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This study aims to identify 3D-printed medical model (3DPMM) supply chain barriers that affect the supply chain of 3DPMM in the Indian context and investigate the interdependencies between the barriers to establish hierarchical relations between them to improve the supply chain.

The methodology used interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to identify the hierarchical and contextual relations among the barriers to the 3DPMM supply chain.

A total of 15 3DPMM supply chain barriers were identified in this study. The analysis identified limited materials options, slow production speed, manual post-processing, high-skilled data analyst, design and customization expert and simulation accuracy as the significant driving barriers for the medical models supply chain for hospitals. In addition, the authors identified linkage and dependent barriers. The present study findings would help to improve the 3DPMM supply chain.

There were no experts from other nations, so this study might have missed a few 3DPMM supply chain barriers that would have been significant from another nation’s perspective.

ISM would help practitioners minimize 3DPMM supply chain barriers, while DEMATEL allows practitioners to emphasize the causal effects of 3DPMM supply chain barriers.

This study minimizes the 3DPMM supply chain barriers for medical applications through a hybrid ISM and DEMATEL methodology that has not been investigated in the literature.

The purpose of this study is to identify, analyse and model the post-processing barriers of 3D-printed medical models (3DPMM) printed by fused deposition modelling to overcome these barriers for improved operational efficiency in the Indian context.

The methodology used interpretive structural modelling (ISM), cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) to understand the hierarchical and contextual relations among the barriers of the post-processing.

A total of 11 post-processing barriers were identified in this study using ISM, literature review and experts’ input. The MICMAC analysis identified support material removal, surface finishing, cleaning, inspection and issues with quality consistency as significant driving barriers for post-processing. MICMAC also identified linkage barriers as well as dependent barriers. The ISM digraph model was developed using a final reachability matrix, which would help practitioners specifically tackle post-processing barriers. Further, the DEMATEL method allows practitioners to emphasize the causal effects of post-processing barriers and guides them in overcoming these barriers.

There may have been a few post-processing barriers that were overlooked by the Indian experts, which might have been important for other country’s perspective.

The presented ISM model and DEMATEL provide directions for operation managers in planning operational strategies for overcoming post-processing issues in the medical 3D-printing industry. Also, managers may formulate operational strategies based on the driving and dependence power of post-processing barriers as well as the causal effects relationships of the barriers.

This study contributes to identifying, analyzing and modelling the post-processing barriers of 3DPMM through a combined ISM and DEMATEL methodology, which has not yet been reviewed. This study also contributes to decision makers developing suitable strategies to overcome the post-processing barriers for improved operational efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of factors and their associated attributes that largely influence achievement of manufacturing flexibility.

Using two sequential phases consisting of literature review, plant visits and focus group interviews, the study identifies key factors that influence manufacturing flexibility and develop and validate these factors through postal survey. In total, 211 responses from multiple industries were collected to analyze the data.

The study identifies and develops eight factors and their associated 39 attributes that largely influence achievement of manufacturing flexibility. Out of eight underlying constructs, operational improvement practices construct reported highest level of variance followed by advanced manufacturing technology, human resource practices, supplier flexibility, supplier integration, customer integration, product-process technology integration and marketing and manufacturing integration.

The scope of the study is limited to the plant level. Therefore, other strategic-level factors, such as business strategy, the amount of investment, leadership quality have not been addressed in this research.

The findings can assist managers in improving the level of manufacturing flexibility by specifying key factors essential for achievement of manufacturing flexibility. An important implication for managers is that identification of factors should be followed by proper assessment and implementation so as to remain competitive in the market.

The findings provide insight into the factors that facilitate in achievement of manufacturing flexibility.

The purpose of this paper is to consider a nonlinear problem of minimizing the cost of providing reliable systems. The authors assume that the system consists of several components in series, and for each such component, the cost of the component increases exponentially with its reliability.

