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The areal (surface area density of bits) storage density of magnetic hard disks is continually increasing, with typical available commercial storage densities being around 10Gbits/in². It is predicted that densities in excess of 40Gbits/in² will be possible before the year 2003. A number of key issues arise from this development, such as the need to determine and control accurately the dynamic flying height (z‐axis) of the read‐write head, which is affected by the apparent distortion of the disk surface due to rotation‐induced disk resonance. As a result of the increasing storage density the positional control of the head in the plane of the disk (x‐y plane) also becomes more critical. This paper deals generally, but with a particular emphasis on optical and piezoelectric sensors used in our laboratory for characterisation of storage media and systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present a mathematical model that illustrates the trade‐offs between sustainability, demand, costs, and profit in a supply chain with a single supplier and a single manufacturer.

It is assumed that a single product is produced and sold on a market where demand is sensitive to price and quality. Sustainability is treated as a quality attribute and is measured in terms of the levels of scrap and emissions generated in the supply chain. It is assumed that the emissions and scrap can be controlled by varying production rates or by investing in production processes. The impact of cooperative and non‐cooperative behaviour between the supplier and the manufacturer is explored. Numerical studies are used to illustrate the behaviour of the model.

The analysis shows that the supplier and the manufacturer can attract additional customers by controlling scrap and emissions. The behaviour of the supplier and the manufacturer are dictated by the decision criteria, such as changes in the level of sustainability, used by customers to evaluate the product. It is shown that the profit of the system is higher and that the level of quality is lower in the case of cooperation than in the case of non‐cooperation.

Several areas for future work are highlighted. The study of alternative demand functions, linking sustainability to a monetary component, including additional players, and incorporating additional sustainability indicators all offer possibilities for extending the model.

There is an identified need for analytical models that consider sustainability in the supply chain. The results are especially important for companies operating in markets where customers perceive the sustainability of a product as a quality criterion.

In September 1985, eight sets of children's books from Australia began an odyssey that will take them into all fifty states and Canada by the end of 1988. The books— and the resource, reference and display materials that accompany them—were chosen specifically for their value in introducing non‐Australians to Australia and her children's literature. They also provide an ideal starting point for library collection development.

A publication issued by the Department of Health Wellington, New Zealand, contains the following interesting article which recently appeared in the Wellington “Evening Post”:—

OUR readers may be amused this month by the microfilm imaginings of our correspondent in “Letters on Our Affairs,” but there is undoubtedly a more marked disposition now than formerly to reduce to a mechanism many of the usual routines of libraries. We suppose routine is always mechanical, is repetitive and, for the enterprising ambitious library worker, a matter of boredom. How far the “electronic brain” and other more recent developments of science can be adapted to our simple processes remains to be seen, but all experiment is good even if it does not survive the initial stage. What is to be most feared in any profession is the standardizing inflexibly of its techniques ; that way lies its old age, perhaps its petrification. It is for this reason that we welcome such things as those we have already discussed at times in our pages—the central cataloguing experiment of Harrods, the punched‐card vouchers and other records sponsored (so far as libraries are concerned) by Mr. T. E. Callender, the highly mechanised method of classing propounded by Dr. Ranganathan, the placing of D.C. numbers on the title pages of the books they publish by Jonathan Cape and Harrap, the visible fines receiving box and many more such things. No one uses them all. They free librarians, it is urged, for more specifically library service. We hope that they do. We have always before us the undoubted truth that the good man scraps methods that are obsolescent and the librarian (if one now exists) who is not a business man—especially if he is charged with a large library—is a somewhat pathetic person.

The purpose of this paper is to present the model-driven decision support system (DSS) for small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs) that actively participates in collaborative activities and manages the planned obsolescence in production. In dealing with the complexity of such demand and supply scenario, the optimisation models are also developed to evaluate the performance of operations practices.

The model-driven DSS for SMMEs, which uses the optimisation models for managing and coordinating planned obsolescence, is developed to determine the optimal manufacturing plan and minimise operating costs. A case application with the planned obsolescence and production scenario is also provided to demonstrate the approach and practical insights of DSS.

Assessing planned obsolescence in production is a challenge for manufacturing managers. A DSS for SMMEs can enable the computerised support in decision making and understand the planned obsolescence scenarios. The causal relationship of different time-varying component obsolescence and availability in production are also examined, which may have an impact on the overall operating costs for producing manufactured products.

DSS can resolve and handle the complexity of production and planned obsolescence scenarios in manufacturing industry. The optimisation models used in the DSS excludes the variability in component wear-out life and technology cycle. In the future study, the optimisation models in DSS will be extended by taking into the uncertainty of different component wear-out life and technology cycle considerations.

This paper demonstrates the flexibility of DSS that facilitates the optimisation models for collaborative manufacturing in planned obsolescence and achieves cost effectiveness.

In recent times, reverse logistics (RL) is gaining significant traction in various automobile industries to recapture returned vehicles’ value. A good RL program can lower manufacturing costs, establish a green supply chain, enhance customer satisfaction and provide a competitive advantage. However, reducing disruptions and increasing operational efficiency in the automobile RL requires implementing innovative technology to improve information flow and security. Thus, this manuscript aims to examine the hurdles in automobile RL activities and how they can be effectively tackled by blockchain technology (BCT). Merging BCT and RL provides the entire automobile industry a chance to generate value for its consumers through effective vehicle return policies, manufacturing cost reduction, maintenance records tracking, administration of vehicle information and a clear payment record of insurance contracts.

