Produktion und Systeme
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Purpose
Tooling is a common component of an industrial product’s manufacture. Specific tooling is devised to serve the fabrication of a particular product, while generic tooling can be used in the manufacture of multiple products. In the latter case, companies are confronted with the problem of fairly allocating the indirect costs of the tooling. This article studies how to allocate costs of generic tooling to single production orders.
Methodology
Ten allocation methods (AMs) are described that are in principle suited to the distribution of generic tooling costs to production orders. Since the presented methods have for the most part been discussed in differing contexts, we apply them to a specified generic tooling problem for comparison. Evaluation of the various methods is based on 16 criteria. Reasoning is supported by a computational Monte Carlo simulation. Furthermore, we suggest using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to elaborate one final proposition concerning the most preferable allocation scheme.
Findings
The article reports the single allocation rules’ performances for different allocation scenarios. The described characteristics refer to fairness, efficiency, and simplicity as well as to empty-core performance. Using AHP analysis allows for the aggregation of the rules’ criteria ratings. Thus, especially suitable allocation schemes for the problem at hand are identified.
Practical implications
An allocation is required for budgeting reasons and also for the definition of projects’ bottom-up sales prices. Selecting the “right” AM is important, as a suboptimal AM can result in unfair allocation vectors, which will act as incentives to stop using the common resource, potentially leading to higher total costs.
Originality/value of the article
Research on the comparison of AMs is typically performed for certain purposes, such as enterprise networks, horizontal cooperative purchasing scenarios, or municipal service units. This article will augment the research evaluating AMs by introducing a novel set of evaluation criteria and by providing an in-depth comparison of AMs suited for the allocation of generic tooling costs.
The 0-1 multidimensional knapsack problem (MKP) is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem with several real-life applications, for example, in project selection. Genetic algorithms (GA) are effective heuristics for solving the 0-1 MKP. Multiple individual GAs with specific characteristics have been proposed in literature. However, so far, these approaches have only been partially compared in multiple studies with unequal conditions. Therefore, to identify the “best” genetic algorithm, this article reviews and compares 11 existing GAs. The authors' tests provide detailed information on the GAs themselves as well as their performance. The authors validated fitness values and required computation times in varying problem types and environments. Results demonstrate the superiority of one GA.
Prior research studies on supplier selection factors assess vendor reputation as a low ranked criterion. Reputation in these articles, however, only refers to the position in the industry, without considering the role of the final customer. Our results from a survey with 565 individuals suggest that the end user as a stakeholder should be also considered when analyzing a vendor’s prestige. We demonstrate that a supplier’s standing has negative as well as positive reputational effects on the buyer. Depending on the relevance of the purchased good as well as the reputation of the supplier and the buyer, low/high-ranked ingredients significantly decrease/increase the final customer’s perception of the buyer.
In an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, production planning is influenced by a variety of parameters. Previous investigations show that setting parameter values is highly relevant to a company’s target system. Parameter settings should be checked and adjusted, e.g., after a change in environmental factors, by material planners. In practice, updating the parameters is difficult due to several reasons. This paper presents a simulation-based decision support system, which helps material planners in all stages of decision-making processes. It will present the system prototype’s user interface and the results of applying the system to a case study.
In this paper, we study the effect of skill-biased technological change on unemployment and wage inequality in the presence of a link between social benefits and average income. In this case, an increase in the productivity of skilled workers and hence their wage leads to an increase in average income and hence in benefits. The increased fallback income, in turn, makes unskilled workers ask for higher wages. As higher wages are not justified by respective productivity increases, unemployment rises. More generally, we show that skill-biased technological change leads to increasing unemployment of the unskilled and to a moderately increasing wage inequality when benefits are endogenous. The model provides a theoretical explanation for diverging dynamics in wage inequality and unemployment under different social benefits regimes: Analyzing the social legislation in 14 countries, we find that benefits are linked to the evolution of average income in Continental Europe but not in the U.S. and the UK. Given this institutional difference, our model predicts that skill-biased technological change leads to rising unemployment in Continental Europe and rising wage inequality in the U.S. and the UK....
