Enterprise systems and performance of future city logistics

Abstract

Future cities are driven by the developments in Information and Communication Technology to support the triple bottom line requirements of sustainability. Logistics will play a critical role in future cities due to the increasingly micro-dynamic nature of socio-economics of these cities and globalised production and consumption patterns. Enterprise systems (ES), the founding applications to automate and integrate different business processes, will be the key enablers for providing the necessary support required by the future city logistics. However, the implementation of ES and realisation of proposed benefits within the estimated time frame is challenging due to the huge resource requirements in terms of manpower, budget and time. This study takes the antecedent (critical success factors) approach for the implementation process to establish a success predictive model for the realisation of ES benefits. The partial least square regression has been used to test the model. Moreover, this study explores the impact of ES benefits on the logistics performance indicators to explore the synergies between them. This is fundamentally important because future city logistics will rely heavily on appropriately designed and implemented (enterprise) information systems.     

Supply chain optimisation and protocol environment (SCOPE) for rapid prototyping and analysis of complex supply chains

There is a strong need for modelling tools that allow decision makers to rapidly develop aggregate models of supply chains, including both material and information flow, that they can use to gain insights and assess alternative configurations. We present a prototype implementation of such a system and apply it to a simple supply chain for validation purposes, and to a real world case study from the consumer packaged goods industry.     

Planners' Perspectives on Obstacles to Sustainable Urban Development: Implications for Transformative Planning Strategies

A major problem confronting planning is the gap between transformative proposals and enduring urban development trends. The paper interprets interviews with 62 planners involved in a sustainable urban development strategy in a large region focussed on Toronto, Canada. Surveyed planners were asked about the obstacles they encounter when attempting to modify prevailing urban development. Mentioned obstacles are consistent with expectations arising from three major perspectives on inertia: institutionalism, political economy and path dependence. Interviews also highlight the role of planners' practical knowledge in identifying and interpreting obstacles, and the existence of a consensus among respondents over sustainable urban development.     

Identifying design criteria for urban system ‘last-mile’ solutions – a multi-stakeholder perspective

Abstract

This study presents a novel approach to design and evaluate ‘last-mile’ solutions – encompassing the social and economic perspectives of key stakeholders. While urban system initiatives have been implemented in practice, theoretical gaps remain at the operational design level. A theoretical framework is developed, based on design criteria identified from a critical synthesis of supply chain and operations management literature, and ‘operationalised’ using an in-depth case study demonstrating implementation of a Consumer Choice Portal-Package Consolidation Centre solution, within a densely populated urban geography. Findings suggest that there is a need to re-define the role of institutional actors beyond that of the traditional governance task, to one of being able to facilitate performance outcomes. Similarly, industrial efficiency dimensions need to be reorientated to include consumer participation, social considerations and multi-stakeholder service outcomes. Finally, implications for operations theory and practising managers in city logistics are highlighted, with suggested directions for future research.     

废旧产品回收再制造计划模式研究述评

在分析再制造基本概念及流程的基础上,从废旧产品回收计划、回收产品拆卸计划、再制造生产计划等三个方面对国内外再制造计划模式的研究现状进行综述。指出目前研究中对再制造过程的不确定性特征认识不足、对产品回收后的状态不能有效预测、对不确定情形的产品拆卸计划研究较少、对于再制造生产计划与控制缺乏系统研究。针对上述不足,提出了进一步研究的方向。     

Exploring Policy-Maker Perceptions of Small City Downtowns in the USA

Using original survey data from a national sample of small cities in the USA, this paper explores the perceptions of policy-makers as to what matters for the viability of their downtowns. How do policy-makers of small cities perceive the viability of their downtowns? What policies and programs are associated with perceptions of viability? The results show policy-makers across the USA believe their downtown districts have strengths and weaknesses. Perceived strengths include safety from crime, access to government services, pedestrian safety, cultural opportunities, availability of restaurants and tolerance of diversity. Perceived weaknesses include a lack of available grocery stores, hotels, housing and economic competitiveness with areas outside of downtown. These perceptions indicate policy-makers are concerned about their downtown's ability to compete in the marketplace and that they feel more positively about issues perceived to be within their locus of control. A controlled multivariate model suggests the presence of mixed-use zoning, a Main Street program, the ability for downtown to compete with businesses outside of the downtown, higher levels of cooperation among key stakeholders and quality of life ratings are all significantly related to whether policy-makers perceive their downtowns to be viable. These findings are important because they examine competing and complementary explanations of downtown development and viability for small cities for the first time. They also point to the need to address the continual tensions between downtown and suburban development with innovative policy solutions especially for small cities.     