In order to solve this nonlinear optimization problem, the authors propose two approaches. The first approach is based on the concept of adjusting the reliability of a pair of components to minimize the cost of the system. The authors call this procedure as reliability adjustment routine (RAR). Proofs of optimality and convergence for the proposed model are also provided. The second approach solves the problem by using a Lagrangian multiplier. A procedure is developed to obtain the maximum step size to achieve the desired optimal solution in minimum iterations. Proposed approaches are efficient and give exact solutions.

Proposed methods enable a decision maker to allocate reliability to the components in series while minimizing the total cost of the system. The developed procedures are illustrated using a numerical example. Although an exponential relationship between the component cost and reliability is assumed, this can be extended to various other nonlinear distributions.

This cost optimization problem, subject to system component reliability values, assumes the near practical nonlinear pattern of cost vs reliability. Such problems are complex to solve. The authors provide a unique approach called RAR to solve such convoluted problems. The authors also provide an approach to solve such problems by using a Lagrangian multiplier method. Various proofs have been worked out to substantiate the work.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel integrated approach using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) methods for evaluation and prioritization of appropriate manufacturing flexibility type required in the face of multiple environmental uncertainties.

Using a case study of an Indian fashion apparel firm, the study demonstrates the application of the proposed integrated framework for evaluation and prioritization of manufacturing flexibility. The study uses AHP method to determine importance weight of environmental uncertainty criteria and subcriteria and then employs TOPSIS method to determine the final ranking of manufacturing flexibility types required to cope up with these uncertainties.

The findings of the case suggest that the proposed integrated approach is feasible and practically implementable for manufacturing flexibility assessment.

AHP has been extensively studied and used, but the major limitation of this proposed approach is the involvement of large number of pairwise comparisons leading to difficulty in maintaining consistency in pairwise comparisons.

The proposed approach can work as a benchmarking tool to practitioners in evaluating and prioritizing manufacturing flexibility alternatives and to suggest strategic allocation of resource by prioritizing different manufacturing flexibilities types.

Unlike conventional approaches, the study provides meaningful knowledge to decision makers by demonstrating a simple, flexible, and efficient method to evaluate and rank the appropriate manufacturing flexibility types.

The purpose of this study is to understand experimentally the mixing characteristics of a two-stream exhaust system with a supersonic Mach 1.5 primary jet that exits the rectangular C-D nozzle surrounded by a sonic secondary jet from a convergent rectangular nozzle by varying the aspect ratio (AR = 2 and 3) similar to those that can be available for future high-speed commercial aircraft.

This paper focuses on the experimental results of effects of AR at various expansion levels of jets issued/delivered from a central rectangular convergent-divergent nozzle of AR 2 and 3 surrounded by a coflow from a convergent rectangular sonic nozzle. The lip thickness of the primary nozzle is 2.2 mm. various nozzle pressure ratios (NPRs) ranging from 2, 3, 3.69 and 4 were chosen for pressure measurements.

For all the NPRs, AR 3 had a shorter core than AR 2. Also, AR 3 was found to decay faster in the transition and fully developed zones. The lateral plots show that the AR has an influence on the jet spread.

The structure of waves existing in the potential core of the rectangular coflow jet along with the major and minor axis planes was visualized by the shadowgraph technique.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors influencing manufacturing flexibility adoption and simultaneously explores some of the key issues prevailing in manufacturing flexibility adoption in Indian context. The study also stratifies critical factors for successful manufacturing flexibility adoption.

Using exploratory sequential design, a series of focus group interviews were conducted with Indian manufacturing professionals and these interviews were supplemented by 127 follow-up structured questionnaires.

Two major themes emerged from the first phase of the study – role played by some of the unexplored antecedents of manufacturing flexibility and key issues in manufacturing flexibility adoption. In the second phase, a list of factors was categorized based on their degree of importance in manufacturing flexibility adoption.

Being qualitative in nature, the study suffers from inherent risk of subjectivity associated with manufacturing practitioners. A large-scale survey and rigorous quantitative analysis would be helpful to further validate the list of factors and underlying relationships among proposed factors.

The identified list of factors and some of the key issues in manufacturing flexibility adoption can be of great help to practitioners. The stratified list of factors can be further used by academicians to develop an instrument for manufacturing flexibility adoption.

