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The proliferation of (big) data provides numerous opportunities for service advances in practice, yet research on using data to advance service is at a nascent stage in the literature. Many studies have discussed phenomenological benefits of data to service. However, limited research describes managerial issues behind such benefits, although a holistic understanding of the issues is essential in using data to advance service in practice and provides a basis for future research. The purpose of this paper is to address this research gap.

“Using data to advance service” is about change in organizations. Thus, this study uses action research methods of creating real change in organizations together with practitioners, thereby adding to scientific knowledge about practice. The authors participated in five service design projects with industry and government that used different data sets to design new services.

Drawing on lessons learned from the five projects, this study empirically identifies 11 managerial issues that should be considered in data-use for advancing service. In addition, by integrating the issues and relevant literature, this study offers theoretical implications for future research.

“Using data to advance service” is a research topic that emerged originally from practice. Action research or case studies on this topic are valuable in understanding practice and in identifying research priorities by discovering the gap between theory and practice. This study used action research over many years to observe real-world challenges and to make academic research relevant to the challenges. The authors believe that the empirical findings will help improve service practices of data-use and stimulate future research.

The studies focusing on inbound logistics in the automobile industry have been limited because of the relatively small portion of logistics cost. But now it is recognized as one of the critical factors for efficient execution of supply chain management (SCM). The survey of suppliers in the automobile industry conducted in this study indicated significant relationships among logistics performance, logistics outsourcing, and performance evaluation level. This research is three-fold. First, current status of part supplier's logistics was analyzed by interviews with inbound logistics providers and suppliers. Second, management type of logistics was analyzed. There were three kinds of logistics -two kinds of logistics outsourcing and direct control by the supplier. Each type of logistics management showed differences about performance. Third, logistics performance evaluation and its relation with the actual logistics performance were presented. Comparable performance evaluation factors were selected, and it is shown that they had a correlation with actual performance.

Global value changes continued to expand until the late 2000s. On the other hand, regional value chains have formed around major regional hubs due to the expansion of domestic demand in emerging economies, such as China, and strengthened trade protectionism since the global financial crisis. Such changes lead to the reorganisation of value chains, focusing on domestic markets (reshoring) or neighbouring countries (nearshoring). In particular, the importance of supply chain risk management has been highlighted following disruptions to the supply network due to the COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019. In this regard, major countries such as the USA and the EU are rapidly shifting to regional value chains for stable and sustainable production, rather than primarily aiming for production efficiency targeted at reducing costs. Industries in particular are more exposed to such supply chain risks under the existing structure and it now has become extremely important for businesses to take reaction to such risks. This is especially important for major industries in a country such as automobile or semiconductor manufacturing industries in South Korea. The aim of this study, therefore, is to establish the basis for the simultaneous growth of ports and linked industries by examining the existing structure of the global value chain for the automotive industry, which has a strong presence in South Korea’s domestic economy. In this regard, this research carries out a supply chain analysis focusing on the imports and exports of automotive parts. It also analyses the current structural risks and suggests risk management measures to secure a stable supply chain.

This paper presents a case study of Renault Samsung Motors (RSM) that recently encounters dynamic changes unveiling various opportunities and challenges due to increasing complexity of the supply network with growing sales volume, diversifying models, and intensifying global competition. Such competitive environment puts constant pressure on the logistics operations to reduce supply costs and lead time, but the RSM has not been paying much attention to aligning interests of supply chain partners. In 2007, RSM’s effort to build partnership with new 3PLs turned abortive due to their unexpected default on the contract throwing RSM into confusion and disruptions. In this study, the problem was investigated by examining route planning process and incentive scheme of 3PL, and an optimization model was constructed to evaluate the performance of existing 3PL operation. The results indicate that transportation cost can be reduced by relocating consolidation centers, utilizing regional terminal and redesigning routing sequence. However, the research found that the key to successful implementation of the optimized solutions is in designing effective incentive system that induces partners to participate in continuous improvement initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the trends of global automobile industry toward energy saving and smart application. The automobile industry has its own special supply, safety and reliability system. It combined with the legislations that progressive safety driving leads to increase automobile electronic (AE) facilities and enlarges the proportion of the electronic control for vehicles. Based on matured communication and semiconductor industries in Taiwan, the government assists these hi-tech industries in entering the AE domain by clustering relevant enterprises with assembly supply chains. Flagship IC packaging and LCD panels enterprises are located in the Kaohsiung Industrial Park which possesses advantages for the clustering of AE industry.

In this paper, a systematic investigation on establishing AE industry cluster in Kaohsiung Industry Park (KIP) is presented. First, 42 electrical and electronics enterprises are site visited and interviewed for operation and management preferential demands. Second, problems encountered in enterprises’ operation are identified through expert weight method. Third, the main factors involved in the operational management are then analyzed based on five flagship enterprises in KIP. The integration of industrial–university–government resources and assistance is demonstrated. Finally, the establishment of an innovative talents cultivation model is illustrated.

The developed systematic talent program is proposed to resolve the urgent demands in recruiting talents, operational costs and new products development.

This paper satisfies needs of research enterprise management. The establishment of an innovative talents cultivation model is illustrated.

