Business processes form the core of a comparer organization. Business Process Management (BPM) refers to the ability to define, model, streamline, analyze and improve business processes. Successful BPM initiatives usually involve a mix of technology, process definition exercises and ultimately some degree of operational change within an organization. Business Process Management as a discipline is not new. It has evolved from a workflow to more workflows. The Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) appears as a system-to-system workflow. The term EAI describes automating information flow between systems, packaged business applications from different vendors and Web sites across heterogeneous platforms and networks. Then a few vendors added graphical process design to a workflow engine, added support for multi-dimensional human-based process automation, and called it BPM.
The Extended Enterprise denotes the process of linking partners in a supply chain together electronically through an extranet. This allows them to conduct business electronically, enabling them to respond more quickly to the needs of the changing needs of the consumer.
Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of application programs and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining.
Business performance measurement is a process of quantifying the efficiency and effectiveness of purposeful action. Performance measurement (PM) can be used as a tool for implementing a strategy for an organization. The purpose of this tool is:
− to translate a strategy into concrete objectives;
− to communicate the objectives to employees;
− to guide and focus employees' efforts according as these objectives are achieved;
− to control whether or not the strategic objectives are reached;
− to use double-loop learning to challenge the validity of the strategy itself;
− to visualize how individual employees' efforts contribute to the overall business objectives.
The first researches on performance management were concentrated on productivity measurement. During recent years, the research topic has been performance measurement in knowledge organizations, which have a dynamic, network-oriented, and knowledge intensive way of operating. These characteristics set many requirements for the performance measurement. Management and measurement of intellectual capital and business intelligence are currently examined in quite large research projects.
Knowledge Management (KM) is seen as a business process that formalizes management and strategic advantage of a firm's intellectual assets. KM is an enterprise discipline that promotes a
A Knowledge Management System (KMS) is a specific kind of socio-technological system, designed for management of functional integration of distributed hardware, software and network elements; it sustains the processes of organizational knowledge management (KM). Developing a KMS implies, as a first stage, creating the initial knowledge building architecture (KBA) that consists of infrastructure evaluation and alignment of the knowledge management (KM) to the business strategy. The second stage is dedicated to analyzing, designing and implementation of the knowledge management socio-technological system. The installation of the software tools in an operational environment is the third phase. The last stage consists of performance evaluation and measure of the return on investment (RO1). Socio-technological systems architectures development has to be linked to the organizational KM objectives. These objectives can be achieved through a hierarchical, top-down or decentralized communication structure, and/or process guided, and/or as a support for communities of practice.
Definitions and practical applications of performance measurement knowledge management and business intelligence differ between organizations. Any managerial tool or method is designed for an operative or a strategic level.
The nature of the involved activities makes it clear that KM requires a strongly multi- disciplinary approach. Different disciplines such as Business Economics, Human Resource Management, O r g a n i z a t i o n a l P s y c h o l o g y , Communication Science, Computer Science, and Operations Research can all make a contribution here. This not only covers the instruments for making improvements, but also includes the methods and techniques for understanding knowledge-intensive work processes and tracing the causes of problems. Several projects have also demonstrated that the added value of the KM approach for organizations lies in particular in the fact that the focus is on knowledge rather than on specific methods and techniques from a single discipline.
4. CONCLUSIONS
Based on personal experience, we believe that information and knowledge gathered in some community-related nodes concerning practical subjects, is superior to that available in traditional, even academic, sources such as books, electronic or conventional.
Nowadays, where a multiliteracy education is needed for living and working in the digital era, digital communication skills are necessary. “Digital behavior” and “digital communication” rules and ethics are developed; therefore, all contemporary people should be “digitally literate”, in order to be able to survive in a changing and competitive environment. Real communication skills are not enough; “digital communication” skills are also needed. The ability to use the Internet and the mew media is vital for surviving in the 21st century.
