In the eye of the storm: exploring the introduction of environmental issues in the production function in Brazilian companies

This article aims to analyse the introduction of environmental issues in the context of the production function, which has been referred to as the organisational area to lead corporate environmental management. With that purpose, the theoretical references for corporate environmental management and the necessary alterations in production function have been organised to include environmental aspects, especially in terms of product and process development, quality management, and logistics. Considering that this research field still lacks empirical evidence for Brazilian companies, four case studies were conducted using companies located in the country. The environmental management maturity level of those companies tends to follow the rate with which the environmental issue is introduced in production sub-areas, especially in the product development process. However, in most cases we found that the companies had difficulties in structuring the insertion of the environmental dimension in logistics. The final notes point out the distance observed between what is recommended by international literature and the reality of Brazilian companies in the challenge of making the production function environmentally friendly.

Are supplier selection criteria going green? Case studies of companies in Brazil

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to verify if Brazilian companies are adopting environmental requirements in the supplier selection process. Further, this paper intends to analyze whether there is a relation between the level of environmental management maturity and the inclusion of environmental criteria in the companies' selection of suppliers.Design/methodology/approach - A review of mainstream literature on environmental management, traditional criteria in the supplier selection process and the incorporation of environmental requirements in this context. The empirical study's strategy is based on five Brazilian case studies with industrial companies. Face-to-face interviews and informal conversations are to be held, explanations made by e-mail with representatives from the purchasing, environmental management, logistics and other areas, and observation and the collection of company documents are also employed.Findings - Based on the cases, it is concluded that companies still use traditional criteria to select suppliers, such as quality and cost, and do not adopt environmental requirements in the supplier selection process in a uniform manner. Evidence found shows that the level of environmental management maturity influences the depth with which companies adopt environmental criteria when selecting suppliers. Thus, a company with more advanced environmental management adopts more formal procedures for selecting environmentally appropriate suppliers than others.Originality/value - This is the first known study to verify if Brazilian companies are adopting environmental requirements in the supplier selection process.

Best practices for the implantation of ISO 14001 norms: a study of change management in two industrial companies in the Midwest region of the state of São Paulo - Brazil

Among the difficulties found in the implementation of ISO 14001 systems, resistance to change can always be found. It is mainly a consequence of the hurry to change, loss of focus, concentration of decision making at the level of top management, arbitrary imposition of objectives and results, faulty communication, and the absence of motivational and financial incentive for change.Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to present best practices with respect to the management of organizational change due to the implementation of ISO 14001 norms in two industrial companies in the Midwest region of the State of São Paulo - Brazil. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fatty acid composition of mid-trimester amniotic fluid in women of different ethnicities

Objective: To determine whether the fatty acid composition of mid-trimester amniotic fluid differs by ethnicity and pregnancy outcome. Methods: Fatty acid composition was analyzed by gas chromatography in 198 women undergoing amniocentesis at 15-19 weeks gestation. Cytokine levels were determined by ELISA in a subgroup of 52 subjects. Results: The major fatty acids detected were palmitic acid (31.8%) and stearic acid (31.5%). The n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), linoleic acid (LA, 18: 2) and arachidonic acid (AA, 20: 4), were 11.3%, while the n-3 PUFA fatty acids, alpha linolenic acid (ALA, 18: 3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22: 6), were 3.8% of the total. Palmitic acid was a higher percentage in Asians (40.5%) and Whites (34.5%) than in Blacks (22.2%) and Hispanics (23.7%) (p <= 0.0012). Oleic acid (18:1 n-9) was a higher percentage in Blacks (12.2%) and Hispanics (12.1%) than in Whites (9.2%) or Asians (7.5%) (<= 0.0002). LA and AA were higher in Blacks (9.0%, 5.4%) and Hispanics (8.6%, 4.1%) than in Whites (6.1%, 3.7%) and Asians (5.5%, 2.9%) (p <= 0.0002). DHA did not differ among the ethnic groups or according to pregnancy outcome. A reduced palmitic acid percentage was identified in the six women with preeclampsia (p = 0.0233). Tumor necrosis factor-alpha levels were inversely proportional to the palmitic acid percentage (p = 0.0275) and positively associated with the percentages of stearic (18:0) (p = 0.0132) and oleic (p = 0.0290) acids. Conclusions: Amniotic fluid fatty acid composition differed among the ethnic groups and may influence inflammatory mediator production and susceptibility to preeclampsia.

A Survey of mid and large bodied mammals in Núcleo Caraguatatuba, Serra do Mar State Park, Brazil

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Report on ticks collected in the Southeast and Mid-West regions of Brazil: analyzing the potential transmission of tick-borne pathogens to man

Foram coletados espécimes de carrapatos em 1993, 1996, 1997, e 1998, principalmente de animais selvagens e domésticos, nas Regiões Sudeste e Centro-oeste do Brasil. Nove espécies de Amblyommidae foram identificadas: Anocentor Nitens, Amblyomma cajennense, Amblyomma ovale, Amblyomma fulvum, Amblyomma striatum, Amblyomma rotundatum, Boophilus microplus, Boophilus annulatus e Rhipicephalus sanguineus. Analisou-se o potencial destas nove espécies de carrapatos como transmissores de patógenos para o homem. Um Flaviviridade Flavivirus foi isolado de espécimes de Amblyomma cajennense coletados de um capivara doente (Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris). Amblyomma cajennense é o transmissor principal da Rickettsia rickettsii (=R. rickettsi), o agente causador da febre maculosa no Brasil. Os mamíferos selvagens, principalmente capivaras e veados infestados por carrapatos vivem em próximo contato com gado, cavalos e cachorros, com quem compartilham os mesmos carrapatos, oferecendo risco de transmissão destas zoonoses silvestres aos animais domésticos e ao homem.