This research is presented in three stages to accomplish the task. First, previous literature and experts' opinions are examined to highlight certain factors that are an aggravation to BCT implementation. Next, this study proposed an interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy set (IVIFS) – decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) with Choquet integral framework for computing and analyzing the comparative results of factor interrelationships. Finally, the causal outline diagrams are plotted to determine the influence of factors on one another for BCT implementation in automobile RL.

This study has categorized the barriers to BCT implementation into five major factors – operational and strategical, technical, knowledge and behavioral, financial and infrastructural, and government rules and regulations. The results revealed that disreputable technology, low-bearing capacity of IT systems and operational inefficiency are the most significant factors to be dealt with by automobile industry professionals for finer and enhanced RL processes utilizing BCT. The most noticeable advantage of BCT is its enormous amount of data, permitting automobile RL to develop client experience through real-time data insights.

This study reveals several factors that are hindering the implementation of BCT in RL activities of the automobile industry. The results can assist experts and policymakers improve their existing decision-making systems while making an effort to implement BCT into the automobile industry's RL activities.

Although there are several studies on the benefits of BCT in RL and the adoption of BCT in the automobile industry, individually, none have explicated the use of BCT in automobile RL. This is also the first kind of study that has used IVIFS-DEMATEL with the Choquet integral framework for computing and analyzing the comparative results of factor interrelationships hindering BCT implementation in automobile RL activities.

This paper proposes optimisation models to evaluate and examine the selling of extended warranty policies in terms of improved profits in producing/marketing remanufactured products. These models are numerically solved using a quadratic programming solution approach and implemented in the decision support system (DSS).

The purpose of this paper is to develop the optimisation models for a DSS and evaluate different warranty policies for buyers.

This study has demonstrated the flexibility and usefulness of a model-driven DSS for the quality and warranty management, which is applied to examine and evaluate different configurations (i.e. component reuse, rebuild and recycle) for remanufactured products and propose the selling of extended warranty policies for buyers.

The developed model-driven DSS can assist manufacturers to select and increase the number of components, e.g. to be reused, rebuilt, and recycled for producing a remanufactured product and propose suitable warranty policies for buyers. However, this study focusses only on the evaluation of warranty policies for specific remanufactured products in a DSS, i.e. types of air compressors for production operations in manufacturing industry.

This study developed optimisation models to be used in a DSS for proposing the selling of extended warranty of a remanufactured product to improve customer satisfaction and maximise the gained profits for manufacturers.

Remanufacturing is the only end-of-life (EOL) treatment process that results in as-new functional and aesthetic quality and warranty. However, applying mental model theory, the purpose of this paper is to argue that the conception of remanufacturing as an EOL process activates an operational mental model (OMM) that connects to resource reuse, environmental concern and cost savings and is thus opposed to a strategic mental model (SMM) that associates remanufacturing with quality improvements and potential price increases.

The authors support the argument by empirically assessing consumers’ multi-attribute decision process for cars with remanufactured or new engines among 202 car buyers in China. The authors conduct a conjoint analysis and use the results as input to simulate market shares for various markets on which these cars compete.

The results suggest that consumers on average attribute reduced utility to remanufactured engines, thus in line with the OMM. However, the authors identify a segment accounting for about 30 per cent of the market with preference for remanufactured engines. The fact that this segment has reduced environmental concern supports the SMM idea that remanufactured products can be bought for their quality.

A single-country (China) single-brand (Volkswagen) study is used to support the conceptualised mental models. While this strengthens the internal validity of the results, future research could improve the external validity by using more representative sampling in a wider array of empirical contexts. Moreover, future work could test the theory more explicitly.

By selling cars with remanufactured engines to customers with a SMM that values the at least equal performance of remanufactured products, firms can enhance their profit from remanufactured products. In addition, promoting SMM enables sustainable business models for the sharing economy.

As a community, the authors need to more effectively reflect on shaping mental models that disconnect remanufacturing from analogies that convey inferior quality and performance associations. Firms can overcome reduced utility perceptions not only by providing discounts, i.e. sharing the economic benefits of remanufacturing, but even more by increasing the warranty, thus sharing remanufacturing’s performance benefit and reducing consumers’ risk, a mechanism widely acknowledged in product diffusion but neglected in remanufacturing so far.

The clean development mechanism (CDM) provides industrialized countries with an incentive to invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries to achieve a reduction in CO₂ emissions at lowest cost that also promotes sustainable development in the host country. Windmill pumps could be of interest under the CDM because they directly displace greenhouse gas emissions while contributing to sustainable rural development. This study aims to assess the maximum theoretical as well as the realistically achievable CDM potential of windmill pumps in India.

To estimate the CDM potential of windmill pumps in case of electricity replacement (by the substitution of electric motor pumps) regional baseline(s) has been used whereas in case of diesel replacement (by the substitution of diesel engine pumps) the IPCC emission factor(s) has been used. The authors have analyzed the financial feasibility of five designs of windmill pumps at ten select locations in India to justify the financial additionality of windmill pump‐based CDM projects. To analyze the future dissemination levels of windmill pumps logistic growth model has been used.

The annual CO₂ emissions mitigation potential through windmill pumps in India could theoretically reach five million tones. Under more realistic assumptions about diffusion of windmill pumps based on past experiences with the government‐run programmes, annual CER volumes by 2012 could reach 13,000‐46,000 and 0.07‐0.3 million by 2020. This would require that the government sets the subsidy level for windmill pumps at a level that allows them to become viable with the CER revenue. From a macro‐economic point of view, this makes sense if the sustainability benefits are deemed sufficiently high to warrant promotion of this project type.

The paper illustrates the vast theoretical potential of CO₂ mitigation by using windmill pumps for irrigation water pumping in India.