The 10 most recently published documents
This paper analyses international cooperation in alternative energy production research and development. Therefore, patents of the technological domain, registered at the European Patent Office from 1997 until 2016, are analysed. International cooperation is considered when patents involve co-assignment or co-inventorship comprising two or more different countries. Generally, international R&D cooperation tends to be increasing over time in alternative energy production. In total, 2234 co-patents from 87 countries are identified. Through social network analysis the cooperative relationships between countries are examined. The most significant states of the network are the United States of America and Germany. Innovative clusters and strong partnerships are identified. Alternative energy technologies that involve international cooperation most extensively are harnessing energy from manmade waste, solar energy and bio-fuels. The paper clarifies which countries are cooperating with each other for what purpose. The findings can be used for establishing R&D strategies in the domain of alternative energy production.
A growing share of modern trade policy instruments is shaped by non-tariff barriers (NTBs). Based on a structural gravity equation and the recently updated Global Trade Alert database, we empirically investigate the effect of NTBs on imports. Our analysis reveals that the implementation of NTBs reduces imports of affected products by up to 12%. Their trade dampening effect is thus comparable to that of trade defence instruments such as anti-dumping duties. It is smaller for exporters that have a free trade agreement with the importing country. Different types of NTBs affect trade to a different extent. Finally, we investigate the effect of behind-the-border measures, showing that they significantly lower the importer’s market access.
Product development and product manufacturing are entering a new era, namely an era where engineering tasks are executed under collaboration of all involved parties. Engineers and potential customers work together mainly in a virtual world for the design and realization of the product. We address this so called “crowdsourcing” trend in the automotive industry that lowers cost and accelerates production of new car. Current practice and prior studies fail to handle data management and collaboration aspects in sufficient detail. We propose a PLM based crowdsourcing platform that applies best practices to the established approach and adapt it with new methods for handling specific requirements. Our work provides a basis for establishing an improved collaboration platform to support a Gig Economy in the automotive industry.
It is widely recognized that sustainability is a new challenge for many manufacturing companies. In this paper, we tackle this issue by presenting an approach that deals with material and substance compliance within Product Lifecycle Management in a complex value chain. Our analysis explains why, how and when sustainable manufacturing arises, and it identifies, quantifies and evaluates the environmental impact of a new product. We propose (I) a Life Cycle Assessment tool (LCA) and (II) a model to validate this approach and evaluate the risk of noncompliance in supply chain. Our LCA approach provides comprehensive information on environmental impacts of a product.
Product and materials cycles are parallel and intersecting, making it challenging to integrate Material Selection Process across Product Lifecycle Management, Integration of LCA with PLM. We provide only a foundation. Further research in systems engineering is necessary. LCA is sensitive to data quality. Outsourcing production and having problems in supplier cooperation can result in material mismatch (such as property, composition mismatching) in the production process due to that may cause misleading of LCA results.
This paper also describes research challenges using riskbased due diligence.