Smart cities: implications of urban planning for human resource development

This paper looks at creative or smart city experiments around the world that are aimed at nurturing a creative economy through investment in quality of life which in turn attracts knowledge workers to live and work in smart cities. It highlights the need for and broad nature of human resource/talent development initiatives at the intermediate level, that is regional and city level, as opposed to organizational and national level. Using the literature on economic geography, it provides a useful theoretical framework to cross organizational boundaries and look for factors that influence the decision of knowledge workers in choosing a location to live and work. The implications of urban planning on the theory and practice of human resource development are explored.     

测算高校R&D综合实力的二次相对评价方法

对于提高高校 R&D综合实力有效努力程度的评估比对高校 R&D综合实力本身的评估更为重要 .本文提供了可以消除各高校客观条件的影响 ,能够真正体现高校在提高 R&D综合实力主观努力程度的二次相对评价方法 .     

What Future for Green Infrastructure Planning? Evaluating the Changing Environment for Green Infrastructure Planning Following the Revocation of Regional Planning Policy in England

ABSTRACT

The revocation of the regional tier of planning by the UK Coalition Government in 2010 removed the established framework of strategic planning in England. Using a case study of green infrastructure (GI), this paper examines whether revocation has negatively impacted the development of environmental, and specifically GI policies and practice. It questions if changing government policy narratives have hindered advocacy and subsequently the delivery of GI and the extent to which it has been able to position itself as a mainstream approach in planning. Using the development of the RSS in England, and the North-East and East of England sub-regional GI strategies (areas of significant policy development), as case studies, the paper presents an ex-ante evaluation prior to revocation of the evolution of GI policy at a regional scale, alongside an ex-post assessment (2011–2015) of its continued growth within sub-regional policies. The paper concludes that whilst RSSs provided a promotional forum, that revocation has not negatively impacted upon GI development, as its advocates have facilitated a supportive policy-implementation environment which has led to the development of more integrated approaches in planning praxis.     

我国高新技术企业规模与创新分布

利用 960家高新技术企业的调查结果 ,分析了我国高新技术企业规模与企业创新能力之间的关系 .企业规模以企业雇员数量作为分类 ,按照国际通用的分类标准分析了各个规模层次的企业创新费用、R&D费用、销售额及创新率的分布规律 .在将研究结果与国外学者的研究结果和一般工业企业的情况进行了比较之后发现 :(1 )高新技术企业 R&D强度随着企业规模的增大呈阶梯下降趋势 ;(2 )创新强度大体呈现“凸 U”型分布 ;(3)相当一部分小型高新技术企业的创新效率较低     

Sales and operations planning: responding to the needs of industrial food producers

This paper investigates sales and operations planning (S&OP) at four Scandinavian industrial food producers in order to explore how the use of S&OP might help leaders to deal with the challenges set by the planning environment. Variables connected to the product and market, e.g. frequency of new product development, customer service levels and supply uncertainty, were identified as particularly critical for the S&OP process. It was found that there is great potential for S&OP in the food industry, foremost to cope with the imbalances between demand and supply and to create prerequisites for a stable production process.     

高技术企业联盟知识扩散研究———基于小世界网络的视角

知识通过网络可以加快扩散. 作者基于NW 小世界网络视角, 构建高技术企业联盟知识扩散模型, 揭示联盟的知识扩散特性, 并运用 MATLAB 软件进行模拟仿真. 研究发现, 减小网络的特征路径长度、增大网络的集聚系数和提高成员间的知识交流频率是促进高技术企业联盟知识扩散、提高创新效率、加快知识创新的有效途径.     

