Publications related to Improving firm performance through sustainable operations

A conceptual construct on value for infrastructure asset management

Understanding the meaning of value to asset-intensive organizations and their stakeholders has been a long -standing goal of researchers and managers of the asset management community. These issues have become particularly prominent with the publication of ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2022

The Impact of Collaborative Scheduling and Routing for Interconnected Logistics: A European Case Study

Michel Bierlaire, Jianghang Chen, Shadi Sharif Azadeh, Mohammad Yousef Maknoon

Interconnected logistics system can play an important role towards having a more sustainable green freight transport. Recently, after introducing the concept of Physical Internet (PI), researchers have started to explore the opportunities and challenges th ...

Springer, Cham2021

Industry 4.0 Technologies and Customer-centricity for Digital Supply Chains

Rachel Agnès Laetitia Rosemonde Marie Lacroix

The last few years have experienced the emergence of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), ultra-customization, and the explosion of demand for ethical, fair trade, and sustainable consumption. Organizations have therefore started a digital transformation of their SCs and ...

EPFL2021

Network design optimization of waste management systems: the case of plastics

François Maréchal

Failure in appropriately managing complex municipal solid waste systems in general and waste plastics in particular negatively affects public health and environment. A decision-making tool incorporating concepts of logistics and supply chain, considering d ...

Elsevier2021

Designing Horizontality

Paola Viganò, Tommaso Pietropolli

This paper is divided into three parts. The first introduces a trilogy of concepts and figures of the discourse. The concept of isotropy, as opposed to hierarchy, evokes the same conditions in all directions. The concept of porosity tackles the fluidity an ...

ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD2021

Palimpsest Metaphor: Figures and Spaces of the Contemporary Project

Paola Viganò

What are the consequences of the use of the palimpsest metaphor on the construction of the contemporary project? The metaphor casts criticism on the modern project and opens to the long-term (longue durée). The investigation of territorial rationalities br ...

2020

Sustainability as a Competitive Tool for the Brave? Or for the Best? A Behavioral Theory Perspective

Lorenzo Massa

Who invests in sustainability as a strategic choice? We adopt a behavioral theory perspective to explain the heterogeneity of sustainability-driven investments. Building on problemistic search and organizational inertia arguments, and contrary to resource- ...

SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC2020

Testing Analytical Frameworks in Transdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development

Jean-Claude Bolay, Silvia Hostettler, Gabriela Tejada Guerrero, Clémence Noëlie Marie Ranquet Bouleau, Marina Cracco

This article discusses the concept and the practice of transdisciplinary research, including how it is conceived and implemented through the cooperation of different actors involved. With transdisciplinarity gaining recognition as an approach to addressing ...

2019

Innovation capacity of the agricultural sector: network of productive interactions, knowledge transfer and differentiation mechanisms

Camille Marguerite Aouinait

Economic growth is increasingly explained and driven by knowledge acquisition and firmsâ capabilities to adapt to new evolving situations to fit economic, societal and environmental frames. Strategic behavior of private companies in differentiating and p ...

EPFL2019

Meeting Report – The 2019 FEBS special meeting on sphingolipid biology: sphingolipids in physiology and pathology

Giovanni D'Angelo

Sphingolipids are a fundamental class of molecules that are involved in structural, organizational and signaling properties of eukaryotic membranes. Defects in their production or disposal lead to acquired and inherited human diseases. A growing community ...

2019

Assessing the sustainability of biofuel production from camelina in Spain, results of the ITAKA project - analysis of GHG emissions

Massimiliano Capezzali, Mélanie Guittet

Purpose With the rapid growth and increased consumption of biofuels worldwide, and the multitude of policy decisions supporting this expansion, growing concerns about the biofuels sustainability have arisen. Therefore, the European project ITAKA, aiming at ...

2018

Benefits of working capital sharing in supply chains

Ralf Seifert, Margarita Protopappa

Supply chain finance and working capital management are important avenues to reduce supply chain costs. Small suppliers may not have sufficient working capital to finance their operations and efficiently supply their customers. We develop a model that capt ...

Palgrave Macmillan2017

A pilot study on eliciting human operations decision in purchasing and measuring their impact on supply chain efficiency

Rémy Glardon, Souleïman Naciri, Min-Jung Yoo, Yvonne Badulescu

This paper presents a methodology for eliciting the behavioural model of purchasers' decision-making in a supply chain environment. The objective of the work is to explicitly describe the relationship between a human user's behaviour and the resulting perf ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2017

Equilibrium analysis in multi-echelon supply chain with multi-dimensional utilities of inertial players

Naoufel Cheikhrouhou, Matthias Gurtner, Gajanan Bhanudas Panchal

In a supply chain, the importance of information elicitation from the supply chain players is vital to design supply chain network. The rationality and self-centredness of these players causes the information asymmetry in the supply chain and thus situatio ...

Palgrave Macmillan Ltd2017

A new approach to spatial analysis of motorcycle taxis activities: the case of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Jérôme Chenal, Rémi Jaligot, Armel Firmin Kemajou Mbianda

Motorcycle taxis operate in a non-regulated, uncontrolled environment, raising public health, environmental and economic issues. Consideration of such issues requires an in-depth understanding of motorcycle taxis’ organizational and operational features. U ...

2017

Three Essays on Collective Forms of Organizing for Production and Innovation

Joana Rodrigues Pereira

This dissertation focuses on collective forms or organizing that through crowds or communities undertake production or innovation activities. Such organizations deviate from the traditional notions of hierarchy, authority, and control; however, they are st ...

EPFL2017

Synaptic patterning and the timescales of cortical dynamics

Alexander Kevin Seeholzer

Neocortical circuits, as large heterogeneous recurrent networks, can potentially operate and process signals at multiple timescales, but appear to be differentially tuned to operate within certain temporal receptive windows. The modular and hierarchical or ...

Elsevier2017

Supply Chain Management in Process Industries: Empirical Investigations for Commodity Markets

Philipp Urs Moser

Process industries (PI) have thrived in recent decades, but structural changes in the markets are currently putting both growth and profitability at risk. In a period of tumbling prices, supply chain management (SCM) is increasingly viewed as an essential ...

EPFL2016

Supply Chain Disruption Risk Management : Modeling Risk Mitigation Strategies

Florian Christopher Matthias Lücker

It is well established that firms are exposed to the risk of supply chain disruptions. Many firms build risk mitigation strategies in order to increase the resilience of their supply chains. In this dissertation we present three essays that study operation ...

EPFL2016

Graspeo: a Social Media Platform for Knowledge Management in NGOs

Denis Gillet, Andrii Vozniuk, Sten Govaerts, Adrian Christian Holzer

Timely access to critical information is crucial for any organization operating in situations of emergency. Deploying an adequate information system tailored to specific organizational needs and matched to the organizational structure is essential. To unde ...

2015