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The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between Lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0 for small and medium size of enterprise in Japan and Brazil.

The authors conducted a quantitative survey (20 companies in Japan and 30 companies in Brazil) combined with a qualitative interview (2 companies in Japan and 15 companies in Brazil).

According to the quantitative study, 90% of them practice Lean manufacturing and 40% of them practice Industry 4.0. In the qualitative study in Brazil, four managers responded that the Lean manufacturing is a prerequisite for Industry 4.0 since any production process with waste cannot be productive, even with sophisticated digitalization technology.

The authors explored further the relationship between “defensive Digital Transformation (DX),” which is based mainly on Lean manufacturing, and “offensive DX,” which relates to customer value creation through Industry 4.0. This study clarifies the relationship and plays as a roadmap to develop better the manufacturing from current status to the vision of Industry 4.0.

New maintenance hypotheses such as lean smart maintenance emphasized internal integration. Since the maintenance process is not fully integrated with other business processes, it indicates that some of the problems in the maintenance process are caused by other departments. Additionally, nothing can be managed or improved without first measuring it. In order to enhance internal integration, this study developed a model that makes use of information systems data to examine synchronization and collaboration across departments engaged in maintenance operations.

This research connects maintenance management and business process management through information systems. A conceptual module model based on CMMS is proposed that will use data which are already available in CMMS and, using process mining, will assess the level of synchronization between departments within an organization.

This conceptual model will serve as a roadmap for creating better value-added CMMS software. This system operates as a performance measurement tool in three majors, including organizational analysis, workflow analysis and eventually, a future simulation of maintenance processes. This module will serve as a decision support system, highlighting opportunities for improvement in maintenance processes.

A practical guideline is provided for the future development of CMMSs and their enhancement to intelligence. All assumptions are based on maintenance theories, techniques for measuring maintenance performance and business process management and process mining.

The fourth industrial revolution and digital transformation have caused paradigm changes in the procedures of goods production and services through disruptive technologies, and they have formed new methods for business models. Health and medicine fields have been under the effect of these technology advancements. The concept of smart hospital is formed according to these technological transformations. The aim of this research, other than explanation of smart hospital components, is to present a model for evaluating a hospital readiness for becoming a smart hospital.

This research is an applied one, and has been carried out in three phases and according to design science research. Based on the previous studies, in the first phase, the components and technologies effecting a smart hospital are recognized. In the second phase, the extracted components are prioritized using type-2 fuzzy analytic hierarchical process based on the opinion of experts; later, the readiness model is designed. In the third phase, the presented model would be tested in a hospital.

The research results showed that the technologies of internet of things, robotics, artificial intelligence, radio-frequency identification as well as augmented and virtual reality had the most prominence in a smart hospital.

The innovation and originality of the forthcoming research is to explain the concept of smart hospital, to rank its components and to provide a model for evaluating the readiness of smart hospital. Contribution of this research in terms of theory explains the concept of smart hospital and in terms of application presents a model for assessing the readiness of smart hospitals.

This paper aims to analyze Hangzhou Urban Brain in responding to COVID-19, including systematically sorting out the development mode, capabilities, composition and application of Urban Brain and exploring its role and effect. This paper tries to provide a reference for other cities' digital infrastructure construction through case analysis.

The authors took Hangzhou Urban Brain as a typical case in urban digital infrastructure construction, and they conducted thorough research on its practice in facing COVID-19. The authors analyzed the key elements of Urban Brain, the application and the evaluation of Urban Brain through literature review, field investigation, questionnaire and interviews.

Hangzhou Urban Brain has been deeply applied in urban management and has a good foundation. Therefore, when the COVID-19 occurred, the Urban Brain played an important role. The detailed practices facing COVID-19 are mainly in five aspects: information collection and analysis, ensuring material supply by government–enterprise collaboration, using AI and Big Data to “Visualize” COVID-19, etc. Moreover, Urban Brain has won high evaluation. However, Hangzhou Urban Brain still has problems like data privacy and security, technical issues, etc.

