Industry 4.0 is the called 4th technological revolution, where digital and physical marketplaces and manufacturing technologies converge to enable smart manufacturing and factories of the future. This paper presents an overview of a representative set of marketplace platforms available to support supply chain processes underpinning Industry 4.0. We develop a gap analysis of existing marketplace...

[1] The subsurface transfer of water from a mountain block to an adjacent basin (mountain block recharge (MBR)) is a commonly invoked mechanism of recharge to intermountain basins. However, MBR estimates are highly uncertain. We present an approach to characterize bulk fluid circulation in a mountain block and thus MBR that utilizes environmental tracers from the basin aquifer. Noble gas rechar...

Lean manufacturing is an important aspect used by the current companies to compete in the market. The high cost of production in many sectors has forced companies to offer their products at high prices thus failing to attract customers. Small and medium sized enterprises in Indian electronic and electrical industry face high competition challenges from international companies thus, application ...

In order to keep up with the flexibility and cost-efficiency requirements, the manufacturing industry has begun a transformation process towards a service-oriented production approach. This approach is in line with the cloud manufacturing paradigm that applies established concepts from cloud computing to the manufacturing domain. Although the cloud manufacturing paradigm provides promising conc...

Economies of Scale in European Manufacturing Revisited* We test for internal and external economies of scale in European manufacturing, employing a more disaggregated data set than has been used in earlier analyses. We aim to separate externalities from common business cycle effects. Fifteen European manufacturing industries in France, Germany, Italy and the UK are analysed. We focus on economi...

Despite China's leaded gasoline phase out in 2000, the continued high rates of lead poisoning found in children's blood lead levels reflect the need for identifying and controlling other sources of lead pollution. From 2001 to 2007, 24% of children in China studied (N = 94,778) were lead poisoned with levels exceeding 100 μg/L. These levels stand well above the global average of 16%. These tren...

The concentration of airborne and blood lead (Pb) was assessed in a Pb acid battery recycling plant and in a Pb acid battery manufacturing plant in Kenya. In the recycling plant, full-shift area samples taken across 5 days in several production sections showed a mean value ± standard deviation (SD) of 427 ± 124 μg/m(3), while area samples in the office area had a mean ± SD of 59.2 ± 22.7 μg/m(3...