that the efficiency of the use of EU funds in air navigation projects can be further improved.

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the objectives and barriers of open innovation implementation in Spanish research and technology organisations (RTOs). RTOs act as research entities; they provide research and technology services to industries and SMEs, and therefore are considered key agents in the innovation system. The study has an exploratory nature, using data gathered through a structured questionnaire fulfilled by managers of RTOs in Spain. The results presented in this exploratory research emphasizes the alignment of the objectives for open innovation in RTOs with the mission and associated challenges these organizations are confronting. Furthermore, this study shows that objectives and barriers toward open innovation are different compared to studies focused on big companies and SMEs, with special mention to the impact of intellectual property rights (IPR) management in open innovation. The value of this ongoing research lies in its contribution to the quantitative research of open innovation in service organizations involved in science, technology, and innovation, as well as in the study of this strategic phenomenon.

The world is currently governed by the economic principles of capitalism, free trade economy, and private property. However, a new economic paradigm is shaking the foundations of the capitalist model: The Sharing Economy. An individual can now act as a funds provider through crowdfunding platforms, which he can do for extrinsic motivation (i.e. in exchange for equity or an interest rate). But intrinsic motivations can also be present through reward-based crowdfunding and crowdonation, in which the incentives for funding go beyond the extrinsic. A survey on 123 individuals who have acted as crowdfunders has been conducted. The results highlight the existence and importance of intrinsic motivators for crowdfunding with social goals.

Blockchain is currently one of the hot topics in academia and industry, mainly due to the implications that the implementation of this modern technology could have. This paper examines the peer-to-peer network that forms the blockchain, from its origin to the most recent developments and applications in various industries and sectors (mostly in supply chain management, energy, education, and medicine) as well as the different forms it can adopt, primarily through smart contracts. Some of the main issues of this technology are also addressed, mainly through the analysis of scale, security, and misbehavior. These are the major concerns regarding blockchain and smart contracts after its expansion in recent years. While the application of blockchain technology still faces many issues that must be addressed, it is through further investigation and investments that blockchain becomes a revolutionary technology. Although today it is far from being the solution to most of the challenges in many industries (logistics, education, and energy), its features set hopes for a bigger significance in the years to come.

Present highly dynamic manufacturing environments call for adaptive and rapidly responding Occupational Safety and Health systems within the new technology-dependent production models. Emergent trends of Servitization and Industry 4.0 tend to become widely recognized and accepted in the industrial branches. The same way, the more sophisticated tendency is emerging. The Servitization of Industry 4.0 is regarded as another promising trend of manufacturing firms’ transformation of business models. So this servitization-based growth in product-based firms is one of the most active research domains; it may be prone to different interpretations and a variety of conceptualizations. It suggests the new paradigm shift of management of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) as the change will trigger new human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions and the new occupational risks will surface. This article provides an approximation to the conceptual framework of the convergence of Occupational Health and Safety and the Servitization of Industry 4.0, based on the scoping literature review, as well as it moots future areas of the research domain. Furthermore, it provides details of the principal types of the Emergent OSH approach in servitized Industry 4.0.

Additive Manufacturing technology, also known as 3D printing, has become, in the last few years, the most disruptive technology for the whole manufacturing sector. Spain, which is a well-positioned country in manufacturing activities, mainly in what concerns to parts, automotive, aerospace, and defense sectors is, and would have to be in the future, trying to detect and react to the main impacts of this technology on the manufacturing industry. In this work, we seek to deepen the knowledge of how additive manufacturing (AM) is affecting and transforming the Spanish manufacturing industry, and how fast this process is going to continue from the current moment. The acquired knowledge and the obtained conclusion will enable us to better understand the main strategic axes that all the stakeholders should consider in the future. One of the main contributions of this research work is the fact that the relevant business and organizational conclusions have been obtained from a global survey including all the major stakeholders: machine tool manufacturers, machining and forming service providers, and AM expert organizations.

The optimal design of a water supply system is essential to minimize costs as well as to maximize the sustainability of the infrastructure. Moreover, most future problems related to its operation and possible extensions can be significantly reduced at the design stage. The network performance is subject to laws of flow balance and energy conservation, which represent non-linear constraints. Furthermore, the pipe diameters, which have to be chosen from a commercial catalog, are discrete variables. Consequently, it is a non-linear mixed-integer problem whose resolution is not trivial. For this type of problem, metaheuristics are suitable resolution methods because of their abilities to explore the search space in order to find an optimal solution. In this study, a tabu search algorithm is used to design the well-known Alperovits and Shamir’s network. Although the global optimum is not reached, the efficacy of the proposed method is fully demonstrated. The results are similar to those achieved by other metaheuristics and the resolution times are considerably shorter. Therefore, it is expected to obtain better results in future studies in which larger networks are designed.

