Search results

Industrialized construction (IC) has accelerated the technological advancements of construction supply chains (SCs) in Hong Kong (HK). However, the usually fragmented IC SCs often lead to friction and turbulence that retard their performance. Streamlining these workflows call for resilient SCs that can proactively overcome various vulnerabilities and avoid disruptions. Having identified supply chain capabilities (SCC) as essential precursors to supply chain resilience (SCR), this paper reports on a vital segment of a study on SCC for IC in HK that focused here on critical SCC (CSCC). Specifically, this paper aims at identifying and probing the CSCC for improving SCR in IC in HK.

After drawing on the plentiful relevant literature, an empirical study using a questionnaire survey and interviews was conducted following the multi-stage methodological framework of this study. Relevant significance analysis of the collected data enabled the selection of CSCC. Next, factor analysis facilitated grouping them under nine underlying components.

The results reveal 41 CSCC pertinent to achieve resilient SCs in IC in HK under critical capability components of resourcefulness, flexibility, capacity, adaptability, efficiency, financial strength, visibility, anticipation and dispersion.

It is expected that industry practitioners would benefit from prior knowledge of CSCC and their levels of criticalities, so as to prioritize integrating them suitably into SC processes, to develop value-enhanced-resilient SCs. Further, these findings lay the foundations for developing a powerful evaluation model to assess, then improve, SCR in IC in HK by mapping the identified CSCC with relevant critical vulnerabilities, based on study outcomes.

Given the heightened imperatives for boosting supply chain resilience (SCR) in industrialized construction (IC), it is essential to explore the correlational impacts of supply chain vulnerabilities (SCV) and supply chain capabilities (SCC) which are the measures of SCR, specifically in Hong Kong where policymakers actively promote IC. Therefore, this study aims to develop a model to explore the correlational impacts of vulnerabilities and capabilities targeting SCR in IC.

After drawing on the general literature on SCR, empirical research using an expert opinion survey was conducted following the methodological framework of this study. The gathered data were then subjected to the partial least squares structural equation modeling process. Thereby, four hypotheses were formulated and tested for 20 capability–vulnerability relationships.

Seven of the 20 statistical relationships tested were identified to be significant. Accordingly, production-based SCV were identified as the most critical disruptions. “Resourcefulness” could substantially withstand production-based SCV, receiving the highest path significance. An “enablers-results framework” for achieving SCR of IC was also developed based on these findings to help industry practitioners with SCR implementation.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first structured evaluation model that measures the correlational impacts of SCC and SCV targeting SCR in the construction domain. Further, this study adds substantially to the existing SCR and construction “body of knowledge” by proposing a model explaining how various SCV and SCC influence SCR in IC. These findings also inform the industry where and how to deploy critical SCC at appropriate levels, targeting critical SCV, to contain or extirpate them.

The purposes of this paper are to study how entry-level 3D printers are currently being used in several shared machine shops (FabLabs, hackerspaces, etc.) and to examine the ambivalent emancipation often offered by 3D printing, when users prefer the fascinated passivity of replicating rather than the action of repairing. Based on a field study and on a large online survey, this paper offers to examine different practices with entry-level 3D printers, observed in several shared machine shops (FabLabs, hackerspaces, etc.). The recent evolution of additive manufacturing and the shift from high-end additive technologies to consumer’s entry-level 3D printing is taken as an entry point. Indeed, digital fabrication has recently received extensive media coverage and the maker movement has become a trendy subject for numerous influential publications. In the makerspaces that were taken for this field survey, 3D printers were very often used for demonstration, provoking fascination and encouraging a passive attitude.

As part of the work for a PhD research on personal digital fabrication as practiced in FabLabs, hackerspaces and makerspaces, since 2012, a large-scale field survey at the heart of these workshops was carried out. Particular attention has been paid to the relationships established between the inhabitants of these places and their machines, observing the logic of developing projects and the reactions or techniques used to counter unforeseen obstacles – that shall be demonstrated to be an essential occurrence for these moments of production. From Paris to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rome, Lyngen (Norway), San Francisco, New York, Boston, Tokyo, Kamakura (Japan) to Dakar, a means of observing at the heart of more than 30 makerspaces (FabLabs, hackerspaces) has been created, with the aim of looking beyond the speeches relayed by the media and to constitute an observatory of these places. The field observations are confirmed by a quantitative study, based on a survey submitted online to 170 users, coming from 30 different makerspaces in more than ten countries in the world and reached through social networks or mailing lists. This survey offers a rigorous insight on the uses of 3D printing and leads to the consideration of the types of attention applied to 3D printing and the part played by the “default” or “trivial” productions used for their demonstrations or performances.

Based on both the observations and the quantitative survey, it can be discussed how the question of so-called “user-friendliness” is challenged by practices of repairing, fixing and adjusting, more than that of replicating. Indeed, it is claimed that this offers a possible meaning for 3D printing practices. In the description and analysis of the behaviours with 3D printers, this leads to privilege the idea of “disengaging” and the notion of “acting” rather than simply passively using.

3D printing is just one of the many options in the wide range available for personal digital fabrication. As a part of the same arsenal as laser cutters or numerical milling machines, 3D printing shares with these machines the possibility of creating objects from designs or models produced by a computer. These machines execute the instructions of operators whose practices – or behaviours – have yet to be qualified. These emerging technical situations pose a series of questions: who are those who use these 3D printers? What are they printing? What are the techniques, the gestures or the rituals imposed or offered by these machines?

