Flavio Tonelli

Performance measurement and management: a literature review and a research agenda

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the literature in the field of performance measurement and management (PMM) for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large companies and propose a research agenda for the future.Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides an update of Neelys work “The evolution of performance measurement research” The literature review has been carried out by using two different methodologies. Citation/co‐citation analysis has been used to explore “performance measurement” (PM) literature, while a chronological review of main frameworks/models developed both for large and small companies is presented in order to highlight “PMM” literature.Findings – The paper analyzes the literature on the field and carries out the most cited works and the common characteristics of them based on the key words used. The results of the literature review reveal a certain maturity of the literature related to large companies and a significant lack of PMM literature for SMEs. Finally t...

Performance measurement of sustainable supply chains

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to develop the body of knowledge in the area of sustainable supply chains by providing a critical literature review in the field of sustainable supply chain performance measurement (SSCPM) and suggesting paths for future research. Design/methodology/approach - – At a macro level, the evolution of the research field is analysed with the use of citation and co-citation analysis techniques. Further, the evolution of research on performance measurement (PM), supply chain PM, sustainability measurement and SSCPM is presented so as to highlight the criticalities of the research field. Findings - – The paper highlights a research field that is immature, but is growing very fast. Moreover, key issues are highlighted in order to help scholars in planning future research. Research limitations/implications - – The research presented in this paper is mainly limited to work that is referred directly with PM, operations management and supply chain management. Related research, such as literature on strategy or accounting has only been partially considered, even if future researches could include it. Originality/value - – Research in this area is receiving large attention from both academic and practitioners due to the significant relevance of the sustainability debate and the key role of supply chains in this discussion. The body of knowledge is yet immature, and the paper provides an updated state of the art, a critical analysis of the available literature and guidelines for future research.

A review of decision-support tools and performance measurement and sustainable supply chain management

In recent years, interest on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has risen significantly in both the academic and business communities. This is confirmed by the growing number of conferences, journal publications, special issues and websites dedicated to the topic. Within this context, this paper reviews the existing literature related to decision-support tools and performance measurement for SSCM. A narrative literature review is carried out to capture qualitative evidence, while a systematic literature review is performed using classic bibliometric techniques to analyse the relevant body of knowledge identified in 384 papers published from 2000 to 2013. The key conclusions include: the evidence of a research field that is growing, the call for establishing the scope of current research, i.e. the need for integrated performance frameworks with new generation decision-support tools incorporating triple bottom line (TBL) approach for managing sustainable supply chains. There is a need to identify a wide range of specific industry-related TBL metrics and indexes, and assess their usefulness through empirical research and case-base analysis. We need mixed methods to thoroughly analyse and investigate sustainable aspects of the product life cycle across the supply chains, through empirical evidence, building and/or testing theory from and in practice.

Performance measurement and management systems: state of the art, guidelines for design and challenges

Purpose – Recently, performance measurement and management (PMM) has received increasing attention from both the academic and industrial environments. Companies that try to use PMM systems report experiencing implementation problems including goal incongruence. Based on a discussion of the state of the art of PMM, this paper aims to provide research guidelines for building a PMM system through a reference framework, and to identify major design challenges.Design/methodology/approach – At a macro level, the evolution of research is analyzed using citation and co‐citation analysis techniques. Further, the evolution of PMM systems in the last 20 years is traced. The feasibility and applicability of these frameworks/models are analyzed by considering five milestones that a performance measurement system should have. Based on this, an integrated framework is proposed as a basis for designing a cohesive PMM system.Findings – The research on the subject is quite diverse. In fact, the research appears to be quite...

Industrial sustainability: challenges, perspectives, actions

Our vision is a future industrial system that delivers high value to its growing base of customers around the globe, while using, at most, a quarter of the current resources. The urgency for change is now feeding through from scientists into mainstream government, business and academic thinking. This sustainable industrial system would be very different to todays global industry - less homogenous with different business models and different relationships, creating different products and services - requiring new strategies, frameworks, and tools. In order to achieve this target a system design approach is required. Systemic implications for sustainable manufacturing, supply chain design, sustainability performance measurement and management, and organisational change are provided in this paper. Open questions and discussion about tomorrow activities are derived, providing recommendations for educators, researchers, industrialists, and policy makers.

