Faustino Alarcón Valero

Industry 4.0: A Classification Scheme

One of the most novel concepts that has been applied to companies in recent years is “Industry 4.0”. This is a wide term that implies a drastic change in the way companies operate. This paper reviews some of its existing literature in order to give an accurate definition of such a concept. A classification scheme based in two main pillars, on one hand the features which characterize that term and on the other hand the technologies and concepts that support their development is also defined. All results are based on a structured literature review.

Towards a Sustainable Agri-food Supply Chain Model. The Case of LEAF

The Agri-food Supply Chain (ASC) has received increasing attention lately due to environmental and social impacts. This is likely to lead to tighter regulations and closer control of these supply chains, where the traditional ASC practices will be reviewed and changed. One of the key solutions may be the necessity of establishing procedures accounting for the sustainability of the whole ASC. This is directly related to the increasing presence of different ASC third parties offering this type of services. In this paper, different aspects about ASC sustainability are reviewed from the literature, with the aim of finding out which are the most addressed and remarkable ones. These ones will be used as a benchmark against an example of a real sustainable ASC management model implemented by the UK established company (LEAF-Linking Environment And Farming).

Metodología para la reingeniería: basada en el modelado de procesos de negocio

Methodologies to improve processes help to find ways to improve industrial activity, reducing inefficiencies and improving the value perceived by the customer. One of the most widely used improvement methodologies to improve processes is the Business Process Reengineering. Yet, despite its high diffusion, many organizations complain about the low returns they have achieved with it and many experts stress its risks or criticize. Other methodologies surveyed are unwieldy and have problems such as long periods of implementation, or the high effort, knowledge and training required for use. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to propose a methodology for business process improvement simple and effective, by which is possible to identify areas of process improvement from its modeling. The result is an agile methodology, effective, that consists of seven stages by which it is possible to identify, both possible improvements in process, and improvements that are not technically feasible. All this with low training requirements and low cost. The main contributions of the proposed methodology are, therefore, its simplicity, ease of use and communication, its graphic aspect and its flexibility to adapt to different companies, sectors or types of processes.