This study investigates the impact of business analytics (BA) on supply chain performance (SCP) in Saudi industrial companies. It also investigates the mediating impact of information systems supporting (ISS) and business process orientation (BPO). A total of 373 respondents working in 38 manufacturing companies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) were selected. A scale with acceptable validity and reliability indicators was developed to measure the study variables. The results indicated significant indirect impact of the business analytics (planning, supply, make, delivery) on supply chain performance as ISS and BPO mediate this impact. Based on the results, a set of recommendations were proposed, industrial companies in KSA must develop the analytical capabilities for managers by increasing awareness of the benefits achieved from using business analytics approaches. It is a critical precedent for supply chain SC efficiency, and for companies to enhance their analytical capabilities with good ISS and process orientation to utilize in analyzing vast amounts of internal and external data. Directions for future research are also presented in this paper.

The objective of this study is to examine the role of HRM and supply chain to promote business performance (BP) sustainability in Thai textile firms. Meditating role of employee skills and raw material is examined. Therefore, the relationship between HRM, supply chain, employee skills, raw material and BP sustainability was examined. Population of the study is textile firms of Thailand. Employees of these textile firms were selected as respondents. 300 questionnaires were distributed among the textile firms of Thailand. Results of the study shows the positive role of HRM in BP sustainability. Better practices of HRM have the ability to promote BP sustainability. HRM has a positive role in employee skills development which further enhances BP sustainability. Moreover, supply chains in textile firms also play a major role to promote BP sustainability. Better supply chain increases the availability of raw material which causes BP sustainability.

The arrival of the era of robots and autonomous machines is undisputable. It is anticipated that the future business environment will be characterized by a variety of intelligent systems and autonomous robots. In 2017, the International Federation of Robotics reported that momentum gained by robotic technologies is strong and that the sales volumes of both service and industrial robots is expected to grow. Building on this projection, the present study proposes a set of prerequisites or key determinants for the adoption of autonomous robots in the supply chain and logistics industry: technological context (i.e., relative advantage, complexity, and cost), organizational context (i.e., management support, financial support and employee competence) and environmental context (i.e., competitive pressure, customer pressure and vendor support). The study adapts a quantitative research design and uses an online survey to collect the needed data to test the conceptual framework and hypotheses proposed. Part of the study results confirms the association between the cost of digital technologies and the adoption of autonomous robots. However, the study found no evidence that the perceived relative advantage positively impacts supply chain and logistics firms’ adoption of autonomous robots. The study offers some managerial advices to supply chain mangers and marketers of the digital technologies and tools that can be applied in the supply chain setting.

Modelling is an effective way of designing, understanding, and analysing bio-refinery supply chain systems. The supply chain is a complex process consisting of many systems interacting with each other. It requires the modelling of the processes in the presence of multiple autonomous entities (i.e. biomass producers, bio-processors and transporters), multiple performance measures and multiple objectives, both local and global, which together constitute very complex interaction effects. In this paper, simulation models for recovering biomass from the field of the biorefinery are developed and validated using some industry data and the minimum biomass recovery cost is established based on different strategies employed for recovering biomass. Energy densification techniques are evaluated for their net present worth and the technologies that offer greater returns for the industry are recommended. In addition, a new scheduling algorithm is also developed to enhance the process flow of the management of resources and the flow of biomass. The primary objective is to investigate different strategies to reach the lowest cost delivery of sugarcane harvest residue to a sugar factory through optimally located bio-refineries. A simulation /optimisation solution approach is also developed to tackle the stochastic variables in the bioenergy production system based on different statistical distributions such as Weibull and Pearson distributions. In this approach, a genetic algorithm is integrated with simulation to improve the initial solution and search the near-optimal solution. A case study is conducted to illustrate the results and to validate the applicability for the real world implementation using ExtendSIM Simulation software using some real data from Australian Mills.

This research aims to show how decision sciences can make a significant contribution on handling the supply chain problem during Covid-19 Pandemic. The paper discusses how robust optimization handles uncertain demand in agricultural processed products supply chain problems within two scenarios during the pandemic situation, i.e., the large-scale social distancing and partial social distancing. The study assumes that demand and production capacity are uncertain during a pandemic situation. Robust counterpart methodology is employed to obtain the robust optimal solution. To this end, the uncertain data is assumed to lie within a polyhedral uncertainty set. The result shows that the robust counterpart model is a computationally tractable through linear programming problem. Numerical experiment is presented for the Bandung area with a case on sugar and cooking oil that is the most influential agricultural processed products besides the main staple food of the Indonesian people, rice.