A decomposition and hierarchical approach for business performance measurement and management

Purpose – Performance measurement and management (PMM) is a key practice to drive modern businesses. The literature available in this field highlights a certain maturity regarding performance measurement systems, while few frameworks have been proposed for PMM, which is todays target. Hence this paper aims to focus on the development of a new framework for providing direction and guidance to an organization in measuring and managing its performance.Design/methodology/approach – The proposed framework is developed based on the strengths of the axiomatic design (AD) and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) techniques.Findings – The framework proposed, namely “Business System Design Decomposition” (BSDD), offers a holistic approach to PMM, identifies cause‐effect relationships in business processes, measures performance versus stakeholders, and offers interlinking between performance indicators. The result is a deep understanding of the business environment and a real step forward for PMM.Research limitat...

Production planning of mixed-model assembly lines: a heuristic mixed integer programming based approach

Process technology capabilities are becoming increasingly important as flexible manufacturing continues to be more prevalent, and as competition compels companies to provide expanded variety, at ever lower cost, so introducing plant and processes technological constraints. Model flexibility can also benefit from an appropriate production planning process, especially concerning mixed-model assembly lines, since it can facilitate master scheduling and line balancing activities, which are essential aspects of flexibility. Robust and practical planning approaches have to take into account two different aspects: the first consists in ensuring that the elaborated aggregate plan can be disaggregated into at least one detailed feasible plan for the realised demand, whereas the second in ensuring that this detailed plan is feasible at the operational level. This article faces the model flexibility challenge, reviewing and discussing the planning problem of a real world assembly manufacturing system, producing high volume and a variety of agricultural tractors and machines, analysing and resolving some important issues related to technological, organisational and managerial constraints. This article illustrates the implementation of an Advanced Planning System integrated with a mixed integer-programming model, which is solved by a new iterative heuristic approach capable of achieving interesting planning improvements for model-flexibility management.

Facing energy-aware scheduling: a multi-objective extension of a scheduling support system for improving energy efficiency in a moulding industry

Nowadays most industries do not integrate product, process and energy data. Costs due to energy consumption are often considered externalities and energy efficiency is not deemed a relevant performance criterion. In energy-intensive processes, as injection moulding, the specific energy consumption, embedded inside the same products, depends on the machine–product combinations. Multi-objective scheduling, including the energy data acquired from shop floor and allocation criteria, is a valuable approach to improve energy efficiency. This paper presents the extension of a commercial detailed scheduling support system developed within a regional Italian project aiming at providing tools to manufacturing industry for improving energy efficiency. The project designed a monitoring system developed by instrumenting injection moulding presses to acquire the energy consumption for each product–machine combination. The commercial scheduling system was extended by implementing a multi-objective metaheuristic scheduling approach. The experimental assessment of the proposed approach involved a major producer of plastic dispensers. The extended algorithm simultaneously optimizes the total weighted tardiness, the total setup and the energy consumption costs. The obtained results, produced for a real test case and a set of random generated instances, show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Integrated approach to a multifunctional complex

Purpose – The achievement of sustainable architectures, including control of energy relations between climate and built environment, in order to optimize energy consumption and reduce environmental impact, requires an integrated planning dealing with a multi‐scale and integral view of building‐plant system. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of a multifunctional complex, namely “Solaria”.Design/methodology/approach – The proposed integrated approach focuses on comfort and healthy living, sustainability of building process, containment of energy consumption and use of renewable energy sources. The building object of this research has been designed including: a high‐efficiency tri‐generation plant (525kW of electric power) coupled with a distribution network for district heating/cooling; a photovoltaic generation system with 20kW of peak power and solar thermal panels for sanitary hot water production (able to supply over 50 per cent of needs); and passive solar systems (solar greenhouses a...

Approaching Industrial Sustainability Investments in Resource Efficiency Through Agent-Based Simulation

To develop more sustainable industrial systems industrialists and policy makers need to better understand how to respond to economic, environmental, and social challenges and transform industrial behaviour by leveraging appropriate industrial technology investments to reshape the current manufacturing value chain. Investments have to be collected on the private as well as public sides taking into account the stakeholders’ macro-economic framework. Since aggregate mathematical models, assuming informed, rational behaviour leading to equilibrium conditions cannot catch the resulting complexity, an agent-based modelling and simulation approach is proposed to investigate policies to support investments in resource efficiency. The EURACE agent-based framework has been adopted and modified by coupling the environmental sector with other established macroeconomic dimensions. The findings of this research establish the potential and capability of the proposed approach for investigating policies for sustainability transition analysis and evaluation.