The Fitz-Ritter Wine Estate was founded in 1785. In 1837, the estate was supplemented by a champagne production. Today, the young owner Johann Fitz is the managing director of both companies in the 9th generation of the traditional family business. German wine producers have been facing global challenges for several years. This case shows how an entrepreneurial spirit in generations of successors contributes to the survival of a firm. It also shows how a medium sized business can cope with global challenges if it commits itself to international entrepreneurship. In this complex situation, Johann Fitz has to take decisions concerning strategic positioning, customer relations, distribution channels, new business segments, investments, and the international business.
This paper has three main objectives. First, it attempts to develop testable, theoretical sounded hypotheses explaining ethics of entrepreneurs. Therefore it builds upon studies exploring potential drivers for ethical attitudes and behavior. Second, these hypotheses are tested with a large and representative cross national data set, i.e. data from the European Social Survey (ESS). Third, our study is two-level comparative: The sample includes entrepreneurs, managers of sme's and large incorporations, and a representative number of populations excluding the two groups mentioned before. By this, we can compare ethics in attitudes and behavior between those three groups of profession as well as we can test for differences in ethical attitudes and behavior across 20 European countries. Our results show that many theoretical hypotheses do not meet empirical proof and that entrepreneurs seem to be significantly less ethical than the other groups.
This article takes stock of 99 journals dedicated to the field of entrepreneurship research and examines their evaluations and impact. It compares several journal quality assessments, the Australian ERA 2010, ABDC 2010 and UQ 2011 lists, with other international rankings and with highly regarded impact measurements. In a following section, the H-Index and the HC-Index for journals are introduced. The H-Indices are Google Scholar based impact measurements which can be easily executed by anyone. The results for the entrepreneurship journals H-Indices are compared with other impact factors and with journal rankings from Australia and elsewhere. Results reveal that rankings are incomplete in regard to entrepreneurship journals and that many rankings are inconsistent when compared to impact measurements. This holds true even for the ERA and the ABDC 2010 lists, even though these are among the most appropriate lists.
In our first contribution to this volume we have lined out how academic entrepreneurship emerged. In this second article we would like to describe its further evolution. The development is structured by two main phases according to the impulses generated by EXIST II and EXIST III. In a conclusion we will provide a representative group of examples for start-ups that had been founded through all three stages of the EXIST program. Some thoughts on further development of academic entrepreneurship at Wuppertal University will end our journey through the development of Wuppertal’s EXIST initiative BIZEPS.
The network success hypothesis predicts a positive relation between the networking activities of entrepreneurs and their economic success. Surprisingly, at first glance, empirical research on entrepreneurial networks and clusters in more than 30 reviewed papers offers quiet varying answers to the question if and why networks or clusters influence the development of start-ups positively. The dissimilar (or even contrary) empirical results might can be explained by differences in the theoretical models and the methods of measurement. An evolutionary model of the interplay between single entrepreneurs and their networks will be developed. Then, following and testing HAYEK’S (1971, 1979, 1988) institutional theory of group selection, it is argued that entrepreneurial networks which are build on a shared cognitive basis will create efficient rules of conduct with less effort, resulting in a capable institutional framework and thus being comparatively fitter systems.
The University of Wuppertal is among the relatively small group of universities which were continuously supported by the EXIST program through all three stages of EXIST I, II, and III. In this article we want to outline the development of “BIZEPS” from 1999 to 2003/04. A subsequent article in this volume will reflect on the development from 2005 to 2011. The acronym BIZEPS has always remained part of the names of follow-up projects and sustainable structures which persisted after the end of government financing. At the end of February 2011, the latest EXIST-project in Wuppertal, BIZEPS gazelles, has been concluded formally; but then again it did not really come to an end, since its core functions can now be continued through internal funding. Sustainable structural changes have been established, and the lessons learned as well as the spirit of BIZEPS gazelles are still present. Now, in summer 2011, Wuppertal is preparing for its second application for EXIST IV. EXIST IV would be the concluding highlight to the university’s long-lasting commitment to entrepreneurship by crafting and – more important – incorporating an entrepreneurial strategy not only for parts of the university, but rather for its entire body. But how did Wuppertal University get to this point? In this article we would like to describe the history of entrepreneurship at the University of Wuppertal. This reflection in form of a case study might offer insights and lessons to be learned that are instructive to other universities which are about to start or to advance their entrepreneurial ecosystem (for a similar approach in describing the development of entrepreneurship within educational institutions see e.g. Cruikshank 2005; in addition see e.g. Wright et al. (ed.) (2007), Isenberg (2010), and Fetters (2010)).
