Search results

This case study is intended to demonstrate how U. S. Steel sharply increased its investment in talent, seeing that such a shift would become an important business differentiator. That active “people culture” stance paid off and can now be used as an example for other organizations across multiple industries, particularly those struggling to reinvent themselves in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the Great Resignation. Emphasizing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), action and metrics, the authors demonstrate that U. S. Steel’s human capital investment were key drivers in significant earnings growth (2017–2021); their wish is to share these lessons learned with other organizations.

Seeing that job change and attrition had reached historic levels during the Great Resignation, many companies speculated that increasing the investment in the talent of their organization would be a business differentiator. U. S. Steel was an early adopter of this mindset and in this paper shares how it implemented significant reinvestment in human capital, from hiring to employee resource groups, involvement with outside professional and diversity organizations and more. Ultimately they leveraged HR metrics, looking to retention, employee engagement and net earnings to gauge results.

Based on its robust reinvestment in human resources transformation built on inclusive practices and HR analytics, U. S. Steel achieved a quit rate of just 4% versus the overall US market quit rate of greater than 30% (Bureau of Labor Statistics). It also saw significant gains in employee engagement and other factors. Ultimately, while earnings have fluctuated throughout the transition to this strategy, leadership at the company believes that these investments have been key drivers in net earnings from $387m in 2017 to over $4.1bn in 2021.

U. S. Steel might not seem a likely organization to double down on reinvestment in talent, given that the company is 120+ years old, heavily unionized and in heavy industry. Still, that’s just what it did, realizing “moving up the talent curve” could be a key differentiator. Emphasizing DEI, action and metrics, U. S. Steel’s human capital investment paid off, ultimately being a significant part of earnings growth in four short years. Lessons learned here are certainly applicable to unionized and nonunionized heavy industry, but also are broadly applicable to nearly any industry and size organization interested in talent investment.

One of the achievements of the fourth industrial revolution is smart manufacturing, a manufacturing system based on Industry 4.0 technologies that will increase systems' reliability, efficiency and productivity. Despite the many benefits, some barriers obstruct the implementation of this manufacturing system. This study aims to analyze these barriers.

One of the measures that must be taken is to identify and try to remove these barriers, which involves identifying the stakeholders and components of technology associated with each barrier. As such, the primary purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review in the field of smart manufacturing with a focus on barriers to implementation related to the stakeholders and components of technology.

This research conducted a systematic literature review in Scopus and Web of Science databases and considered the studies published until 2021 were examined. The central question of this paper is answered based on this literature review, in which 133 related studies and 15 barriers were identified.

The significant gap observed in the literature review is that no research has been conducted to determine the stakeholders and components of technology related to the barriers, making it a potentially worthwhile subject for future research. In addition, the results of this study may help managers to implement smart manufacturing.

This study provides two main originalities. The former is helpful information for managers to make effective decisions when they face smart manufacturing barriers. The latter is related to identifying critical research gaps through systematic literature review.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started and intensified over two years ago, constant lockdowns and social distancing measures have left many people feeling disconnected and disoriented. To recapture and sustain a semblance of normalcy and connected co-existence, online platforms, and various communication media have become indispensable. However, this mode of social connectedness while being physically separated is nothing new to Filipino transnational families who have persevered and kept their familial bonds alive and well across time and space.

Based on findings from an ongoing ethnographic study that started in 2016, in this chapter, the author engages with critical issues regarding how communication technologies shape the exchange of familial care and intimacy within contexts of geographical dispersion. Through a discussion of the ways in which new forms of communication reconstruct the temporal and spatial aspects of Filipino transnational family life, the author explains how families preserve and nurture their collective commitments to the maintenance of kinship by using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to (re)enact and (re)create mundane existences but also to recognize, celebrate, and display significant milestones along the family life course. One of the key questions raised is how effective technology-mediated exchanges are in substituting for physical co-presence, which is widely accepted as the foundation of strong and healthy family relationships. By interrogating these issues, the author builds on a valuable body of research which theorizes how ICTs facilitate new forms of intimacy and virtual togetherness; but also contentious relations and emotional burdens that test the Filipino family’s resilience in turbulent times.