In recent years, many companies have incorporated environmental management practices aimed at reducing the environmental impact of their products throughout their life cycle. Considering the adoption of this perspective necessary, many companies have adopted various tools, techniques, or methodologies at the operational level and, even at the strategic level, with the support of even the public administrations, among other actors. Nevertheless, the process is not simple and the lack of practical knowledge of previous cases makes the process difficult and costly. Consistent with this point, the objective of the research focuses on the development of an exploratory analysis of the fundamental drivers, key aspects of the process, and the most relevant results of the adoption of life-cycle-based tools and methods for environmental management of manufacturers held in the Basque Country, a leading region in Spain in terms of GDP per capita with a strong and high-tech industrial base. Results show improving a company's image in the market seems to be a fundamental motivation, but there are other internal and external drivers, such as the possibility of increasing the value of products, environmental awareness, and increase competitiveness of companies themselves. The main difficulties were the acquisition of the necessary environmental information from suppliers, the need to adopt new working tools, techniques and methods for environmental impact assessment, and rethink operational and strategic processes to include environmental aspects, and the commitment of all the personnel involved. Overall, the results of the adoption process are positive and companies were satisfied. Stakeholders highlighted improvements in safety, quality, and innovation of products and the company image. Nonetheless, stakeholders claim a greater environmental commitment by public administrations is necessary, though they seem to be taking steps forward.

Home care encompasses medical-related care performed by health professionals at patients' homes and non-medical care (cleaning, bed-lifting, cooking, etc.) delivered to people who cannot accomplish these actions autonomously at their own homes. The operations management literature has studied home care mainly as a variant of the well-known vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). Yet, other strategic, longer term problems related to operations management have not received as much attention. We explore the (still) limited literature on home care operations management strategic problems and give guidance for potential research.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has become an important tool in manufacturing companies that seek to improve their competitiveness by adapting their manufacturing processes to their customer requirements. In this study, the authors seek to deepen the knowledge about the disruptive potential impact of additive manufacturing (AM) implementation in aerospace sector purchasing processes. During the study it has been analyzed the changes on the purchasing processes, activities, and cost-related issues, when aerospace companies decide to change from their traditional manufacturing models to one new manufacturing model based on AM adoption. Result analysis allow authors to infer quite several relevant changes in terms of purchasing function definitions, investments, and costs involved which could be relevant to consider before AM implementation is decided by aerospace companies.

The focus of this work is the problem of locational complexity in the supply chain (i.e. the complexity emanating from the proliferation markets) that results from natural growth, multi-market, and market overlapping strategies. Notwithstanding, it is widely agreed among practitioners that this proliferation damages supply chains, rendering them less efficient; there is still a need for a mechanism for incorporating a measure of structural complexity in optimization models that may help on the design of less-complex networks or, alternatively, in the rationalization of oversized ones. In this work, we propose an extension to the K-Median problem that takes into account the complexity of the resulting network.

The supply chains of a business are designed to respond to a variety of clients' and customers' requests. Given the increasing complexity of the chain management, nowadays it is also important to design them in order to face different kinds of customers and also different kinds of risk to satisfy their requests. We have developed a methodology to redesign a supply chain including decisions to balance the performance indicators and the possible risks. The paper describes the application of the first steps in this methodology for the distribution of pharmaceutical products to customers, from hospitals to pharmacies. The result is a diagnostic of points with higher risks in the supply chain, to focus the changes in the redesign.

The interdependent nature of supply chain elements and events requires risk systems must be assessed as an interrelated framework to optimize their management and integrate effectively with other decision-making tools in uncertain environments. This research shows a synthesis and analysis of the main qualitative/quantitative methods that have been used in the literature considering the treatment of event dependencies in supply chain risk management in the period 2003–2018. The results revealed that the integration with disruption analysis tools and artificial intelligence methods are the most common types adopted, with increasing trend and effectiveness of Bayesian and fuzzy theory approaches.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) offers new possibilities of improvement of the educational process in higher education. Nowadays, it is very important to motivate students to actively participate in classes and the use of games generates positive emotions such as feeling committed and fulfilled. The objective of this research is to analyze the impact of Kahoot! tool in the teaching of two subjects of business organization domain. Both subjects have identical contents but with the peculiarity that one of them is taught in the English language. From the perspective of students, the research shows that they are very pleased with the introduction of gamification as part of the educational process, showing a positive feedback of the tool. They consider that this tool increases the motivation and learning in a funny way. From the teaching perspective, the Kahoot! introduced in the class a series of intangibles that are difficult to measure quantitatively but that undoubtedly help to improve the dynamics of the group.

