Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPS2), which is defined as "an integrated industrial product and service offering that delivers value in use," has expanded rapidly over the last decade. IPS2 has allowed us to achieve both high added value and high productivity and has enriched our QOL by improving the performance of products and services. We are now struggling with many awkward issues related to sustainability, but IPS2 is expected to be the "philosopher's stone" for solving these issues. Following the pattern of conferences held in Cranfield in 2009, Linkoeping in 2010, and Braunschweig in 2011, the fourth International CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems, held on November 8-9, 2012, in Tokyo, will cover various aspects of IPS2. Topics planned for this year's conference reflect the latest IPS2 information in both the natural sciences and humanities and include case studies from various industries. IPS2 is still a relatively new field, so it is important to keep track of the entire context in order to promote more cross-sectional cooperation between multimodal fields and disciplines. The fourth International CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems will serve as a vital platform for such collaborations and the discussion of new scientific ideas.

To compete in today's volatile market with rapidly changing consumer tastes and erce competition, companies in the manufacturing and service industries are - ploying new mechanisms to increase sales, market shares, and pro ts. As an - fective mechanism to segment a market comprising of consumers with different needs, preferences, and willingness-to-pay, many rms have used product (or s- vice) variety with different price points to serve different segments of the market, see Ho (1998). Ideally, the price of each of these products (or services) targets a particular segment of customers. For example, airlines often use different terms of sales (refundable/non-refundable, upgradable/non-upgradable, direct/connecting ight, etc. ) to sell economy class tickets at different prices. Likewise, retailers - ten sell the same product at different prices in different channels (company's own web site, dealers' web sites, or company's physical stores) or at different times (- fore, during, and after the selling season), see Talluri and van Ryzin (2005). Ample academic literature in Operations Management and other areas considered these strategies. However, as consumers become more knowledgeable about the product, pricing, organizational and operational policies that the companies deploy for pr- ucts and services, their purchasing begins to change dramatically. In the academic Operations Management literature, consumer demand is often assumedtobe exogenous so that demand functions are usually modeled as well de- ned and exogenously speci ed functions of price and/or other product attributes such as quality.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 4th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems, ICORES 2015, held in Lisbon, Portugal, in January 2015. The 14 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selection from a total of 89 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: methodologies and technologies; and applications.

Enterprise Networks and Logistics for Agile Manufacturing presents a focused collection of quality chapters on state-of-the-art research efforts in the areas of enterprise networks and logistics, as well as their practical applications towards agile manufacturing. With the increasing decentralisation of manufacturing systems and outsourcing of processes, more robust and practical approaches and systems are needed to support agile manufacturing operations. Enterprise Networks and Logistics for Agile Manufacturing consists of two major sections: the first presents a broad-based review of the key areas of research in enterprise networks and logistics; the second focuses on an in-depth treatment of a particular methodology or system relevant to the book title. Examples include: * sustainable green supply chain; * value creation and supplier selection; * extended enterprise network management; * reverse logistics; and * innovative supply chain systems. The authors take into account the need to pose intellectual challenges while retaining a balanced approach in terms of scope versus depth and theory versus applications. Enterprise Networks and Logistics for Agile Manufacturing can be beneficial to academic researchers, practicing engineers and managers, and graduate students with an interest in any manufacturing sectors. It can enable them to better understand the present state and future trends of research in this important area, in order to position themselves strategically for future challenges as we enter the era of agile and distributed manufacturing.

To meet and adapt to the current and future trends and issues in technology and society, the science committee of The German Academic Society for Production Engineering (WGP) continues to define future topics for production technology. These themes represent not only the key focus for the scientific work of the WGP, but also the central themes of the first annual conference in June 2011, whose paper is publically available in this volume. Such themes, including electric mobility, medical technology, lightweight construction, and resource efficiency, as well as mass production ability have all been identified as future, large-scale, and long-term drivers of change. Future trends influence changes sustainably and fundamentally; they permeate society, technology, economics, and value systems and have an effect in virtually all areas of life. The WGP has, as part of its research, established for itself the goal of not only observing these emerging changes, but also of supervising and influencing their development in order to ensure steady progress, secure sustainability, and shape the future.

