The importance of quality and innovation in today’ 21 st century cannot be over emphasised, therefore organisations require leadership styles that can embrace both innovation and quality in order to confront today’s dynamic competitive fierce environment. Sometimes organisations fail to attain or maintain their competitiveness because of limited understanding regarding these strategic variables. There is little research that has attempted to analyse the direct and indirect-relationships among these strategic variables. Therefore this study attempted to bridge the gap in literature by analysing how important-innovations and quality-results as TQM practices influence the association between transformational leadership-style and competitive advantage using sample data collected from TAZARA employees in management using Jamovi. The study shows that transformational leadership style, quality-results and important innovations have significant positive effects on competitive advantage. The results also show that important-innovations and quality-results both individually and collectively partially mediate the relationship between transformational-leadership and competitive- advantage. Managers and advocates of transformational leadership style are emphasised to be aware and cautious of quality results and important innovations at all-time especially in today’s dynamic environment.

We consider a no-wait m-machine flowshop scheduling problem which is common in different manufacturing industries such as steel, pharmaceutical, and chemical. The objective is to minimize total tardiness since it minimizes penalty costs and loss of customer goodwill. We also consider the performance measure of total completion time which is significant in environments where reducing holding cost is important. We consider both performance measures with the objective of minimizing total tardiness subject to the constraint that total completion time is bounded. Given that the problem is NP-hard, we propose an algorithm. We conduct extensive computational experiments to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with those of three well performing benchmark algorithms in the literature. Computational results indicate that the proposed algorithm reduces the error of the best existing benchmark algorithm by 88% under the same CPU times. The results are confirmed by extensive statistical analysis. Specifically, ANOVA analysis is conducted to justify the difference between the performances of the algorithms, and a test of hypothesis is performed to justify that the proposed algorithm is significantly better than the best existing benchmark algorithm with a significance level of 0.01.

Considering the increasing demand for cosmetic surgery and the number of private cosmetic surgery clinics, it is essential to measure and manage the quality of services provided by these clinics. Obtaining sufficient knowledge about the content perceived by the clients of the quality of services provided by specialized clinics can affect identifying improvement opportunities and criteria that will cause their competitive advantage, and on the other hand, it also prevents wasting resources. For this purpose, this study aims to identify, evaluate, and prioritize the criteria for quality improvement in cosmetic surgery clinics. First, the effective criteria focus on the quality of medical services have been identified by reviewing the research background. Then, the identified criteria in the case study are customized by the Delphi method, and then the DEMATEL-based analytic network process method (DANP) is applied to reveal their causal relationships between criteria and sub-criteria to determine the direct and indirect influences, and finally, all of them are prioritized. In the end, based on the obtained results and knowledge of experienced medical experts in the case study, some managerial solutions are proposed to improve the quality of the provided medical services.

The research aims to investigate how strategic entrepreneurship through innovative effectiveness is used to create value within firms. Using structural equation modeling, data from 55 private hospitals in Jordan were gathered. For this research, 230 directors, managers, and department heads were enlisted. An entrepreneurial mindset was found to have a significant and positive correlation with innovative effectiveness while having a business alignment also had a positive and significant correlation with innovative effectiveness. However, innovative effectiveness had a positive but insignificant correlation with the creation of firm value. The research concluded that strategic entrepreneurship had a positive effect on the creation of firm value.

The inhibiting effect of chloroquine compounds (ChCs) on the SARS-CoV-2 virus represents a highly debated form of study owing to the emerging proposals of mechanistic implications for exploring the mode of action of ChCs on the virus. Keeping in view the emerging significance of chloroquine derivatives, the present study was performed to screen one hundred and ninety known chloroquine derivatives for their interaction with several SARS-CoV-2 target proteins by molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations to obtain an in-depth understanding of the potential hits of these compounds against SARS-CoV-2. A total of 190 molecules from the chloroquine family were screened for the identification of potential new inhibitors of the three therapeutic target proteins of SARS-CoV-2, namely Mpro (master protease), PLpro (papain-like protease) and SGp-RBD (spike glycoprotein receptor binding domain). The ChCs bound to SARS-COV-2 Mpro, PLpro, and SGp-RBD were generated by molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. Herein, a comparative analysis of chloroquine family products and a well-known drug against SARS-CoV-2, called Remdesivir, has also been presented. This investigation is intended to study the mechanism of interaction between ChCs and the SARS-CoV-2 virus and explore the unprecedented areas associated with the inhibitory activity of ChCs against this virus.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in the Indian economy. To remain competitive in the global market, application of Lean Manufacturing Techniques (LMT) helps SMEs to improve their processes in alignment with customer needs. The purpose of this study is to reduce overall lead time by identification and eliminating non-value added activities (NVA) from the manufacturing system. In this paper, the current manufacturing processes have been thoroughly studied using the principle of work study. Several lean approaches such as- TAKT time computation, Value stream Mapping (VSM), layout optimization, Kanban, Andon etc. have been used to make improvement in line efficiency and hence productivity. The study shows that use of line balancing technique, matches the cycle time with calculated TAKT time. And the efficiency of the line has increased approx 10% and hence balance delay got reduced. Again VSM helps to reduce the lead time of foundry shops by 51 minutes. It is one of the few studies that deal with productivity improvement in Indian SME.