The objective of the current study was to examine the role of supply chain and product development in sustainable performance, goodwill and firm popularity. Furthermore, the mediating role of product development was also examined. Population of the study was rubber manufacturing companies of Indonesia. In this regard, data were collected from the employees of rubber making companies of Indonesia. 500 questionnaires were used for data collection among the rubber making companies. Data was analyzed through statistical software. Results of the analysis revealed that the supply chain has a major contribution to sustainable performance, goodwill and firm popularity. Increase in the supply chain of rubber manufacturing companies, increases the sustainable performance, goodwill and firm popularity. Moreover, product development also has important contributions to the sustainable performance, goodwill and firm popularity. Supply chain has a positive effect on product development and product development has a positive effect on sustainable performance, goodwill and firm popularity.

This article investigates the supply chain analysis of the role of green human resource management including green behavior on the green work environment by emphasizing on the effect of direct supply chain analysis relation to green organizational culture and moderation of individual green values. This type of research is quantitative research. Primary data obtained from questionnaires distributed to 145 respondents. The collected data were analyzed using SEM-PLS (Structural Equation Model- Pear Least Square). Green organizational culture has a positive but insignificant effect on the work environment, green organizational culture has a positive and significant effect on green behavior, green behavior has a positive and significant effect on the green work environment, individual green values have a positive and significant effect on green work environments, green values individuals do not moderate the relationship between green organizational culture and green work environment, green behavior mediates the relationship between green organizational culture and green work environment. This research provides insight to leaders that to create a green work supply chain environment requires the role of green behavior as an intervening variable. However, the finding does not show the effect of individual green values as a moderating variable, so that green organizational culture can affect the green work supply chain environment. The existence of a green behavior variable that mediates the relationship between green organizational culture and green work environment is the originality of this study.

It is essential to improve the efficiency of hospitals, especially in the situation of Covid-19. Therefore, the primary purpose of this paper was to examine the effect of supply chain connectivity, perceived ease of use, and task technology fit on big data analytics and efficiency. This study assessed the mediating role of big data analytics as well. A survey questionnaire was developed to collect the data. The data was collected from the employees working in the hospitals of the UAE. For this purpose, convenient sampling was adopted. The questionnaire was adapted from past studies. The questionnaire was distributed among 426 employees. The usable response rate was 73.22%. The gathered data was assessed using PLS 3. The study's findings confirmed the direct effect of supply chain connectivity, perceived ease of use, task technology fit on big data analytics, and efficiency. This study also revealed the significant effect of big data analytics on efficiency. Moreover, the mediating role of big data is also confirmed in the present study. This study fills several theoretical and managerial gaps mentioned. The study's findings are helpful for the policymakers and academicians of the health sector.

3D printers and robots (3DPR) are new technologies that may disrupt traditional supply chains.The location of the manufacturing place can be moved toward more customer side in the supply chain, which brings both agility and the ability of customization.The impact is yet to be examined quantitatively. In this paper we study the location of 3DPR in the supply chain. We present and compare three models of supply chains: Traditional supply chain; 3DPR at warehouse; 3DPR at shop. The semodels are compared by the equipment installation cost, the production cost,and inventory cost for safety-stock. The study presents a practical case study motivated from a real-world apparel company, discusses the three models under various parameter settings, comparing the obtained total cost and discovers the advantages and disadvantages.

Over the past 40 years, global air travel has increased eight-fold: In 1974 air planes carried 421 million people globally. This means that global air travel has been growing up about 5% every year for 4 decades and this trend is expected to continue in the future. While demand growth is an important factor for the profitability of the airline industry, its impact quite depends on the operational performances such as load factor, passenger yield, labor efficiency and fuel efficiency. So, the objective of this study is to analyze companies competing in the airline industry to address how to use the return on invested capital (ROIC) tree model to analyze the effect of operational performances on airline companies’ financial performance and then how to increase the financially inferior company’s per-formance by intimidating the operationally and financially superior and productive company. In the case of the Korean airline industry, two leading legacy airline companies called as a company A and B were selected to do the computational study for the effect of operational performance on the financial performance and productivity. We analyzed the financially high-performing company using the ROIC tree model and then looked at financially how much the inferior company would be improved if it could imitate some factor consisting of the productivity ratios from the financially high-performing company.