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The main purpose of this paper is to assess the technological view of apparel new product development (NPD) process through a framework for improving the efficiency of NPD process in Sri Lankan apparel industry.

The study uses literature review, a survey and in-depth interviews of industry experts for data collection. Descriptive analysis and correlation analysis are used to identify the relationship between NPD process performance and Industry 4.0 (I4) technology components.

All technology components are enablers of NPD process, yet the relative importance of technology components varies within the NPD life cycle. Technoware is identified as the most significant, while Humanware component is the least significant for the advancement of I4 technologies in the NPD process.

Despite the novelty of research investigation into NPD process using I4 technologies in apparel industry, it is limited to one geographical location and a small segment of the industry.

This paper assists apparel industry practitioners to better understand and prioritize I4 technology components in the NPD life cycle for their successful adoption and for reaping the benefits.

This research generates new knowledge on the adoption of I4 technologies using industry insights into technology components mapped/aligned with key stages of NPD life cycle.

The suppliers are recognized as important external sources who can significantly contribute by working together with the buyer during the innovation process. Operational capabilities of suppliers can be one of the considerable factors when selecting them to participate in the activities at the front-end of innovation. However, proper understanding of the influence of operational capabilities of suppliers on front-end decision-making in apparel product innovation is still very limited particularly in the context of the Sri Lankan apparel industry. Therefore, this study aims to explore the influence of operational capabilities of suppliers on the front-end decision making in apparel product innovation in Sri Lanka.

Both semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey were used as data collection techniques. Six senior managers for the interviews and 60 participants for the questionnaire were randomly selected. All those who participated in interviews and the questionnaire respondents have been involved in the front-end of innovation in different apparel manufacturing organizations in Sri Lanka.

The results indicated that the operational capabilities of suppliers had a direct positive influence on front-end decision-making, and the suppliers’ production flexibility was found to be the most influential. Further, the results highlighted that 27.3% of the front-end decisions associated with apparel product innovation in Sri Lanka were influenced by the factors governing operational capabilities of suppliers.

The findings of the research will be beneficial for both academia and industry. The findings will be useful to extend the current understanding and make a noteworthy contribution to this topic and to provide useful and practical guidance to material suppliers and supporting industries who work with Sri Lankan apparel manufacturing.

Organization’s core competencies are acknowledged as most valuable assets and skills which contribute to enhance the ability of innovation, the competitive advantage and commercial success of the business. Although several researchers have studied the effects of core competencies on the success of an organization, no enough work has been carried out to investigate the effect of core competencies onfront-end decision-making. Apparel-specific studies in the area of core competencies relating to front-end decision-making are rarely found. Therefore, this paper aims to determine the impact of organizational core competencies on front-end decision-making in the apparel innovation.

A conceptual framework was developed focusing four groups of competencies; technological/ technical, customer, network/ partnership and financial competences and hypothesis were derived. Sixty participants in different companies across Sri Lanka were randomly selected based on their involvement in the front-end of the apparel innovation for questionnaire survey. The data were analyzed using the SPSS version 20 statistical software package. Spearman's rho correlation and Linear regression analysis were used to quantify the impact of the competencies on front-end decisions.

The factors of network competencies are found to be the most influentialon effective front-end decision-making in apparel innovation in Sri Lanka. These results strongly suggests strengthening companies’ ability to interact with partners who possess raw materials, machineries and technology know-how to facilitate efficient front-end decision-making. The next most influential are the factors of technological competencies. It highlights the importance of strengthening the companies’ own technical/ technological competencies to facilitate effective front- end decision-making in apparel innovation.