The Many Facets of Entrepreneurship in Practice and Research: Encouraging the Academic Dialogue
(2011)
A Bibliometric Based Review on Social Entrepreneurship and its Establishment as a Field of Research
(2013)
This paper provides an overview on the state of art of research on social entrepreneurship and the establishment of this topic in the academic world. It uses scientometric methods, especially bibliometrics, in measuring the maturity of social entrepreneurship research. The empirical part reveals the increasing number of
literature, the institutionalization of social entrepreneurship in seven dimensions, the emergence of thematic clusters, and methodological issue. The paper makes concrete suggestions on how to overcome methodological challenges at the boarder of advanced
qualitative and early quantitative research designs. Using Harzing’s “Publish or Perish” software this article furthermore provides a ranking of the 20 most cited academic contributions in social entrepreneurship. Surprisingly, almost half of the most cited
papers have not been published in journals but in books, rising doubts on the current (over-)rating of journal publications.
Entrepreneurship Education between Theory and Practice: Reflections on Case Study Based Teaching
(2013)
This article suggests an extended use of the case study methodology in teaching entrepreneurship in Germany. In Germany, the traditional form of formal lectures seems still to be predominant in Entrepreneurship Education. Case studies as a teaching methodology can serve the many dualities of Entrepreneurship Education: heterogeneous vs. homogeneous prior knowledge of participants, participants’ divergent interests in entrepreneurship courses, from simply collecting credits to theoretical interest to practical and urgent interest in practical skills for starting a venture. The advantages of case study based teaching methodology in transmitting theoretical knowledge as well as practical skills in entrepreneurship is described, based on the evidence in state of the art entrepreneurship research literature. A small explorative survey on case studies in Entrepreneurship Education is presented. Descriptive results generate insights in students perspective on the usefulness of the case study based teaching methodology in comparison with traditional lectures and provide hints for a more elaborated future empirical study that could employ a proper model on the effectiveness and advantages of case study based learning. The authors conclude in encouraging an increase in the usage of case study based teaching in Entrepreneurship Education especially in Germany.
In this chapter we explore four alternatives to the dominant discovery view of entrepreneurship; the development view, the construction view, the evolutionary view, and the Neo-Austrian view. We outline the main critique points of the discovery presented in these four alternatives, as well as their central concepts and conceptualization of the entrepreneurial function. On this basis we discuss three central themes that cut across the four alternatives: process, uncertainty, and agency. These themes provide new foci for entrepreneurship research and can help to generate new research questions and connect otherwise fragmented empirical findings. Implications for future research and practice are discussed at the end of the chapter.
Der durch die Digitalisierung entstehende Struckturwandel bringt neue Herausforderungen mit sich, die es global und insbesondere regional zu bewältigen gilt. Innovative Lösungen sollen durch Entrepreneure und Intrapreneure vorangetrieben werden. Im Rahmen des Verbundprojekts Grow4Digital entstehen an vier ostbayerischen Hochschulen (Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg, Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden, Universität Regensburg und Technische Hochschule Deggendorf) neue Studienangebote in der Digital Entrepreneurship Education für eingeschriebene Vollzeitstudierende, hochschulexterne Personen und Masterstudierende. Durch die
Konzeption einer Hochschulkooperation im Verbund lassen sich Interessenten in der Region mit einem fachlich breiten Studienangebot erreichen. Dieses Angebot könnten die beteiligten Partnerhochschulen in diesem Umfang alleine nicht anbieten. Die Hochschulen richten sich an den Anforderungen für eine Hochschulqualifizierung der Zukunft aus, um auch den Anforderungen der Wirtschaft und einer sich wandelnden Gesellschaft gerecht zu werden.
Purchasing is an important and at the same time critical function in multinational enterprises. Challenges are besides the growing purchasing volume the widespread distribution of organizational units and often a lack of coherence in those processes involving various organizational units. This becomes most evident in strategic procurement. Maturity assessments are a vital tool to create coherence in processes. In this contribution we provide a framework for the development of maturity assessments in strategic procurement for multinational enterprises. This framework covers all important aspects and topics to consider when developing a new procurement maturity assessment program for multinational corporations. From our company-background we also provide some casespecific examples how the framework can be brought to live.
