Circular Business Model Innovation and Its Relationship With Business Performance in Brazilian Industrial Chemical Companies

This study aimed to analyze the relationship between circular business model innovation and business performance in Brazilian industrial chemical companies. This is a quantitative study carried out through a survey with Brazilian industrial companies. Based on a homogeneity analysis (Homals), the results showed that the high degree of innovation in business models from the adoption of circular economy (CE) strategies in the analyzed companies confirms that a significant change leads to superior performance, especially in market, production, economic and financial, and social.

Social Capital in Energy Enterprises: Poland’s Case

Social capital is currently perceived as one of the basic factors of economic development and economic success of enterprises. However, while there is already much research on social capital in enterprises, there has been little such research in the energy industry. The aim of the publication is to fill the gap in this regard. The basic question that the authors try to answer is whether there is a higher level of capital in energy companies compared to other industries, and if so, what the reasons are for this. Apart from answering this question, the authors present their own method of measuring the level of this capital. The first part of the article presents the results of a study on the level of social capital in Polish energy companies, whereas the second part compares the levels of social capital in energy companies and industrial companies in other sectors. According to the study, energy companies generally have higher levels of social capital than companies in other industries. It has been found, however, that individual forms of capital that comprise social capital differ. The most significant differences were observed in relational capital, followed by cognitive capital at a lower value and structural capital at the lowest. The survey also revealed that there is a difference in social capital levels among the researched professional groups: management, administration, and production.

How Do Remuneration Committees Affect Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure? Empirical Evidence from an International Perspective

The main goal of this study is to analyze whether the existence of remuneration committees tend to disclose more corporate social responsibility (CSR) information. In addition, we test the moderating role played by the proportion of independent directors on boards of directors with the relationship between the constitution of remuneration committees and CSR disclosure. Previous research does not appear to have addressed these questions. The research questions proposed are tested using an international sample of 28,610 listed companies, and we took into consideration information on industrial companies from the Middle East, developed Asian and Pacific countries, both emerging and developed European countries, Africa, Latin America and North America. These findings provide evidence that the existence of remuneration committees is more likely to disclose CSR information, and the existence of independent board members positively moderates the association between the existence of remuneration committees and CSR disclosure. We expand on earlier empirical literature concerning corporate governance and CSR issues.

An Artificial - Intelligent - Based System to Automate the Design of Complex Mechanical Products

Over the last decades, there has been growing pressure on industrial companies to offer to their costumers products with high quality, in the minimum deadlines and with reasonable prices. Since the design phase plays a key role to achieve these difficult goals, many traditional, DFX (Design For X) and integrated approaches have been proposed. However, many limits are still present. Thus, the main objectives of this work were first to identify these limits and then to overcome them by proposing and developing an automated framework for integrated product design. In this work, we automated the integrated DFMMA (Design For Materials, Manufacturing and Assembly) approach by developing an architecture composed of four levels, namely: the Common Information Modeling Level, the Selection Systems Level, the Inference and Computation Level and finally the Application Level. The proposed automated system is based on ontologies, on the CBR (Cases Based Reasoning) and the RBR (Rules Based Reasoning). The first main result obtained throughout the contributions consists on the integration of Manufacturing process selection, Assembly solution selection and materials selection in one integrated design approach. The second main result obtained consists on the exploitation of all the previous design studies developed by the design team and the ability to reuse the designers experience throughout the case based reasoning used in the proposed architecture. Another important result consists on the formalization and the automation of the execution of the design rules and the ability to infer new results and to check inconsistencies in the developed product using the data and information modeled in the ontological model and throughout the Cases Based Reasoning that we have incorporated in the developed approach. In this way, the redundancy in work and the difficulties faced in case of having a high number of design alternatives are avoided. Consequently, the product quality increases and wastes of time and money decrease. Finally, to validate the functioning and the efficacy of the proposed DFMMA system, an application on the design of a complex mechanical product is developed in the end of the work.

Web-Based Platform for Planning and Configuration of Robot-Based Automation Solutions: A Retrospective View on the Research Project ROBOTOP

Automation solutions in production represent a sensible and long-term cost-effective alternative to manual work, especially for physically strenuous or dangerous activities. However, especially for small companies, automation solutions are associated with a considerable initial complexity and a high effort in planning and implementation. The ROBOTOP project, a consortium of industrial companies and research institutes has therefore developed a flexible web platform for the simplified, modular planning and configuration of robot-based automation solutions for frequent tasks. In this paper, an overview of the project’s scientific findings and the resulting platform is given. Therefore, challenges due to the scope of knowledge-based engineering configurators like the acquisition of necessary data, its description, and the graphical representation are outlined. Insights are given into the platform’s functions and its technical separation into different Microservices such as Best Practice selection, configuration, simulation, AML-data-exchange and spec-sheet generator with the focus on the configuration. Finally, the user experience and potentials are highlighted.

