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The year 2013-14 was very significant for Raychem RPG Ltd (RRL) - a joint venture between RPG group, India and TE Connectivity, USA. The sales were looking up and order book was promising. Newly restructured units were working well and business in new segments was picking up. There were several initiatives undertaken by the CEO in last five years of his tenure. His team had achieved the desired stability and turnaround was successful. A high-growth future in a slowing global economic scenario had to be converted into a more profitable opportunity. However, he faced several questions. Was the strategic transformation journey that he embarked on four years ago complete? Could he have done something different? Which were the areas where the next focus should be? Did RRL have the required competences to succeed in those areas? How would RRL manage the changing expectations of the two JV partners?

Energy-efficient retrofitting of existing buildings is an inexpensive way of reducing energy consumption and mitigating climate change impacts. The purpose of this study is to examine electricity savings and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission reduction potentials of energy-efficient retrofit measures for surveyed two large shopping malls in India.

A techno-economic model was developed to estimate the electricity savings achieved due to energy-efficient retrofit measures in shopping malls that were surveyed in 2017. Alternative scenarios were constructed based on capital cost and cost of conserved energy (CCE) value for retrofit measures: cheapest replacement, best available technology and best value for money. The life-cycle electricity and CO₂ emission savings and payback period for end-use retrofit measures were evaluated.

The estimated average electricity savings were around 39–56% for various retrofit measures across all three scenarios while the average CO₂ emission reductions were around 50–125 kt-CO₂. Retrofits to light-emitting diode lights and air conditioners with inverter technology offered more life-cycle electricity savings. Paybacks for most lighting end-use measures were estimated to be within 1.5 years while for most space conditioning end-use measures were between 1 and 4 years.

The primary survey-based comprehensive research makes an exclusive contribution by estimating life-cycle electricity savings and CO₂ emission reductions for energy-efficient retrofit measures of lighting and space cooling end-use appliances for existing shopping malls. The present research methodology can also be deployed in other types of commercial buildings and in residential buildings to estimate electricity savings from energy-efficient retrofit measures.

Solar energy is on a rising trend internationally and in India. The government target of 100 GW solar capacity by 2022 from the present 12 GW is providing a major push for growth in India. However technological development and market competitiveness are pushing down the prices of solar power. The CEO of Amplus Solar has to deal with these challenges to ensure faster growth. He is analysing various options such as expanding the market to include customers who may not be as credit worthy, expanding to foreign geographies, diversification into providing energy efficiency and other services, and entering other markets such as Renewable Energy Certificates, carbon trading, etc.

This paper aims to provide an interview with Amit Garg, founder of Upside Learning.

The paper asks Garg about his background, his role at Upside Learning, and emerging technologies within the field.

The paper discusses the ways in which mobile technology is changing the business landscape.

The paper offers advice to those looking to adopt mobile learning within their organization.

The paper presents the insight of a leading practitioner in the field of workplace learning.

Factors that affect the use of carbon credit trading (CCT) by industries include as follows: avoiding carbon taxes, international expansion, venture capital, competitive advantage and clean technology. The impact of these factors is examined here in relation to the profile of 14 Canadian organizations to investigate factors that influence CCT practices.

This research involves a survey of 150 employees at 14 industries in British Columbia (BC) Canada to review and analyze their perceptions of factors that impact CCT.

Results demonstrate the potential for enhancing the use of CCT by organizations. It was shown that organizations perceive that CCT enhances their competitive advantage, which is an incentive that needs further investigation as having potential for encouraging CCT and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction.

Due to limited funding and workforce, as well as geographical constraints, only 14 industrial organizations were engaged in this research in BC Canada. The scope of future research needs to be enlarged by considering neighboring countries such as the USA and Mexico. This research regarding factors that impact organizations in adopting carbon crediting trading has the potential to provide and shape inter-continental comparisons.

This study illustrates how CCT has the potential to enhance competitive advantage and may impact the industry toward reducing GHG emissions through CCT. This concept adds a new environmental protection factor and dimension to trade and industry. As organizations plan to invest funds in different carbon reduction projects this may result in expanded employment opportunities.

Organizations are interested in CCT but may hesitate in engaging in CCT as it can be a complex procedure. In addition to further research, workshops and seminars regarding CCT and dissemination of research should be organized by the universities, related authorities and government organizations to make CCT more known and feasible. This study shows that financial and non-financial benefits may be gained by any organization when involved in CCT. Larger advertising and information campaigns may motivate more organizations in this regard.

This study extends the study of Garg et al. (2017) regarding challenges for CCT practices. International Journal of Management, 10(1), 85–96. It contributes evidence that the size (revenue) of an organization does not affect the level of carbon credits traded and shows potential for smaller organizations to be encouraged to take part in CCT.

In any real time control system, its scheduling and control policy should be reassessed every time the state of the system changes. In large and complex systems, this could be a self‐defeating goal. Implementing real time control in such systems would require an enormous amount of computation time. Determination of discrete time interval (simulation window length) is the main objective of this study. To implement and demonstrate this methodology, we selected a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) which approximates a dynamic job shop. The Expert Control System (ECS) developed in this study integrated programmes for different functions and employed multi‐pass simulation to determine the best scheduling strategy in the system. The simulation output is then subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Newman‐Keuls′ range tests to obtain a “good” simulation window length for different performance criteria of optimisation.