Environmental awareness is driven mainly by the scarcity of natural resources and by more strict legal regulations. The modern enterprise policy should look at the relations between economic actions and ecological consequences. Ecoproduction is a new business approach which focuses on the most efficient and productive use of raw materials and natural resources in order to minimize footprints on the natural environment. This book aims to provide the state- of- the- art as well as new ideas of the environmental conscious operations management. The contributors present in the individual chapters problems related to: eco-friendly production technologies; recycling and waste reduction. Scope of topics discussed in this book covers also pollution prevention, energy efficiency. The authors describe problems of information management in complex systems

Value stream design is increasingly asserting itself as the key approach for production optimization, but there has never been a detailed and systematic presentation of the value stream method before - a gap that has now been filled by this book. The author provides an easily comprehensible code of practice for the effective analysis of production processes, product family-oriented factory structuring and the target-oriented development of an ideal future state of production. The book plausibly conveys ten design guidelines for production optimization with corresponding equations, descriptive illustrations and industrial examples well-proven in numerous industrial projects. It addresses the professional public, practitioners wishing to avoid waste and systematically improve their factories' value streams, and students - tomorrow's practitioners. In contrast to other publications, this book complements the value stream analysis and its unique compact visualization of the entire production process by a detailed illustration of the information flow and a comprehensive discussion of the operator balance chart. The "traditional" concept of value stream design is significantly expanded with a view to its applicability in complex productions by way of methodological innovation and further development concerning campaign formation, value stream management and technological process integration. The method is embedded in a comprehensive procedural approach for factory planning, starting with the definition of the desired lean production goals.

Operational Research (OR) deals with the use of advanced analytical methods to support better decision-making. It is multidisciplinary with strong links to management science, decision science, computer science and many application areas such as engineering, manufacturing, commerce and healthcare. In the study of emergent behaviour in complex adaptive systems, Agent-based Modelling & Simulation (ABMS) is being used in many different domains such as healthcare, energy, evacuation, commerce, manufacturing and defense. This collection of articles presents a convenient introduction to ABMS with papers ranging from contemporary views to representative case studies. The OR Essentials series presents a unique cross-section of high quality research work fundamental to understanding contemporary issues and research across a range of Operational Research (OR) topics. It brings together some of the best research papers from the esteemed Operational Research Society and its associated journals, also published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Christian Furber investigates the useful application of semantic technologies for the area of data quality management. Based on a literature analysis of typical data quality problems and typical activities of data quality management processes, he develops the Semantic Data Quality Management framework as the major contribution of this thesis. The SDQM framework consists of three components that are evaluated in two different use cases. Moreover, this thesis compares the framework to conventional data quality software. Besides the framework, this thesis delivers important theoretical findings, namely a comprehensive typology of data quality problems, ten generic data requirement types, a requirement-centric data quality management process, and an analysis of related work.

The continuous search for efficiency gains and the goal of attaining a sustainable competitive advantage have steadily increased the volume of goods and services procured globally from third party vendors. In this context, named as "the next wave of globalization", the offshoring phenomenon has stimulated research and political debates. With the rise of services offshoring, international value chain disaggregation for services has reached a formerly unknown scale. Also, it is increasingly complex transactions, requiring a higher degree of qualification, which are becoming subject to offshoring as well. The Offshoring Challenge: Strategic Design and Innovation for Tomorrow's Organization features selected chapters by an international research community on the topic of offshoring. All potential business models from offshore outsourcing to third party providers are covered, from cooperative arrangements to internal organizational set-ups including captive offshore centers. Contributions have significant insights regarding: the increasing offshoring of knowledge-intensive services; the offshoring process; business models incorporating offshoring; the hidden costs of offshoring; and the administration of offshoring activities within firms The book is aimed at a broad audience of scholars, students and practitioners in the fields of strategy, international business and operations management.

