This book presents current developments in smart city research and application regarding the management of manufacturing systems, Industry 4.0, transportation, and business management. It suggests approaches to incorporating smart city innovations into manufacturing systems, with an eye towards competitiveness in a global environment. The same pro-innovative approach is then applied to business and cooperation management. The authors also present smart city transportation solutions including vehicle data processing/reporting system, mobile application for fleet managers, bus drivers, bus passengers and special applications for smart city buses like passenger counting system, IP cameras, GPS system etc. The goal of the book is to establish channels of communication and disseminate knowledge among researchers and professionals working on smart city research and application. Features contributions on a variety of topics related to smart cities from global researchers and professionals in a wide range of sectors; Presents topics relating to smart cities such as manufacturing, business, and transportation; Includes expanded selected papers from EAI International Conference on Management of Manufacturing Systems (MMS 2016), EAI Industry of Things and Future Technologies Conference - Mobility IoT 2016 and International Conference on Smart Electric Vehicles and Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (SEVNET).

Despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, many forms of discrimination against people with disabilities are still practiced, denying opportunity for employees, as well as the employers who might hire and support them. Based on a multi-year research project by a team of experts in human resource management, economics, and communications, Hidden Talent showcases the innovative practices of organizations that are actively hiring, training, and retaining people with disabilities-and thriving as a result. The authors reveal the roots of disability discrimination and demonstrate the benefits, to employers and employees alike, of investing in disabled workers, featuring in-depth case examples. Additional resources, including an overview of the ADA, information on tax and legal incentives, and listing of related publications, organizations, and websites, will make this book essential for anyone researching, managing, or experiencing the dynamics of disability in the workplace. The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990 to protect and assist over 20 million people with disabilities. Though its mandates for business are far-reaching, many forms of discrimination are still practiced, denying opportunity for employees and potential employees with disabilites, as well as the companies that might hire and support them. Meanwhile, as many analysts argue, we are heading toward a high-skill labor shortage, with a largely untapped resource ready to fill the gap. Based on a multi-year research project by a team of experts in human resource management, economics, and communications, Hidden Talent showcases the innovative practices of organizations that are actively hiring, training, and retaining people with disabilities-and thriving as a result. The authors reveal the roots of disability discrimination, and demonstrate the benefits, to employers and employees alike, of investing in disabled workers, featuring in-depth case examples. Additional resources, including an overview of the ADA, information on tax and legal incentives, and a listing of related publications, organizations, and websites, will make this book essential for anyone researching, managing, or experiencing the dynamics of disability in the workplace.

Violence in the workplace has risen to "epidemic" proportions according to the Centers of Disease Control. In this volume, Dr. Marc McElhaney, a specialist in workplace violence, presents a comprehensive guide that no manager can do without when having to prepare for these potentially dangerous and often disruptive events. These are situations that often seem to explode in the workplace without warning, when in fact, they have often long incubated outside the manager's awareness. Utilizing a risk management approach that focuses on the process of how these situations evolve, as opposed to an oversimplified presentation of "profiles," will provide the manager with the needed tools to prevent and effectively intervene, to ensure a safe and cost-effective resolution. This book takes a comprehensive view that covers the broad range of aggression control strategies that an organization can utilize, from the fundamental building blocks of a primary prevention program to specific techniques that the manager can use to defuse and stabilize situations that are already threatening to explode. In between, the author presents a step-by-step description of the assessment and intervention process that should occur when and if an organization is faced with a potentially dangerous set of circumstances. Specific high-risk situations, such as employee termination, are discussed in detail, along with strategies that Dr. McElhaney has found to be particularly effective when having to stabilize, control and ultimately ensure a safe and long-lasting conclusion. Utilizing an approach that combines his knowledge and experience from the fields of threat assessment, risk management, conflict resolution and crisis negotiation, the author focuses on an approach that not only addresses the organization's immediate needs, but which also strives for a resolution and management plan that addresses long-term safety concerns.

