The very complexity and the extended reach of today’s globe-spanning supply chain networks, the low inventory levels and lack of redundancies required to achieve efficient operations expose businesses to a huge range of unexpected disruptions. This calls for building resilience in supply chains, which is not just recovery from the mishaps, but is a proactive, structured and integrated exploration of capabilities within the supply chain to resist and win against unforeseen happenings. Literature on supply chain and organisational resilience are informative in identifying resilience enhancing strategies and capabilities, but a detailed dynamic analysis of behaviour of the supply chain to understand the suitability of different resilience capabilities over time and under different scenarios is not carried out. The thesis addresses this gap by studying the internal decision making mechanisms, rules and control procedures through development of an agent-based model and its application to a paper tissue manufacturing supply chain. The model with a decentralised informational structure with informed and intelligent combination of push or pull type of replenishment strategy, flexibility, agility, redundancy and efficiency is found to enhance the resilience of the actual supply network in the face of large deviation of demand from forecasts. The effects of adopting several resilience improvement strategies in tandem or in isolation and the impact of applying different behavioural rules by different agents are studied in this thesis by carrying out numerical experimentation. The findings from the experiments suggest that, however flexible the resources are, however well-informed the different members are, however well-integrated the members are through coordination and communication, however wellequipped a supply chain is with mitigation and recovery capabilities the individual managerial judgements that can obtain a balance between various dimensions of performance (both global and local efficiency, quality and speed of responding to customer orders) and resilience (speedy reaction, maintaining buffers, flexibility in resource management) play the most important role in improving the resilience of the entire network. An important contribution of this thesis is to produce a conceptual framework for supply chain resilience. This framework is used to test the appropriateness of different resilience enhancement procedures. Another significant contribution of this thesis is to provide a theoretical template for further research in supply chain resilience. The template will guide development of effective procedures for managing different situations of uncertainty. By using complex systems modelling methods, such as multi-agent models described in the thesis, outcomes of the system under a significant range of possible agent behavioural rules and environmental events can be explored, and improved levels of functioning and of resilience can be found. Building such models as a means to understand and improve resilience of supply networks is a significant contribution.

Manufacturing companies develop multiple production sites for various reasons from cheaper labour to access to local markets. Expansion of capacity in such a manufacturing network is a complex decision and requires consideration of multiple factors. Traditionally, industrial decision makers attempt to minimise the cost of expansion and, usually as an afterthought, consider soft factors like manpower availability and logistics connectivity. This approach has gained acceptance as the research community has focused on developing better mathematical representations of the problem rather than investigate the larger decision process. A review of the literature revealed that all existing processes for multi-site capacity expansion decision fail in this way. Therefore, this research sets out to fulfil the needs of practitioners by developing a more complete process for the capacity expansion decision in multi-site manufacturing networks. The research programme consists of five parts. In the first part an extensive literature review is conducted to identify the state-of-the-art in capacity expansion decision processes. Then, in the second part, a representative process is formed and industrially tested. This generates the specifications for an advanced decision process which addresses the shortcomings of the present body of knowledge and is developed in the third part of the research. In the fourth part the advanced decision process is applied in an industrial setting to validate its effectiveness. Finally, in the fifth part the advanced decision process is refined and illustrated. The outcome of this research is an improved decision making capability. The advanced decision process has been both validated and appreciated by industrial practitioners. Specifically the contribution to knowledge is an advanced decision process for capacity expansion in multi-site manufacturing network.

The last decade has seen a growing interest from academics and practitioners in the development of collaborative supply chain relationships based on information exchange. Most of the evidence gathered within this management research area has been biased towards the role of the buyer/supplier dyadic exchange in the integration of the supply chain. The role of the other parties and the systemic nature of supply chain management have been relatively ignored. Previous research in this area has also been biased due to the narrow focus of investigation, with one problem being obtaining access to all parties involved in the supply chain. The purpose of this study was to overcome the aforementioned research biases and therefore, contribute to the understanding of the collaborative relationship development process from a broader supply chain perspective. Open access was gained to six organisations across three tiers of a coffee supply chain in the UK grocery sector. Within this context, a theory building approach was applied to the data collected in the case study. Through constant comparison and coding of data from multiple strategic, tactical, operational, inter- and intra-organisational exchanges within the same context, several findings were made. An interesting finding from the research is the evolving role of the supply chain integrator, whereby the manufacturer seeks to balance the needs of its retail customers with the sourcing and procurement of raw and packaging materials from its suppliers. In terms of the concepts of supply chain relationships and information exchange, there are a number of common enablers and inhibitors. The inter-relationship between the two concepts is however complex and requires further study. The other findings of the research are expressed as a tentative theoretical framework and a series of new emerging enablers and inhibitors to collaborative relationships and information exchange in the supply chain. Finally the enablers and inhibitors grounded from the case study provide a guide to the relational and often context specific factors that can influence the development of collaborative supply chain relationships based on information exchange.