This chapter is a potent elaboration of how Filipino transnational family members adopt creative strategies to integrate their fragmented existences and (re)embed themselves into each other’s temporalities and subjectivities.

The objective of this paper is to develop a comprehensive model of supply chain and supply chain decision‐making complexity that provides an understanding of the drivers of supply chain complexity and strategies to manage supply chain and supply chain decision‐making complexity and outcomes.

Grounded theory methodology is employed to build a theory of supply chain and supply chain decision‐making complexity and develop propositions related to antecedents, moderators, and outcomes of supply chain complexity. In addition, extensive literature review and informal interactions with a number of supply chain professionals have been used to validate the theory.

In addition to identifying the antecedents of supply chain complexity, the authors explore strategic, human cognitive ability, and tactical moderators for managing supply chain complexity.

The comprehensive framework presented in the paper builds a theory of supply chain and supply chain decision‐making complexity that is grounded in empirical data. The research also incorporates disparate findings, constructs from multi‐disciplinary research on supply chain complexity and provides future research directions.

The research helps practitioners better understand the sources and outcomes of supply chain complexity and how to manage it. Various strategies to moderate the impact of supply chain complexity are presented.

An integrated, comprehensive theory of supply chain complexity is proposed along with definitions of supply chain complexity and supply chain decision‐making complexity. The proposed model is rooted in actual practice and supported by the existing literature.

Planning processes along a demand supply network in an environment characterized by rapid market fluctuations and product changes are studied. The relationship between demand planning and the bullwhip effect is investigated by comparing planning accuracy in different demand supply network echelons and locating where there is most nervousness.

The current demand supply planning process flow was described based on interviews with key decision‐makers throughout the demand‐supply network from retailers to second tier suppliers. A data analysis of the quality of plans for demand and supply was generated in each decision‐making point by collecting planning and actual data of two products.

The results show that planning accuracy varies between the parties in the supply chain. The connection between planning nervousness and the bullwhip was investigated in detail through a vendor‐managed inventory (VMI) model in the chain. Planning nervousness causes bullwhip, as the changes in demand were amplified in the used information sharing process in VMI. In product introduction phase, the phenomenon was emphasized.

To stabilize and simplify planning the process should be differentiated according to product life‐cycle phases. One proposal is to improve communication practices with suppliers, especially to stabilize demand information sharing with VMI‐suppliers.

The structure of the electronics supply chain makes planning processes challenging. In this research we were able to follow the data flow and planning process throughout the supply chain, which is not often the case.

The pattern of prosecutions forfood offences has changed very little in the past decade. Compositional offences have rarely exceeded 5 per cent and, since the 1967 batch of regulations for meat products, are mostly in respect of deficient meat content. Food hygiene offences have also remained steady, with no improvement to show for all the effort to change the monotony of repulsive detail. The two major causes of all legal proceedings, constituting about 90 per cent of all cases—the presence of foreign matter and sale of mouldy food—continue unchanged; and at about the same levels, viz. an average of 55 per cent of the total for foreign matter and 35 per cent for mouldy food. What is highly significant about this changed concept of food and drugs administration is that almost all prosecutions now arise from consumer complaint. The number for adulteration as revealed by official sampling and analysis and from direct inspectorial action is small in relation to the whole. A few mouldy food offences are included in prosecutions for infringements of the food hygiene regulations, but for most of the years for which statistics have been gathered by the BFJ and published annually, all prosecutions for the presence of foreign matter have come from consumer complaint. The extent to which food law administration is dependent upon this source is shown by the fact that 97 per cent of all prosecutions in 1971 for foreign bodies and mouldy food—579 and 340 respectively—resulted from complaints; and in 1972, 98 per cent of prosecutions resulted from the same source in respect of 597 for foreign matter and 341 for mouldy food. Dirty milk bottle cases in both years all arose from consumer complaint; 41 and 37 respectively.