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The most stringent quality demands on super‐alloys and high‐grade non ferrous metals can in most cases be met only be state of the art vacuum melting and casting processes. Today these processes guarantee ultraprecise adjustment of complex analyses, extremely low inclusion and gas contents, and the highest possible reproducibility. The economical operation of such systems enhanced the further development and introduction of many new materials and superalloys with new high‐temperature characteristics.

In public-private partnership (PPP) contracts of water utilities, of particular concern is lack of market competition. This paper focuses on the size of contracts. If governments design a large-scale transaction, economies of scale in service operation can be expected, but competition in auctions may be compromised. For small contracts many firms will apply, but at the cost of scale diseconomies in operation. The estimated cost function of PPP water utilities indicates that economies of scale exist but diminish quickly as production increases. There is no rationale for more than 300 million cubic meters of water service concessions under a single package, taking a risk of little competition. Conversely, less than 50 million cubic meters of concessions are too small; the bundling approach is required.

This chapter explores the writings of Pakistani sociologist Hamza Alavi, especially on the post-colonial state, ethnicity, peasantry and kinship relations. In contradistinction to most (partial) uptakes of Alavi, I evaluate his work as a whole in order to shed light on its continuities and discontinuities. I demonstrate both the strengths and pitfalls of Alavi's theorisation of the post-colonial state, mode of production and ethnicity by placing him in context of wider Marxist debates at the time. I then suggest that Alavi's other work (e.g. on the peasantry and kinship relations) may serve to complement the weaknesses of the former. Thus, by reading Alavi contra Alavi, I advocate for an ‘integral’ perspective on the relations between civil and political society, arguing for a conjunctural awareness of mediations between the same, and their imbrications with differentiated relations of class, ethnicity and kinship.

Place branding and marketing are becoming key governance strategies that can increase governance legitimacy by meaningfully involving local stakeholder groups within the brand identity creation process. There remains a gap in knowledge regarding how place branding managers seek to involve stakeholders in the brand development, communication, and evaluation process. This research, based in three U.S. Deep South states and using Kavaratzis and Hatchʼs (2013) brand identity framework, finds that practitioners are doing well when it comes to expressing local beliefs within the brand identity, but can improve when it comes to analyzing and incorporating that feedback meaningfully. Without this, critical local stakeholders can feel alienated from local governance practices, thus decreasing legitimacy in branding and marketing processes and policies alike.

Supply chain collaboration amongst independent firms often provides larger benefits from effectively satisfying end customer needs than working in isolation. However, a lack of awareness about the existence of constraints along the supply chain prevents the benefits of collaboration from being fully realised. This paper attempts to apply the theory of constraints approach to overcome difficulties in realising the potential benefits of supply chain collaboration. Specifically, it shows how the theory of constraints approach can be used to expose an inherent dilemma of collaboration and establish collaborative replenishment policy and collaborative performance metrics so that the chain members can work together to advance supply chain profitability. Several opportunities for future research are recommended.

This paper aims to propose an approach based upon the principal component analysis (PCA) to define a contribution rate for each variable and then select the main variables as inputs to a neural network for energy load forecasting in the region southeastern Brazil.

The proposed approach defines a contribution rate of each variable as a weighted sum of the inner product between the variable and each principal component. So, the contribution rate is used for selecting the most important features of 27 variables and 6,815 electricity data for a multilayer perceptron network backpropagation prediction model. Several tests, starting from the most significant variable as input, and adding the next most significant variable and so on, are accomplished to predict energy load (GWh). The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin and Bartlett sphericity tests were used to verify the overall consistency of the data for factor analysis.

Although energy load forecasting is an area for which databases with tens or hundreds of variables are available, the approach could select only six variables that contribute more than 85% for the model. While the contribution rates of the variables of the plants, plus energy exchange added, have only 14.14% of contribution, the variable the stored energy has a contribution rate of 26.31% being fundamental for the prediction accuracy.

