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This paper aims to investigate reconfigurable technology using robotic technology for folding carton in confectionery industry.

Based on the analysis of common motion and manipulation, modules such as robotic fingers and robotic folders are explored and designed. A robotic system is then constructed by arranging those modules for diverse cartons.

A prototyped test rig shows the adaptability of the robotic system. The reconfigurability of the robotic system is realized and verified by experiments and an industrial demonstrator.

This research leads to the development of a demonstrator, manufactured and controlled by industries, to further commercial exploitation of this robotic system. It has been applied in a strict industry environment for a chocolate manufacturer.

This robotic system applied successfully the theory of reconfigurability by using modularity in packaging systems into confectionery industry.

Kinship structures in Ambridge have been analysed using social network analysis (SNA) showing a network of a ‘small world’ type with 75 individual people linked by birth or marriage. Further, the network shows four major cliques: the first two centred on Aldridge and Archer matriarchies and the second where through the marriages of the third generation the Grundies, Carters, Bellamies and Snells connect together. The chapter considers the possible futures for kinship networks in the village, arguing either a version of the status quo or The Headlam Hypothesis through which Archers assume less importance and the strength of the weak ties in the network assume more prominence.

This chapter explores the queasy relationship between food and sex on The Archers. For listeners, food provides an imaginative reference point; consumption of food hints towards characters embodiment and occupation of physical space. To the extent that these characters have boundaries, the way they approach and react to food reveals their rigidity or permeability, and the tones in which characters offer, provide, prepare, coax and force food upon one another tells us a lot about the sexual politics at play in Ambridge. In The Archers, women cook and men eat. Characters who rebel against this norm often subvert traditional masculinity in other ways.

Through close reading (and obsessive listening), this chapter analyses the ways in which food allows the relationships on The Archers to act as foils to one another. It also explores: food as metaphor; food used both to sustain and fortify the boundaries of the self and to besiege the ego boundaries of others; how characters are given weight in acoustic space; female emancipation; male helplessness; the hunger/satiety/aural claustrophobia of listeners.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

The contributions proposed in this paper are motivated by principles of incompatibility, and non‐equilibrium states, existing between the continuous growth in the level of environmental complexity and the insufficient cognitive capacity of the organization. From such a view, the purpose of this paper is to ask: what are the core competencies of the new industrial organization in the twenty‐first century?

First, the paper examines the characteristics and limitations of past and current industrial organizations; second, it contributes by extending their frontiers and by proposing technological, managerial and organizational core competencies of the new enterprise.

From such analyses, this paper introduces the features of customer‐centric systems (CCS) which represent new industrial organizations in the pursuit of high degrees of organizational cognition, intelligence and autonomy, and consequently, high degrees of agility and flexibility, in order to manage high levels of environmental complexity and uncertainty, to operate through intensive mass customization, and to provide customers with immersiveness.

For further research, this paper suggests the investigation of practical implementation of the features of the new enterprise of CCS. In such a direction, it recommends additional reading on the concept and design of computational organizational management networks.

This paper emphasizes that CCS are firm types which strategically organize their resources and competencies around customers' values and needs, in order to involve customers into their business. By involving customers into their task environments and business, CCS‐based firms have the chance to understand their clients' real needs and to produce the appropriate goods and services.

The uniqueness of this paper lies in its attempt to master, analyze and integrate technological, managerial and organizational perspectives of past and current manufacturing organizations, which contribute to illuminate features and to identify core competencies of future industrial firms, which are in the pursuit of innovation and sustainable competitive advantage in the twenty‐first century.

Flexibility is a fundamental performance objective for manufacturing operations, allowing them to respond to changing requirements in uncertain and competitive global markets. Additive manufacturing machines are often described as “flexible,” but there is no detailed understanding of such flexibility in an operations management context. The purpose of this paper is to examine flexibility from a manufacturing systems perspective, demonstrating the different competencies that can be achieved and the factors that can inhibit these in commercial practice.

This study extends existing flexibility theory in the context of an industrial additive manufacturing system through an investigation of 12 case studies, covering a range of sectors, product volumes, and technologies. Drawing upon multiple sources, this research takes a manufacturing systems perspective that recognizes the multitude of different resources that, together with individual industrial additive manufacturing machines, contribute to the satisfaction of demand.

The results show that the manufacturing system can achieve seven distinct internal flexibility competencies. This ability was shown to enable six out of seven external flexibility capabilities identified in the literature. Through a categorical assessment the extent to which each competency can be achieved is identified, supported by a detailed explanation of the enablers and inhibitors of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.

Additive manufacturing is widely expected to make an important contribution to future manufacturing, yet relevant management research is scant and the flexibility term is often ambiguously used. This research contributes the first detailed examination of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.