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The objective of this paper is to present the existing state of research relating to the steel industries.

This article examines the underlying paradigm of the total management process of productivity so as to observe the underlying drives. Given the variety of conditions prevailing in developing countries, an organisation may take a number of concepts and alternatives to improve its ability to maintain values and to create values for the future. It has been hypothesised that productivity may be enhanced by recognising the need to maximise the availability of organisational assets.

Presents a simulation model for studying the availability of an iron‐ore production plant interconnected logistically with a large Integrated Steel Manufacturing System (ISMS). The objective of the simulation experiment is to validate whether there exists adequate capability of the existing iron‐ore production plant to meet the demands of the hot metal production plant of ISMS. Availability estimation has been made for the total unit of the iron ore production plant and sensitivity tests have been carried out with respect to buffer storages in between workstations. The model has been applied to a real‐life large ISMS in India and the results have been implemented also by the management of the company.

Presents an application of analytic hierarchic process (AHP) for evaluating the sources of supply in a materials management situation. Evaluation of alternative sources is an unstructured decision problem involving multiple factors and attributes generic at different levels. In order to facilitate decision support to the materials managers, an all encompassing effective analysis is needed to determine the right supply source so as to be compatible with the organizational objectives. It seems that AHP helps in providing such a decision support.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to differentiate the empowering influences of critical enablers of supply chain management (SCM) along with their interrelationships. These empowering enablers are significant, as they encourage productive execution to improve organizational performance and stakeholder's satisfaction.

From the literature review, incidence of a number of SCM enablers were found and they were subjected to critical scrutiny by a considerable number of experts engaged in SCM research and application to identify significant and applicable empowering enablers by grounded interactions. By using Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification analysis, the driving and dependence power were analyzed and the empowering enablers were ordered. This was pursued by building up a structural model of the empowering enablers using interpretive structure modeling, followed with measuring cause–effect relationship using decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL).

Among these identified enablers of SCM, operational performance, green SCM, employee empowerment and motivation and strategic association came out to be strategic enablers.

The findings may help the practicing professionals to develop clarity in understanding of these essential enablers and their contextual as well as cause–effect relationship in SCM. The practicing professionals need to focus on all these enablers during implementation of SCM for enhancing the organizational performance and stake holders' satisfaction.

This study is of practical utility in real-life implementation of SCM. The algorithm used in applying the multi-criteria decision-making approach is very user-friendly, and the application of DEMATEL is an innovation compared to previous research. Further, the findings can be used as a benchmark for improving the performance of SCM by considering the cause–effect relationship.

“For many years it has been said that capital is the bottleneck for a developing industry. I don't think this any longer holds true. I think it's the work force and the company's inability to recruit and maintain a good work force that constitute the bottleneck for production. I don't know of any major project backed by good ideas, vigour and enthusiasm that has been stopped by a shortage of cash. I do know of industries whose growth has been partly stopped or hampered because they can't maintain an efficient and enthusiastic labour force, and I think this will hold true even more in the future!”

Illustrates a two‐level hierarchical system structure for solving the production planning problems of a steel manufacturing system. The structure is basically a goal‐diffusion mechanism between two levels. At the lower level a goal programming problem is solved and at the higher level a multi‐objective dynamic program is used to derive an optimum aggregate production plan and provide optimal resource allocation.

Kids get exposed to advertising on social media platforms when they visit them to perform various goals. The purpose of this study is to find out the factors which affect kids' behaviour when the kids encounter advertising on social media and also to establish causal relationships amongst the factors of social media advertising (SMA).

A total of 11 factors of SMA have been identified with the help of experts and the causal relationships amongst the SMA factors have been constructed by the implementation of decision-making trail and laboratory evaluation (DEMATEL). Based on the established relationships, a causal diagram has been also developed to understand the structural nature of interdependence amongst the factors.

DEMATEL technique is based on logical steps, which have assisted in categorising the identified factors into two groups: cause group and effect group. Cause group factors are the reasons for the effect group factors to occur. Customisation, entertainment, information and interactivity have been observed as cause factors whereas, relevance, engagement with SMA, purchase intention, product involvement, advertising value, attitude towards SMA and irritation have been observed as effect factors. Product involvement is found to have the highest level of interaction with all other factors. Information and interactivity are observed to influence all other factors.

Kids possess a limited understanding of the selling intent of advertisers which makes kids vulnerable to advertising. This study supports that the content of the advertisement should be kept in accordance with the need of kids and also suggests that marketers should emphasise cause group factors which derive subsequent consequences on effect group factors. The foremost limitation of this study lies in the process of identifying the factors through expert opinions. The sets of contextual relationships may vary when different experts are considered.

This study strives to identify the factors which affect kids' understanding of SMA and also establishes causal relationships amongst them. This kind of study is unique in state of the art and to the authors' knowledge no significant research has been conducted in India which involves establishment of inter-relationships amongst SMA factors that affect kids' behaviour.