Maria Holgado

Value-driven engineering of E-maintenance platforms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology for the engineering of E-maintenance platforms that is based on a value-driven approach. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology assumes that a value-driven engineering approach would help foster technological innovation for maintenance management. Indeed, value-driven engineering could be easily adopted at the business level, with subsequent positive effects on the industrial applications of new information and communication technologies solutions. Findings – The methodology combines a value-driven approach with the engineering in the maintenance scope. The methodology is tested in a manufacturing case to prove its potential to support the engineering of E-maintenance solutions. In particular, the case study concerns the investment in E-maintenance solutions developed in the framework of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system originally implemented for production purposes. Originality/value – Based on literature research, th...

Exploring the scope of industrial symbiosis: Implications for practitioners

Industrial Symbiosis can help improve the overall efficiency of the industrial system. The positive impact of implementing symbiotic exchanges between companies would benefit their host region through increased job creation and reduced environmental stress, whilst the entities engaged could benefit from a combination of additional revenue streams and reduced costs. However, in spite of the potential benefits of IS, there remains an implementation gap, with practitioners failing to fully exploit the possibilities of IS. The objective of this article is to provide a review of the current state of IS research in order to unlock current gaps of knowledge and practice, and identify research opportunities which will help close the implementation gap. The final aim is to explore and understand the areas practitioners willing to engage with IS need to consider in order to operationalize IS in their network.

Exploring the role of E-maintenance for value creation in service provision

Technological innovations has always played an important role in economic growth and industrial productivity, but they have also potential to influence service industry. In particular, they can offer support to the process of servitization in manufacturing companies. This article presents a study regarding the prospective value that different technological innovations can offer to maintenance service provision. A review of different baseline technologies and a categorization of several types of E-maintenance tools and applications has been carried out in order to understand the new functionalities that can potentially bring to the provision of smart maintenance services. Moreover, a value analysis method for representing the contribution of tool categories to several value dimensions is presented here. This method can be used for identifying the best technological solution, matching both customer value and provider value, i.e. conforming a win-win situation for the parties involved in the service provision. Some preliminary results based on a survey are eventually given as a first test of its applicability.

New thinking paradigm for maintenance innovation design

Meanwhile the manufacturing paradigm changes towards predictive manufacturing, the role of maintenance function within manufacturing needs to be refined as a value creation function for achieving more sustainable operations. With the advent of internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, big data, PHM, and cyber-physical systems, e-maintenance necessitates new transformation. These changes are driving a new thinking paradigm for maintenance. This paper introduces new perspectives for maintenance innovation and proposes the value creation paths for maintenance transformation.

Business Modelling for Sustainable Manufacturing

The paper proposes a business modelling process for manufacturing firms to assist them in integrating sustainability into their business model. The process consists of four steps. Expected outputs and questions, driving the analysis and decisions carried along the process, are also included in each step. The proposal is grounded on the state of the art review and a state of practice review done through six exploratory case studies.

Maintenance business model: a concept for driving performance improvement

Maintenance function within manufacturing companies should be seen as a source of added-value. Indeed, improvements of maintenance performance have an effect also on the whole companys performance: this integrated view may be supported by the concept of maintenance business model (MBM). This paper proposes a framework including MBM as an intermediate link between the formulation and the execution of maintenance strategy. The MBM can be used as a means for analysing and improving maintenance management activities in order to provide the highest value to the stakeholders of maintenance function.

A Novel Knowledge Repository to Support Industrial Symbiosis

The development of tools and methods supporting the identification of Industrial Symbiosis opportunities is of utmost importance to unlock its full potential. Knowledge repositories have proven to be powerful tools in this sense, but often fail mainly due to poor contextualization of information and lack of general applicability (out of the boundaries of specific areas or projects). In this work, a novel approach to the design of knowledge repositories for Industrial Symbiosis is presented, based on the inclusion and categorization of tacit knowledge as well as on the combination of mimicking and input-output matching approaches. The results of a first usability test of the proposed tool are also illustrated.

Toward Industry 4.0: Efficient and Sustainable Manufacturing Leveraging MAESTRI Total Efficiency Framework

This paper presents an overview of the work under development within MAESTRI EU-funded collaborative project. The MAESTRI Total Efficiency Framework (MTEF) aims to advance the sustainability of manufacturing and process industries by providing a management system in the form of a flexible and scalable platform and methodology. The MTEF is based on four pillars: (a) an effective management system targeted at process continuous improvement; (b) Efficiency assessment tools to support improvements, optimisation strategies and decision support; (c) Industrial Symbiosis paradigm to gain value from waste and energy exchange; (d) an Internet-of-Things infrastructure to support easy integration and data exchange among shop-floor, business systems and tools.

Business model experimentation for circularity: Driving sustainability in a large international clothing retailer

Business model experimentation for sustainability is an intentional and systematic ap-proach to identify, test and learn about value creation strategies that could be adopted by a business in response to current unsustainable trajectories. For businesses such as large clothing retailers the need to alter course is acute as pressure builds from economic, environmental and social angles. The circular economy concept provides a potential powerful lever for change. To date, however, scant research has been conducted on how circular business model experimentation is conducted. We present an indepth action research case study of a large international clothing retailer embarking on a journey of business model experimentation for circularity: the processes, methods, roles and the organisation in light of the need to address broad sustainability challenges in the business. It was found that experimentation activities oscillated between slow and loaded, and faster and un-weighted modes. While an intentional and stepwise process was sought, in reality it was largely emergent and highly iterative. Through this iterative process, new circular business models were generated that co-exist with current non-circular ones. Confidence in experimentation as a business capability also increased through this collaborative project. This study provides insights into how to conduct lean startup type business model experimentation for circularity in a large organisation. For practitioners, the benefits of academic-industry collaboration, and the oscillating dynamics of business model experimentation are illuminated.

Business Model Innovation in State-Owned and Private-Owned Enterprises in China

The aim of the paper is to identify the complexity of policy execution, investment and financial support between state-owned and private-owned enterprises in China. Based on the literature review of business model innovation, and current situation of private-owned and state-owned enterprises in China, there is a lack of evidence and case analysis in the power of policy execution and the version of future development between two kinds of industries. The authors conducted qualitative research in four typical industries. Two of them are private-owned and the others are state-owned. The research aims to make a specific comparison between two kinds of industries in China.