The findings of this research are of main interest to extend the current understanding on how different factors of organization’s core competencies influence on effective front-end decision-making in apparel innovation. Particularly, apparel domain practitioners will be motivated in implementing and nurturing these important/ and most influential competencies within their firms to facilitate front-end decision-making to achieve better results consistently.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) is a booming sector that has profoundly influenced every walk of life, and the education sector is no exception. In education, AI has helped to develop novel teaching and learning solutions that are currently being tested in various contexts. Businesses and governments across the globe have been pouring money into a wide array of implementations, and dozens of EdTech start-ups are being funded to capitalise on this technological force. The penetration of AI in classroom teaching is also a profound matter of discussion. These have garnered massive amounts of student big data and have a significant impact on the life of both students and educators alike.

Purpose: The prime focus of this chapter is to extensively review and analyse the vast literature available on the utilities of AI in health care, learning, and development. The specific objective of thematic exploration of the literature is to explicate the principal facets and recent advances in the development and employment of AI in the latter. This chapter also aims to explore how the EdTech and healthcare–education sectors would witness a paradigm shift with the advent and incorporation of AI.

Design/Methodology/Approach: To provide context and evidence, relevant publications were identified on ScienceDirect, PubMed, and Google Scholar using keywords like AI, education, learning, health care, and development. In addition, the latest articles were also thoroughly reviewed to underscore recent advances in the same field.

Results: The implementation of AI in the learning, development, and healthcare sector is rising steeply, with a projected expansion of about 50% by 2022. These algorithms and user interfaces economically facilitate efficient delivery of the latter.

Conclusions: The EdTech and healthcare sector has great potential for a spectrum of AI-based interventions, providing access to learning opportunities and personalised experiences. These interventions are often economic in the long run compared to conventional modalities. However, several ethical and regulatory concerns should be addressed before the complete adoption of AI in these sectors.

Originality/Value: The value in exploring this topic is to present a view on the potential of employing AI in health care, medical education, and learning and development. It also intends to open a discussion of its potential benefits and a remedy to its shortcomings.

Signs saturate and surround society. This article illuminates the significant roles played by documentation within the context of the coronavirus pandemic. It centres, what it terms as, “COVID-19 signage” as essential extensions of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) into society. It posits that this signage helps materialize, mediate and articulate the pandemic from an unseen phenomenon into tangible objects with which people see and interact.

This article presents a documentary typology of COVID-19 signage to provide a conceptual framework in which to situate, approach and analyse this diverse documentation and its implications for social life and traffic. Further, this article offers a case study of Malta's COVID-19 signage that helped materialize, mediate and articulate the pandemic across the European island nation during its national lockdown in the first half of 2020. This case study helps contextualize these signs and serves as a dual contemporary and historical overview of their creation, implementation and use.

The coronavirus pandemic cannot be seen with the naked eye. It is, in many respects, an abstraction. Documents enable the virus to be seen and the pandemic to be an experienced reality. Specifically, COVID-19 signage materializes the disease and pandemic into tangible items that individuals interact with and see on a daily basis as they navigate society. From personal to environmental to community signs, these documents have come to mediate social life and articulate COVID-19 during this extraordinary health crisis. A material basis of a shared “pandemic social culture” is consequently established by and through this signage and its ubiquity.

This article can serve as a point of departure for analyses of other kinds of COVID-19 signage in various contexts. It can serve as an anchor or example for other investigations into what other signs were used, including why, when and how they were produced, designed, formatted, implemented, enforced, altered and/or removed. For instance, it could be used for comparative studies between different NPIs and their associated signage, or of the signage appearing between different cities or countries or even the differences in signage at various political and socio-temporal points of the pandemic.

It is dually hoped that this article's documentary typology, and historical snapshot, of COVID-19 signage could help inform how current and future NPIs into society are or can be used to mitigate the coronavirus or other potential health crises as well as serve as both a contemporary and historical snapshot of some of the immediate and early responses to the pandemic.

This documentary typology can be applied to approaches and analyses of other kinds of COVID-19 signage and related documentation. By serving as a conceptual framework in which situate, approach and analyse these documents, it is hoped that this article can help create a sense of clarity in reflections on sign-saturated environments as well as be practically employed for examining and understanding the effective implementation of NPIs in this pandemic and other health crises.