In December 2015, 196 countries will meet in Paris to reach a new global climate change agreement. This case looks at the climate negotiation process from the eyes of India's environment minister Mr Prakash Javadekar. In India's context, the energy sector has a big role to play in emission reduction as it is the largest emitter of the GHGs. When compared to US and China, India's per-capita emissions are miniscule but they are expected to rise substantially as the GoI is investing heavily in the infrastructure sector which has a substantial carbon footprint. The case discusses the mandatory emission cuts that India will announce considering the fulfillment of sustainable development goals. The case also points out, the government's promise of providing 24*7 electricity by 2019 which it feels can be an impediment in setting an aggressive emission cut target. The case questions if changes in the portfolio mix can be a part of the solution.

Strategic management and management of innovation and technology.

The course can be used for undergraduate and postgraduate students. The case would be relevant in the strategic management course to understand the concept of technology strategy and the various evaluation parameters guiding firms in their technology decisions. A refresher of the concept of value chain analysis can also be done through the case. It can also be used to teach innovation and technology management to understand the innovation process and the importance of various organizational factors for taking technology decisions.

The case tries to bring together different aspects of technological innovation and technology strategy at North Delhi Power Ltd, Delhi which has taken various initiatives to turnaround the dilapidated power distribution industry in India. It details the various technological initiatives taken by the company to revamp the power distribution situation of the country. Discussion in the case also revolves around the technology decisions (technology strategy) taken by the company to drive the technological initiatives. The organizational culture supporting technology decisions and the technological initiatives are also woven into the case.

After a discussion on the case students will be in a better position to appreciate various decisions which firms take with respect to technology. They will get an understanding of what is technological innovation and about the technological innovation process. The importance of organizational factors to supplement technology decisions and innovation will be brought out in the case.

Teaching note.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the experimental data related to the friction stir welding (FSW) of marine grade Al-Mg4.2 alloy. Mathematical models are developed to study the individual and interaction effects of input variables on the performance characteristics of joints. FSW parameters are optimized to maximize the yield strength and weld nugget microhardness of the welded joints.

Response surface methodology is applied to establish the mathematical relationship between six input factors, namely, tool rotational speed, transverse speed, tool shoulder diameter, tool material hardness, tilt angle and pin profile; and two response variables, namely, yield strength and weld nugget microhardness. Six factors–five-level rotatable central composite matrix is used for the design of experiments. The quadratic model is used, as suggested by the design expert software, to express the response parameters as a function of investigated input parameters. The competence of the developed models is verified through analysis of variance.

The present investigation clearly indicates that the studied input factors have a significant effect on the quality of the joints. The optimal combination of input factors is determined to achieve the desired responses.

This paper teems a new look on tensile and hardness properties of Al-Mg4.2 joints by relating the microstructure, fractrographs and grains distribution with the dynamic recrystallization and plasticized material movement during the FSW process. The outcome of this research will help in seizing the opportunities of joining Al-Mg4.2 alloy using FSW, in the offshore and marine applications.

The purpose of this paper is to optimize the performance for complex repairable system of paint manufacturing unit using a new hybrid bacterial foraging and particle swarm optimization (BFO-PSO) evolutionary algorithm. For this, a performance model is developed with an objective to analyze the system availability.

In this paper, a Markov process-based performance model is put forward for system availability estimation. The differential equations associated with the performance model are developed assuming that the failure and repair rate parameters of each sub-system are constant and follow the exponential distribution. The long-run availability expression for the system has been derived using normalizing condition. This mathematical framework is utilized for developing an optimization model in MATLAB 15 and solved through BFO-PSO and basic particle swarm optimization (PSO) evolutionary algorithms coded in the light of applicability. In this analysis, the optimal input parameters are determined for better system performance.

In the present study, the sensitivity analysis for various sub-systems is carried out in a more consistent manner in terms of the effect on system availability. The optimal failure and repair rate parameters are obtained by solving the performance optimization model through the proposed hybrid BFO-PSO algorithm and hence improved system availability. Further, the results obtained through the proposed evolutionary algorithm are compared with the PSO findings in order to verify the solution. It can be clearly observed from the obtained results that the hybrid BFO-PSO algorithm modifies the solution more precisely and consistently.

There is no limitation for implementation of proposed methodology in complex systems, and it can, therefore, be used to analyze the behavior of the other repairable systems in higher sensitivity zone.

The performance model of the paint manufacturing system is formulated by utilizing the available uncertain data of the used manufacturing unit. Using these data information, which affects the performance of the system are parameterized in the input failure and repair rate parameters for each sub-system. Further, these parameters are varied to find the sensitivity of a sub-system for system availability among the various sub-systems in order to predict the repair priorities for different sub-systems. The findings of the present study show their correspondence with the system experience and highlight the various availability measures for the system analyst in maintenance planning.