The authors study the relation between workers' age and their productivity in work teams, based on a new and unique data set that combines data on errors occurring in the production process of a large car manufacturer with detailed information on the personal characteristics of workers related to the errors. The authors correct for non-random sample selection and the potential endogeneity of the age-composition in work teams. The results suggest that productivity in this plant which is typical for large-scale manufacturing does not decline at least up to age 60. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Aspects of sustainability – understood as the ability to manage economic, social and environmental performance at the same time – are becoming more important in Supply Chain Management. This is a challenge as sustainability adds less quantifiable aspects to Supply Chain Management than classic process aspects. On the other side measuring sustainability is crucial for the implementation of modern Supply Chains Management and to manage sustainably in the daily business. This contribution discusses the integration of sustainability in performance measurement and management systems (PMMS) for Supply Chain Management. Therefore in the paper firstly an overview of definitions and developments in performance measurement and management systems and a structure for PMMS are given. Secondly guidelines for good and modern PMMS are discussed. Thirdly existing approaches for Supply Chain Management PMMS (e. g. KPIs, TCO, value driver trees and balanced scorecards and maturity assessments) are presented and the suitability for Supply Chain Management as well as the possibility to integrate aspects of sustainability are examined. Lastly the fulfilment of the requirements and the ability to cope with the challenges of the approaches is discussed.
Sustainability is widely accepted as one of the most important concepts, which allows to reach al long-term success of companies and supply chains in today's turbulent and highly competitive business environment. The concept means a wise balance among economic development, environmental attitude, and social equitiy.
The monograph presents interesting solutions suitable for logistics an supply chain management. It summarises contemporary leading concepts in supply chain management, suggests approaches to the sustainability strategic management and performace measurement, and provides sustainable solutions for logistics activities. The monograph is primarily intended for those aspiring to be leaders in logistics and supply chain management and who are engaged in professional studies.
To broaden the operational scope of monetary policy, several authors suggest cash abolition as an appropriate means of breaking through the zero lower-bound. We argue that the welfare costs of bypassing the zero lower-bound by getting rid of cash entirely are analytically equivalent to negative interest rates on cash holdings. Using a money-in-the-utility-function model, we measure in two ways the welfare loss consumers as money holders would be forced to bear once the zero lower-bound is broken: in terms of the amount needed to compensate consumers (compensated variation), and as excess burden (deadweight loss) imposed on the economy as a whole. We calibrated the model for the euro area and for Germany. Our findings suggest that the welfare losses of negative interest rates incurred by consumers as holders of cash and transaction balances (M3) are large and enduring, notably if implemented in the current low-interest rate environment.
In Acemoglu's model of directed technical change, the skill-premium increases in consequence of an increase in the relative supply of skilled labour. In this article, I argue that other measures of wage inequality such as the Gini-coefficient do not necessarily rise as well. The Gini-coefficient depends positively on the skill-premium, but the effect of an increase in the relative supply of skilled labour is ambiguous. A simulation of Acemoglu's model shows that the growth in the relative supply of skilled labour has led to increased wage inequality in the past, but will lead to decreasing wage inequality in the future.
This paper introduces a new argument into the theoretical literature on labor market effects of changes in working hours and labor force participation. We advance a general equilibrium model in which increased labor supply reduces unskilled unemployment via consumer demand: longer work hours and higher labor force participation imply higher incomes and less (leisure) time. In consequence, home production is reduced in favor of outsourcing domestic tasks to the market, shifting consumer demand toward unskill-intensive goods. Relative demand for unskilled labor rises and unemployment falls. Finally, we provide empirical support for the basic mechanisms of our model for Germany.
Ageing and Productivty
(2009)
Age-diverse work teams are being advocated as an important management tool to enhance performance and productively employ older workers. However, this advice is not founded on empirical evidence. There are very few studies that look at the relation between performance and age diversity of work teams. This lack of evidence is mainly due to a lack of available data. Information on performance and worker composition of a productive unit is available almost exclusively on the plant level in matched employer-employee data sets. But on the plant level/age heterogeneity of the workforce does not tell much about age diversity on the level where co-operation/teamwork takes place (work teams, departments, etc.). If all of the older workers work in the administration whereas all the young employees work in the production, the firm's workforce may be highly age-diverse, but work teams and departments are age-homogeneous. This problem notwithstanding, Grund and Westergård-Nielsen (2005) look at the relation between productivity and the standard deviation of workers’ age in a sample of 7,000 Danish firms. They find a hump-shaped relation.