Planning reform beyond planning: the debate on an integrated Environment and Planning Act in the Netherlands

Land-use plans serve a dual function. On the one hand, they are programmes for future development, plans for action. On the other hand, they have a regulative function in relation to construction and land use. This paper investigates how the interplay between these functions is playing a role in the current debate about the new integrated Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet) in the Netherlands. Initially, the government proposed abolishing local land-use plans and replacing them with a system of by-laws. However, this proposal did not survive the debate on this bill. This paper will shed light on the relationships between planning and regulation by analysing that debate.     

Reconstructing nurse schedules: Computational insights in the problem size parameters

Managing nursing personnel properly is of critical importance as these resources comprise a vast share of the hospital's operational costs. The organisational support and the managerial policy decisions on the scheduling level are important determinants for the nurses' working conditions and the related quality of care. In this paper, we gain insights and understanding in the consequences and outcomes of various personnel re-rostering characteristics and strategies. We explore the boundaries of the time horizon and the nurse staffing size to consider for the nurse re-rostering problem based on computational experiments in a real-life problem environment.     

Planning Interventions: Urban Bias,Social Reform and the City

The planning profession struggled for urban amelioration, but avoided confronting the conflict between the redistributive public interest and the goals of industrial capital, resulting in a devaluing of social planning in the US. This article classifies social biases in planning and relates them to sanctuary cities. In the current crisis, launched by the federal government’s hostile rhetoric to immigrants, the planning apparatus is forced to confront what it has sought to avoid – planning for the just, inclusive city that has to reckon with the presence of some of the poorest urban populations.     

Educating spatial planners for the age of co-creation: the need to risk community,science and practice involvement in planning programmes and curricula

Abstract

Planners are often billed as leaders and change agents of the (un)built environment. It is, however, important to recognize that they are in reality only one of many players in a sea of actors involved in shaping future developments and projects. Plans and interventions today are co-created and in fact co-evolve relying as much on the input, cooperation and actions of inhabitants, users, developers, politicians as on expert planners and a wide variety of other professions. In this introductory section, we, as editors of this special issue, posit that planners therefore require skills for co-creation drawing on science and working with other disciplines. In turn, planning programmes and curricula need to incorporate learning and teaching approaches that prepare students in higher education for working in co-creation settings by purposefully exposing them to learning environments that involve community, science and practice. The collection of papers, which were presented initially at the 2014 Association of European Schools of Planning congress in Utrecht hereafter showcase curriculum developments and pedagogical research of planning educators from different world regions that in the round shed light on a variety of issues and challenges of embedding learning and teaching for co-creation and co-evolution. In particular, we elaborate on the tensions of employing transformational yet high-risk pedagogies in higher education settings that are becoming increasingly risk-averse and streamlined and we suggest an agenda for planning curriculum development.     

A comparison between genetic algorithms and the RAND method for solving the joint replenishment problem

The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance of genetic algorithms (GAs) and the best available heuristic, known as the RAND, for solving the joint replenishment problem (JRP). An important feature of the JRP which makes it suitable for GAs is that it can be formulated as a problem having one continuous decision variable and a number of integer decision variables equal to the number of products being produced or ordered. Experiments on randomly generated problems indicate that GAs can provide better solutions to the JRP than the RAND for some problems, and at worst can almost match the performance of the RAND from a practical point of view for the rest of the problems. GAs never converged to solution with a total cost of more than 0.08% of the total cost of the RAND for 1600 randomly generated problems. In addition, GAs have the advantages of: (i) being easy to implement (e.g. less than 200 lines of code); (ii) having a code which is easy to understand and modify; and (iii) dealing easily with constrained JRPs which are neglected by most of the available methods including the RAND, in spite of their importance in practice.     

New Spatial Concepts Between Innovation and Lock-in: The Case of the Dutch Deltametropolis

It is often proclaimed that planning concepts serve an innovative function in the political process. They are praised as powerful tools that carry new insights and understandings into policy arenas. By examining the emergence and development of a new planning concept in the Dutch national spatial policy-making process, the deltametropolis concept, this paper questions this position. It argues that new spatial concepts tend to lose much of their innovative capacities when they enter the political arena and become encased in the traditional urban–rural planning discourse, thus reaffirming established planning orientations. The Dutch case of the deltametropolis illustrates that new spatial concepts may entail potential for innovation as much as for lock-in.