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Equipment performance helps the manufacturing sector achieve operational and financial improvements despite process variations. However, the literature lacks a clear index or metric to quantify the monetary advantages of enhanced equipment performance. Thus, the paper presents two innovative monetary performance measures to estimate the financial advantages of enhancing equipment performance by isolating the effect of manufacturing fluctuations such as product mix price, direct and indirect characteristics, and cost changes.

The research provides two measures, ISB (Improvement Saving Benefits) and IEB (Improvement Earning Benefits), to assess equipment performance improvements. The effectiveness of the metrics is validated through a three stages approach, namely (1) experts' binary opinion, (2) sample, and (3) actual cases. The relevant data may be collected through accounting systems, purpose-built software, or electronic spreadsheets.

The findings suggest that both measures provide an effective cost–benefit analysis of equipment performance enhancement. The measure ISB indicates savings from performance increases when equipment capacity is greater than product demand. IEB is utilised when equipment capacity is less than product demand. Both measurements may replace the unitary cost variation, which is subject to manufacturing changes.

Manufacturing businesses may utilise the ISB and IEB metrics to conduct a systematic analysis of equipment performance and to appreciate the financial savings perspective in order to emphasise profitability in the short and long term.

The study introduces two novel financial equipment performance improvement indicators that distinguish the effects of manufacturing variations. Manufacturing variations cause cost advantages from operational improvements to be misrepresented. There is currently no approach for manufacturing organisations to calculate the financial advantages of enhancing equipment performance while isolating production irregularities.

Knowledge is companies’ crucial asset, especially when they are inserted in continuous collaboration and value co-creation. However, problems related to knowledge may occur without proper management, which can compromise the strategic objectives associated with a business collaboration network. Given the presented gap, this study aims to propose and test a business-to-business (B2B) knowledge management (KM) framework focused on value co-creation. Therefore, this study seeks to answer the following guiding questions: what are the main elements that a KM model should present in a context of value co-creation between companies? What are the limitations? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Is there any group that would benefit most from it?

This is an exploratory study grounded on mixed methods, having a qualitative approach (systematic literature review and content analysis) followed by a quantitative approach (exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis), which grounded the proposed framework.

The qualitative approach grounded on the systematic literature review resulting in 38 articles that were submitted to content analysis, which resulted in six record units: active communication between the organization, employees and other stakeholders; documents and organizational knowledge stored; knowledge map; collaborative network; searching tools and database, which provided the KM elements to develop and test the proposed framework by the quantitative approach. The results have shown that the framework may assist in managing knowledge in B2B value co-creation relationships.

As an exploratory study, the chosen research approach used nonprobabilistic for convenience sampling. Therefore, the results may lack generalizability. Thus, researchers are encouraged to use probabilistic sampling techniques to ensure generability. Also, more and better items should be used to upgrade the initial questionnaire, improving it and, by doing so, have a better scale.

Assuming the proposed framework’s effectiveness, company managers can use it to drive knowledge within the network of interested parties to promote cooperative products and services. In addition, due to the theoretical framework’s broad vision, it can serve as a strategic aid to leverage innovation, productivity and competitive advantage. This study also provides an initial instrument that assists in understanding KM elements, which may assist in value co-creation.

It was learned that the elements, tools, concepts and KM preconized solutions can assist in value co-creation. Considering that value assists business performance, and value co-creation is one way to enhance it, furthermore, by knowledge sharing, the value co-creation may occur in the B2B ecosystem. Also, it is the first theoretical KM framework proposed to assist companies to understand better ways that could get advantages on structuring knowledge, meaning mapping it, sharing it through a system that can retain what is needed and release it to the ones that need and have the defined access to receive it.

This paper aims to conduct a tertiary review to analyse the state of the art of literature reviews on knowledge management (KM) published in academic journals and provide an overview of their evolution. From 2000 to 2022, about 500 reviews have been published in the KM field, with most systematic studies compared to bibliometric or meta-analytic studies, and an absence of previous tertiary studies. Therefore, given the lack of previous tertiary research, this paper provides a complete picture of the evolution of review topics in the past and presents implications for both researchers and practitioners.

A classification scheme was defined to cluster and evaluate the literature reviews, both in terms of methodological approach and content. Regarding the content, the various secondary papers were classified according to the purpose of the research (state of the art, taxonomy, research agenda and research framework), the unit of analysis (small and medium enterprise, large company, start-up and university), the KM models adopted and the thematic areas addressed. Furthermore, a tertiary review methodology was identified integrating two main approaches: a bibliometric approach for cluster identification and a systematic approach for the discussion.

Two categories of contributions emerge from the results: those concerning research topics that have found a continuous interest over time and those that have not yet found a constant research interest. This latter aspect is relevant to help researchers conduct future literature analysis in KM research to bridge existing research gaps.

