The switch-off approach is one of the practices that supports sustainable manufacturing systems by reducing energy consumption. Manufacturing systems are characterized by two sources of fluctuations: workload due to customer demand and energy price variability. This work proposes a switch-off policy that addresses these fluctuations in job-shop systems using multi-agent architecture. The proposed approach is tested through simulation models and compared to benchmarks in the literature as well as scenarios without a switch-off policy. The performance indices evaluated include throughput, average time in the system, standard deviation of average time in the system, work in process, average maximum items in queues, total waiting time for machines, and total energy costs under different scenarios. The numerical results highlight that the switch-off policy, when considering energy prices and a combination of direct and indirect workload, achieves significant energy savings with minimal degradation of manufacturing performance. These results are particularly relevant under dynamic working conditions of the manufacturing system.

This study aims to develop a new data-driven methodology for identifying suitable influencers for a brand using data from social media. The increasing presence of such figures in these communication channels makes it challenging to select consistent and influential influencers for a specific audience. This paper introduces an innovative approach to defining these figures based on the analysis of relationships within the brand's network. Specifically, this methodology will be applied to the case study of a brand named “Anemonia”. The approach relies on the sequential application of various steps, including the use of tools such as Social Network Analysis (SNA) centrality, Sentiment Analysis (SA), and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). Through the application of this methodology, the brand has been able to identify influencers consistent with its aesthetics and vision.

The One-Dimensional Cutting Stock Problem consists in cutting long bars into smaller ones, to satisfy customers’ demand, minimizing waste and cost. In this paper the standard problem is extended with the inclusion of additional constraints that are generally neglected in scientific literature, although relevant in many industrial applications. We also modified the standard objective function, by assuming that bars may have a different economical value and a different processing or shipping priority. Moreover, in line with business requirements, among solutions that generate the same cutting waste, we prefer the ones that generate a low number of leftovers, especially if leftovers are long, so that the likelihood of their reuse is high. To solve the problem, we propose a Simulated Annealing based heuristic, which exploits a specific neighbor search. The heuristic is implemented in a parametric way that allows the user to set the priorities of the bars and to choose the specific sub-set of constraints he or she wants to consider. The heuristic is finally tested on many problem instances, and it is compared to three benchmarks and to one commercial software. The outcomes of this comparative analysis demonstrate both its quality and effectiveness.

The efficient management of reverse supply chains, particularly the collection and remanufacturing of defective products, plays a critical role in reducing production costs and determining the final pricing of remanufactured products. While existing research extensively explores warranty policies and maintenance services to enhance customer satisfaction and profitability, the integration of vehicle routing for product collection and sustainability advertising strategies remains underexplored. Addressing this gap, this study introduces a comprehensive two-stage reverse supply chain model that captures the interactions between manufacturers (MFRs) and remanufacturers (RMFRs) through a Stackelberg game framework. Methods: The proposed model incorporates interactive production constraints, vehicle routing problem (VRP) for optimizing collection logistics, and sustainability advertising to influence consumer behavior towards remanufactured products. Utilizing mixed nonlinear programming (MINLP) and nonlinear programming (NLP) techniques, the model simultaneously optimizes pricing strategies, collection efforts, and advertising investments for both MFRs and RMFRs. Numerical analyses are conducted to solve the optimization problems, accompanied by sensitivity analyses to evaluate the impact of key parameters such as production costs, defect rates, and routing constraints. The numerical results demonstrate that increases in production costs for MFRs lead to higher selling prices, thereby reducing their profit margins and negatively impacting RMFR profitability due to decreased demand for remanufactured products. Sensitivity analysis reveals that higher defect rates (α ≥ 0.8) significantly diminish overall supply chain profitability by lowering customer acceptance of RMPs. Additionally, expanding the allowable vehicle routing distance L effectively reduces collection costs, enhancing RMFR profits and enabling greater investment in sustainability advertising. The study shows that the integration of VRP and advertising strategies proves crucial in balancing cost efficiencies and market competitiveness, ultimately fostering a more sustainable and profitable reverse supply chain.