This book explores social productivity in work teams on production sites, with an eye toward human welfare. It focuses especially on "sympathy management" by the use of multivariate analysis in a worldwide social survey. Manufacturing production sites have many work teams, and their activities support productivity. Productivity, however, is evaluated only by the production system. Therefore, the social system's sympathy evaluation as teamwork in the work team is completely disregarded by management activity. Management recognizes this social system and must upgrade teamwork as a social system from tacit to explicit knowledge as an appraisal system. Thus, this new paradigm significantly contributes to industrial society beyond conventional management. The work team's social system functions in a production system and affects team productivity. Therefore, it must take a bird's-eye view of social productivity as an overall strategy. Social productivity has two appraisal criteria, the social system's sympathy and the production system's productivity. Increasing explicit knowledge of sympathy as teamwork requires the perspective of human-social science. Social productivity has been verified through global deployment by social research and case studies and contributes to humankind's welfare on sustainable development goals and ISO56000, an innovation management system. Social productivity can also decrease opportunity loss based on ignoring the social system of the work team.

This book discusses important topics for engineering and managing software startups, such as how technical and business aspects are related, which complications may arise and how they can be dealt with. It also addresses the use of scientific, engineering, and managerial approaches to successfully develop software products in startup companies. The book covers a wide range of software startup phenomena, and includes the knowledge, skills, and capabilities required for startup product development; team capacity and team roles; technical debt; minimal viable products; startup metrics; common pitfalls and patterns observed; as well as lessons learned from startups in Finland, Norway, Brazil, Russia and USA. All results are based on empirical findings, and the claims are backed by evidence and concrete observations, measurements and experiments from qualitative and quantitative research, as is common in empirical software engineering. The book helps entrepreneurs and practitioners to become aware of various phenomena, challenges, and practices that occur in real-world startups, and provides insights based on sound research methodologies presented in a simple and easy-to-read manner. It also allows students in business and engineering programs to learn about the important engineering concepts and technical building blocks of a software startup. It is also suitable for researchers at different levels in areas such as software and systems engineering, or information systems who are studying advanced topics related to software business.

For many, starting a business can be an overwhelming experience. Understanding the financial aspects of running a business can be even more daunting. Entrepreneurial Finance, Sixth Edition was written to help a broad range of U.S. business owners understand the financial aspects of entrepreneurship. Unlike traditional corporate finance books, this text explains the financial topics most important to running a profitable small business suchasinventory control, time value of money, working capital management, and forecasting. Updated to reflect recent economic trends, this edition also shows how two popular business tools (excel and TI BA II Plus calculator) can assist business owners in problem-solving and decision-making. Features Tackles the financial aspects of business entrepreneurship-from business planning to inventory control, to time value of money, to working capital management, to forecasting and financial planning for both the entrepreneur and the business. Provides critical background knowledge-by presenting basic economic and financial concepts early in the text. Explains the different types of small businesses-by examining the financial statements for Sole Proprietorships, Partnerships, LLCs and Corporations. Explains all six time value of money formulas-and their application in both personal financial planning and business financial planning. Offers a glimpse at real small businesses-using short end-of-chapter case studies. Shows how to solve sample problems-using excel and the Texas Instruments BAII Plus calculator. Includes time value of money tables-see Appendix B.

Pearls of Perspicacity more resembles a box of chocolates than it does a traditional business or career book. Each chapter delivers its unique tidbit of knowledge and insight in a manner best suited to the ideas presented. The chapters differ in length, tone, and depth, but all have one characteristic in common: They all present nuggets of insight to help you immediately achieve better performance and greater fulfillment in your life. Why "perspicacity" you ask? Why couldn't you just say "pearls of wisdom"? Or even something more straightforward like "good ideas"? The answer is simple. None of those words sufficiently describe the book's broad range of content and the true nature of the ideas presented. Take wisdom for example. Wisdom implies a soundness based on knowledge, experience, or understanding that leads to good judgment. Fair enough; the ideas in the book would pass this test. But the nature of these pearls extends beyond mere soundness. Perspicacity implies a special keenness or acuity applied to insight. It implies a cleverness, perceptiveness, or acuity that takes the basic notion of wisdom one step deeper. This deeper level internalization of certain truths will give you a noticeable advantage in your career.

Corporations accumulate a lot of valuable data and knowledge over time, but storing and maintaining this data can be a logistic and financial headache for business leaders and IT specialists. Uncovering Essential Software Artifacts through Business Process Archaeology introduces an emerging method of software modernisation used to effectively manage legacy systems and company operations supported by such systems. This book presents methods, techniques, and new trends on business process archaeology as well as some industrial success stories. Business experts, professionals, and researchers working in the field of information and knowledge management will use this reference source to efficiently and effectively implement and utilise business knowledge.