This work by Karatap-Ozkan and Chell provides fresh insights on entrepreneurial learning and the entrepreneurship process. Employing a well-informed social constructivist perspective, it combines theory with a richly grounded empirical analysis at three distinct but inter-related levels; the micro, the mesa, all set in the macro context of the enterprise culture. A strength of the work is the multiple levels of analysis which sheds new light on entrepreneurial learning as part of the entrepreneurial process. The result is a processual view that captures, conceptualises and explains the transitive process of becoming an entrepreneur.'uAlistair R. Anderson, The Robert Gordon University, UK'In this book Karatap-Ozkan and Chell show great clarity in dealing with a range of complex issues. They articulate these in a manner which makes them interesting and comprehensible and in a fashion which impressively interweaves theory, practice and method.'uSarah L. Jack, Lancaster University, UK This informative book examines the process of nascent entrepreneurship from a learning perspective. It offers a multi-layered framework of nascent entrepreneurship through an inter-disciplinary approach and sound application of Bourdieu's conceptual tools and also by generating practical insights for nascent entrepreneurs, enterprise educators and mentors. Supported by an empirical investigation of two case studies, the authors argue that it is not sufficient to study nascent entrepreneurship and the concurrent process of entrepreneurial learning at just the individual (entrepreneur) or collective (team or organisational) level and examine the socio-behavioural aspects of learning; but that entrepreneurial learning should be understood by inter-relating personal (micro), relational (meso) and macro-contextual aspects of nascent entrepreneurship. The comprehensive coverage of entrepreneurship theory and research will be of significant value for scholars, researchers and students in the field.

The book provides an introduction to shipping in all its aspects. It is a valuable source of information for students of traditional maritime law as well as for those who seek to understand maritime and shipping services on a global scale. The text includes information and analytical content on national and international practices in shipping, including the age-old dichotomy between freedom in international shipping and the persistent demands of states to control specific maritime areas, as well as the tension between, on the one hand, the desire on the part of sovereign states to regulate and protect their shipping interests and, on the other, the abiding concern and unquestioned right of the international community to regulate the global shipping industry effectively, in order to ensure maritime safety, protection of the environment and fair competition.

Stereolithography: Materials, Processes and Applications will focus on recent advances in stereolithography covering aspects related to the most recent advances in the field, in terms of fabrication processes (two-photon polymerization, micro-stereolithography, infrared stereolithography and stereo-thermal-lithography), materials (novel resins, hydrogels for medical applications and highly reinforced resins with ceramics and metals), computer simulation and applications.

Leaders in healthcare today face many challenges ranging from managing interprofessional teams and teamwork, to payment reform, to tackling issues such as homelessness and the opioid crisis. Leaders have access to depth of information and resources to help them solve these complex and real-world problems. However, it is our belief that given the complexities of healthcare, there is value in sharing and learning from those who have first-hand experience with interprofessional leadership in healthcare. Challenges and Opportunities in Healthcare Leadership: Voices from the Crowd in Today's Complex and Interprofessional Healthcare Environment, is a volume in a book series titled, Contemporary Perspectives in Business Leadership. In this book, authors share their true, authentic reflections and professional stories describing the lived experience(s) of the author/leaders and how the experience changed the author/leaders' approach as an interprofessional leader. Each chapter includes a (1) story about the topic and the lived experience, (2) perspectives, and (3) lessons of the author(s). Additionally, scholarly commentary and discussion questions included within each chapter create opportunity for application to leadership theories and strategies as well as allow for reflection and further dialogue on the topic. The intended audience is broad, including faculty and students in institutions of higher education, interprofessional healthcare team leaders and members, and other healthcare stakeholders who have experience in interprofessional healthcare leadership. The book is applicable for leadership growth and development at a personal, group, or organizational level.