The use of technology is key in the performance in a lot of fields, helping in the improvement of results in a wide variety of organizations. Currently, Supercomputers are considered as one of the most relevant and powerful technological infrastructures, because of this, the analysis of the availability and the training needs, in relation to technology based on supercomputing services, are very important to understand the development of Research and Development (R & D) activities in all type of organizations. It is also important to know the perception of this variable in relation to gender, in order to ensure equality of opportunities to guarantee equal education for any person. During the literature review, one of the main limitations found, in the training of qualified personnel, is the lack of availability of technological infrastructures. In relation to gender, some studies were found, about relations of gender, technology, and education. The present work analyzes the influence of the perception of availability of technological resources in the perception of adequate training of students, related to supercomputing, with a special view in the gender perspective.

Design Thinking not only is a well-known technique for user-oriented product design, but also is an education technique in Higher Education. Design thinking is increasingly used as an innovative educational tool to promote in engineering student transversal skills as critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork. However, despite its popularity, the teaching community has implemented it in many different ways focusing on specific aspects without taking in notice of previous experiences. The aim of this work is to analyze the literature published about Design Thinking experience in Engineering Education through a systematic literature review. Our conclusions will contribute to this educational area pointing the state of the art and the future lines of this educational methodology.

Industry 4.0 is one paradigm that is expected to change industrial SMEs performance. In this context, the work presented in this paper analyzes the paradigm of Industry 4.0 among 35 SMEs in Spain, participating in a project to share, discuss, understand, and plan their Industry 4.0 individual roadmap. Objectives, barriers, and interests regarding Industry 4.0 are discussed and compared with regard to company size, and other business key factors. The results presented in this exploratory research emphasize the differences among micro, small and medium SMEs when approaching Industry 4.0. Besides, the study identifies different Industry 4.0 technologies' importance for SMEs, as well as different balance for them depending on the company size and their value proposition. Barriers toward Industry 4.0 seem to be also very different with regard to the company size, what is consistent with other research results. Furthermore, the research also arises the spread of existing awareness about Industry 4.0 and the risk for smaller SMEs. This ongoing research gives an insight into the novel studies about Industry 4.0 in SMEs and deepens the knowledge for future research.

Circular economy has been claimed as an approach to foster a systemic change in the current model based on disposability. Though, many companies have sprout to deliver circular solutions through either new business models, products or services, a full shift away from the entire system is lacking. In other words, in order to experience a fully transition toward a circular economy model, an inter-organizational approach needs to be deployed. This approach has been named industrial symbiosis whereby interactions among companies are crucial to start developing a circular economy in the so-called meso level. Collaboration among organizations rises as one of the most important factors in developing industrial symbiosis. In that sense, different projects have developed digital platforms with the idea of promoting active participation and collaboration between organizations. Those sorts of platforms ideally enable industrial symbiosis through gathering information about resources and potential substitutes in order to recommend waste-to-resource exchanges. However, depending on the context the platform was built certain characteristics may not apply. Thus, this paper is focused on the characteristics and usefulness of different available platforms that facilitate the exchange of waste as a resource, product or good. Based on this research, it is likely that none of the existing platforms and the upcoming ones will be one-size-fits-all, thus, for industrial symbiosis to succeed it is still important for companies to determine what their needs are and then explore which platform best covers their requirements.

It is expected that the so-called Industry 4.0 brings a multitude of benefits toward more sustainable industrial value creation. However, scientific literature presenting success stories related to Industry 4.0 and sustainability are limited. Using some technologies included in the Industry 4.0 strategy, we present a research project application based on three-step methodology to offer an efficient water/energy management. We illustrate our approach with a case study in a company of the agri-food sector.

The growing relevance of circular economy (as an approach that can help both to improve the competitiveness of the organizations that apply it, and the future quality of life on Earth) has strongly increased the awareness of companies and academics regarding this subject. This paper tries to identify the bases of a circular economy model that attempts to capture and measure the key elements that organizations should include when formulating their strategy to attain a certain level of circularity. This model could also form the basis for establishing a comprehensive “circularity” assessment system of the level achieved by a certain organization that is still a gap in research. This research seeks to establish a preliminary model as the basis to start the study of its application to several processes of three companies (two Spanish and one European multinational), with the aim of verifying to what extent their processes are aligned with the so-called “circular economy” objectives, as they are described in the mentioned proposed model.

The agri-food supply chain (ASC) has received a great attention in the last decade due to sustainable issues, not only economical but also environmental and social. This implies that the traditional management methods must be reviewed and changed. Therefore, new decision models must arise in which environmental and social aspects will have to be addressed in greater or lesser extent to complement the traditional economical-driven decision models. In this paper, a characterization of the main actors and decisions taken throughout a generic ASC as well as the main environmental issues that could affect those decisions are first reviewed. Then, it is aimed to know how each one of these aspects could be enhanced with the incorporation of Industry 4.0-related technologies to develop more efficient decision support tools for the management of sustainability in ASC.