Industry Process Safety

This chapter deals with the issue of process safety in industrial companies and major accident prevention. In the present-day technologically advanced world, industrial accidents appear ever more frequently, and the field of major accident prevention has become a dynamically developing discipline. With accelerating technical progress, risks of industrial accidents are to be reduced. In the first part, possible approaches to quantitative risk assessment are presented; and continuing it focuses on the system of risk management in industrial establishments. This chapter aims at providing experiences, knowledge, as well as new approaches to the prevention of major accidents caused by the implementation of the Seveso III Directive.

The market reaction to profitability: Does leverage matter?

This study examined the market reaction to profitability by discussing the impact of dividends yield (DY) and earnings yield (EY) based on leverage (LVRG), as a control variable, on stocks’ prices (SP) of the industrial companies listed on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE), for the whole sample and the two subsamples (low and high leveraged companies). For this purpose, the data of the three samples were analyzed, for seven years from 2011 to 2017. The multiple regression analysis results showed that based on the leverage ratio (LVRG), as a control variable, there is a significant effect of DY on SP at 1% significance level, and an insignificant effect of EY on SP at 5% significance level, in the high leveraged sample. The impact of DY and EY on SP at 5% significance level in the whole and low leveraged samples is insignificant.

Conceptual framework for application of modern financial technologies in the Russian industry

This article presents the author’s position on the use of modern financial technologies (FinTech) in the practice of managing domestic industrial companies. In particular, the use of modern financial technologies is possible in the current (operational) financial and economic activities of companies, as well as in their investment and financial activities. The authors considered the key aspects of the development of financial technologies, while identifying five waves of active development of FinTech in Russia. The authors set out the results of a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms of functioning of FinTech in the modern economic conditions of domestic industrial companies using the example of e-commerce. The features of existing e-commerce systems are considered: B2B, B2G, B2C and C2C. An overview of the possibilities of using various instruments of financial technologies in various types of activities of Russian industrial companies is given. Based on the analysis of actual data from 156 largest industrial companies in Russia (out of 17 industries) included in the Expert-400 rating of the country’s four hundred largest companies, the directions of the formation of modern financial relations, including the supply of goods and services based on the digitalization of management processes using modern tools: e-commerce, including blockchain platforms, as well as Big Data, mobile applications for employees or clients, machine learning. It is shown that practically all the largest industrial companies in Russia – the leaders of their industries – are actively introducing and using all modern financial technologies in their activities. The directions of transformation of business processes of industrial companies in Russia are investigated within the framework of the concept of sustainable development of their business in terms of using a variety of FinTech tools and digitalization. Prospects for the use of modern financial technology tools in industrial production in the first half of the XXI century are considered

Promising Aspects of Economic Development of Industry in the Siberian Regions of Russia

According to many analysts, the modern digital technological transformation of the economy, both at the macro level and at the level of industrial enterprises, has a deep character and is aimed at establishing a new global economic structure. Programming at the level of international, climate, anti-pandemic, sanctional, technological, military-political and other agreements to reduce the level of production and consumption in accordance with the principles of sustainable development determines the prospect of transformations in industry, including in the raw materials sector. A significant part of the industrial companies of the Siberian regions belongs to the field of raw materials extraction, which forms new guidelines in the new technological conditions, both in personnel and technical areas. Large-scale introduction and application of a new generation of equipment that meets modern environmental standards requires accelerated training of a significant number of professional personnel. In fact, the education system, which should ensure the educational process of a high strategic status, both in scale and in terms of engineering and technical level, requires a systemic transformation based on the principles of digital technological innovations. The release of a significant number of workers, both representatives of the working professions and the intellectuals, which is happening and threatening to intensify, in the light of the ongoing contraction of the economy, will require the formation of millions of new jobs. This fillip, aimed at the development of small industrial forms of production of end-use goods, is able to provide employment for the population, as well as an increase in the level and quality of life in export-raw materials regions with the support from the state. The creation and development of engineering, technical and technological business franchises with the formation of a large retail network representing the goods of "industrial farms" are promising in this aspect. The upcoming steps of digital technological transformation require a comprehensive balanced scientific understanding, the development of appropriate justifications and recommendations.