We analyze a panel of 230 Canadian manufacturing industries to investigate whether trade liberalization promotes e ciency through increased scale. During the six years following the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, Canadian manufacturing exhibited substantial rationalization|a decline in the number of plants accompanied by increases in output per plant. We nd that the bilateral tari...

The manufacturing industry is continuously facing global competition and customer demands which impose the need to knowledge development to manage changes and long-term business goals. Continuous and lifelong learning is often seen as processes that support competence development and learning integrated within work. In this paper we focus on processes of learning within the manufacturing indust...

Studying medical cases is an effective way to enhance clinical reasoning skills and reinforce clinical knowledge. An Ishikawa diagram, also known as a cause-and-effect diagram or fishbone diagram, is often used in quality management in manufacturing industries.In this report, an Ishikawa diagram is used to demonstrate how to relate potential causes of a major presenting problem in a clinical se...

The manufacturing industry constantly strive to develop the competencies of their expert production engineers in order to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. Research shows that the absorptive capacity of a firm is central in order to reach such a goal. The absorptive capacity of a firm is their ability to recognize the value of new external information, assimilate it, and apply it to...

The food chain, from production to the consumer's kitchen, can be an important contributor to the development, persistence and dissemination of antibiotic-resistant (ART) microbes, including both ART foodborne pathogens and commensal bacteria. Many factors in the food chain, such as the antimicrobial compounds used and how they were used, microbial co-selection, fitness and persistence mechanis...

Laser milling provides a new method of producing components for the micro tool manufacturing industry. This paper considers the technical capabilities of laser milling when applied to the machining of components for micro tooling. Characteristics important for laser milling as a micro tooling manufacturing process are reviewed. These characteristics are surface finish, aspect ratio, dimensional...

Theories suggesting either static or dynamic productivity gains derived from exports often assume the prior existence of a perfect market. In the presence of market failure, however, the competition effect and the resource reallocation effect of exports on productive efficiency may be greatly reduced; and there may actually be disincentives for innovation. This paper analyses the impact of expo...

In recent years, the U.S. health care system has been plagued by shortages of generic sterile injectable drugs. The shortage problem arose suddenly within a short period of time, and remained persistent afterwards. To gain insights into what may have led to this situation, we develop a model that incorporates key characteristics of the generic drug manufacturing industry, including random suppl...

Recent studies concerning the isolation and purification of exopolysaccharides from suspension-cultured tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L. var. San Marzano) cells and the description of a simple, rapid and low environmental impact method with for obtaining polysaccharides from solid tomato-processing industry wastes are reported. Their chemical composition, rheological properties and partial pr...

In a time when modern production has become exposed to strict market demands, in terms of increasing quality, shortening the processing time and reducing the cost of the final product, laser processing has become a necessity in almost all manufacturing industries. Each laser manufacturer, including the Swiss company Bystronic, gives recommended cutting parameters for certain types of materials....