Demands for Industrialized Construction (IC) have intensified with growing construction industry imperatives to (A) boost performance; (B) reduce reliance on “in-situ and on-site” operations; and (C) strengthen supply chain resilience (SCR) not just for survival but also to fulfill obligations to clients in the coronavirus disease 2019–induced (COVID-19–induced) “new normal”. In addressing these imperatives, this paper targets more effective leveraging of latent efficiencies of off-site-manufacture, based on findings from a Hong Kong (HK)–based study on assessing and improving SCR in IC in a high-density city.

Starting with the identification of critical supply chain vulnerabilities (CSCVs), this study developed a multilevel–multicriteria mathematical model to evaluate the vulnerability levels of IC supply chains (SCs) in HK based on an in-depth questionnaire survey followed by experts' inputs and analyzing them using fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE).

The overall vulnerability index indicates that IC in HK is substantially vulnerable to disruptions, while production-based vulnerabilities have the highest impact. Top management attention is needed to address these CSCVs in IC in HK.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first structured evaluation model that measures the vulnerability level of IC, providing useful insights to industry stakeholders for well-informed decision-making in achieving resilient, sustainable and performance-enhanced SCs.

The purpose of the paper is to present and empirically support a theoretically sound, operational, and easy‐to‐implement supplier risk management framework that focuses on supplier development using a benchmarking approach.

The paper develops a five stage framework for supplier risk management, entailing supplier risk identification, assessment of supplier risks, reporting and decision of supplier risks, supplier risk management responses, and supplier risk performance outcomes, that builds on the conceptual approach of Ritchie and Bridley and the approach of the Association of Insurance and Risk Managers (AIRMIC). The operation of the framework is illustrated in a single case study of a UK firm.

The paper contributes to research in operations management and particularly in risk management in the specific field of supplier risk management. The study presents details of one of the later stages of the risk framework (i.e. management responses stage) and enhances understanding of how the development of suppliers can be conducted so as to create a viable supplier base.

As an analytical method, the use of factor analysis generally requires metric scaled data, but ordinal‐scaled data were applied to it. Therefore, two‐factor solution with non‐metric multidimensional scaling was confirmed. In addition, the operation of supplier risk framework is demonstrated within one firm only. Further case studies are therefore needed to strengthen the research findings.

Managers can use the supplier risk management framework to develop firm‐specific risk management programs, and to create management responses that influence and improve their relationships with suppliers. The framework is fully operational, easy to implement; and facilitates proactive supplier risk management, rather than reactive crisis management.

The study goes beyond the conceptual discussion of supplier risk management, and demonstrates the activities a firm can undertake in response to supplier risk ratings and assessments.

Profit forecasts should be achievable targets. Not only must they project a level and mix of sales for the forthcoming financial year, at competitive prices, but the output requires to be manufactured, and marketed, at economic costs. One area in which cost savings may be effected — or otherwise — is that of subcontracting the manufacture of some items of sub‐product. Assessing the viability of such a decision becomes, inter alia, a matter of rigorous cost comparison with the same items made internally. This article reviews some of the important features arising in make or buy decisions.

Examines the strategic implications of a retailer engaging in the in‐house sourcing of its products (vertical integration). A contextual model for the make‐or‐buy decision is developed. Through the use of case material concerning a vertically integrated manufacturer/retailer, Thorntons, the article explores how the model might explain the pattern of vertical integration adopted by a specific organization and the strategy’s implications for competitiveness and strategic development. Problems are identified, including those of maintaining a retail focus, resource leverage and possible difficulties in responding to longer term market developments.

Most recent prescriptions for firm development in the garment industry have focused on methods of reducing labour costs, with less emphasis placed on targeting high margin niches. This paper examines how the early ready‐made womenswear industry in the UK moved from a wage‐cost containment strategy before the First World War to exploiting fashion‐sensitive demand in the inter‐war period. The economics of fashion‐sensitive demand meant that the most efficient structure for the industry was to have many small producers, specialised in sub‐processes, and all closely located. However, contemporaries failed to understand the efficiency properties of the ‘industrial district’ type of local economy which emerged in London's East End in the first half of this century, a failure which eventually contributed to the dispersion of industrial activities and to the eventual decline of the industry.

Whilst there has been considerable research on the use of electronic communications technologies to transfer design files for Additive Manufacturing (AM) between designer and manufacturer, corresponding studies that explore the resulting implications are limited. Often it is assumed that such an electronic approach is optimal; this paper serves to explore this assumption by reviewing the technical solutions, and identifying the practical implications. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The results of a systematic literature review are used to develop four e-commerce channel designs, which are then explored using primary and secondary case studies.

It is shown that the use of e-commerce with AM has often been oversimplified, suggesting that it will bring about universal benefits through increased efficiency and cost reductions in information transfer, particularly as a result of supply chain disintermediation. Instead, this paper reinforces current e-commerce research suggesting that e-commerce channels can lead to both disintermediation but also re-intermediation of the supply chain; cost reductions and increased efficiency may not automatically follow.

For AM suppliers, channel strategy is likely to be a critical consideration. This paper provides a framework of currently available approaches, links these to the original research, and explains the implications arising from each option.

Whilst there are many technical studies in this area, the potential implications of their adoption are often hypothesized, but seldom explored empirically. This study makes an original contribution through the classification and analysis of the channels from a management perspective.

The government has given legislative backing to a system of cost audit, using a basic cost accounting format and recording rules. It has been applied so far to a range of industrial products in the essential consumer category, as a way of improving industrial performance. This experience, over 20 years, is reviewed. The process is likely to be extended, using improved procedures and possibly inter‐firm comparison. It is a form of external regulation and monitoring, using an audit approach, which — it is suggested — apart from enabling government to monitor performance, has also helped to make industry more professional.