Besides improving the forecasting accuracy and providing a faster predictor, the proposed PCA-based approach for calculating the contribution rate of input variables providing a better understanding of the underlying process that generated the data, which is fundamental to the Brazilian reality due to the accentuated climatic and economic variations.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effects of postponement in the context of environmentally sound management.

The paper examined the environmental issues for a postponement strategy, with transport as a mediating factor. It also investigated the impact of related practices (e.g. just in time, e‐commerce, vendor managed inventory and factory gate pricing) on transport.

This paper discussed ways of developing a postponement strategy which could benefit the economy, and which are not limited to taking into consideration the trade‐off between inventory and transport costs. Some thoughts were also presented on possible ways of mitigating the effects of the increase in transport on traffic congestion and pollution levels.

The results of the research contribute to better designing the postponement strategy by placing more emphasis on environmental compatibility while conforming to the end market demand.

The paper emphasises the importance of environmental issues in a postponement strategy. It calls for a need to further understand the trade‐offs between optimal supply chain efficiency and its environmental impact.

This study investigates the relationship between lean manufacturing practices, management accounting and performance measurement (MAC & PM) practices, organizational strategy, structure, and culture, and facility performance. We extended past research by examining the relationships between lean manufacturing, MAC & PM practices and performance in a broader organizational context. Our study was performed using survey data provided by managers and executives at 368 facilities that had contacted the Shingo Institute for information or that had entered a Shingo Prize competition. Consistent with past research we found a significant positive association between lean manufacturing practices and lean MAC & PM practices. We found that greater employee empowerment, use of process performance measures, and use of lean accounting practices were driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. We also found that changes in organization structure to support lean are driven primarily by lean strategy and secondarily by lean manufacturing practices. Change toward lean culture, on the other hand, is driven by the extent of lean manufacturing practices. Further, we found that emphasizing process performance measures does not reduce emphasis on results performance measures and emphasizing results performance measures leads to improved financial performance. Process and results measures are being used in tandem and value stream costing has not replaced traditional accounting. The results of our study provide important insights for managers of companies engaged in lean transformation and for academics who teach or research lean accounting.

This chapter describes the disordered eating in sport problem and provides a critical overview of research in the area. It offers specific insights into how cultural practices in elite sport may be implicated.

In contrast to dominant medical perspectives, disordered eating in sport is discussed as a product of high-performance cultural contexts. The ways that practice commonplace in elite sport might contribute to disordered eating onset and maintenance are described. In turn, I also consider the experiential struggles of athletes with eating disorders and how this relates to dominant discourses in elite sport.

Elite sport culture, with its emphasis on surveillance, sacrifice, and success, reinforces disordered eating practices. Much of what is conventionally considered disordered eating, can be normalized when situated in the context of high-performance sport. Nevertheless, when functional disordered eating slides into mental illness, the mental toughness ethos works to silence and stigmatize athletes.

Research must broaden its focus to explore how social practices in elite sport normalize disordered eating and how prevention approaches can become more culturally informed and less individually driven.

In the OECD countries, hospitals face increased financial restrictions and competition. Process orientation is an essential means of remaining competitive. A wide range of theories and concepts relating to clinical process management already exists. When it comes to practical implementation, however, a comprehensive approach for the target‐oriented and consistent introduction of clinical process management throughout an entire hospital is missing. The purpose of this paper is to document the case of a German hospital that has realised a project of this kind and demonstrate the impacts on cooperation and on operational efficiency, which is understood as the degree to which a hospital is capable of steadily realising short lengths of stay.

The case shows the approach to implementing theories and concepts for managing clinical processes in practice as a consistent management system in the day‐to‐day use of process management and its impacts.

The effect of using clinical processes shown in the case is an additional net profit of several million euros a year – without a reduction in quality.

While the impacts of clinical pathways on hospitals are not country‐specific, the reasons are nonetheless subject to the political and economic conditions. Therefore, some findings are only valid for hospitals in German‐speaking countries. However, major effects (e.g. reduction in the length of stay) may exist everywhere.

The paper shows how process orientation in a medium‐sized hospital can be systematically implemented.