Search the digital library catalog

Abstract: Following the banning of expanded polystyrene packaging material, the fast food restaurant industry was serendipitously plunged into green sourcing initiatives for its packaging materials leading to heightened efforts on evaluating the suitability of various suppliers of green packaging material. This study therefore sought to assess the performance of selected suppliers on supplier performance metrics of total cost of ownership, quality of sourced material and delivery performance, in Zimbabwe’s restaurant industry. Methodology: Data was collected from senior procurement officers of 30 officially registered fast food restaurants in Zimbabwe. Each restaurant randomly selected 5 suppliers from their supplier lists. Each unit was asked to rate their 5 major suppliers of packaging material leading to an effective sample size of 150 suppliers. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to analyse data in AMOS. The five steps in SEM, that is: model specification, model identification, parameter estimation, model evaluation and modification were done. Findings: The findings in this study revealed that green sourcing leads to improved procurement performance in terms of total cost of ownership, quality of the materials sourced, and delivery performance. Implications for theory and practice: It was therefore recommended that practically the restaurant industry should explore various options of green packaging material ranging from recyclable and reusable plastic, paper, aluminium and steel material. Originality and value: Although the study was done in a single market, there is dearth in literature on green sourcing in frontier markets, of which the study provides empirical evidence from the restaurant industry in SubSaharan Africa.
Keywords: green sourcing, supplier evaluation, fast food restaurant, frontier markets, supplier performance metrics, green packaging material, total cost of ownership, quality of sourced material, delivery performance
Published in DKUM: 23.08.2024; Views: 80; Downloads: 7
Full text (1,33 MB)
This document has many files! More...

Abstract: In XML Schema development, the quality of XML Schemas is a crucial issue for further steps in the life cycle of an application, closely correlated with the structure of XML Schemas and different building blocks. Current research focuses on measuring complexity of XML Schemas and mainly do not consider other quality aspects. This paper proposes a novel quality measuring approach, based on existing software engineering metrics, additionally defining the quality aspects of XML Schemas using the following steps: (1) definition of six schema quality aspects, (2) adoption of 25 directly measurable XML Schema variables, (3) proposition of six composite metrics, applying 25 measured variables and (4) composite metrics validation. An experiment was conducted using 250 standard XML Schemas collected from available e-business information systems. The results illustrate the influence of XML Schemaʼs characteristics on its quality and evaluate the applicability of metrics in the measurement process, a useful tool for software developers while building or adopting XML Schemas.
Keywords: XML, metrics, quality variables, quality index, evaluation, validation
Published in DKUM: 06.07.2017; Views: 1432; Downloads: 410
Full text (765,37 KB)
This document has many files! More...