Risk analysis is crucial in stochastic supply chain models. Over the past few years, the pace has quickened for research attempting to explore risk analysis issues in supply chain management problems, while the majority of recent papers focus on conceptual framework or computational numerical analysis. Pioneered by Nobel laureate Markowitz in the 1950s, the mean-risk (MR) formulation became a fundamental theory for risk management in finance. Despite the significance and popularity of MR-related approaches in finance, their applications in studying multi-echelon supply chain management problems have only been seriously explored in recent years. While the MR approach has already been shown to be useful in conducting risk analysis in stochastic supply chain models, there is no comprehensive reference source that provides the state-of-the-art findings on this important model for supply chain management. Thus it is significant to have a book that reviews and extends the MR related works for supply chain risk analysis. This book is organized into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the topic, offers a timely review of various related areas, and explains why the MR approach is important for conducting supply chain risk analysis. Chapter 2 examines the single period inventory model with the mean-variance and mean-semi-deviation approaches. Extensive discussions on the efficient frontiers are also reported. Chapter 3 explores the infinite horizon multi-period inventory model with a mean-variance approach. Chapter 4 investigates the supply chain coordination problem with a versatile target sales rebate contract and a risk averse retailer possessing the mean-variance optimization objective. Chapter 5 concludes the book and discusses various promising future research directions and extensions. Every chapter can be taken as a self-contained article, and the notation within each chapter is consistently employed.

This book deals with transportation processes denoted as the Real-time Distribution of Perishable Goods (RDOPG). The book presents three contributions that are made to the field of transportation. First, a model considering the minimization of customer inconvenience is formulated. Second, a pro-active real-time control approach is proposed. Stochastic knowledge is generated from past request information by a new forecasting approach and is used in the pro-active approach to guide vehicles to request-likely areas before real requests arrive there. Various computational results are presented to show that in many cases the pro-active approach is able to achieve significantly improved results. Moreover, a measure for determining the structural quality of request data sets is also proposed. The third contribution of this book is a method that is presented for considering driver inconvenience aspects which arise from vehicle en-route diversion activities. Specifically, this method makes it possible to restrict the number of performed vehicle en-route diversion activities.

This text applies sociological approaches to organizational change and development to explain process innovation and diffusion in internal auditing and management accounting systems. While management accounting reports have emphasized the measurement of quality and improved organizational performance, the extent to which process innovation strategies of total quality management (TQM) and reengineering have been integrated into behavioral accounting research has been limited. The book broadens quality and process innovation research by incorporating theories from organizational development, systems analysis, organizational learning, contingency theory, population ecology and collaborative management. In doing so, it integrates the study of TQM and reengineering into management accounting, internal auditing and control systems. TQM and process reengineering are presented as specific process innovation approaches, which can bring about either incremental or radical organizational change and development in management control systems, particularly in internal auditing and accounting control systems.

The book presents several highly selected cases in emerging countries where the production-logistics systems have been optimized or improved with the support of mathematical models. The book contains a selection of papers from the 5th International Conference on Production Research (ICPR) Americas 2010 held on July 21-23 in Bogota, Colombia. The main topic of the conference was "Technologies in Logistics and Manufacturing for Small and Medium Enterprises" which is perfectly aligned with the realities of emerging countries. The book presents methodologies and case studies related to a wide variety of production/logistics systems such as diary production, auto parts, steel and iron production, and financial services. It is focused but not limited to Small/Medium Enterprises.

"Logistic Core Operations with SAP" not only provides an overview of core logistics processes and functionality-it also shows how SAP's Business Suite covers logistic core operations, what features are supported, and which systems can be used to implement end-to-end processes in the following logistic core disciplines: Procurement, Distribution, Transportation, Warehouse Logistics and Inventory Management, and Compliance and Reporting. In this context the authors not only explain their integration, the organizational set-up, and master data, but also which solution fits best for a particular business need. This book serves as a solid foundation for understanding SAP software. No matter whether you are a student or a manager involved in an SAP implementation, the authors go far beyond traditional function and feature descriptions, helping you ask the right questions, providing answers, and making recommendations. The book assists you in understanding SAP terminology, concepts and technological components as well as their closed-loop integration. Written in a clear, straight-forward style and using practical examples, it contains valuable tips, illustrative screenshots and flowcharts, as well as best practices-showing how business requirements are mapped into software functionality.

