Michael D. Santonino, Constantine M. Koursaris, Michael Williams
Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, has been gaining momentum within the aviation industry for improving efficiencies in the supply chain. RFID technology is not new, with many manufacturers outside of aviation being more responsive as early adopters to the technology. Currently, many of the full-scale implementation organizations from late adopters, have strategically integrated RFID technology into the manufacturing supply chain to tag parts and for airports/airlines to track baggage and passengers throughout their airport journey. Literature remains rather sparse in the implementation and success factors within the aviation supply chain as a number of businesses have kept much of the details discreet to differentiate themselves from the competitors. In this case study, we have examined the state of the early adopters in aviation to implement RFID technology into their supply chain for tracking parts, identifying information, logistics media, and other process improvements in component maintenance management. Airbus, who was the first in the aviation industry to adopt RFID will be examined. The paper examines the increasing numbers of airports/airlines use of RFID to track baggage and passengers with technology. Using information from published secondary data, we review the early adopters of RFID in aircraft manufacturing who are employing RFID to the improve supply chain and how airports/airlines usage of RFID has transcend to passenger tracking to improve airport operational efficiency and to increase passenger satisfaction. By identifying key trends in the aviation supply chain and the value-added in manufacturing and passenger experiences, this paper presents areas in need of further empirical research in order to understand the key success factors with RFID implementation in aviation.
Si Chen, Rui Shi, Zhuangyu Ren, Jiaqi Yan ¡ 6 authors
Recent quality scandals reveal the importance of quality management from a supply chain perspective. Although there has been many related studies focusing on supply chain quality management, the technologies used still have difficulties in resolving problems arising from the lack of trust in supply chains. The root reason lies in three challenges brought to the traditional centralized trust mechanism: self-interests of supply chain members, information asymmetry in production processes, costs and limitations of quality inspections. Blockchain is a promising technology to address these problems. In this paper, we discuss how to improve the supply chain quality management by adopting the blockchain technology, and propose a framework for blockchain-based supply chain quality management.
To serve target customers better than their competitors, supply chain management (SCM) teams today look into new technologies such as Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain. These new technologies allow managers to develop and provide complex supply chain services and products faster with improved reliabilities. With these technologies, SCM teams can build complex models of a supply chain or systems of supply chains using a data-driven approach. With the growth of aviation domain across the world, there has been increasing demand in aircraft for airlines and other customers. In this domain, SCM teams deal with complex networked supply chains for aircraft's spare part purchase and delivery for aircraft's maintenance and repair. Aircraft's spare parts are shipped to single assembly hubs, located globally. All parts come with certain life expectancy, specific requirements and maintenance attributes. With thousands of spare parts, hundreds of parameters, and number of manufactures distributed globally, SCM team need to deal with very large amount of data. In this paper, we use an industrial scenario of aviation industry SCM to demonstrate the necessity of having decentralized system based on distributed data-driven application technologies such as Blockchain, not only to assist in maintaining inventory of the aircraft's parts but also to monitor the performance, usage, etc. This will help to achieve a transparent network of supply chain for aircraft's parts and reduce the risk of availability of aircraft's parts in black market. These new data-driven technologies when embedded into SCM scenarios will help the SCM managers to analyse the supply, demands, source of availability of spare parts and provide methods to procure them from the right sources.
Peter Ittermann, Jonathan Niehaus, Hartmut HirschâKreinsen, Johannes Dregger ¡ 5 authors
This paper is dealing with the ongoing debate of the digitization of german industry, the so-called âIndustrie 4.0â, and its social consequences. The discussed new technologies like cyber-physical production systems, autonomous logistic systems and smart devices are about to get integrated in work places, that are embedded in existing organizational and social structures, thus making âcomplementary innovationsâ and a coordinated design necessary. Our paper presents a human-centered design of industrial labor in a framework depicting the dilemma between what is techno-logically feasible and labor-politically desirable, under the constraint of an economically reasonable design of work and technology. The analytical approach is the âsocio-technical systemâ which as-sumes that there are certain varieties of organizational design at the interfaces of its sub-systems âtechnologyâ, âhumanâ and âorganizationâ. These considerations are transformed into a framework, called Social Manufacturing and Logistics, which brings together these perspectives and leads to a complementary holistic design of industrial labor under the conditions of a progressive digitization of manufacturing. Its characteristics are: hybrid interaction between human and machine, flexible integrated work and decentralized systems. Finally, we outline some organizational and social con-ditions to realize such a framework.
The study sought to answer the following objectives; investigate the effect of market environment on procurement performance in Uasin Gishu county government., establish the contribution of legal environment on procurement performance in Uasin Gishu county government, determine the effect of political environment on procurement performance in Uasin Gishu county government and finally, to find out the contribution of social economic environment on procurement performance on Uasin Gishu county government From the findings of the study it is apparent that market environment, political environment, legal environment and socioeconomic environment have an impact on procurement performance. Under market environment, maximization of competition, accomplishment of socioeconomic objectives and fulfilment of government needs are the market components influencing procurement performance. Concerning the legal environment, aspects of contracts, personnel regulations, research and development regulations, manufacturing regulations and finance regulations are the aspects that affect procurement performance at Uasin Gishu County Government. The political environment influence on procurement performance entails; influence on budget authorization, alteration of procurement statutes, political pressures, compromising of different interest groups and involvement in all aspects of the public procurement system. Regarding the socioeconomic environment, aspects influencing procurement performance include; Favourable /unfavourable economic environment, Government Favours for tenders and Pressure from environmental activists. The study recommends that, decentralization of duties especially at the procurement department should be encouraged to minimize wastages and corruption resulting from centralization of power. Under market environment, maximization of competition, accomplishment of socioeconomic objectives and fulfilment of government needs are the market components influencing procurement performance. Concerning the legal environment, aspects of contracts, personnel regulations, research and development regulations, manufacturing regulations and finance regulations are the aspects that affect procurement performance at Uasin Gishu County Government. The political environment influence on procurement performance entails; influence on budget authorization, alteration of procurement statutes, political pressures, compromising of different interest groups and involvement in all aspects of the public procurement system. Regarding the socioeconomic environment, aspects influencing procurement performance include; Favourable /unfavourable economic environment, Government Favours for tenders and Pressure from environmental activists.
Continuous improvement in quality has been made possible by the use of a complete quality program which fully utilizes the knowledge and capabilities of an entire workforce. The program includes formal quality policy deployment, training, a seven-step quality improvement process, and the use of poka-yoke or mistake-proofing devices. It is concluded that employees empowered to create continuous quality improvement have demonstrated that zero defects is an obtainable goal. True empowerment is only achieved by establishing quality policy based on employee involvement, establishing valid indicators, providing training to all employees, and encouraging all employees to use the latest quality improvement and mistake proofing techniques every day.>