Industrial consumers’ electricity market participation options: a case study of an industrial cooling process in Denmark

In a deregulated market context, industrial consumers often have multiple market participation options available to bid their flexible consumption in electricity markets and thereby reduce their electricity bill. Yet most participation strategies for demand response are developed in a fixed and predefined set of submarkets. Meanwhile, little literature has compared multiple market options for market participants. Therefore, this paper proposes a comparative approach between available market options to evaluate savings from different market participation options. More specifically, this study implements an optimisation program in Python to investigate the impacts of changes in an industrial process’ flexibility on savings with different market participation options. The optimisation program is tested with a case study of an industrial cooling process in three Danish submarkets (day-ahead, intraday, and regulating power markets). The market participation options are formed by different combinations of these three submarkets, and the type and amount of process flexibility are varied by changing time and load constraints in the optimisation program. The results show that bidding in market options with multiple submarkets yields higher savings than single-market bidding, but that increases in available flexibility impact savings in each market option differently. Increased flexibility will only bring additional savings if it allows to take further advantage of price variations in a market option. Additionally, increases in savings with flexibility depend on the considered type of flexibility. These changes in relative savings between market options at each flexibility level imply that the optimal market option is not a static choice for a process with variable operating conditions. The optimal market option for an industrial consumer depends not only on market price signals, but also on the type and amount of available flexibility.

Performance Implications of Aligning Supply Chain Practices with Competitive Advantage: Empirical Evidence from the Agri-Food Sector

During this pandemic crisis, supply chain management (SCM) has emerged as a critical source of competitive advantage driving organizational performance, especially in the agri-food sector, since public health and consumers’ confidence as well as firms’ survival depend on the effectiveness of supply chain networks. This study adopts two central SCM practices, namely strategic suppliers’ partnerships and partners’ information quality & sharing and tests their relationships with competitive advantage (quality, process flexibility, and time to market) and business performance (profitability and market share), based on an empirical study of 300 enterprises in the agri-food sector in Greece. After data collection, we deploy a diagnostic-exploratory model, utilizing fuzzy cognitive mapping, with agent-based modeling following up for development for data prediction and simulation. Consequently, we found that supply chain firms’ compelling and robust relationships with supply chain partners and suppliers can promote their profitability and market share. Relationships of this kind focus on quality information sharing and are strongly connected with businesses’ quality, process flexibility, and time to market competitive capabilities. Hence, our study provides salutary info to supply chain firms regarding potential implementation to existing and new collaborators.

How does the strength of ties influence relationship quality in Chinese megaprojects? The mediating role of contractual flexibility

PurposeThis study aims to explore the influence of the strength of ties (strong ties and weak ties) on contractual flexibility (term flexibility and process flexibility) and relationship quality among stakeholders in a megaproject network.Design/methodology/approachThis study, via a questionnaire survey, collected 380 valid responses from megaproject professionals (including project managers, department managers and project engineers). The data were analyzed using least squares structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results show that both strong ties and weak ties have positive effects on relationship quality. The introduction of contractual flexibility can help improve relationship quality by combining the positive effects of the strength of ties. Interestingly, the indirect influence of strong ties on relationship quality is mainly due to term flexibility. However, the influence of process flexibility is not significant, while weak ties have an indirect influence through term flexibility and process flexibility.Research limitations/implicationsThis study, while helpful to megaproject management both in theory and practice, is nevertheless subject to several limitations. First, this study only considers the impact of the strength of ties on contractual flexibility and relationship quality; other factors, such as environmental uncertainty, are not explored. Second, the sample data are limited to just a few regions of China. Future research should cover other influencing factors, in order to make the model more substantial; data should also be collected from different cultural and industrial sources, thereby extending and further verifying the results.Originality/valueThis study makes three contributions to extant megaproject literature. First, this study provides a deep and nuanced understanding of the strength of ties. With the distinction between strong ties and weak ties clearly explained, this research furnishes a subtler understanding of relationship governance than has previously been achieved. Second, by precisely identifying the mechanism of how contract flexibility improves contract control and coordination functions, this research offers a complementary view of how contractual flexibility positively contributes to cooperation and relationship quality. Third, this study identifies which dimension of the strength of ties is more influential. This brings a new explanation for the previous controversy and offers some insight into the determinants of how to improve relationship quality in Chinese megaprojects.

A Version and Context-Based Approach to Easily Model Flexible Collaborative Processes

Process flexibility has been investigated for intra-organizational processes, but it is still an open issue for collaborative processes (CP), each of which is defined as a set of intra-organizational processes that interact together. In the literature, the version-based approach is largely used in the field of business process management (BPM) to cope with process flexibility. However, BPM practitioners can face difficulties in a multi-version environment. So, the following questions arise: How can we use the version-based approach to easily model flexible CP? Does an appropriate version exist for a given situation or is it necessary to create a new one? The chapter answers these questions recommending a solution for the modeling of CP versions and the retrieval of the adequate CP version for a given situation. This solution comprises (1) a meta-model to consider the modeling of the CP versions, (2) an ontology-based approach to model and query the context of use of CP versions, and (3) a framework to provide support for both the modeling of CP versions and the context querying.