China is in economic transition, from the resource consuming made in China to an aspirational designed in China . Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), have made significant contributions to society and the national economy, their influence determines the success of this economic transition. On the other hand, design-oriented New Product Development (NPD) strategies are generally recognised as beneficial for company survival, but are mostly applied in large companies. Evidence of testing design-oriented NPD strategy in Chinese SMEs is sparse. This research therefore, attempts to introduce design-oriented NPD strategy to Chinese SMEs, and investigates how design-oriented NPD strategy performs in Chinese SMEs. This research adopts a qualitative approach with three stages: the first utilises a scoping study to understand the feasibility of this research, and synthesise knowledge from the literature to construct a customised NPD process model with design-oriented aspects; the second stage focuses on using an experimental method to conduct a parallel implementation: two NPD projects follow different NPD approaches, the conventional NPD process of SMEs and the introduced design-oriented NPD process; the third stage carried out mainly by observation, set out to investigate the changes brought about by the NPD process. Empirical data from three NPD projects is collected and analysed. Evidence from the parallel NPD projects demonstrates that the introduced design-oriented NPD strategy gains internal confidence but is costly when compare with the conventional approach (funds and time). Although the new product from the design-oriented team of the experiment performed less well from a sales perspective, a continuous observation on their follow-up NPD project, the investigation of the changes, discloses that the NPD behaviour of the investigated company is changed, all participants reach consensus regarding the merits of the design-oriented NPD. It concludes that the design-oriented NPD strategy in Chinese SMEs are implementable and beneficial. This research is a single case study, and a qualitative investigation of implementation of the design-oriented NPD strategy in one selected Chinese SME. It requires a wider adoption of the design-oriented NPD strategy in companies across different industries, and to investigate a larger sample of NPD projects, to gather quantitative confirmation.

Nowadays, many manufacturers are beginning to establish remanufacturing facilities due to the stricter government regulations on end-of-life product treatment, and the increasing public awareness towards environmental issues. Remanufacturing offers a huge potential for employment, and provides profitable business opportunities. However, production planning activities are more complex for remanufacturing,as they incorporate greater uncertainties and greater risk associated with product returns and demands. These activities become even more intricate in hybrid remanufacturing and manufacturing systems. For this reason, we have investigated two variants of production planning of the hybrid remanufacturing and manufacturing systems, they are: i) Economic Lot Sizing Problem with Remanufacturing and Separate Setups (ELSRs) and ii) Economic Lot Sizing Problem with Remanufacturing and Joint Setups (ELSRj).In each period, the demands can be fulfilled by either remanufactured, or new products, or both. These problems have been proven to be N P-hard in general. Therefore, we study different approaches to tackle these problems. First, we propose several traditional methodologies to obtain better lowerf bounds for both problems, namely (ℓ, S) - like inequalities and reformulation techniques, such as facility location (FL) reformulation, multi-commodity (MC) reformulation, and shortest path (SP) reformulation. Both theoretical and computational comparisons of different lower bounding techniques are discussed. The results show that the reformulation techniques demonstrate better performance than other formulations for the separate setups case when the setup cost for remanufacturing is equivalent to the setup cost for manufacturing. For the joint setups case, our (ℓ; S) - like inequalities, which have the same lower bounds as the reformulation techniques, are the most efficient methods to quickly solve the problem. Motivated by the previous chapter, we further investigate the polyhedral structure of a simpler mixed integer set, arising from the feasible set of ELSRs and ELSRj problems, in order to derive several existing and new valid inequalities. These mixed integer sets are variants of the well-known single node fixed-charge network set, where two knapsack sets are considered simultaneously. Our main contributions for these problems rely upon on identifying the facet-defining conditions of the proposed inequalities, and discussing their separation problems. For each problem, comparisons of computational experiments between different traditional methodologies introduced earlier, and the proposed inequalities, are presented to test their effectiveness. The results indicate that the valid inequalities, with embedded (ℓ; S) - like inequalities for the separate setups case, have significantly improved the lower bounds in almost (all) instances tested, compared with other formulations when the setup cost for remanufacturing is, at most, the setup cost for manufacturing. As regards to the joint setups case, the results show that (ℓ; S) -like inequalities remain provide stronger lower bounds than the proposed inequalities for those randomly generated instances.