This book is a compilation of advanced research and applications on robotic item picking and warehouse automation for e-commerce applications. The works in this book are based on results that came out of the Amazon Robotics Challenge from 2015-2017, which focused on fully automated item picking in a warehouse setting, a topic that has been assumed too complicated to solve or has been reduced to a more tractable form of bin picking or single-item table top picking. The book's contributions reveal some of the top solutions presented from the 50 participant teams. Each solution works to address the time-constraint, accuracy, complexity, and other difficulties that come with warehouse item picking. The book covers topics such as grasping and gripper design, vision and other forms of sensing, actuation and robot design, motion planning, optimization, machine learning and artificial intelligence, software engineering, and system integration, among others. Through this book, the authors describe how robot systems are built from the ground up to do a specific task, in this case, item picking in a warehouse setting. The compiled works come from the best robotics research institutions and companies globally.

This book provides insight into research and development of key aerospace materials that have enabled some of the most exciting air and space technologies in recent years. The stories are shared with you by the women who experienced them, those engineers and scientists in the labs, on the shop floors, or on the design teams contributing to the realization of these technologies. Their work contributes to the world in the challenging and vital field of aerospace materials, and their stories seethe with a pride and a passion for the opportunity to make these important contributions. As an important part of the Women in Science and Engineering book series, the work highlights the contribution of women leaders in Aerospace Materials, inspiring women and men, girls and boys to enter and apply themselves to secure our future in an increasingly connected world.

This book discusses supply chain issues and models with examples from actual case studies. Recent advances in sustainability, supply chains and technologies have brought promising potential for the management of sustainable global and local supply chains. While most of the current literature seem to consider developments in the field of sustainable supply chains and in the field of Industry 4.0 as two distinct entities, this book attempts to explore the synergy in bringing these two distinct fields together. The book features chapters on management of sustainability and industry 4.0 on supply chains as a whole, with several case studies on issues related to the application of sustainable supply chains in specific application sectors. They employ mathematical modeling and statistical analyses, as well as descriptive qualitative studies. They cover a range of application areas including multiple sectors (restaurant, manufacturing, logistics, furniture, food and insurance), domains (supply chains, logistics, marketing, and reverse logistics) and multiple country contexts (UK and India). The potential links between sustainability and the recent technological innovations from Industry 4.0 have been explored in detail. The book offers a valuable tool for managerial decision-making on the current practice and future potential on the use of Industry 4.0 tools for sustainable supply chains to facilitate competitive advantage with case studies in various industry sectors. In addition, some intriguing mathematical models will appeal to students and researchers interested in modeling the logistics process and the application of evolutionary game theory for integrating the social and economic aspects of sustainable supply chains. Some of these supply chain issues have been addressed in a previous book by the Editors.

Since the early 2000s, state-led and innovation-focused strategies have characterized the approach to development pursued in countries around the world, such as China, India, and South Korea. Brazil, the largest and most industrialized economy in Latin America, demonstrates both the opportunities and challenges of this approach. Over the course of nearly 20 years, the Brazilian government enacted various policies and programs designed to strengthen the country's capacity to innovate. It increased spending on science and technology, encouraged greater collaboration between industry and universities, and fostered the creation of new institutions whose primary aim was to facilitate greater private research and development (R&D) spending. In this book, the editors unite a diverse array of empirical contributions around a few key themes, including public policies, institutions and innovation ecosystems, and firms and industries, that collectively make the case for a new, forward-looking innovation agenda aimed at addressing persistent challenges and exploiting emerging opportunities in Brazil. Its conclusions offer valuable lessons for other developing and emerging economies seeking to accelerate innovation and growth in the modern age. With its interdisciplinary and wide-ranging contribution to the study of innovation, as well as attention to broader policy implications, this book will appeal to scholars and professionals alike.

This book examines how contemplative arts practice and a mindful approach to creativity, can be used to offer new possibilities for facilitating team creativity and collaboration in organizational settings. The author employs a qualitative, action research paradigm, using arts-based and ethnographic methods, to explore the perceived effects of a contemplative arts workshop process on team creativity and collaboration within an organization. The book demonstrates how a contemplative arts workshop process may be used to facilitate mindfulness, trust, communication, collaboration, and creative insights among teams and working groups. It explores each of these themes in depth and develops a model based on those findings. The model includes five elements: 1. Individual-Level Mindfulness, 2. Trust and Authentic Communication, 3. Team Cohesion and Collaboration, 4. Creative Ideation and Insights, and 5. Leadership: Creating a Culture of Innovation. Combining theory and practice, the book offers a series of mindfulness and contemplative arts exercises that facilitators can use to address each of the five levels of the model. This book weaves together contemporary psychological research on mindfulness and organizational creativity along with practical applications and contemplative arts exercises for practitioners and scholars of workplace creativity, management and organisational and industrial psychology.

