The aim of this paper is to analyze and rank the managerial-organizational barriers to energy efficiency improvement from an industry perspective. To that end, this study utilizes the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) methodology to identify the contextual relationships among the barriers. In a focus group discussion forum, five practitioners from the steel industry were consulted to identify these mutual linkages. The results indicated that five of the eight barriers proposed are in the linkage category. These barriers include that the energy manager or people in charge of energy management lack influence, there are higher priorities to production activity, there is management resistance to change, there is inadequate management capacity, and there are conflicts of interest within the organization. The management should focus more attention on these barriers, because they have both high driving power and dependency. The findings are intended to help managers from manufacturing sectors identify key barriers and thus develop strategic plans to address these issues.

Energy use in Indonesia’s steel industry accounts for about 20–35% of total production costs. Consequently, energy end-use efficiency is a crucial measure that is used to reduce energy intensity and decrease production costs. This article aims to investigate the relationships among different barriers to energy efficiency improvement (EEI), using a framework with the following six constructs: government policy, the financial–economic factor, the managerial–organizational factor, the technological factor, workforce, and quality and type of feedstock and fuel used. The data were collected from steel firm practitioners in Indonesia, using a questionnaire to test our framework. The results demonstrate that the applied framework was applicable. We find that EEI is moderately influenced by all constructs but that the managerial–organizational factor has the greatest direct effect on improvements and is the most significant factor.

In contemporary manufacturing area, agility is considerably acknowledged as an emerging issue to react to dynamic market environment changes. The implementation of agile manufacturing system proved to be efficient to acquire a competitive advantage. Since the agile manufacturing (AM) concept was popularised in 1991, there is a growing recognition by practitioners and academics. The aim of this study is to perform an analysis of AM research in order to update the literature review, give the current discussion regarding the trends and note the suggestions for the future directions of AM research. In this paper, we provide a wide coverage of excessively citations on AM from 1991 to 2015. The papers are classified in AM conceptual frameworks, agility assessment, agility achievement, merging lean and agile concepts, and adopting AM on small- and medium-sized enterprises. Furthermore, a category scheme to organise the journals is proposed and equipped by summary statistics presentation. The study results of the literature review are expected to assist development in the AM research.

The UDFM is an enterprise located in Yogyakarta that produces leather products. Consumers nowadays demand of quality products with the shortest production time possible. However, quality products begin from quality raw materials that meet company's predetermined specifications. Unfortunately, raw materials often fail to fulfil the company's expectation. This discrepancy indicates that the suppliers' role is less optimized. This study was performed to enhance the selection of suppliers in the Indonesian leather firm2 based on certain criteria and sub-criteria predetermined by the company. The criteria included quality, price, delivery, service, company profile, and risk. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference By Similarity To Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) were employed in the selection process. After identification and assessment process completed, a proposal was submitted to select the most appropriate supplier. The results of this study showed the performance values of the four suppliers, namely supplier A of 6.25%; supplier B of 31.25%; supplier C of 43.75%; and supplier D of 18.75%. Supplier C obtained the highest performance value, which indicated that supplier C made the most appropriate main supplier for company.

This paper investigates the existence of the barriers in Indonesia steel industry, namely: existing technologies were still considered efficient, new technologies not available, new technology not adequate or inappropriate at the site, the energy efficient technology not compatible with other elements of the plant, the uncertainty about future technology standards, lack of technical skills, technology installation period was too long, and poor information quality regarding access to new energy efficient technology. Five practitioners from the national steel industry were retrieved to identify and analyze critical elements and the causal interrelationships among the technology-related barriers. Finally, using the approach of interpretive structural modelling, the barriers were clustered in accordance with their driving power and dependence power. Lack of reliable information access about new technologies is the only barriers at the bottom level of the hierarchy, implying higher driving power. It is also observed that the availability of new technologies, existing technology still efficient, and the uncertainty about future technology standardization have a weak dependent on the other constructs but strongly driver. The four remaining constructs are identified as dependent obstacles. It means that these barriers are the automatic followers of other impediments. The result of this model will assist managers to understand the relative importance and the interdependencies among the barriers. It can guide them to resolve these barriers.

The machining strategy is one of the parameters which practically influences the time of the different manufacturing geometric forms. The machining time directly relates to the machining efficiency of the tool paths. In area milling machining, there are two main types of tool path strategies: a direction-parallel milling and contour-parallel milling. Then direction-parallel milling is simple compared with a contour-parallel strategy. This paper proposes a new model of the direction-parallel machining strategy for triangular pockets to reduce the tool path length. The authors develop an analytical model by appending additional the tool path segments to the basis tool path for cutting un-machined area or scallops, which remained along the boundary. To validate its results, the researchers have compared them to the existing model found in the literature. For illustrating the computation of this model, the study includes two numerical examples. The results show that the proposed analytic direction-parallel model can reduce the total length of machining. Thus, it can take a shorter time for milling machining.