Real life inventory lot sizing problems are frequently challenged with the need to order different types of items within the same batch. The Joint Replenishment Problem (JRP) addresses this setting of coordinated ordering by minimizing the total cost, composed of ordering (or setup) costs and holding costs, while satisfying the demand. The complexity of this problem increases when some or all item types are prone to obsolescence. In fact, the items may experience an abrupt decline in demand because they are no longer needed, due to rapid advancements in technology, going out of fashion, or ceasing to be economically viable. This article proposes an extension of the Joint Replenishment Problem (JRP) where the items may suddenly become obsolete at some time in the future. The model assumes constant demand and the items’ lifetimes follow independent negative exponential distributions. The optimization process considers the time value of money by using the expected discounted total cost as the minimization criterion. The proposed model was applied to some test cases, and sensitivity analyses were performed, in order to assess the impact of obsolescence on the ordering policy. The increase in the obsolescence risk, through the progressive increase of the obsolescence rates of the item types, determines smaller lot sizes on the ordering policy. The increase in the discount rate causes smaller quantities to be ordered as well.

This paper reviews context and results of a software tool, named SaTrade, for Model Based System Engineering in System Design of a CubeSat. This tool helps designers to go through system design trade offs easily in System and Subsystem Levels. To achieve this, Modeling for subsystem design has been made using Block Diagram Definitions and implemented in codes with Inputs from System Design and Outputs to Subsystem specifications and Design Integration. Another Feature of SaTrade is change and modification control and management, where it can be from Requirements or other Inputs from System Design or Interfaces. Changes will be affected on the System Design to allow the Designers follow the process by simulations for Integrity check and Evaluation. The first version of SaTrade focuses on Satellite Structure Design and Configuration Management more, using its Neural Network Algorithms dedicated for this purpose, however, it is intended to make paperless automated design available for the whole CubeSat System in the next version.

The aim of this research is to analyze the influence of organizational culture, owner characteristics, government intervention on entrepreneurial orientation and its implications for business performance among MSME actors in the culinary sector in Bogor City, West Java Province, Indonesia. The sample in this study was 196 respondents consisting of MSMEs operating in the food sector that had been running for at least 6 months. Sampling technique using random sampling. Data collected through questionnaires was then analyzed using SEM-PLS. Research findings based on data analysis that have been carried out show that Organizational Culture has a positive and significant influence on the Entrepreneurial Orientation of MSME Actors in the Culinary Sector in the City of Bogor; Owner Characteristics have a positive and significant influence on the Entrepreneurial Orientation of MSME Actors in the Culinary Sector in the City of Bogor; Government intervention has a positive and significant effect on the Entrepreneurial Orientation of MSMEs in the Culinary Sector in the City of Bogor; Organizational culture has a positive and significant effect on business performance among MSME actors in the culinary sector in the city of Bogor; Owner characteristics have a positive and significant influence on business performance among MSME actors in the culinary sector in the city of Bogor; Government intervention has a positive and significant effect on business performance among MSME actors in the culinary sector in the city of Bogor; Entrepreneurial Orientation has a positive and significant effect on Business Performance among MSMEs in the Culinary Sector in the City of Bogor; Organizational Culture has a positive and significant effect on Business Performance through entrepreneurial orientation for MSMEs in the Culinary Sector in Bogor City; Owner characteristics have a positive and significant influence on business performance through entrepreneurial orientation for MSME actors in the culinary sector in the city of Bogor; Government intervention has a positive and significant effect on business performance through entrepreneurial orientation for MSME actors in the culinary sector in Bogor City, West Java Province, Indonesia.

The efficiency of different sorbents (bulk soil, sand, silt, clay and humic acid-HA) for chlorantraniliprole (CAP), dinotefuran (DNF), bispyribac-sodium (BPS), and metribuzin (MBZ) adsorption was described and compared. The adsorption of CAP, DNF, BPS and MBZ were significantly greater on clay and HA fractions than the bulk soils. Also, the tested pesticides sorption was greater on HA fraction compared to clay fraction except in the case of BPS. The mass unit of bulk soil adsorbed of CAP, DNF, BPS and MBZ approximately 15, 20, 10 and 5 % of the same of HA and 40, 60, 95 and 35 % of that of clay fraction, respectively. The actual amounts adsorbed on bulk soil ranged from (88.63 to 93.93 %) of the calculated amounts adsorbed on all soil components indicating high efficiency of the tested soils to adsorb tested pesticides. All adsorption data fitted well to the linear Freundlich equation. The adsorption of tested pesticides in soil and their different constituents is S-type according to 1/n (except some cases).