China is currently developing and promoting an industrial cluster policy at the government level. By enacting the ‘Opinion on promoting industrial cluster development’, China is supporting the development of industrial clusters. Building an industrial cluster is done by using a single factor but requires many additional factors like regional characteristics, competitiveness factors are also diversified. To evaluate the competitiveness of the Chinese automobile industry cluster, a competitiveness element index should be developed and a competitiveness evaluation method is needed to evaluate the importance of each element. To accomplish this objective, this research applied the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and focused on the importance of the competitiveness elements.

This research investigated the character is tics regarding cases of clusters and also analyzed the competitiveness of the Changchun automobile cluster located in northeastern China. The purpose of this research is to help Korean enterprises who enter China in the hopes that Korea will emerge as a top automobile production country.

Two-handed automobile steering at low vehicle speeds may lead to reduced steering ability at large steering wheel angles and shoulder injury at high steering wheel rates (SWRs). As a first step toward solving these problems, this study aims, firstly, to design a surface electromyography (sEMG) controlled steering assistance interface that enables hands-free steering wheel rotation and, secondly, to validate the effect of this rotation on path-following accuracy.

A total of 24 drivers used biceps brachii sEMG signals to control the steering assistance interface at a maximized SWR in three driving simulator scenarios: U-turn, 90º turn and 45º turn. For comparison, the scenarios were repeated with a slower SWR and a game steering wheel in place of the steering assistance interface. The path-following accuracy of the steering assistance interface would be validated if it was at least comparable to that of the game steering wheel.

Overall, the steering assistance interface with a maximized SWR was comparable to a game steering wheel. For the U-turn, 90º turn and 45º turn, the sEMG-based human–machine interface (HMI) had median lateral errors of 0.55, 0.3 and 0.2 m, respectively, whereas the game steering wheel, respectively, had median lateral errors of 0.7, 0.4 and 0.3 m. The higher accuracy of the sEMG-based HMI was statistically significant in the case of the U-turn.

Although production automobiles do not use sEMG-based HMIs, and few studies have proposed sEMG controlled steering, the results of the current study warrant further development of a sEMG-based HMI for an actual automobile.

The proliferation of customer-related data provides companies with numerous service opportunities to create customer value. The purpose of this study is to develop a framework to use this data to provide services.

This study conducted four action research projects on the use of customer-related data for service design with industry and government. Based on these projects, a practical framework was designed, applied, and validated, and was further refined by analyzing relevant service cases and incorporating the service and operations management literature.

The proposed customer process management (CPM) framework suggests steps a service provider can take when providing information to its customers to improve their processes and create more value-in-use by using data related to their processes. The applicability of this framework is illustrated using real examples from the action research projects and relevant literature.

“Using data to advance service” is a critical and timely research topic in the service literature. This study develops an original, specific framework for a company’s use of customer-related data to advance its services and create customer value. Moreover, the four projects with industry and government are early CPM case studies with real data.

The study seeks to find the effect of financial leverage on the firm performance of non-financial companies listed in the Tokyo stock market.

The study collected data from 263 companies in the automobile and industrial producer sectors listed on the Tokyo stock exchange between 2001 and 2021. The generalized method of moments was used to estimate the effect of leverage on financial performance due to its ability to overcome the problems of endogeneity and autocorrelation.

The study found that the equity multiplier has a positive and statistically significant effect on return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and earning per share (EPS). The study discovered that the interest coverage ratio has a positive and statistically significant effect on ROA, ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q. The results revealed that the degree of financial leverage and debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) have a negative and statistically significant effect on ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q. The study also found that the capitalization ratios of the firms have a negative and statistically significant effect on ROA, ROE, EPS and Tobin’s Q.

The use of debt financing, which presents financial leverage, indicates that the companies can make enough earnings to pay off the interest and principal (debt service obligations), which were shown by the interest coverage ratio, as well as to pay all the long-term fixed expenses, which were shown by the fixed charge coverage ratio. Interest and fixed charge coverage have a positive statistically significant effect on the financial performance of automobile and industrial producer companies.

The study focused on the effect of financial leverage on financial performance by relying on pecking and trade-off theories to contribute to the existing body of literature in finance.

The goal of this paper is twofold: to assess the influence of specific corporate and market features on automobiles and parts sector's profitability in Euro area and to identify this particular sector's optimum debt level.

For the paper's purposes, the authors applied a panel data analysis on an annual basis for the period 2005–2017.

There is a strong statistical significance of debt ratio, growth domestic product per capita growth, E.C.'s economic sentiment index (ESI), the European Central Bank key interest rate and the Euro area crisis on sector's profitability, while weak statistical significance appears to emerge for the firm's size. Moreover, the authors find average 14.4% profitability for the entire sector of the Euro area, without significant fluctuations among firms and/or during the examined time period. Another interesting finding of this study is that results are consistent with the theory of Modigliani Miller that financial leverage at a “low” level is beneficial for the firm, but beyond a turning point, it becomes counterproductive. This turning point for the automobiles and parts sector in Euro area has been computed at 47.3%.

The paper focuses on issues of profitability, capital structure and optimal debt ratio of an important sector of the economy, the automotive sector. As regards the Euro area automotive sector, it is a dynamic sector with a significant multiplier effect for the European economy as it is strongly correlated with other industrial sectors as chemicals, steel, textiles, information technology and so forth, having an outstanding multiplier effect on the economy.