Cash is the life blood of the organizations and cash management is the important aspect of any organization. Corporate cash management boosts the companies from small to giant in the competitive environment. In this study, we highlighted three factors of a good cash management practices; namely cash conversion cycle, cash holding and credit score. Influence of one factor to other help organizations manage their corporate cash more appropriately. In this study, we collected data from Capitaline corporate data base of Mumbai over the period 2002-2011. In this study we observed that due to higher credit score, companies were forced to minimize their cash conversion cycle and helped them maintain lower levels of working capital.

With the ever-increasing demands for high surface finish and complex shape geometries, conventional metal removal methods are now being replaced by non-traditional machining (NTM) processes. These NTM processes use energy in its direct form to remove materials in the form of atoms or molecules to obtain the required accuracy and burr-free machined surface. In order to exploit the optimal capabilities of the NTM processes, it is often required to determine the best possible combinations of their controllable parameters. Different non-conventional optimization techniques have been used for dealing with these process optimization problems because of their inherent advantages and capabilities for arriving at the almost global optimal solutions. This paper reviews the applications of different non-conventional optimization techniques for parametric optimization of NTM processes. It is observed that electrical discharge machining processes have been optimized most number of times, followed by wire electrical discharge machining processes. In most of the cases, the past researchers have preferred to maximize material removal rate. Genetic algorithm has been found to be the most popular non-conventional optimization technique.

Activity based costing (ABC) is a new age accounting system developed to overcome the limitations of traditional costing system, which in today’s technologically advanced world has lost its ability to provide accurate and useful cost information often required in taking various managerial decisions, like setting of selling price, ascertaining profitability of products as well as customers, taking a make or buy decision, eliminating the non-beneficial activities, and rewarding the employees. In this paper, an ABC model is developed for a government hospital in the state of Bihar in India to quantify its various public health related services. Although, there are limited published research papers related to application of ABC model in a specific department or method of a healthcare system, none of them has investigated its scope for organization-wide implementation. The results obtained from the developed ABC model in the public hospital would provide more comprehensive and accurate cost information, and radically contribute to the hospital administration in effective planning, controlling and decision making. This paper also elucidates about various obstructions and difficulties encountered during the implementation phase of ABC model in an Indian healthcare setting.

The concept of green inventory systems is very important for economic growth and development in the era of sustainable development. There is a special need for green inventory systems to identify and manage perishable products since spoilage and deterioration can lead to significant losses of items, which negatively affect the satisfaction of consumers. As perishable products decay continuously (such as vegetables, fruits, milk, juices, frozen foods, baked foods), their demand is adversely affected as well as customers' purchasing decisions. The more realistic assumption is a price-sensitive demand. As well as deterioration rates, perishable products have an expiration date-dependent deterioration rate. Further, inventory holding, and the deterioration of perishables contribute significantly to carbon emissions when operating the inventory system. A carbon tax policy is more flexible and effective when it comes to reducing carbon emissions due to its environmental conscious nature. We develop two sustainable inventory procedures for perishable items based on a practical scenario in which the buyer has a limited storeroom. So, to achieve sustainability goals, a model for inventory management for perishable products based on expiration dates is presented in this paper. We distinguish between two inventory schemes: (i) one that allows shortages and fractional backlogs, and (ii) one that does not allow shortage. In both schemes, both the decay rate and demand function show an upward trend against storage time. Since the decay rate increases with storage time, it is assumed that the cost of storing items is linearly related to storage time. numerical examples along with a real-life case study are presented to validate the inventory schemes after several decision-making findings have been derived.

The main purpose of this paper is to know about the recent status of big data analytics (BDA) on various manufacturing and reverse supply chain levels (RSCL) in Indian industries. In particular, it emphasizes on understanding of BDA concept in Indian industries and proposes a structure to examine industries’ development in executing BDA extends in reverse supply chain management (RSCM). A survey was conducted through questionnaires on RSCM levels of 500 industries. Of the 500 surveys that were mailed, 125 completed surveys were returned, corresponding to a re-sponse rate of 25 percent, which was slightly greater than previous studies. The information of Indian industries with respect to BDA, the hurdles with boundaries to BDA-venture reception, and the connection with reverse supply chain levels and BDA learning were recognized. A structure was presented for the selection of BDA ventures in RSCM. This paper gives bits of knowledge to professionals to create activities including big data and RSCM, and presents utilitarian and predict-able direction through the BDA-RSCM triangle structure as an extra device in the execution of BDA ventures in the RSCM factors. This paper does not provide outside legitimacy owing to limitations for the speculation of the outcomes even in the Indian surroundings, which originates from the present test. Future research ought to enhance the understanding in this area and spotlight on the effect of big data on reverse supply chains in developed countries.