This paper provides a unique compendium of search directions to offer a comprehensive overview of the scientific debate about KM. This overview can also be used as a managerial panacea to identify best KM practice guidelines from existing reviews.

This is a unique attempt to conduct a tertiary study on KM for more than two decades by providing insights into the structural body of knowledge through academic progress in the subject of KM. Thus, this study expands the field of KM and provides original approaches for research in the field.

This paper aims to overcome the inability of both comparing loss costs and accounting for production resource losses of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)-related approaches.

The authors conducted a literature review about the studies focusing on approaches combining OEE with monetary units and/or resource issues. The authors developed an approach based on Overall Equipment Cost Loss (OECL), introducing a component for the production resource consumption of a machine. A real case study about a smart multicenter three-spindle machine is used to test the applicability of the approach.

The paper proposes Resource Overall Equipment Cost Loss (ROECL), i.e. a new KPI expressed in monetary units that represents the total cost of losses (including production resource ones) caused by inefficiencies and deviations of the machine or equipment from its optimal operating status occurring over a specific time period. ROECL enables to quantify the variation of the product cost occurring when a machine or equipment changes its health status and to determine the actual product cost for a given production order. In the analysed case study, the most critical production orders showed an actual production cost about 60% higher than the minimal cost possible under the most efficient operating conditions.

The proposed approach may support both production and cost accounting managers during the identification of areas requiring attention and representing opportunities for improvement in terms of availability, performance, quality, and resource losses.

This study tries to investigate and examine the extent of power dynamics of diverse actors in supply chains (SCs) in affecting the (un)stable connections within the logistics service providers (LSPs) triad in manufacturing firms (MFs) in Australia as a developed country.

This study adopted a qualitative research approach by conducting 28 face-to-face semi-structured interviews, which was performed over a five-month period, between May and October 2022 with the targeted respondents via several Case MFs studies focusing on the triadic SC relationships through the power dynamics of LSPs (e.g. Case 1/MF-A, Case 2/MF-B, Case 3/MF-C, Case 4/MF-D and Case 5/MF-E) in order to gather primary data from the perspectives of logistics service clients, providers and suppliers that are dealing with MFs in Australia country. Interviewees were selected based on their knowledge, professional, expertise and tasks that are related to the study context if they are from MFs and/or LSPs. The researchers performed NVivo 12 Software as a tool for analyzing the collected primary data from the targeted interviewees, thus using a purposive sampling approach. This study constitutes a cornerstone for a conceptual exploration of the field of B2B and as it expands existing fields of broadcasting and investigation that focus on B2C within the manufacturing firms' context.

The findings clearly show the importance of stable purchase volume and resource ability for a focal company in the logistics triad. This leads it to have a strong long-term relationship through monitoring its partners and curbing evolutions in different dyads.

Identifying influential factors offers complementary insights to practitioners for depicting the SC relationship dynamics using the dominant power used by logistics service providers. Such findings encourage investigating an issues in emerging countries.

The study provides an extending novel piece of work on how to establish the relational embeddedness of two dyads through the power dynamics of the dominant player represented by LSPs that can significantly affect the triadic SC relationships in manufacturing firms (MFs). Such a perspective seems not to be similar to the classical standpoint in the SCM literature, in which the LSPs as a dominant and dynamic power derived from bridging the customer-supplier sustainable dyads relationship in the MFs context.

This study aims to synthesize and analyze research on the Supply Chain Management Practices (SCMPs)-performance nexus, examine current knowledge, identify emerging trends, and provide plausible suggestions for future research engagements in the manufacturing sector in the context of Developing and Emerging Economies (DEEs).

Following a systematic review approach, this study analyzed 20 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published between 2007 and 2021. The study sample was systematically selected from the Web of Science (WoS) and Google Scholar databases, following strict evaluation and selection criteria.

Numerous dimensions of SCMPs have been considered in the extant literature; however, six have stood out as the most common. In addition, operational performance stood out as the most widely investigated measure in the SCM literature. Moreover, SCMPs have predominantly shown positive effects on performance outcomes. Methodological issues that future studies should consider are suggested.

The sample size was not sufficiently large relative to the rule of thumb set in the literature because of the scarcity of studies in the manufacturing sector in the DEEs context. Despite these limitations, the results of this study provide crucial insights into knowledge and practice.

This review is the first of its kind to examine the SCMPs-performance nexus in the context of DEEs. Based on the findings of this study, future research directions are proposed.

This study investigates the quantitative aspect of the various strains of operational excellence (OE) and competitive-potential (CP) in the SME sector. It has five steps, i.e., identifying the key performance constructs of OE and their hypothesized relationship pattern from literature, validating these constructs through factor analysis, formalizing their empirical relationships by structural-equation-modeling (SEM), path analysis of performance constructs with the empirical results, and lastly proposing a framework for OE deployment in SMEs.