This case study shows that Hangzhou's experience in Urban Brain construction is worthy of reference and promotion. Firstly, it can strengthen the understanding of digital infrastructure in responding to public health emergencies. Furthermore, it provides a reference for other urban governance worldwide by excavating the role and effect of digital infrastructure in preventing and controlling COVID-19. Thirdly, it explores how to improve the digital infrastructure construction to support public health challenges, which will help the cities grasp the actual value of data and make progress in this field. By this, it can provide references for cities in the world, especially in Asia to achieve sustainable city development.

Food safety management systems (FSMSs) are implemented in food supply chains primarily to adhere to regulations as well as meet customer requirements. The literature contains examples of successful and failed implementation of FSMSs, including the influencing factors. This paper aims to explore the literature on the effectiveness factors of FSMSs to identify the literature findings, the emerging themes and suggestions for future research.

A systematic literature review (SLR) is used to synthesise research on the factors influencing the effectiveness of FSMSs. The methodology consists of formulating the research questions, identifying, selecting and evaluating relevant studies, analysing, synthesising and presenting findings.

The effectiveness factors of FSMSs identified from the literature are clustered into five categories, namely (1) FSMS culture; (2) FSMS inspection, verification and audit; (3) FSMS knowledge; (4) Legal regulations; and (5) Prerequisite programmes. Moreover, it was determined that the effectiveness factors featured in a variety of contexts.

SLR is an objective, rigorous and reliable approach to exploring the effectiveness factors of FSMSs. However, the results are contingent on research studies selected for review, which depends on the research criteria used, available and accessible research studies and the criteria for inclusion and exclusion of studies. This dependency introduces bias, an intrinsic limitation of the SLR approach.

In this study, the effectiveness factors of FSMSs are identified utilising an SLR approach, integrating findings from previously reported research. The factors and resulting emerging themes identified in this study are beneficial, including in improving food safety management practices.

In this study, the authors investigate a pressing concern: how auditors react to their clients facing repercussions due to environmental violations. More specifically, this study aims to examine how environmental engagements, which carry potential risks and liabilities, influence auditors’ decision-making and fee structure.

This study uses unique, reliable and actual violation data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) from 2000 to 2015, focusing on clients involved in environmental violations that led to legal prosecution and penalties and those who subsequently engaged in voluntary supplemental environmental projects (SEPs). The authors use the ordinary least squares method to test the authors’ main research question and later use propensity score matching and alternate data source (ASSET4) to check the robustness of the authors’ results.

The authors find that firms with environmental violations are more susceptible to auditor resignation. Moreover, the environmental violator firms that maintain their engagement with auditors pay significantly higher audit fees compared to non-environmental violator firms. Furthermore, these environmental violator firms also face extended audit report delays and take longer to appoint a new auditor.

This study provides an additional consequence of environmental violations, namely, increased chances of auditor resignation and higher audit fees, alongside the penalties imposed by the US-EPA. Moreover, the authors’ findings position environmental violations and participation in SEPs as important factors in auditors’ business risk assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence mechanism of different levels of social capital (Structure holes–local network attributes and indirect ties–global network attributes) and organizational culture on the creativity of key inventors, and the role of organizational culture between social capital and creativity.

The paper tested the hypotheses with a sample of patent data accumulated from 46 firms in Chinese electronic information and automobile sectors. Negative binomial regression was used to explore the factors influencing the creativity of key inventors.

The paper discovers that structural holes are valuable social capital for the creativity of key inventors and very important in firms with a collective and conservative culture. Moreover, it also locates that key inventor are more creative in firms with an individualistic and competitive culture than those in firms with a collective and conservative culture.

This study emphasizes the influence of social capital on creativity and contributes to R&D management. It highlights structural holes are certainly important to key inventors in a collective and conservative culture, thus contradicting preceding studies that locate structural holes useful solely in an individualistic culture. This finding broadens our knowledge of the benefits of this network structure. Also, this debate challenges several basic views on structural holes currently.

This empirical study explores the profound impact of management functions on the productivity of yard cargo handling equipment within container terminals.