Business needs are seen as key driver for learning and knowledge management. One future direction of technology-enhanced learning is therefore to integrate learning technologies into business platforms as well as combine it with competency management and formal/informal learning methodologies.
In recent years 'information' has become an important new production factor in the way we think and act in economic terms. The more we have developed this concept the more we have come to the conclusion that organizations should not become obsessed by the logistics of information.
It is just as important to focus on the organization's competence in dealing with information. The only way of combating information overload is to develop knowledge management is seen as a cyclic process of the three correlated activities: creating, integrating and dissemination of knowledge. Effective knowledge management then becomes extremely important for every business organization. Especially when we realize that countries in the world can only survive in a global economy by becoming knowledge economies.
The convergence of the tendencies evolving on the technology and education realm is represented by the fusion of the activities implied in knowledge management, learning and performance. These three elements stand for the link between the learner and technology, in supporting life-long-learning in knowledge based society and economy.
Our approach on organizational performance is multidimensional. Performance should not be considered only from the point of view of financial performance. It is also essential to regard customers and other stakeholders, as well as business processes, when monitoring organizational performance. Furthermore, especially today, when the business environment is changing rapidly, it is important to examine the success factors affecting the future performance, such as the knowledge of personnel and new innovations.
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EN E NV VI IR RO ON NM ME EN NT TA AL L I IS SS SU UE ES S F FA AC CE ED D B BY Y I IN ND DU US ST TR RI IA AL L P PA AR RK KS S
Ciurea Jeanina Biliana
UNIVERSITY „EFTIMIE MURGU” RE IłA, TRAIAN VUIA, NR. 1-4, TEL.: 0255 210214, E-mail:
novicici.jeanina@email.ro
Abstract: The EIP concept was first formalized in 1992-93 by Indigo Development, a team of people from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and Cornell University's Work and Environment Initiative. In 1994, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a contract to Research Triangle Institute and Indigo to flesh out the concept and undertake a case study. By the fall of 1996, 17 projects declaring themselves eco-industrial parks were on the drawing boards in the U.S.; at least two had recruited their first tenants.
Key words: eco-industrial park, Eco- industrial development, EIP.
An eco-industrial park involves a network of firms and organizations, working together to improve their environmental and economic performance. Some planners and researchers of EIPs have used the term
"industrial ecosystem" to describe the type of symbiotic relationships that develop amongst participating firms. Specifically, Indigo's EPA research project defined eco-industrial parks as follows:
"An eco-industrial park is a community of manufacturing and service businesses seeking enhanced environmental and economic performance through collaboration in managing environmental and resource issues, including energy, water, and materials. By working together, the community of businesses seeks a collective benefit that is greater than the sum of the individual benefits each company would realize if it optimized its individual performance only. The goal of an EIP is to improve the economic performance of the participating companies while minimizing their environmental impact." The President's Council on Sustainable Development (1996) offers these generally accepted definitions of eco-industrial parks:
"A community of businesses that cooperate with each other and with the local community to efficiently share resources (information, materials, water, energy, infrastructure and natural habitat), leading to economic gains, gains in environmental quality, and equitable enhancement of human resources for the business and local community."
"An industrial system of planned materials and energy exchanges that seeks to minimize energy and raw materials use, minimize waste, and build sustainable economic, ecological and social relationships." An initial definition of an eco-industrial park by leading US practitioners was:
− “a community of manufacturing and service businesses seeking enhanced environmental and economic performance through collaboration in managing environmental and resource issues including energy, water, and materials… the community of businesses seeks a collective benefit that is greater than the sum of the individual benefits each company would realise if it optimised its individual performance” (Lowe and Warren, 1996: 7.8).
The Eco-Industrial Park Concept:
− A community of manufacturing and service businesses located together on a common property.
− Members seek enhanced environmental, economic, and social performance through collaboration.
− Seeks collective benefit greater than the sum of individual company benefits.
− May enable by-product exchange among firms. (This is often possible only through a broader network.)