Data for the deployment scores of operational excellence procedures (OEPs) were collected through a structured questionnaire survey. Nine hundred participants from a stratified random sample were approached for the survey, and 473 responses were received. Sample stratification was based on Gender, Education, Experience, Position, Department and Industry. Respondents had 5–30 years of experience managing manufacturing operations, holding the manager position and above.

The path analysis of the structural model provides unique insights into OE's practical aspects in SMEs (small and medium enterprises). For example, Contractual-conformance and Process-efficiency play pivotal roles as both have a significant positive impact on CP. Supplier efficacy, Consistency and Product-excellence do not improve CP unless mediated by Contractual-conformance or Process-efficiency.

The study provides important implications for academia, policymakers and managers. The study identifies and validates the operational excellence key performance practices and proposes a framework for manufacturing organizations. SME managers can follow the framework to develop effective operational excellence strategies to help them achieve their organizational goals. Additionally, the study emphasizes the need for continuous culture in SMEs, which will help to support operational excellence deployment. Overall, the implications presented in the study will help SMEs to enhance their competitiveness and operational performance.

The study explores the empirical investigation of the operational excellence deployment in SMEs. The study uses a mixed method approach for research design, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, and uses SEM to test the proposed framework. Validation of OE's six key performance constructs and establishing their empirical relation is an attempt to advance the Operations excellence theory. Unlike large enterprises, SMEs demonstrate an incohesive response to the practices pertaining to Supplier efficacy, Consistency and Product-excellence. This unique response pattern requires special treatment, which is incorporated into the proposed framework.

Despite the growing and widespread importance of exploring the primary factors facilitating global value chain (GVC) and supply chain management, this topic has received surprisingly little attention to date. Drawing upon the technology–organization–environment framework and the resource-based view, this study aims to fill these important gaps in the literature by theorizing and developing a comprehensive model to explain how a foreign subsidiary of multinational enterprises can improve the upgrading of the GVC and supply chain performance in a host market.

Using survey data collected from 266 foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises operating in the Chinese manufacturing sector, this study empirically examines the theoretical framework using a structural equation modeling approach.

The results demonstrated that the relative advantages of digital technology, supplier diversification and environmental uncertainty all contribute positively to the development of foreign subsidiaries’ supply chain management capabilities. Meanwhile, supply chain management capability plays a positive role in foreign subsidiaries facilitating GVC upgrading and enhancing supply chain performance.

The findings of this study provide many important implications and useful insights to foreign subsidiaries operating in an emerging host market by concentrating on how to develop and maintain their competitive advantages in the process of GVC reshaping and supply chain restructuring.

This study provides a useful guide to help firms better understand how they may develop and enhance their competitive advantages in upgrading their GVCs and implementing supply chain restructuring. In addition, this research generates important policy implications considering the recent trend toward creating more effective and sustainable global supply value chains.

The overall goal of science is to build a valid and reliable body of knowledge about the functioning of the world and how applying that knowledge can change it. As personnel and human resources management researchers, we aim to contribute to the respective bodies of knowledge to provide both employers and employees with a workable foundation to help with those problems they are confronted with. However, what research on research has consistently demonstrated is that the scientific endeavor possesses existential issues including a substantial lack of (a) solid theory, (b) replicability, (c) reproducibility, (d) proper and generalizable samples, (e) sufficient quality control (i.e., peer review), (f) robust and trustworthy statistical results, (g) availability of research, and (h) sufficient practical implications. In this chapter, we first sing a song of sorrow regarding the current state of the social sciences in general and personnel and human resources management specifically. Then, we investigate potential grievances that might have led to it (i.e., questionable research practices, misplaced incentives), only to end with a verse of hope by outlining an avenue for betterment (i.e., open science and policy changes at multiple levels).

This study aims at presenting deeper insights regarding the understanding and application of the quality costs (CoQ) in the automotive manufacturing industry. The empirical research included three general determinants: reasons for, difficulties during and benefits from implementing quality costs, as well as two specific determinants: measuring and evaluating quality cost elements.

The empirical research methodology employs the expert evaluation method – the Delphi method, using a survey questionnaire comprising a total of 200 questions, and answered by 9 companies.

The survey results showed that companies do recognize the reasons for implementing quality costs as a need arising from the quality management standards, the lack of knowledge of quality costs by employees and management as the biggest difficulty while the biggest benefit includes the quality costs enhance the company competitiveness. The costs competence and qualification, the quality management system costs, the costs for improvement, the production control costs, the input control costs, the new measuring and control equipment calibration costs, the costs related to scrap, repairs and product finishing are the most significant elements of the quality costs.

This study is limited by the small number of surveyed companies from the automotive cluster.

The proposed quality costs model provides to the management to conceive CoQ elements as possible drivers in the improvement process of product quality. The structure and the nature of the CoQ elements is expected to advance the process of detailing the quality costs elements.

The novelty of this paper refers to development of a generic quality cost model, whose relevance is confirmed by the structuring of the model with elements published in literature and validating in research companies.