The Slab Stack Shuffling Problem (SSSP) consists of retrieving slabs, stored in stacks in a warehouse, to efficiently satisfy a processing order. The problem is relevant in the steel industry as the slab yard serves as a storage buffer between the continuous casting stage and the rolling mill. Notably, the SSSP also arises in cutting/assembly centres within the shipbuilding supply chain, where already rolled slabs must undergo further production stages. The different slabs managed in these facilities confer the problem novel practical features, such as the existence of slabs' typologies and deadlines, i.e., a maximum time beyond which their quality certifications expire and are no longer usable. In such a context, the goals of the present paper are twofold: (i) providing a comprehensive taxonomy of the main aspects involved in the problem; (ii) proposing an original mathematical formulation for the SSSP. Specifically, the model is cast as a bi-objective multi-period program, seeking to minimise the number of shuffles and expired slabs. Computational tests on randomly generated instances prove the relevance of the trade-off between the above-mentioned objectives and the impact of the yard's configuration on the retrieval process, suggesting the most suitable storage strategy to adopt under different operational settings.

The paper aimed to examine the influence of employees’ COVID-19 fear on their performance through intervening mechanisms such as mental wellbeing and organizational support. A total of 446 workers from the bank completed a self-report survey. Findings from regression analysis conducted with SPSS PROCESS MACRO (Model 7) revealed that employees’ COVID-19 fear did not have any direct negative influence on their performance but instead had an indirect effect on their performance via mental wellbeing (anxiety and depression). The findings also revealed that organizational support was instrumental in buffering the adverse impact of employees’ COVID-19 fear via mental wellbeing (anxiety and depression). Therefore, organizations should increase employee-supportive measures throughout this era of the COVID-19 to help reduce the adverse impact of employees’ COVID-19 fear.

Universities seek out of its keenness to preserve the environment and to enhance its environmental performance, by paying attention to social responsibility, to enhance its reputation in society. The current study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental performance (EP) through the moderating role of green human resources (GHR) and green climate (GC). The study collected data from 270 employees in private universities in Jordan. PLS4 was applied to analyze data and test the hypotheses. The results showed that CSR has a positive impact on EP. Also, the results showed that GHR and GC moderate the relationship between CSR and EP. Future research recommendations and study limitations are also provided.

With Newsvendor Problem (NvP) we refer to a specific class of inventory management problems, valid for a single item with stochastic demand over a single period. In the standard version, the newsvendor is allowed to issue a single order, before he or she can observe the actual demand. Since the newsvendor can face both overage and underage costs, due to lost sales or residual stock, the objective is to define the optimal order size that maximizes the expected profit. In this paper, we consider a specific version of the NvP, in which the buyer has the opportunity to make a last and single order for opportunistic reasons. Specifically, we consider discontinued, collectible items, for which demand will not vanish and whose value might appreciate. Hence, the objective is to define the optimal quantity that should be purchased, just before the item is retired from the market or sold-out, and that should be sold as soon as the price rises over a predefined target level. An optimal solution, maximizing the expected profit, is obtained both in case of negligible and non-negligible stockholding costs. In the latter case, to obtain the optimal solution in implicit form, some simplifying assumptions are needed. Hence, a thorough numerical analysis is finally performed, as a way to empirically demonstrate both the robustness and the accuracy of the model, in several scenarios differentiated in terms of costs and customers’ demand.

The Additive Manufacturing (AM) scheduling problem is becoming a very felt issue not only by the scholars but also by the practitioners who are looking to this new technology as a new integrated part of their traditional production systems. They need new scheduling models to adapt the traditional scheduling rules to the changed ones of the additive manufacturing. This paper deals with the enhancement of a scheduling problem for additive manufacturing just present in literature and the presentation of a new meta-heursitic (adapted to the new requirements of the additive manufacturing technology) based on the tabu-search algorithms.

Workload control theory seeks to align capacity and demand to improve delivery performance. However, workload control researchers mainly focused on input control, which regulates the input of work to the production system, thereby neglecting output control, which uses capacity adjustments to regulate the outflow of the work. Moreover, few existing studies on output control investigate a temporarily increase in capacity. This paper introduces a new search direction for output control which does not require an increase in capacity – labour flexibility. Idle operators can move from their workstation to another, thus temporarily increasing the output of that workstation without extra capacity. Using simulation of a five workstations flow shop line, we highlight the positive performance effect of labour flexibility. However, this comes at the cost of high labour movement. Introducing a load-based constraint on when workers are allowed to significantly reduces labour movement, while realizing most of the performance improvement observed for unconstrained labour movement. This has important implications for future research and practice.