LATAM and Spanish SME barriers to Industry 4.0

PurposeExisting studies are scarce, especially on the Industry 4.0 application to firms' innovation and competitiveness, and even more on the application to LATAM and Spanish SMEs. This paper tries to fill this gap by explaining the results of applying a systematic model, to understand which are the SMEs' strengths and weaknesses in relation to the Industry 4.0 transformation.Design/methodology/approachA systematic methodology involving documentation analysis, visits to the companies, interviews with employees and managers, making a preliminary diagnosis, crossing their needs with the enablers that can apply. The fieldwork was carried out during a two month period (2019), on a target sample of 22 SMEs operating under industrial productive activity already exporting or planning their internationalization toward LATAM regions.FindingsThere are relevant barriers that need to be overcome in order to enter Industry 4.0 and, in this specific analysis, the following major classification was obtained: (1) Technological barrier, (2) Training barrier, (3) Economic barrier and (4) Contextual barrier.Originality/valueThis paper provides new insights and sets a starting point regarding LATAM and Spanish’ Industry 4.0 situation, while contributing to the SMEs competitiveness by providing deeper understanding of the barriers and limitations in adopting Industry 4.0, pointing out some implications and suggestions for organizations to implement.

Barriers to the implementation of innovations in information systems in SMEs

Information management and information flow is an important element in the strategy of developing and running a company. The need to supervise information makes it necessary to implement numerous innovations that improve the method of information management correlated with the proper reception, selection and analysis - in both external and internal information flow. This paper presents the results of research that allowed for the assessment of barriers that arise during the implementation of innovative solutions in small and medium-sized enterprises (service MSEs). On the basis of the conducted research, it was found that the mental barrier is not always crucial from the point of view of modern technologies implementation. And the determination to implement information management innovations may be forced by the necessity of the document exchange acceleration. The success of innovative solutions e.g. in the financial services industry (in SMEs) is closely related to the technological capabilities of the enterprise - the technological barrier is crucial in this type of enterprises. Especially, taking into account the assumption that employees are highly motivated to implement new products.

Property-Based Interoperability of CAD Systems

Limited or lacking interoperability has emerged as a central unsolved technical problem in computational design and manufacturing. In addition to being a significant technological barrier, it has become a major economic problem within the past two decades, costing the US manufacturing industry billions of dollars every year.

Green and Sustainable Manufacture of Ultrapure Engineered Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials with very specific features (purity, colloidal stability, composition, size, shape, location…) are commonly requested by cutting-edge technologic applications, and hence a sustainable process for the mass-production of tunable/engineered nanomaterials would be desirable. Despite this, tuning nano-scale features when scaling-up the production of nanoparticles/nanomaterials has been considered the main technological barrier for the development of nanotechnology. Aimed at overcoming these challenging frontier, a new gas-phase reactor design providing a shorter residence time, and thus a faster quenching of nanoclusters growth, is proposed for the green, sustainable, versatile, cost-effective, and scalable manufacture of ultrapure engineered nanomaterials (ranging from nanoclusters and nanoalloys to engineered nanostructures) with a tunable degree of agglomeration, composition, size, shape, and location. This method enables: (1) more homogeneous, non-agglomerated ultrapure Au-Ag nanoalloys under 10 nm; (2) 3-nm non-agglomerated ultrapure Au nanoclusters with lower gas flow rates; (3) shape-controlled Ag NPs; and (4) stable Au and Ag engineered nanostructures: nanodisks, nanocrosses, and 3D nanopillars. In conclusion, this new approach paves the way for the green and sustainable mass-production of ultrapure engineered nanomaterials.

Haphazard Intentional Sampling Techniques in Network Design of Monitoring Stations

In empirical science, random sampling is the golden standard to ensure unbiased, impartial, or fair results, as it works as a technological barrier designed to prevent spurious communication or illegitimate interference between parties in the application of interest. However, the chance of at least one covariate showing a “significant difference” between two treatment groups increases exponentially with the number of covariates. In 2012, Morgan and Rubin proposed a coherent approach to solve this problem based on rerandomization in order to ensure that the final allocation obtained is balanced, but with an exponential computation cost in the number of covariates. Haphazard Intentional Sampling is a statistical technique that combines intentional sampling using goal optimization techniques with random perturbations. On one hand, it has all the benefits of standard randomization and, on the other hand, avoid exponentially large (and costly) sample sizes. In this work, we compare the haphazard and rerandomization methods in a case study regarding the re-engineering of the network of measurement stations for atmospheric pollutants. In comparison with rerandomization, the haphazard method provided groups with a better balance and permutation tests consistently more powerful.