The paper identifies a set of factors that affects manufacturing flexibility adoption. It offers a basis for instrument development for manufacturing flexibility adoption and provides direction for future quantitative research in manufacturing flexibility area.

The purpose of this study is to present a systematic review of all the enablers of manufacturing flexibility and to provide a path for future research in the area of manufacturing flexibility.

Research papers were collected from electronic databases to search academic journals dealing with manufacturing flexibility, environmental uncertainty, business strategy, organizational attributes, technology, innovation and product types. The study consists of a systematic review of 101 research papers and assessment of these papers in terms of their role in enabling flexibility.

It is seen from the literature review that most of the research in the field of flexibility was done in developed countries, and further empirical research with respect to manufacturing flexibility and firm performance is required to be done in developing countries. It is also seen that financial performance has often been used in many of the studies as a proxy to measure firm performance and one can explore alternative metrics for firm performance. The review reveals that an integrated framework to assess manufacturing flexibility and firm performance is largely missing in literature. This review highlights some research gaps for future research in the area of manufacturing flexibility.

The literature review was done using search terms restricted to manufacturing flexibility, environmental uncertainty, business strategy, organizational attributes, technology, innovation and product types. There may be various unexploited areas for future research in terms of indirect influence of several different variables. The proposed framework is only conceptual in nature and thus requires rigorous empirical testing to develop a comprehensive list of enablers and their respective criteria and attributes.

The study synthesizes existing literature for assessing manufacturing flexibility in an organization and addresses gaps in the research area of manufacturing flexibility. It provides a comprehensive review of all relevant studies from 1992 to January 2013 for the use of both academicians and practitioners.

Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. Its impacts scatter through every stratum of society placing the marginalized clusters at the highest vulnerability and calling for action at all levels. Adaptation enhances resilience, whereas mitigation minimizes the anthropogenic forces of climate change; these are crucial initiatives for climate-resilient sustainable development. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge and attitudes on climate change adaptation and mitigation at individual level and assess related factors.

A descriptive study is done to assess the knowledge and attitudes of school teachers in three educational zones of the Kalutara district using random cluster sampling. A self-administered questionnaire including 25 equally weighted questions to assess knowledge and 10 statements to assess attitudes was used.

The response rate was 98.8% [n = 618] and 23% of the study population had poor knowledge of climate change adaptation and mitigation at the individual level. Favorable attitudes were observed among more than 65% of participants for all the statements on climate change adaptation and mitigation. Average family income, working duration, involvement in school environmental societies and highest education qualification showed a significant positive association, whereas age and current grade had a significant negative association with good knowledge. The level of knowledge had no significant variation among male and female teachers.

Overall knowledge was poor among more than 20% of the teachers highlighting the need for school and community-based awareness programs to be implemented to address the issue.

As skills need to be changed in a dynamic learning environment, employability depends not just on what people already know but on how well they learn, apply and adapt breaking out their comfort zone. This study explores how students from all backgrounds and teachers can engage with inclusive education without discrimination through pedagogy. The research provides a platform through implication for other international readers of developing countries to implement pedagogies of the Indian context.

This archival research focuses on the topical literature to scrutinize efficient ways to elevate the realization of all learners in inclusive settings. What inclusive pedagogy teaching approaches, focusing on the key competences and sustains learning which are effectual in elevating the academic success of all novices.

Educators need to develop their skills and competency by breaking their comfort zone, and individual recital of every faculty affiliate is a decisive feature in accomplishing quality for inclusive education. An education institution also needs to provide passable facilities to academicians and students in order to adapt and utilize technology efficiently without any discrimination. This is an important method of assisting educators to recognize and investigate using this epistemology in new innovative inclusive teaching pedagogy with technologies in industry 4.0.

The study momentarily suggests an innovative pedagogy approach for stakeholders and users to be adapted in current digital arena.

Review of the concepts can provide valuable pointers for policy makers in other jurisdictions contemplating inclusive education. The issues that are dealt with relate to how all students with and without disability can be engaged in a classroom without discrimination, and development is incentivized using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching pedagogy.