Morphological aspects of the mid-palatal suture in the human foetus: A light and scanning electron microscopy study

Morphological features of the mid-palatal suture were studied in human foetuses from 4 to 9 months of intra-uterine life. The foetuses were divided into three age groups, GI (16-23 weeks), GII (24-31 weeks) and GIII (32-39 weeks). The mid-palatal suture in GI foetuses is rectilineal in form with a wide space between the palatal processes of the maxilla. The suture has a sinuous nature in GII and GIII foetuses due to growth of the bone processes crossing the mid-line. A wide zone of cellular proliferation observed in GI narrows in GII and GIII foetuses. The imbricating nature of the suture in GII and GIII is caused by bone growth adjacent to the mid-palatal suture. Sharpey's fibres, emerging from the bone processes, run to the median region of the mid-palatal suture and are observed from GI foetuses onwards. The collagen fibres of the mid-palatal suture are orientated transversely under the oral epithelium and exhibit a regular meshwork with a predominance of sagittal fibres in the median region of the suture. These fibres are orientated transversely and obliquely at the junction with the nasal septum.

The application of distributed virtual machines for enterprise computer management: A two-tier network file system for image provisioning and management

In order to simplify computer management, several system administrators are adopting advanced techniques to manage software configuration of enterprise computer networks, but the tight coupling between hardware and software makes every PC an individual managed entity, lowering the scalability and increasing the costs to manage hundreds or thousands of PCs. Virtualization is an established technology, however its use is been more focused on server consolidation and virtual desktop infrastructure, not for managing distributed computers over a network. This paper discusses the feasibility of the Distributed Virtual Machine Environment, a new approach for enterprise computer management that combines virtualization and distributed system architecture as the basis of the management architecture. © 2008 IEEE.

Evaluation of neighborhood impacts caused by companies of the high-tech industrial cluster of São Carlos, SP, Brazil

The purpose of this study was to develop a methodology for evaluating neighborhood impacts using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and to apply the procedures to the companies of the High-Technology Industrial Cluster of São Carlos. To this end, an evaluation was made of the neighborhood impacts on the physical environment, urban components, quality of life, and urban infrastructure using impact matrices, and the impacts were assigned scores according to type, order, magnitude and duration. Fifty one companies were examined based on data provided by the companies themselves and on field surveys. The impacts are represented spatially in proportional symbols maps, based on the spatial distribution of the companies in the urban area of the city of São Carlos and the areas of influence of each company. The application of the proposed methodology served to validate it and indicated that the neighborhood impacts caused by the companies of this study are related to each company's type of activity, its size, and its occupation of the area. © 2008 Journal of Urban and Environmental Engineering (JUEE). All rights reserved.

Development of a model to measure the efficiency of outsourced companies in the process of aircraft spare parts technical publications

This paper presents a proposal of a model to measure the efficiency of outsourced companies in the aeronautical industry applying the methods DEA and AHP. It also proposes an evaluation in the relation between the variables of the process and the value obtained for the effiiency. The criteria of Quality, Time and Cost were considered the outputs of the process, and those criteria were quantified by AHP for DEA matrix.The number of technical documents received by those outsorced companies were considered the input of the process. The other purpose is to separate the companies in groups considered able to receive an investment to improve their process. Copyright © 2008 SAE International.

Prospective analysis about the world wide strategy of commercial vehicles development

The main objective of this paper is to make a prospective analysis about the tendencies of the world wide strategies of commercial vehicles development, in relation of the current local and international scenery. It has been done a research by using the Delphi method, which consists into regulate, systematically, the presentation of questions about a specified problem to a group of specialists. In order to guarantee more representative data, it has been adopted three distinct groups: academics, OEMs managers and Tier 1 suppliers managers. The results showed that the three mentioned groups have similar opinion about the necessity of having a product development in the subsidiaries companies; also it has been pointed the necessity of having more taylor made vehicles, due to the intrinsic characteristics of this industry segment. Copyright © 2008 SAE International.

Knowledge-based integrated Production Management Model applied to automotive companies

This paper aims to examine the relevance of a production management model, in the shop-floor operations environment, that integrates the dimensions of production organisation (lean and mass production), work organisation (enriched and semi-autonomous groups) and knowledge management. A theoretical model has been applied to automotive companies to verify model adherence. Each of those dimensions has been described by factors. Shop-floor personnel interviews were conducted to confirm the factors relevance to that company. Results have shown that the model represented the reality of those companies concerning the researched dimensions. The factors allow managers to promote a favourable context for knowledge sharing. © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

An aproach for implementing knowledge management in small and medium companies in Brazil: A case study

The search for competitive advantage in a global environment must consider the use of tacit and explicit knowledge circulating inside companies. Differential factors can be easily replicated nowadays. Due to the great volume of knowledge and information, it is necessary to create a system that allows the management of important knowledge. Existing models for Knowledge Management are based on the reality at large companies. In Brazil, most of the companies are smaller ones. This work presents a simplified model to implement Knowledge Management in Small and Medium Companies in Brazil, based on a unique case study with limited scope. Despite some human and financial restrictions, Knowledge Management can help smaller companies, preserving organizational memory and increasing process efficiency. Observing a unique case prevented any generalization of the model. But the recommendations can be references to other companies, because projects like this must address the specific issues of each organization. The objective of this study is to introduce a simplified model for planning Knowledge Management at small companies in Brazil, considering their restrictions and also seeking to create a competitive advantage. Human aspects are very important in Knowledge Management, but that is not the focus of this study. The model was conceived presuming the participation of all people involved.

Savings in Latin America after the mid 1990s: determinants, constraints and policies

Includes bibliography