This volume of the series ARENA2036 compiles the outcomes of the first Stuttgart Conference on Automotive Production (SCAP2020). It contains peer-reviewed contributions from a theoretical as well as practical vantage point and is topically structured according to the following four sections: It discusses (I) Novel Approaches for Efficient Production and Assembly Planning, (II) Smart Production Systems and Data Services, (III) Advances in Manufacturing Processes and Materials, and (IV) New Concepts for Autonomous, Collaborative Intralogistics. Given the restrictive circumstances of 2020, the conference was held as a fully digital event divided into two parts. It opened with a pre-week, allowing everyone to peruse the scientific contributions at their own pace, followed by a two-day live event that enabled experts from the sciences and the industry to engage in various discussions. The conference has proven itself as an insightful forum that allowed for an expertly exchange regarding the pivotal Advances in Automotive Production and Technology.

This book provides a comprehensive and effective exchange of information on current developments in the management of manufacturing systems and Industry 4.0. The book aims to establish channels of communication and disseminate knowledge among professionals working in manufacturing and related institutions. In the book, researchers, academicians and practitioners in relevant fields share their knowledge from the sectors of management of manufacturing systems. The chapters were selected from several conferences in the field, with the topics including management of manufacturing systems with support for Industry 4.0, logistics and intelligent manufacturing systems and applications, cooperation management, and its effective applications. The book also includes case studies in logistics, RFID applications, and economic impacts in logistics, ICT support for industry 4.0, industrial and smart logistics, intelligent manufacturing systems and applications

The public sector provides services to the public and does not expect to acquire financial gain; hence, the practices from the private sector could not be used efficiently without modification, bearing in mind that the main scope of the public organization is to provide quality services to the citizens. Knowledge management can acquire and transfer knowledge in order to succeed in this effort and to confront challenges that exist in the modern knowledge economy. Therefore, knowledge management can play a vital role in the reorganization of the public sector and its necessary organizational change. Knowledge Management Practices in the Public Sector is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of improving the quality of public services through the implementation of knowledge management in public organizations. While highlighting topics including intellectual capital, risk assessment, and organizational strategy, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, ICT consultants, public sector workers, public administrators, government officials, researchers, scholars, and students.

Digital Product Management, Technology, and Practice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives covers a wide range of digital product management issues and offers some insight into real-world practice and research findings. Experts in several disciplines from around the world offer their views on the technical, operational, and strategic challenges that face digital product managers and researchers now and in the next several decades.

This book presents the latest developments concerning techniques, tools, and methodologies in supply chain ecosystems. It gathers contributions from a variety of experts, who analyze a range of case studies and industrial sectors such as manufacturing, energy, agricultural, healthcare, humanitarian logistics, and urban goods distribution, to name but a few. The book is chiefly intended to meet the needs of two sectors: firstly, the academic sector, so as to familiarize students, professors, and researchers with the tools that are now being used to optimize supply chains; and secondly, the industrial and managerial sector, so that supply chain management practitioners can benefit from methods and tools that are yielding valuable results in other contexts.

With current socio-economic development trends and changing work landscapes, modern workplaces are progressively becoming a subject of flexibilisation and hybridisation. Contemporary office environments are commonly adapting to the needs of the flexible labour markets by offering the non-territorial and rotation-based practice of allocating desks to workers on dynamic schedules. This book explores this growing trend by offering different perspectives on the benefits and challenges of the flexible workplace phenomena. Topics discussed range from defining and comparing flexible, coworking and corpoworking spaces, policies made in local environments, and the flexible working taxonomy.

This book brings together various threads of research in the field of gender mainstreaming. It aids in further supporting and understanding the role of gender in health and safety research, practice, and policy. It looks at gender mainstreaming as being recognised as key in cultivating sustainable worker health and working systems due to it being a central component of many international policy initiatives. This book deals with gender mainstreaming being advocated at a policy level, while focusing on the limited recognition and discourse on the issue of gender and its direct and indirect association to workers' health in the field of occupational health and safety. This book addresses problems facing gender-sensitive policies and outlines and reflects upon current best practice principles and practices to support the development and implementation of policies, interventions, and research initiatives.