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The purpose of this paper is to examine how knowledge management systems have been used by the studied organizations to improve knowledge accessibility and knowledge sharing in order to increase workplace learning.

The study relies on a qualitative multisite case study method. Data were obtained from five organizations at a southern state in the USA. Multiple interviews, onsite observation, and documentation analyses were conducted at each studied organization. Data analysis used open coding and thematic analysis. Results were triangulated based on multiple data sources.

The findings revealed that the learning environment of an organization is important for workplace learning. All studied organizations share a need for a conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge in order to facilitate effective informal learning in the workplace. This research concludes that engineering the learning environment through effective knowledge management should be a cohesive effort of the entire organization and demands congruent support from all levels of the organization.

The study expands the understanding of issues related to workplace learning through knowledge accessibility in both business and academic settings. To improve workplace learning, one should not just stipulate technology interventions; other factors, such as the organization's design, work design, and the culture/vision of the organization, all play important roles in the creation of a learning organization that will induce informal learning in the workplace.

A study was conducted shortly after the 2001 general election to ascertain whether those elected to the House of Commons were keeping pace with their constituents by embracing the use of cyber‐technology. This was achieved by researching what percentage of MPs from the “Big three” parties had an e‐mail address and/or Web site, the degree of interactivity on politicians’ Web sites and the features offered on the sites. Interviews were also carried out to gauge the opinions held by MPs on cyber‐democracy and interactivity. The findings showed that the Liberal Democrat party has embraced the potential of the digital technology to an extent that shames the party of government and the official opposition. Labour and the Tories have a long distance to travel to catch up with the Lib Dems. They run the risk of becoming an irrelevance in an online world.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate causal agents of health and safety (H&S) incidents among “plant-trailers” (as used by construction and utility contractors to transport mechanical machinery); including the relationship(s) of such incidents to routine safety inspections and, plant maintenance functions.

H&S plant-trailer incident data, from a collaborating UK-based case study utility company are analysed using inductive, interpretative and descriptive statistical methods.

Principal incident occurrences relate to trailer wheels, wheel bearings, tyres and braking systems. All forms of incidents observed harbour significant risk and especially, if they occur during travel on public highways. Derived recommendations for incident mitigation and control, suggest a requirement for improved human behaviour, machinery inspection regimes and maintenance systems.

The findings will be valuable to academia as a basis for advancing this new research subject, both empirically and internationally. Direction is offered in this respect.

Recommendations will be of practical relevance to machinery management practitioners generally and to plant-trailer stakeholders more specifically. For the latter, the study encourages introspective consideration of plant-trailer H&S systems.

No previous research has targeted these issues relating to plant-trailers.

The electric vehicle has been viewed as a technological solution to the dual plagues of dwindling fossil fuel supplies and pollutant emissions from gasoline powered vehicles. Futurists see a world where most personal transportation is electrically powered with energy supplied by tomorrow's power plants. In that future world, automobile power sources — representing millions of uncontrollable sources of pollution and energy waste — are consolidated into fewer, manageable, generators in fixed locations. With fixed and relatively few sources of pollution, resources can be better focused to provide clean, inexpensive energy for transportation. Many people share this vision of the future but few have been able to see how it can be brought into existence. Initial attempts have focused on legislation to stimulate the development of this market. As with any new technology, the electric vehicle field has developed its own terminology. For purposes of clarity throughout mis paper please bear in mind the following definitions.

Using the constructal law of physics this study aims to provide guidance to future scholarship on global supply chain management. Further, through two case studies the authors are developing, the authors report interview findings with two senior VPs from two multi-national corporations being disrupted by COVID-19. This study suggests how this and recent events will impact on the design of future global supply chains.

The authors apply the constructal law to explain the recent disruptions to the global supply chain orthodoxy. Two interviews are presented from case studies the authors are developing in the USA and UK – one a multi-national automobile parts supplier and the other is a earth-moving equipment manufacture. Specifically, this is an exploratory pathway work trying to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on supply chain scholarship.

Adopting the approach of Bejan, the authors believe that what is happening today with COVID-19 and other trade disruptions such as Brexit and the USA imposing tariffs is creating new obstacles that will redirect the future flow of supply chains.

It is clear that the COVID-19 response introduced a bullwhip effect in the manufacturing sector on a scale never-before seen. For scholars, the authors would suggest there are four pathway topics going forward. These topics include: the future state of global sourcing, the unique nature of a combined “demand” and “supply shortage” bullwhip effect, the resurrection of lean and local production systems and the development of risk-recovery contingency strategies to deal with pandemics.

Supply chain managers tend to be iterative and focused on making small and subtle changes to their current system and way of thinking, very often seeking to optimize cost or negotiate better contracts with suppliers. In the current environment, however, such activities have proved to be of little consequence compared to the massive forces of economic disruption of the past three years. Organizations that have more tightly compressed supply chains are enjoying a significant benefit during the COVID-19 crisis and are no longer being held hostage to governments of another country.

An implicit assumption in the press is that COVID-19 caught everyone by surprise, and that executives foolishly ignored the risks of outsourcing to China and are now paying the price. However, noted scholars and epidemiologists have been warning of the threats of pandemics since the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus. The pundits would further posit that in their pursuit of low-cost production, global corporations made naive assumptions that nothing could disrupt them. Both the firms the authors have interviewed had to close plants to protect their workforce. It was indicated in the cases the authors are developing that it is going to take manufacturers on average one month to recover from 4–6 days of disruption. These companies employ many thousands of people, and direct and ancillary workers are now temporarily laid off and face an uncertain future as/when they will recover back to normal production.

Using the constructal law of physics, the authors seek to provide guidance to future scholarship on global supply chain management. Further, through two case studies, the authors provide the first insight from two senior VPs from two leading multi-national corporations in their respective sectors being disrupted by COVID-19. This study is the first indication to how this and recent disruptive events will impact on the design of future global supply chains. Unlike the generic work, which has recently appeared in HBR and Forbes, it is grounded in real operational insight.

The aim of this research was to call attention to the implementation of failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) in a collaborative environment, the issues occurred in the implementation process, and a tool that can be used by all parties in a collaborative environment for FMEA process.

The discussion includes the procedure of an integrated FMEA approach, how to implement the procedure in a supply chain, and the common problems occurred in its implementation in automotive industry under a collaborative environment.

The research provided an example of inconsistency in the ranking of severity, occurrence, and detection to show that the inconsistency may delay FMEA implementation in a supply chain.

This study offered guidelines for manufacturing industry in correcting the problems in FMEA applications, so companies can adopt their FMEA process into a collaborative supply chain environment. This paper also demonstrated a Microsoft EXCEL‐based tool that can ease the FMEA process in a collaborative environment for determining sampling size, reliability and confidence level for tests in design verification and control plan as a part of integrated FMEA process.