In this study, the efficiency of integration between Taguchi and TOPSIS in multi-response optimi-zation of powder mixed electrical discharge machining (PMEDM) process was evaluated. The in-put parameters, such as workpiece and tool electrode material, polarity, pulse on time (ton), pulse off time (toff), Current (I) and powder concentration have been selected to optimize two responses; namely surface roughness (Ra) and surface hardness (HV). The results show that titanium powder mixed dielectric fluid improves multi-response optimization efficiency in PMEDM. In addition, machining conditions, such as tool electrode material, powder concentration, pulse on time, polarity, current density, A×G and B×G interactions play a very important role on S/N ratio of C* whereby powder concentration has the strongest influence. TOPSIS -Taguchi is a potential method for multi-response optimization in PMEDM. However, the optimal results using ANOVA analysis show that there is a necessity to have more studies in TOPSIS-Taguchi to improve the in-tegration efficiency between two methods for optimizing multiple responses in PMEDM.

Recently, there have been significant development on e-business and nearly all business partners try to offer their products and services via internet. One primary question for the implementation of e-business is to measure the effect of this new facility on supply chain in project based organizations. Although e-business may not directly influence on organizational performance, it definitely influences on unifying customers and suppliers, which yields to a better performance of organizations. This study performs a study to measure the indirect effect of e-business on project based organizational performance. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among 140 professional experts in different industries in province of Ontario, Canada. The survey examines different hypotheses for a possible correlation between e-business and integrated suppliers, e-business and customers, integrated customers and suppliers with organizational performance. The results of this survey indicate a positive relationship between all these components either directly or indirectly.

The objective of the present study is to determine the start times and ordering plans for two-period projects in project-oriented organizations. The following assumptions are made: orders can be placed in either of a project’s two consecutive periods; and the same raw materials are used, which are ordered at the start of the periods according to their interdependent demands. The main innovation of the present research is to develop a model that is mainly based on the two-period newsvendor problem, but assumes that demand is interdependent, i.e. it is actually a combination of inventory and project management. After presenting the model, numerical meth-ods are used to approximate the order quantities for each period. Near-optimal solutions of a numerical example, in a case study on molding industry, are obtained using a genetic algorithm. Results show that the proposed model with interdependent demand provides a better solution than independent demand. The model is applicable to large-scale industrial and construction pro-jects where the majority of raw materials have of the same nature.

This article discusses the value of sustainable oil maintenance by using submicron high-tech offline filtration based on oil condition monitoring to reduce wear particles and improve system reliability. These activities incorporate broader goals of establishing a proactive maintenance approach, defined as continuous monitoring and controlling of the root causes of machine failure. Among these causes, contamination is the industry's most severe, popular, and most recognized failure cause. In order to ensure all necessary proactive maintenance activities, this paper uses practical analysis for oil contamination monitoring based on ISO 4405. The author applied a 0.1-micron high-tech offline filtration for lubrication systems of ball mills in the Sungun copper mine as an oil maintenance activity to control the system lubrication contamination as a root cause of failures.

Weevils are a type of insect with elongated snouts coming from superfamily of Curculionoidea with approximately 97,000 species. Most of them consider pest and cause environmental damages but some kinds like wheat weevil, maize weevil, and boll weevils are famous to cause huge damage on crops, especially cereal grains. This research proposes a novel swarm-based metaheuristics algorithm called Weevil Damage Optimization Algorithm (WDOA) which mimics weevils’ fly power, snout power, and damage power on crops or agricultural products. The proposed algorithm is tested with 12 benchmark unimodal and multimodal artificial landscapes or optimization test functions. Additionally, the proposed WDOA is employed in five engineering problems to check its robustness for problem solving. Problems are Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP), n-Queens problem, portfolio problem, Optimal Inventory Control (OIC) problem, and Bin Packing Problem (BPP). All tests’ functions are compared with widely used benchmark algorithms of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA), Harmony Search (HS) algorithm, Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA), Firefly Algorithm (FA), and Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm. Also, all problems are tested with DE, FA, and HS algorithms. The Proposed algorithm showed robustness and speed on all functions and problems by providing precision alongside with reasonable speed.

Sentiment is a powerful psychological force that can significantly affect employee behavior and performance. However, workplace emotions are still an issue to be studied, especially in the field of sales management in project based organizations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence and flexibility on the tendency of employees to leave the organization. The method of this research is descriptive correlational and in a survey method and it is a practical purpose. The statistical population of this study includes all 108 employees of the representatives of selected insurance firms in city of Zanjan, Iran. Using Cochran formula, 84 people were selected as the statistical sample. The results have indicated that while there was a positive and meaningful relationship between emotional intelligence and flexibility (r = 0.534, Sig. = 0.000), there were negative and meaningful relationships between flexibility and emotion-al intelligence on one side and intend to leave an organization on the other side.

We know that Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC) is one of the measures of liquidity management. In this paper, we made an attempt to analyse the impact of CCC on the cash management. In this study we selected five companies from Pharmaceutical Sector, including, Alchemist, Lupin, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratory, Cipla and Ranbaxy. In this study, we used the secondary data for analysis and retrieved from Capitaline database for ten years period from 2002 to 2011. Through cash conversion cycle we can easily determine the working capital requirement. Because, it considers the time gap between expenditure for the purchases of raw materials and collection from sales of finished goods prepared with such raw materials, CCC plays an important role in firm’s short term assets and liabilities as well as success of the firm.

COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most severe sources of disruptions that recently threatened the supply chain networks. As such disruptions are inevitable in today's business world, learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic can significantly help supply chains prepare for future disruptions. This study aims to investigate how Australian supply chains were affected during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide some key resilience strategies to face disruptions. These strategies can assist SC managers in protecting their networks from possible disruption in future.

Epoxy material being a key in a wide range of applications has become a center of attraction for interdisciplinary research. However, the limitations so far reported in using this material has led to the development of some new pitches such as Polyacetal and Araldite. Polyacetal being currently employed in bushes, wipers, gears, etc. while Araldite composites with a potential of delivering some august properties can be an alternative approach to the former. In this work, a comparative study is carried out on the me-chanical attributes of Polyacetal and Araldite (Epoxy) material. Various ASTM standard specimens casted with these materials are subjected to some exploratory assessments such as Tensile Test, Izod Impact Test, Charpy Impact Test, Three-point Bending Test and Vicker’s Hardness Test in order to determine the respective properties.

Providing insurance contract with “deductible” is beneficial for both insurer and insured. In this paper, we provide a utility modeling approach to handle insurance pricing and evaluate the tradeoff between discount benefit and deductible level. We analyze four different pricing problems of no insurance, full insurance coverage, insurance with β% deductible and insurance with D-dollar deductible based on a given utility function. A numerical example is also used to illustrate some interesting results.