The chill-on-demand system is a technology designed to provide cooled products on demand, thereby avoiding any requirement for chilled storage. It uses the cooling effect provided by the endothermic desorption of carbon dioxide previously adsorbed onto a bed of activated carbon contained in an inner component of the self-chilling product. This has the potential to be applied to any type of product that needs to be cold at the point of consumption. The principles of life cycle engineering have been utilized to evaluate the overall environmental performance of one possible application of this technology: a self-chilling beverage can, with a steel outer can to contain the beverage and an inner aluminium can to contain the adsorbent. The primary aim of this research is to devise a way to ensure that the self-chilling can supplies the best cooling performance with minimal global environmental impact. First, the adsorption/desorption process as a means of cooling was investigated, together with its application to the specific case of carbon dioxide adsorbed on a bed of activated carbon obtained from coconut shells. A specific experimental activity was designed and supported by the implementation of a transient heat exchange model. Next, the potential environmental impacts of the product were evaluated by using a Life Cycle Assessment tool. The analysis considered all the life cycle stages of a self-chilling can: from the manufacture of each part of the beverage container, to its utilization and end-of-life management. The results, compared with those of a conventional beverage can, highlight the importance of using activated carbon derived from biomass and locating its production in countries with a low carbon-intensity electricity supply. More substantial environmental and technical improvements would depend on finding adsorbents with much larger capacity, and developing a system with very high rates of recovery and re-use.

The widely applied non-parametric Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) is beset by Unboundedness under variable returns to scale technology assumptions. Potentially, this leads to inaccurate productivity measurements. The Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index (MTFP) has been proposed as an alternative index for overcoming Unboundedness and has seen applications at the firm level. I extend the body of knowledge on these two indexes by applying them both to aggregate level data to examine the extent to which they are beset by Unboundedness and furthermore by decomposing the MTFP. Furthermore I address the pervasive gap in the literature on the relative performance of global regions. This level of study has received little attention while much work has been done on the relative performance of individual nations. I find that the MTFP completely overcomes Unboundedness whereas the 5% of distance functions computed with the MPI are subject to the problem. In addition there is a statistically significant difference between the variable returns to scale (VRS) MTFP and MPI. There is a similarly significant difference between the variable returns to scale MTFP and the constant returns to scale MPI that has been widely used as its proxy. Thus I conclude advocating the use of the MTFP where the production relation being examined is best characterised by variable returns to scale technology assumptions. The Far East region was found to have achieved best performance in the 1980 -- 1999 period. There is an indication, albeit tenuous, that the regions with organised economic blocs achieve relatively high levels of performance.

This thesis examines the relational complexities of university-business open innovation networks built for new product development. Through applying network inter-organizational theory, it aims to understand how this relationship type can be developed and managed to create new knowledge and produce mutually beneficial outcomes. This topic is important, as governmental bodies around the globe have developed policy initiatives that encourage universities to play a more significant role within the national innovation landscape, insomuch that collaboration might result in the commercialization of academic research and scientific knowledge and further enhance economic growth and competitiveness within many industries. However, the university-business open innovation literature remains fragmented, and often portrays this relationship type as merely a link to knowledge access or financial resources with little attention given to the complex relational issues that surround the alignment of such diverse partners. This often overlooks the social elements of knowledge generation and the process of innovation emergence which implicates the route value creation (or lack thereof) between affiliated parties. This thesis posits that value creation, within this relational type, is reliant upon the development, management, and strategic coordination of both externally and internally held social capital stocks. Through examining the functioning of an existing collaborative partnership between a university and a business, utilizing a mixed method social network analysis, light was made on the dynamic nature of how the relationship developed over time, the depth of interaction between partners, and how the actors within the network were organized for knowledge sharing. The analysis provides a greater understanding of the role relational context play on the flows of communication and the emergence of innovative outputs emerge. The main findings of this thesis are that the coupled process of open innovation relationships universities and business relationships require the capability to adapt and engage with the external environment to ensure sustainability. It also finds that contractual mechanisms only enable collaboration to a degree, but are most effective when informal interactions are fostered and, thus, concludes that the effectiveness of value creation might be contingent on local conditions. The findings of this thesis emphasize the risks of standardized approaches to manage encourage university-business collaborations, and provides guidance to managers and policymakers into the nature of these relationships post-award, insomuch that might effectively structure; as well as anticipate transitions and design elements of the relational exchange. It, thereby, provides a richer theory of university-business collaboration, and contributes to the open innovation literature.