Systems view:
− The EIP is a whole system linked to its environment.
− Generalists and many specialists learn from each other how to integrate their planning and action.
− They model each EIP’s connections to surrounding natural, social, and economic systems.
− They understand the feedback loops between design, engineering, management, and environmental systems.
− -There is a feedback within each subsystems.
DEFININGEIPs
While there is no widespread agreement on a single definition of what constitutes an EIP, attendees generally agreed that an eco-industrial park is characterized by closely cooperating manufacturing and service businesses that work together to improve their environmental and economic performance by reducing waste and increasing resource efficiency. Firms coordinate activities to increase efficient use of
raw materials, reduce outputs of waste, conserve energy and water resources, and reduce transportation requirements.
This resource efficiency translates into economic gains for the businesses while the local community benefits from the resulting improvements in its environment and from the creation of new jobs.
The first EIP formally identified as such was “discovered” in the Danish coastal city of Kalundborg more than a decade ago, and similar cases in other parts of Europe and the United States have been documented since then cooperatively buy goods with a higher recycled content, or hire a shared engineering efficiency expert or compliance auditor. Affiliated companies participating in waste exchange will pay lower prices for secondary raw materials and realize savings in hazardous waste disposal charges. For example, Mobil sells styrene/ethylbenzene for 50 cents to a recycler, whereas it used to cost $1 per gallon to dispose of it. In addition, clustered companies that are co-located in the same region can enjoy reduced transportation costs, whether the firms are industrial, commercial or retail establishments. In Virginia, the Port of Cape Charles is developing a second type of park, the zero-emissions eco-industrial park. The zero emissions, also called closed-loop manufacturing, design is the most ambitious type of EIP, having as its goal the total elimination of emissions, another term for waste. Just as with the virtual EIP, participants reap a certain level of resource efficiency through cooperative buying, waste exchange, and so forth.
But the zero-emissions park can achieve further incremental gains in efficiency because firms are located close enough that water, heat and energy sharing, as well as recycling of low-value byproducts, become physically and economically feasible. "EIPs are an appealing redevelopment option for brownfields because they offer the community sustainability, economic growth and lower environmental impact than traditional industry," according to Ed Cohen-Rosenthal.
BECOMING AN EIP
Industrial parks have long been utilized as a means for realizing economic advantage. By co-locating, enterprises can reduce costs. In the typical scheme, however, industrial park members act as solitary individuals.
By neglecting the community aspects of co-location, an enterprise may forego the economic advantages of a symbiotic relationship with its neighbors. Such industrial symbiosis (IS) among proximal facilities can provide opportunities for competitive advantage and environmental amelioration.
As the evolutionary successor to industrial parks, eco-industrial parks (EIP) go one step further by linking local industries through a cooperative system of material and utilities exchanges.
The very large number of existing industrial parks in the world makes a positive answer to this question very desirable. Improving the environmental, social, and economic performance of companies at this scale would make a significant contribution to the companies and park management, to neighboring communities, and to sustainable development. The resulting EIPs would have more stable communities of tenants, supporting each other’s business success and reducing tenant turnover. New services offered by eco-park management would yield new revenue streams.
If the management of an industrial park and the site’s companies seek to become an EIP there are a number of actions they can take to earn the right to use this name. As with an industrial park in process of first development, these elements form a whole system to guide park redevelopment. If the park has ISO 14001 certification or another form of environmental management system, this could become the basis for setting eco-industrial performance objectives and the means for attaining them. Eco-industrial development is a means of achieving sustainable industry through local and regional action. The industrial park or estate is a point of leadership and leverage for change in its region’s industrial community. This industrial community may be able to realize innovations larger than a park’s management could undertake, such as an integrated resource recovery system or by-product exchange. A park seeking to become an eco- industrial park can act as the hub of a regional eco- industrial network through its own improvement projects and through the connections of its factories with suppliers and customers outside the estate’s border.
Eco- industrial development seeks to achieve: