Che Sobry Abdullah

Clean production strategies adoption: A survey on food and beverage manufacturing sector

Clean production strategies are the continuous application of an integrated, preventive environmental strategies applied to process, products and services to increase overall efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment.This paper provides an analysis of factors influencing the adoption of clean production strategies among food and beverage firms in Peninsular Malaysia. The main purpose is to determine the relationships of three non regulatory factors with clean production strategies adoption. Three sets of interrelated factors leading to the widespread adoption of these technologies considered are: technology characteristics, technology performances and communication networks.This paper begins with an introduction and literature review, followed by the hypotheses statements. Pearson Correlation analysis was applied to examine these hypotheses. A sample of 76 Malaysian food and beverage firms was used for investigation, with one respondent for each firm. The results of the analysis indicated that technology characteristics, technology performances and communication networks are significantly influence the adoption of clean production strategies.

Relationship between Social Capital and Technology Transfer Performance: A Study on Companies in Technology Park

Tacit knowledge and personal experience of an individual can only be obtained in a tacit manner. Social capital is a prominent concept that provides a foundation to describe and characterize the properties. Therefore social interaction is very important to facilitate technological knowledge transfer among the units within an organisation. This paper aims to contribute to the existing knowledge in the field of technology transfer by exploring the concept of social capital. It discusses the technology transfer performance and focuses on the important firm-specific asset, which is social capital. By using the data from a survey on industrial firms in one of the technology parks in Malaysia, this paper provides an investigation on the relationship between social capital and technology transfer performance, within the technology park incubating company setting. It was found that social capital has significant relationships with the performance of technology transfer.

Outsourcing maintenance of power generating equipment in Malaysian palm oil mills

Government of Malaysia has acknowledged that its sources of fossil fuel are depleting and stresses the need to seek other forms of energy sources as critical and of strategic importance for its long-term energy security.The government continues to undertake efforts to manage both non-renewable and renewable energy resources to meet the energy demands of Malaysias rapidly growing economy; in particular, Malaysian governments renewable energy efforts promote the biomass power generation and co-generation in the palm oil mills.However, Power producers must also consider the nature of power generation, i.e. uninterrupted electric service and environmental impact, which requires high reliability, stability and safety. Industrial organisations are constantly in search of new solutions and strategies to develop and increase their competitive advantage. This paper discusses the pros and cons of one such solution, outsourcing maintenance in power generating plants in palm oil mills and outlines, maintenance outsourcing process, and selection criteria of Maintenance Service Provider.

Efficacy of dry-ice blasting in preventive maintenance of auto robotic assemblies

Welding robots are extensively applied in the automotive assemblies and ‘Spot Welding’ is the most common welding application found in the auto stamping assembly manufacturing. Every manufacturing process is subject to variations – with resistance welding, these include; part fit up, part thickness variations, misaligned electrodes, variations in coating materials or thickness, sealers, weld force variations, shunting, machine tooling degradation; and slag and spatter damage. All welding gun tips undergo wear; an elemental part of the process. Though adaptive resistance welding control automatically compensates to keep production and quality up to the levels needed as gun tips undergo wear so that the welds remain reliable; the system cannot compensate for deterioration caused by the slag and spatter on the part holding fixtures, sensors, and gun tips. To cleanse welding robots of slag and spatter, dry-ice blasting has proven to be an effective remedy. This paper describes Spot welding process, analyses t...

Load-bearing masonry system adoption and performance: A case study of construction company in a developing country

This study addresses the factors that influence the adoption of load-bearing masonry (LBM) system. A case study of the load-bearing masonry (LBM) system adoption is conducted through an interview to explore the situation of the technology adoption in a construction company. The finding indicates the factors influence the adoption of LBM system for the construction company are: organizational resources, usefulness, less maintenance, reduce construction time and cost. From the findings, these factors consistent with previous literature. Furthermore, the performance of the company was measured by looking into the financial and non-financial aspects. The LBM system brings good performance as it increased the profits of the company, a good quality of product and attracts more demand from customers. Thus, these factors should be considered for the other companies that are interested in implementing the LBM system in their projects.

Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) of Nano-Biosensor: A Malaysian Case

The latest advancements in nanotechnology, biology, advanced materials, and photonics have produced the Nano-Biosensor—an analytical device comprising a biological recognition element and a transducer in spatial proximity, whereby a recognition event triggers a measurable signal at the nano-scale level. Its future survival very much depends on carefully planned research, which needs to be critically assessed for it to be viably forecast ed, monitored and controlled. However, measuring the potential impact of this technology is a double-bind problem: the technology needs to be developed and adopted widely for its impact to be measured, but by that time controlling or changing the technology is very difficult, i.e., a Collingridge dilemma. In addressing this issue, constructive technology assessment (CTA) was developed to assist in assessing the potential impact of emerging technologies. This paper presents the results of collected qualitative data through CTA interviews performed on respondents in a research institute of a local university located in the Northern part of Malaysia, who are actively involved in new nanotechnology applications development related to Nano-Biosensors.Through convenience sampling, the selected respondents had highlighted several issues, namely sensitivity issues of Nano Biosensors,the local research spearheading the Nano-Biosensor advancement, and the potentially bright future regarding the further advancements in this field. It was concluded that the Nano-Biosensor can potentially remain in the forefront of nanotechnology development in Malaysia, since it is an enabling technology that impacts across industries and sectors at various points in the supply chain, not only in Malaysia, but also at the global stage.

Technology Park Services: The Impact on Incubating Companies

The development of technology parks in Malaysia creates the expectations that they will contribute significantly to the industrialization. Therefore, there is increasing number of research conducted on technology parks performance. However, there is still uncertainty about whether technology parks are achieving their goals or not and exactly what their impact is on their tenants. To contribute to understanding this issue, this paper focuses specifically on the impact of technology park services on high technology industries. A case study on one of the well-established technology parks in Malaysia that is Kulim Hi-Tech Park (KHTP) has been conducted. After a series of interviews with the administrator and review of literature, nine evaluation criteria were identified and used to observe the impact of technology park services on the industrial tenants of the technology park. From a survey on the industrial tenants in KHTP, it is found that the technology park has all the nine evaluated criteria. However, these criteria have different categories of impact on the tenants. It can be concluded that there is still more room to improve in ensuring the competitiveness of the technology park. This study could be extended to other technology parks in the whole country.

The Influence of Technology, Environment and User Acceptance on the Effectiveness of Information System Project Selection Using SEM

The selection of the present information system project is difficult because of the many factors that influence it. Information system project should pay attention to the user acceptance, technology and the environment in terms of their influence on the information system project selection. The purpose of this paper is to determine how much influence user acceptance, technology and the environment have on the information system project selection. This research uses data obtained from several ministries and analyzed using SEM (Structural Equation Models). The results found that the technology and the environment affects user acceptance. Moreover, technology and environment affect the effectiveness of the information systems project selection through the mediating effect of user acceptance. User acceptance, tested by the incorporation of usefulness and ease of use, the results are more modest and in line with previous theories. Furthermore, the external environment highly impacts the information system project selection.

The effect of economic and organizational capability in the information system project selection

Information system project selection in each country will be different, as well as factors that influence will also be different. The information systems projects selection is difficult because many factors influence. In appropriate using these factors may give the effect on the project such as failure in the implementation. For instance, project is not working, not appropriate with the environment or should not be executed. The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of economic and organizational capability in the information system project selection. Where there are economic as independent variables, the success of information system project selection as the dependent variable and the organizational capability as a mediator. The result of this research is the technology directly affects the information system project selection. Organizational capability directly affects the information system project selection. Further indirect economic impact to the information system project selection through mediating the organizational capability.