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The international energy agency states that the world’s primary energy needs are expected to grow to 55 per cent until 2030. Therefore, oil and gas industry as the main energy source will be more crucial where building or advancing new capacities is required. Because the reports highlight the delay as a recurring problem, thereby, more in-depth investigation to find out the main contributing causes is needed.

Root cause analysis (RCA) was applied to identify, rank, analysis and categorize the main sources of this problem.

Based on RCA procedure; Pareto analysis showed that 84.7 per cent of the delay is because: the radar chart indicated no difference in perception of the participants regarding the importance of the root causes, correlation analysis suggested strong relationship among the participants and the cause-and-effect diagram emphasized more on operational, human and equipment categories, which in total account for 51.86 per cent of the delay.

The risk planners of large-scale projects can consider these root causes as the main items to analysis, monitor and control, as they are vitally important for project success.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze e-waste management systems in Germany, Switzerland, Japan and India and benchmark best practices in the Indian scenario.

The first part of the research paper focuses on the description of e-waste management systems in the above-mentioned countries using a case study analysis approach while the second part analyzes, evaluates and compares e-waste management systems performance based on seven performance indicators using a five-point scale. Finally, the RADAR chart approach is used to benchmark the best practices of e-waste management in these countries in the Indian scenario.

The study finds that India is lagging far behind from Germany, Switzerland, and Japan in e-waste management despite being the fifth largest e-waste generator across the globe. India must adopt best practices followed in these nations like a dedicated agency to oversee and coordinate the e-waste management, coordination among different value chain partners involved in e-waste management, development of infrastructure to collect and process e-waste, monitoring and control of all processes and stakeholders, etc.

The study suggests the solution to the loopholes in the Indian e-waste management system by adopting the collection, recycling and reporting mechanism followed in German, Swiss and the Japanese e-waste management system. There is a dire need to improve e-waste management systems in India as only 5 percent of e-waste is processed through the organized sector.

E-waste is increasing at an alarming rate and most of e-waste in India is being handled by the unorganized sector, where rudimentary methods are used to process e-waste severely damaging the environment and health of workers. The unorganized market employs 0.5m child laborers. Hence, routing the e-waste to the organized sector will result in social benefits by putting a check on unsafe practices and will create green jobs.

This paper’s contribution lies in extracting the best practices followed in nations excelling in e-waste management and recommend their implications in the Indian scenario. This study is aimed at all the stakeholders, but especially at policy-makers and producers, who have the onus to tackle the e-waste problem.

Global warming has become one of the most important issues in today's world, and business behavior to prevent global warming is receiving more attention from stakeholders. Mandatory domestic emission trading schemes have not been implemented in Japan as of June 2011, resulting in more discretion being given to companies to set their carbon management strategies, especially in selecting optimal targets and measures to achieve them. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that quality function deployment for environment (QFDE), developed by incorporating environmental aspects into quality function deployment (QFD) in order to simultaneously handle environmental and traditional product quality requirements, can provide a framework for selecting targets and measures.

The authors apply a three‐step approach: first, a framework for selecting measures is derived through a review of good‐practice activities in two leading companies; second, a framework based on QFDE is generalized by collecting key elements through a literature review of environmental and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports published by 35 companies; and third, the usefulness of the framework is verified through case studies.

The main outcomes of this study are the derivation of a hierarchical framework with QFDE as its base and verification, through the use of case studies, of the applicability of the framework as a template, as well as an effective communication tool to be used for setting targets and selecting measures.

The framework will be useful for companies which voluntarily set targets and select measures that could form an essential part of their carbon reduction strategies, based on QFDE concepts.

The purpose of this research was to develop new sustainability indicators consistent with the sand mould casting industry, through benchmarking of cleaner production (CP), in order to identify the levels of practice and performance of companies of the casting sector. In addition, a lean manufacturing checklist was specified in order to verify the presence of lean manufacturing techniques employed to eliminate waste towards CP. No previous work was found in the literature that attempts to assess practices and performance of companies performing sand mould casting (a significantly polluting manufacturing process) in the context of CP and lean manufacturing.

For the application of this benchmarking, nine companies from the sand mould casting sector were studied, where the profile of each company was analysed through eight variables and 47 indicators. Data was obtained through face-to-face visits and questionnaire application in the companies, and the data was analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively.

The results obtained were the diagnosis of companies' practices and performance resulting from their position in the benchmarking charts, as well as the identification of the areas in which companies should implement improvements aiming at achieving CP.

This research was developed specifically for sand mould casting companies, and each process has its own characteristics

14 companies were invited to participate in this survey, but nine companies agreed to participate. Unfortunately, there were companies that declined to participate in the survey.

It is important to diagnose casting companies regarding CP practices, performance and deployment potential. Thus, important negative issues in the company can be identified, and with this information, they can develop actions focussed on cases that need more attention. In addition, this work contributes to evaluate the relationship and efficiency of improvement actions developed by companies in the context of both lean manufacturing and CP, aiming to reduce or eliminate the environmental impact. The improvement of practices and performance of a company regarding CP is considered to be beneficial to supply chain management in the context of sustainability, as the other participating companies are likely to seek ways to reduce environmental impact, and the diagnostics provided by this work may also be used by those companies.

Synthetic materials have many drawbacks in high-performance garments because they absorb less moisture and cause allergies to sensitive individuals. Cotton materials cannot satisfy all the requirements and cannot provide the required high performance. This study aims to use eco-friendly materials with a common structure to analyse their suitability for high-performance garment application.