By closely examining crucial management aspects such as planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, a comprehensive managerial behavior framework was developed through focus group studies (FGS) and focal interviews. These qualitative methods were complemented by the distribution of questionnaires to practitioners in Vietnam. To validate the concept of management functions and analyze their influence on effective management practices for equipment efficiency, a structural equation model (SEM) technique was employed using partial least-squares estimation (PLS).

The findings of this study demonstrate that planning (PL), organizing (OR), and controlling (CT) significantly contribute to the productivity of yard cargo handling equipment, while leading (LD) does not exhibit a direct positive impact.

Theoretically, this study contributes by providing clarity to the definition, purpose, and value of management functions in the field of cargo handling equipment management. Furthermore, these research findings offer valuable insights to terminal operators and managers, enabling them to optimize their management strategies and enhance productivity levels, ultimately resulting in improved operational outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a system dynamic simulated process model for maintenance work management incorporating the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies.

The extant literature in physical assets maintenance depicts that poor maintenance management is predominantly because of a lack of a clearly defined maintenance work management process model, resulting in poor management of maintenance work. This paper solves this complex phenomenon using a combination of conceptual process modeling and system dynamics simulation incorporating 4IR technologies. A process for maintenance work management and its control actions on scheduled maintenance tasks versus unscheduled maintenance tasks is modeled, replicating real-world scenarios with a digital lens (4IR technologies) for predictive maintenance strategy.

A process for maintenance work management is thus modeled and simulated as a dynamic system. Post-model validation, this study reveals that the real-world maintenance work management process can be replicated using system dynamics modeling. The impact analysis of 4IR technologies on maintenance work management systems reveals that the implementation of 4IR technologies intensifies asset performance with an overall gain of 27.46%, yielding the best maintenance index. This study further reveals that the benefits of 4IR technologies positively impact equipment defect predictability before failure, thereby yielding a predictive maintenance strategy.

The study focused on maintenance work management system without the consideration of other subsystems such as cost of maintenance, production dynamics, and supply chain management.

The maintenance real-world quantitative data is retrieved from two maintenance departments from company A, for a period of 24 months, representing years 2017 and 2018. The maintenance quantitative data retrieved represent six various types of equipment used at underground Mines. The maintenance management qualitative data (Organizational documents) in maintenance management are retrieved from company A and company B. Company A is a global mining industry, and company B is a global manufacturing industry. The reliability of the data used in the model validation have practical implications on how maintenance work management system behaves with the benefit of 4IR technologies' implementation.

This research study yields an overall benefit in asset management, thereby intensifying asset performance. The expected learnings are intended to benefit future research in the physical asset management field of study and most important to the industry practitioners in physical asset management.

This paper provides for a model in which maintenance work and its dynamics is systematically managed. Uncontrollable corrective maintenance work increases the complexity of the overall maintenance work management. The use of a system dynamic model and simulation incorporating 4IR technologies adds value on the maintenance work management effectiveness.

In recent years, railway systems worldwide have faced challenges such as the modernization of engineering projects, efficient management of intelligent digital railway equipment, rapid growth in passenger and freight transport demands, customized transport services and ubiquitous transport safety. The transformation toward intelligent digital transformation in railways has emerged as an effective response to the formidable challenges confronting the railway industry, thereby becoming an inevitable global trend in railway development.

This paper, therefore, conducts a comprehensive analysis of the current state of global railway intelligent digital transformation, focusing on the characteristics and applications of intelligent digital transformation technology. It summarizes and analyzes relevant technologies and applicable scenarios in the realm of railway intelligent digital transformation, theoretically elucidating the development process of global railway intelligent digital transformation and, in practice, providing guidance and empirical examples for railway intelligence and digital transformation.

Digital and intelligent technologies follow a wave-like pattern of continuous iterative evolution, progressing from the early stages, to a period of increasing attention and popularity, then to a phase of declining interest, followed by a resurgence and ultimately reaching a mature stage.

The results offer reference and guidance to fully leverage the opportunities presented by the latest wave of the digitalization revolution, accelerate the overall upgrade of the railway industry and promote global collaborative development in railway intelligent digital transformation.