Search results

Autonomous maintenance (AM), one of the pillars of total productive maintenance (TPM), aims to achieve performance toward zero defects and zero breakdowns. AM system equipped with comprehensive lean tools provides continuous improvement during the AM activities. Despite its long duration, establishing a lean AM system with a robust guideline would provide significant benefits such as high quality and short lead time. Therefore, AM design approach should be provided in a holistic and detailed manner. This study aims to develop a framework for AM design, including preliminary, reactive, preventive and proactive steps using the axiomatic design (AD).

Requirements and technical parameters of the AM system are explored with AD. An extensive literature review and a real-life application are presented.

The proposed design was validated by adapting the proposed roadmap to a textile manufacturing system in Turkey. The application results justify the established AM system design with an average downtime improvement of 69.2% and the average elapsed time between two failures improvement of 65.1% for apparel department.

This study has the novelty of establishing an overall AM system design with all of its stages stepwise. It presents a comprehensive guideline in terms of integration of lean philosophy into AM design by generating maintenance-related use cases for lean tools. The developed approach facilitates creating and analyzing complex systems to improve maintenance implementations while reducing nonvalue-added operations.

The purpose of this paper is to support total productive maintenance implementers by providing a roadmap for autonomous maintenance (AM) preparation phase.

The authors use the axiomatic design (AD) methodology with lean philosophy as a paradigm.

This is an exploratory research to find the most important factors in AM preparation phase. A decoupled AD design ensures an effective usage of training within industry (TWI) and the introduction of standardized work (SW). TWI provides value in importance it assigns to leaders, with its “train the trainers” approach and in preparing a training program. Besides being an effective training method, TWI job instruction (TWI JI) provides needed information infrastructure to front load operators SW and equipment trainings.

Although AD, TWI and lean artifacts are generally field proven, the research is limited due to the lack of an industrial application.

In many real-life projects, companies do not know where to start and how to proceed, which leads to costly iterations. The proposed roadmap minimizes iterations and increases the chance of project success.

The authors apply AD for the first time to AM preparation phase despite it is used in the analysis of lean manufacturing. AD permits to structure holistically the most relevant lean manufacturing solutions to obtain a risk free roadmap. TWI has emerged as a training infrastructure; TWI JI-based operator SW training and the adaptation of JI structure to equipment training are original additions.

Like many other nations, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) is having colossal difficulties managing the continuity of its development efforts in the milieu of COVID-19 pandemic. Widespread resource gap is evident for development budget due to significant diminution of revenue from readymade garments (RMG) and remittances, volatility in capital market, constant increase in trade deficit and reduction of foreign currency reserve, increase in debt and lack of investor confidence. A new horizon of relationship with development partners (DPs) will matter more than ever before. Regrettably, recent experience with collaborative mechanisms such as Local Consultative Group (LCG) and LCG Sector Working Group (LCG-WG) does not support high-impact relationships in terms of result-oriented development effectiveness. Arguably, the international shift of the development community from aid to development effectiveness agenda in 2011 also contributed to country-level motivation of Government and DPs for closer collaboration. In this backdrop, the COVID-19 crisis makes a strong call to both Government and DPs to change their business for improved development results. This chapter, therefore, examines the issues that impede development effectiveness and governance related to the Government as well as DPs. The study observe that the DPs and GoB don’t represent a horizontal relationship to implement the development effectiveness agenda in Bangladesh mainly because of dominant attitude, lack of alignment and harmonization and accountability of DPs and weak policy, institution and leadership of GoB. However, COVID-19 economic crisis makes a renewed call to both DPs and GoB implement the development effectiveness agenda, addressing existing issues and improve the management of development finance to increase economic growth and improve life of the people.

The main purpose of this paper is twofold: to present a proposal for a model of educational quality management system within a process approach context for technical universities, and a conceptual model of a performance measurement system (PMS) towards the assessment of the quality level of management, core and support processes.

The paper encompasses two main parts: a theoretical portion and a case study. Within the theoretical background, the authors discuss the issue of educational quality management supported on a process approach perspective as well as performance measurement system in high education (HE). The case study reports the development of the concept of performance measurement system for technical universities.

The proposed system of educational quality management supported on a process approach, together with a conceptual model of the performance measurement system, can be implemented in every technical university. The identification of processes in the education quality management system permitted the development of the PMS. The model covers 32 key performance indicators (KPIs) for management processes, 39 for core processes and 19 for supporting ones.

The proposed performance measurement system is limited in its focus on educational processes and support of these processes. The evaluation of scientific and research activity and aspects related to financial resources is not pursued.

Elaboration of a conceptual model of a performance measurement system towards the assessment of the quality level of management, core and support processes is dedicated to technical universities.

The paper aims to provide empirical evidence of the impact of IFRS adoption on the value relevance of accounting information in the emerging market of Saudi Arabia.

The sample consists of 98 non-financial listed firms operating in Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2019, representing the years before and after IFRS adoption. The authors apply basic and extended price models to examine the value relevance of select accounting figures.

The authors findings provide evidence that accounting information is, generally, value relevant to the Saudi Arabian capital market. However, mixed results exist for particular accounting variables. Both earnings and cash flows are value-relevant in the period before and after IFRS adoption; equity is only relevant in the post-adoption period. Furthermore, IFRS adoption also increases the explanatory power of earnings. An increase in the value relevance of earnings and equity hurts the value relevance of cash flows. The effects are moderated by leverage and dividend policy.

The authors contribute to the ongoing discussion of the economic effects of IFRS adoption in emerging markets. The empirical findings show that initial concerns about IFRS adoption, as reflected by the negative coefficient within the regression analysis, are mitigated once the usefulness of the individual accounting variables published in financial statements is investigated.