This study used two eco-friendly yarns (bamboo, modal and bamboo: modal 50:50) and yarns per needle (two- and four-ply yarns). with a single jersey knit construction and gauge of 7. The physical, mechanical, appearance, comfort, thermal and ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) protection characteristics were evaluated using 15 tests.

The produced knitted fabrics showed high performance for use as garments with physical, mechanical, appearance, comfort, thermal and UPF protection characteristics that were achieved, tested and analysed. The highest-achieved samples with a good UPF (<15) were made from bamboo material, which has other high-performance characteristics such as antibacterial characteristics, a soft surface, thermal insulation and others.

The single jersey structure was used for producing fabrics as it is the common structure in the garment. Also, only gauge 7 was used for its economics and ease of production.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and implement methods for benchmarking the food safety and hygiene between retail outlets at the same time or at the same retail outlets at different times.

A tailor made questionnaire for the collection of food safety and hygiene remarks was designed to be applied in a large chain of retail outlets. The remarks were classified in the five categories of the Ishikawa model (materials, methods, personnel, equipment and environment). The retail outlets were located all over Greece and the audits were performed in a one-year term. Food safety experts were used as auditors after a six-month training period. The data collected were subject to analysis of the benchmarking scores and to cluster analysis to identify regions with similar food safety profiles.

Polar charts were used to illustrate the benchmarking scores for each of the five categories of evaluation per auditing period at the retail outlets. Another polar chart illustrates the benchmarking scores for each of the 12 regions of Greece. Cluster analysis demonstrates that some regions, like Ionian Islands and South Aegean, have similar profiles on food safety for the retail outlets.

The developed methodology can be used by retail companies with several outlets or by a group or an association of companies in order to identify problematic sectors and to set priorities while dealing with issues of food safety and hygiene. The work is limited to the Greek outlets but the methodology has potential application to every other country.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and identify the ranking of innovation program landscape in the UK. The identification will focus on the average of four categories: policy, culture, economy, and industry.

The nature of this research is mainly qualitative. This investigation uses two semi-structured interview based in the UK, combined with an examination of organizational documents.

The research findings indicated highest ranking of the Petchey Center of Entrepreneurship located in University of East London present culture 60 percent, policy 75 percent, industry 80 percent, and economy 100 percent.

The authors conclude with several recommendations for academia and practitioners such as governments, policy makers, funded organizations, and strategic institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to acknowledge that there are bibliometric differences between Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) vs Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). It is not so that either SSH or STEM has the right way of doing research or working as a scholarly community. Accordingly, research evaluation is not done properly in one framework based on either a method from SSH or STEM. However, performing research evaluation in two separate frameworks also has disadvantages. One way of scholarly practice may be favored unintentionally in evaluations and in research profiling, which is necessary for job and grant applications.

In the case study, the authors propose a tool where it may be possible, on one hand, to evaluate across disciplines and on the other hand to keep the multifaceted perspective on the disciplines. Case data describe professors at an SSH and a STEM department at Aalborg University. Ten partial indicators are compiled to build a performance web – a multidimensional description – and a one-dimensional ranking of professors at the two departments. The partial indicators are selected in a way that they should cover a broad variety of scholarly practice and differences in data availability.

A tool which can be used both for a one-dimensional ranking of researchers and for a multidimensional description is described in the paper.

Limitations of the study are that panel-based evaluation is left out and that the number of partial indicators is set to 10.

The paper describes a new tool that may be an inspiration for practitioners in research analytics.

The purpose of this paper is to describe common errors made by business leaders as the foundation of a new approach for improving leadership capabilities and effectiveness. Introduces the concept and practice “standardized work” to the duties of executive‐level leadership.

This paper utilizes a qualitative approach coupled with deductive reasoning and empirical data from the management practitioner community.

A practical framework for implementing standardized work can be created in relation to the strategic and day‐to‐day tasks of executive leadership by providing a new definition of leadership, a precise description of business principles, and a standard skill set for executives.

This proposal for applying standardized work to the role of executive leadership has not been validated in actual business conditions, though similar concepts have been in effect at some large corporations for decades, with varying degrees of success.

Many of the same types of errors are repeated over generations of leaders. Most of these errors can be eliminated if executive leadership will practice the proposed standardized work.

This paper contributes to the literature and to leadership practice by introducing the concept “standardized work” to the duties of executive‐level leadership and providing a framework for its application that can aid in the long‐term success of organizations through generations of leaders.

Process mining provides a generic collection of techniques to turn event data into valuable insights, improvement ideas, predictions, and recommendations. This paper uses spreadsheets as a metaphor to introduce process mining as an essential tool for data scientists and business analysts. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that process mining can do with events what spreadsheets can do with numbers.

The paper discusses the main concepts in both spreadsheets and process mining. Using a concrete data set as a running example, the different types of process mining are explained. Where spreadsheets work with numbers, process mining starts from event data with the aim to analyze processes.

Differences and commonalities between spreadsheets and process mining are described. Unlike process mining tools like ProM, spreadsheets programs cannot be used to discover processes, check compliance, analyze bottlenecks, animate event data, and provide operational process support. Pointers to existing process mining tools and their functionality are given.

Event logs and operational processes can be found everywhere and process mining techniques are not limited to specific application domains. Comparable to spreadsheet software widely used in finance, production, sales, education, and sports, process mining software can be used in a broad range of organizations.

The paper provides an original view on process mining by relating it to the spreadsheets. The value of spreadsheet-like technology tailored toward the analysis of behavior rather than numbers is illustrated by the over 20 commercial process mining tools available today and the growing adoption in a variety of application domains.