Use of Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) is highly significant in Flexible Manufacturing Sys-tem (FMS) in which material handling in form of jobs is performed from one work center to an-other work center. A multifold increase in through put of FMS can be observed by application of multi load AGVs. In this paper, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) integrated with Memetic Algorithm (MA) named as Modified Memetic Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (MMP-SO) is applied to yield initial feasible solutions for scheduling of multi load AGVs for minimum travel and waiting time in the FMS. The proposed MMPSO algorithm exhibits balanced explora-tion and exploitation for global search method of standard Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm and local search method of Memetic Algorithm (MA) which further results into yield of efficient and effective initial feasible solutions for the multi load AGVs scheduling problem.

Cutouts are commonly used as access port for mechanical and electrical structures. Most of the structures generally work under severe dynamic loading and different constrained conditions during their service life. This may lead to vibration of the structure. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the vibration responses of laminated composite plates with cutouts precisely with less computational cost and good accuracy of these complex structures. A suitable finite element model is proposed and developed based on first order shear deformation theory using ANSYS parametric design language (APDL) code. The model has been discretized using an appropriate eight nodded element (SHELL 281) from the ANSYS element library. The free vibrations are computed using Block-Lanczos algorithm. The convergence study has been done of the developed model and compared with those available published literature. Effects of different geometric parameters (aspect ratio, thickness ratio, boundary conditions, number of layers, angle of lamina geometry of cutout, cutout side to plate side ratio and distance between cutouts) and material properties on the free vibration responses are discussed in detail. The frequency increases with increase in the number of layers, modulus ratio of plate and angle of lamina. The frequency decreases with increase in aspect ratio, thickness ratio, size of cutout and distance between cutouts. The boundary conditions of the plate play an important role in the free vibrations of the plate with cutouts. The Non-dimensional frequencies are higher for fully clamped boundary condition in comparison to other boundary conditions.

Today Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) still remains as an attempt alone. For more than a decade, supply chain evolution to be a low carbon chain in an energy and resource constrained world has been posing greater challenges. Though environmental policies remain without much variation towards green operations in an industry, the implantation strategies and stages vary. There have been a number of studies by researchers and a lot of endeavors by organizations to build a green supply chain, mainly because of pressure from the professional bodies like EPA, WEEE, OECD, and Clean Air Act to reduce emissions with growing concerns over climate change issues, global warming, and requirements from policy makers, end users, stake holders and others. But, at the implementation level there lacked a proper framework on GSCM which suggests guidelines for proper planning and coordination, and the practices to be adopted. This indicates the need for a complete strategic approach on the part of decision makers across the supply chain to have sustainability as a corporate social responsibility. The research gap exists in a holistic perception with regard to a product when supply chain stages are mapped for sustainability due to diverse environmental issues. Also, to build a holistic approach, we must know how the stages and levels interact. Thus, in this work, a Parametric Matrix demarking various level and stages of a supply chain related to a product, in general, is developed from various literatures till date. Such a metric will be useful for the industries to identify the bottleneck areas in their supply chain towards sustainability. Hence, the desired and relevant level of factors to be considered at each stage to become green can easily be decided.

Supply chains are changing due to changes in the global environment and to make the strategies effective most of the companies are striving towards the trends in the supply chain. Among the trends gamification is one of those that are creating an impact in the workspace with the techniques that are associated with it. Gamification in the supply chain had the least application and this study gave a road map for the decision makers like supply chain managers with the help of reviewing papers from the databases that are available. Findings say that giants like Amazon and Starbucks are applying gamification techniques to bring more transparency and visibility to reduce errors and to mitigate errors. This paper is providing evidence from the different activities like order management, warehousing activities with case applications are discussed. We conducted systematic literature review with 118 papers on gamification and 22 found relevant to the supply chain and its activities.

Leaf springs in vehicles are used to absorb, store and release energy. During this cycle stresses induced in the springs must not exceed design stress, in order to avoid settling or premature failure. Number of experiments are done in order to determine the stresses, load rate and deflection, which involves lot of time and cost. Today, the technologies in leaf springs are changing gradually; therefore new tools are required to keep aligned with worldwide technological requirements. The work presented in this paper provides a CAE solution to static analysis of 65Si7 leaf springs used in light commercial vehicles (LCV’s). A practical model of leaf spring used in LCV has been taken into consideration for this study. It has been experimentally tested for deflection, stress and load rate on a full scale leaf spring testing machine. A static structural CAE analysis of leaf spring has been done under similar loading condition. The CAD model of the leaf spring has been prepared in solid works and analyzed using ANSYS. Using CAE tools, ideal type of contact and meshing elements have been proposed to achieve results closer to the experimental results. The analytical method for static analysis of the leaf springs has also been described. CAE results have been compared with experimental and analytical results for validation.