Rajeev Kumar Saha

Economies of the world order move ahead with innovation which is at the discretion of the entrepreneurs. Technopreneurs have accelerated the process of creating new market opportunities with innovation and advancements in new/disruptive technologies. Technopreneurs are equipped with the knowledge base of advanced technologies available in various areas to create new output (product or services) per customer needs. From idea generation to the product development process and its marketing and sales, technopreneurs utilize all available resources to understand and get feedback from target customers. The chapter shows the differences between traditional entrepreneurship and technopreneurship besides discussing key elements of technopreneurship. The strategies employed by the technopreneurs to overcome challenges related to competition or regulatory or operational issues and so forth, have also been addressed with the help of suitable examples.

Advances in developed and developing countries are more attributable to growth in industrial activities that directly impact increasing energy demand. Energy availability has been inconsistent globally, necessitating energy storage (ES) for use as per requirement. Various energy storage technologies (ESTs) are available in mechanical, electrochemical, electrical, chemical, and thermal forms to fulfil the energy demand of a user as and when required. The factors responsible for making a commercially viable energy storage product are further being researched for an eco-friendly and optimal solution to store energy for a longer duration. Researchers are employing different strategies to evaluate the energy efficiency of storage technologies. This paper uses the VIKOR technique to analyze ESTs while assigning objective weights with the entropy weights method based on identified energy performance indicators and ranking them according to their commercialization viability. The method helps a consumer choose better ESTs as per their requirement while manufacturers compete with each other to enhance the commercial value of their energy storage products. Sensitivity analysis has been performed to understand the uncertainties, pros, and cons with the limitations and scope of using the decision model and thus taking an informed decision. The analysis of different energy storage technologies has indicated Hydrogen Fuel Cells (HFC) to be impressive and promising for the future.

Benchmarking is a versatile tool to improve the existing supply chain performance of the manufacturing industries through continuous use of plan do check action (PDCA) cycle. The regular practice of benchmarking provides a decision support in the performance analysis of internal supply chain of manufacturing Industry. The seven PMs have been identified through the literature review. The brainstorming activity of expert's team from different manufacturing industries is used to identify the importance/weightage/effect of one performance measure as compare to other performance measure. The survey questionnaire tool is used to collect the opinion of experts about benchmarking of internal supply chain management (ISCM). The present work includes, weighted interpretive structural modelling (WISM) approach to develop a structural model, which will represents the interrelationships among identified PMs. WISM model allocates the key PMs at three levels. Such type of model not only helps in understanding the conceptual relationship among the PMs, but it may also use in determining their interdependence to assess the ISCM performance of industries.

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The term e-manufacturing refers to the ability of a manufacturing system to integrate various inputs using internet and intranet. With the market being increasingly competitive and customer oriented desiring to get best of the quality at cheapest available price of a product in shortest possible time, the role of e-manufacturing is pivotal towards the success of a company. Another important fact is that each customer may desire to have a certain different set of values added to the product being purchased. Customers want to voice their concerns directly to manufacturers thereby necessitating an interface to hear them in real-time and take suitable action thereupon, if needed, in real-time. As such identifying the enablers of e-manufacturing has become important for manufacturer in customer-oriented manufacturing to lure new customers along with retaining the old customers. It will also result in closing the gap between demand and supply of a product. This paper tries to assimilate the key enablers of e-manufacturing.