We live in a time of unprecedented speed, connection, and uncertainty. While many organizations are adapting to this new reality by reinventing business models, significantly fewer are examining the implications of these changes for developing effective leadership. In Intentional Leadership, Rose M. Patten draws on her expertise as one of Canada's most influential leaders to shine a spotlight on this emergent and often neglected space. Drawing on learnings and a framework tested with over 900 senior leaders across industries and geographies, Intentional Leadership presents a guide for continuous renewal, focusing on the human side of leading. Patten debunks common myths, emphasizing that leadership capabilities do not just develop over time, but require self-awareness, feedback, intention, adjustment, and practice. Whether you are a CEO of a large corporation, an activist, raising a family, working in government, or leading a not-for-profit organization, Intentional Leadership meets you where you are and provides the necessary tools for self-reflection and growth as a leader.

Shared value not only offers a new concept to face the current business environmental dynamics but it also responds to macro-economic challenges. The creation of more value than mere profits can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. Thus, it offers huge economic potential and presents a new challenge to corporate optimisation endeavours. Julia Schmitt draws on current sustainability and innovation research approaches in order to provide a deeper understanding of the shared value concept as a differentiation strategy for small and medium sized enterprises. Her empirical study on the German fair trade and organic fashion industry provides insights into possible configurations of a shared value business strategy. The awareness of these findings is essential to make a shared value strategy lead to business success.

A good understanding of Chinese data gathering methods and reporting structures is invaluable to anyone with business or investment plans in China. This book tackles the veracity of Chinese statistics, raising awareness of abuses and problems in real-life examples that have occurred, and provides practical strategies to reduce risk in the future.

"Great retailers are great at service. No exceptions. This book offers a wealth of insight into delivering excellent retail service."

---Leonard L. Berry, Distinguished Professor of Marketing, N.B Zale Chair in Retailing and Market Leadership, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University

"With a growing understanding of service as a phenomenon and perspective of business and marketing, retailers are increasingly seeing the need to transform from distribution of products to service providers. This book includes considerable insight regarding the importance of the service perspective and how it can be implemented in retailing."
--Christian Gronroos, Professor of Service and Relationship Marketing, CERS Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management, Hanken School of Economics, Finland

"Consisting of chapters written by leading scholars in service management and retailing from around the world, this comprehensive book offers rich insights for how retailers can excel and achieve sustainable competitive advantage by invoking and implementing service management principles. This enlightening book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners with an interest in retailing."

--A. "Parsu" Parasuraman, Professor of Marketing & The James W. McLamore Chair, School of Business Administration, University of Miami Coral Gables, Florida

"Service excellence and service innovation are critical for success in today's competitive retail marketplace. "Service Management: The New Paradigm in Retailing" provides a contemporary and transformative lens for accomplishing these essential goals."

--Mary Jo Bitner, Professor, Director Center for Services Leadership, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University

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There are broadly four strategic issues in aviation: safety; security; environmental protection; and sustainability in air transport. These issues will remain for a long time as key considerations in the safe, regular, efficient and economic development of air transport. Within these four broad categories come numerous subjects that require attention of the aviation industry as well as the States. In six chapters, this book engages in detailed discussions on these subjects as they unravelled in events of recent years. The issue of safety is addressed first, following an introduction of the regulatory regime covering the four issues. Within the area of safety, the book covers such areas as safety management systems, safety and aeromedicine, safety and meteorology, the use of airspace, unmanned aircraft systems and safety oversight audits. In the security area, subjects covered include cyber terrorism, the integrity of travel documents, full body scanners, civil unrest and aviation, the suppression of unlawful acts on board aircraft and the financing of terrorism. The chapter on the environment focuses mainly on climate change - particularly on carbon credits, market based measures, the carbon market and emissions trading schemes and their effect on air transport. Finally, the chapter on sustainability discusses in detail market access along with such issues as slot allocation, open skies, the use of alternative fuels as an economic measure and corporate foresight. The concluding chapter wraps up with a discussion on where air transport is headed.

No matter the industry, the development of information technologies has transformed how information is distributed and used to predict trends. Collecting and identifying the most vital information, however, requires constant management and manipulation. Current Issues and Trends in Knowledge Management, Discovery, and Transfer is an essential reference source that discusses crucial practices for collaborating and distributing work as well as validating accrued knowledge from real-time data. Featuring research on topics such as dynamic knowledge, management systems, and sharing behavior, this book is ideally designed for academics, researchers, librarians, managing professionals, and students seeking coverage on knowledge acquisition and implementation across systems.