This work sought to analyze targeted innovation strategies used during the pandemic to maintain companies’ competitiveness.

The methodology was a systematic literature review, analyzing how these factors can be used as leverage in decision-making and suggesting a framework tool.

As a result, nine factors were identified as drivers to stimulate competitiveness, bringing insights to structure actions in times of crisis to support agribusiness.

With this work, it is possible that other companies can base themselves and use the strategic drivers of innovation evidenced to remain competitive in the market during a period of crisis. As this is a systematic review of the literature, the application of a case study, for example, is a limitation, which could be a continuation of the work.

As this is a systematic review of the literature, the application of a case study, for example, is a limitation, which could be a continuation of the work.

This work has high value because it brings insights into strategic drivers of innovation that tend to leverage or maintain the competitiveness of agribusinesses in times of crisis. With the discussion carried out on the data obtained, it is possible that agribusinesses or other types of companies can be based for decision-making in a crisis scenario from innovative actions that generate competitive advantage.

This paper aims to present a comprehensive overview of the emergence and significance of digital payments, focusing on their impact on competitiveness and the need for policy interventions. In addition, it explores the design of policies that promote the adoption of digital payments, highlighting the benefits they offer to providers and users.

The paper examines the technological advances that have driven the growth of digital payment systems. It identifies key requirements for successful adoption and discusses the associated risks, along with potential strategies to mitigate these risks.

The findings emphasize the importance of responsible implementation and safeguarding the well-being of end users to fully realize the benefits of digital payment adoption. Understanding the inherent risks and establishing effective risk mitigation mechanisms are crucial. This necessitates the development of appropriate infrastructure to support the provision of digital payment services.

More research is needed to gain deeper insights into how emerging global trends in financial technology should be analyzed and understood by policymakers, service providers and users.

The findings of this study can guide policymakers, private sector managers and consumers in comprehending the effects of emerging digitalization trends and determining their adoption responses accordingly.

This paper stands out as one of the few research contributions that provide comprehensive and actionable policy recommendations to facilitate a smooth transition to a digital payments ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders.

This paper aims to investigate the potential influence of managers on sustainability assurance. When the quality of sustainability reporting is questionable because of subsequent restatements, the authors explore whether assurance is used to enhance its credibility as a legitimization tool or as an impression management strategy. Additionally, the authors analyze how capital markets react to this potential managerial capture and, particularly, whether investors penalize this practice through the cost of capital.

Using an international sample from 2012 to 2016 and panel data regressions, this study relies on DICTION’s master variables of optimism and certainty to examine the impact of managers on assurance and the market’s reaction to these practices.

The study shows that some managers might use assurance as a legitimization tool rather than as a means of reinforcing the credibility of sustainability reporting. In such cases, the results reveal that investors penalize (reward) managerial influence (no influence) on assurance.

The new findings help companies understand that they will not improve their financing terms if investors perceive that managers have influenced assurance. Moreover, these findings emphasize the need for standardization to clarify assurance criteria and prevent managerial influence.

Managerial influence on assurance raises doubts about its value in terms of reducing information asymmetry and especially improving investors’ decision-making.

The present study represents the first evidence of the potential use of assurance for non-informative purposes. The authors provide clear evidence of how investors penalize managerial influence on assurance, in contrast to the mainstream literature, which shows that this practice always improves investors’ decision-making and is rewarded.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on the relationship between accounting conservatism and the cost of equity in Canadian environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) firms.

Panel data was collected using the Thomson Reuters ASSET4 database on a sample of 284 Canadian ESG companies over the period 2007–2019.

The results obtained show a negative relationship between conditional conservatism and the cost of equity. The authors also find a negative relationship between unconditional conservatism and the cost of equity. In addition, IFRS adoption moderates the relationship between accounting conservatism and the cost of equity in Canadian ESG firms.

Future studies may extend the coverage of the study by including other countries and other sectors.

The results imply that prudent accounting signals information to investors about the quality of a company’s current and future earnings. The rates of return required by investors may be higher for conservative reporting companies that are more susceptible to opportunistic management discretion.

Although the previous literature has studied the direct correlation between accounting conservatism and the cost of equity, the present work focuses on examining the direct association between accounting conservatism and the cost of equity through the moderator effect of IFRS, which has not been widely used in studies of accounting conservatism until now.

The United States (US) sugar program protects domestic sugar farmers from unrestricted imports of heavily-subsidized global sugar. Sugar-using firms (SUFs) criticize that program for causing US sugar prices to be higher than world sugar prices. This study examines the financial performance of publicly traded SUFs to determine if they are performing at an economic disadvantage in terms of accounting profitability, risk and economic profitability compared to other industries.

Firm-level financial accounting and market data from 2010 to 2019 were utilized to construct financial metrics for publicly traded SUFs, agribusinesses and general US firms. These financial metrics were analyzed to determine how SUFs compare to their agribusiness peer group and general US companies. The comprehensive financial analysis in this study covers: (1) accounting profit rates, (2) drivers of profitability, (3) economic profit rates, (4) trend analysis and (5) peer comparisons. Quantile regression analysis and Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney statistics are employed for statistical comparisons.

Regarding various profitability and risk measures, SUFs outperform their agribusiness peers and the general benchmark of all US firms in terms of accounting profit rates, risk levels and economic profit rates. Furthermore, compared to other US industries using the 17 French and Fama classifications, SUFs have the highest return on investment and economic profit rate―measured by the Economic Value Added® margin―and the second-lowest opportunity cost of capital, measured by the weighted average cost of capital.

This study finds nothing to suggest that the US sugar program hinders the financial success of SUFs, contrary to recent claims by sugar-using firms. Notably in this analysis is the evaluation of economic profit rates and a series of robustness techniques.