The importance of design to enhance innovation in businesses has gradually diversified with the expansion of the meaning and influences of design, and is now regarded as a critical strategic tool to increase commercial competitiveness and sustainable growth in a complex global market. Concurrently, the importance of embracing the extensive scope of innovation - including technological, product/service, process and organisational innovation - in businesses, especially in manufacturing companies, has been identified by scholars, industry bodies and the government as a way to avoid the ‘locked-in’ effect of existing technology and a business model which could hinder competitiveness. In this context, innovative manufacturing is regarded as an enabler for developing advanced and high-value manufacturing, which are considered as being of strategic importance in achieving the UK’s global competitiveness and economic balance. The research, however, identified a relatively narrow view and use of design in innovative manufacturing, limiting the potential benefits of ‘designing’, ‘design strategy’ and ‘corporate-level design thinking’ to systematically enhance the extensive scope of innovation. The research therefore aims to create a design innovation framework to provide a comprehensive overview of design innovation actions and influences for UK innovative manufacturing companies to further improve innovativeness. The research consists of three phases: (i) the exploration phase, which explores the expanding role of design and innovation, and the context of UK innovative manufacturing, (ii) the development phase, which establishes the relationship between design and innovation in the business context, and discovering the design innovation characteristics which form the design innovation framework and its implementation process, and (iii) the evaluation phase which identifies the adaptability and usefulness of the framework in the innovative manufacturing context. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used, including a questionnaire survey (n=48), in-depth interviews with academics and industrial experts in manufacturing and design innovation (n=36), and case-studies of UK innovative manufacturing companies (n=46). The research identified twenty design innovation characteristics with six main benefits including: (i) problem/opportunity identification, (ii) extensive collaboration, (iii) clear communication, (iv) innovative product and service development, (v) effective process development, and (vi) work culture and environment improvement. The design innovation framework and implementation process recommended by the research therefore provide a comprehensive overview of the influence of design innovation to achieve creative idea generation, optimise the business environment, and successful commercialisation which enables the improved product/service, process and organisational innovativeness of UK innovative manufacturing companies.

This thesis investigates the adoption rate of manufacturing strategy formulation processes and provides insights into why current formulation process workbooks are not widely adopted. A paradigm is developed to enhance the adoption of process workbooks in the manufacturing environment and attempts to bridge the gap between tried and tested processes and their practical application in manufacturing industry. Manufacturing strategy formulation processes have been developed to assist manufacturing companies in the development of manufacturing strategies. There is evidence that the adoption of these processes and the development of strategies within manufacturing industry are beneficial. However, some literature provides anecdotal evidence suggesting that adoption levels of these formulation processes are low. The research programme investigates if, and why, the adoption of manufacturing strategy formulation processes has been low. lndustrially based interviews have been used that confirm the low level of adoption of these processes. A variety of reasons have been identified. These mainly focus on the presentation and format of process workbooks. Several proposals are made to enhance the adoption of manufacturing strategy formulation processes. I particular, the research identifies four key areas that should be considered in the future presentation of manufacturing strategy formulation process. These key areas can be summarised as validity, attention, simplicity, and holistic perspective forming the basis of a paradigm to increase the use of workbooks and the adoption of strategy formulation processes by manufacturing managers. The findings of this research and the development of a paradigm offer practical assistance to bridge the gap between research activities and practitioner requirements. The paradigm has been evaluated by further interviews with industry practitioners and makes a useful contribution to the formulation and application of strategy in manufacturing industry.