Evaluating the Accessibility of Computer Laboratories, Libraries, and Websites in Jordanian Universities and Colleges

This article evaluates the accessibility computer laboratories, libraries, and web sites of five different institutions of higher education in Jordan. The evaluation is performed using a questionnaire and by expert visiting these institutions of higher education to check their accessibility according to a set of universal standard collected from the literature. The analysis of the results revealed a serious weakness in understanding, adopting and implementing web accessibility guidelines throughout nearly all evaluated Jordanian universities and colleges. On the other hand, the accessibility of computer laboratories and libraries the questionnaire answers show that there is environmental barrier and technological barrier for persons with disabilities to access such services. The article points out the importance of improving awareness, training staff and developers, and developing formal guidelines to improve the accessibility of universities and colleges services.

Modeling and Analysis of a CNG Residential Refueling System

Natural gas has recently been proposed as an alternative fuel for transportation in the United States. Refueling infrastructure is the major technological barrier to the market penetration of passenger compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles. Currently, there is about one natural gas refueling station every 150 gasoline pumps. Nevertheless, natural gas is widely available in American houses, and thus distributed residential refueling is seen as a viable solution. Generally, residential CNG refueling systems use compressors driven by electric motors. With a potential increase in the number of residential natural gas refueling systems over the next few years, the additional load that this system will introduce on the electric power infrastructure can be significant. In this paper, a system dynamic model of a residential refueling system has been developed and validated against data available in the literature. Ultimately, the model will allow for exploring the impact of residential refueling of CNG vehicles on the electric power infrastructure.

THE CONSTRUCTION COMMON PRODUCT CODING SYSTEM

The primary technological barrier in effectively transferring information automatically and adopting Auto ID/EDI technologies in construction is the lack of a construction common product coding system (CCPCS) for encoding and transferring information. To facilitate the information transfer between different components of the construction process and using new Auto ID technologies in construction application, the paper proposes a construction common product coding system (CCPCS). It is a set of agreed‐upon standards that will facilitate communication among parties in the construction process especially using automated data collection processes and possibly technologies to transfer information in electronic form. The CCPCS the paper proposed can be classified as internal or external, permanent or temporary, primary or secondary etc. The research use barcode technology and EDI as the primary technologies to explore the impact of the CCPCS in construction application. However, the concepts of CCPCS still are advantageous for the applications of other Auto ID technologies individually or integration in construction. Santrauka Viena iš pirmųjų kliūčių perkeliant informaciją ir taikant Auto ID/EDI technologijas statyboje yra bendrojo statybos produkto kodavimo sistemos (CCPCS) trūkumas. Ja galima užkoduoti ir perkelti informaciją. Norint palengvinti skirtingų statybos proceso elementų informacijos perdavimą ir pritaikyti statybai naujas Auto ID technologijas, straipsnyje buvo pasiūlyta bendrojo statybos produkto kodavimo sistema (CCPCS). CCPCS yra rinkinys nustatytų standartų, kurie palengvins statybos proceso dalyvių bendravimą, ypač naudojant automatinius duomenų rinkimo procesus ir technologijas, kurios paverstų informaciją elektronine forma. Siūloma CCPCS gali būti skirstoma į išorinę, vidinę, laikinąją ir pastoviąją, pirminę, antrinę ir t. t. Tyrime naudojama brūkšninio kodo technologija ir EDI, kaip pirminės technologijos, kuriomis nustatomas CCPCS taikymo statyboje poveikis. CCPCS koncepcija vis dar yra naudinga taikant Auto ID technologijas tiek individualiai, tiek integruojant į statybą.

Tribochemistry of Materials

Tribochemistry refers to the contact chemistry occurs inside the wearing interface under boundary lubricated conditions. Since lubrication chemistry has been dominated by hydrocarbon-steel chemistry, other chemistry between insulators, semiconductors, carbon films and lubricants has not been explored extensively. As new materials continue to evolve spurred by increasingly sophisticated means to control atoms, molecules, and microstructures, how to lubricate these new materials has become an important technological barrier for materials utilization and new technology development. This paper addresses the basic known information of tribochemistry with materials and describes the various measurement techniques that can be used to understand tribochemistry with various classes of materials.