During the recent FMANZ Summit in Auckland we discussed the role of innovative suppliers and green procurement.Our one-hour workshop with 20-odd FMANZ professionals and managers started with the notion that we live in turbulent times with lots of changes (Rotmans e.a., 2012).
The environment of the(Dutch) building industry is increasingly turbulent. There are many cges for the building industry. Innovative tendering, better marketing, openness and transparency are examples of this. A strong reduction in failure costs (estimated at between 10 and 25% of the total costs) and an increase in quality are also necessary. Lastly, the declining inflow of young people has to be mentioned. The image of the building industry is not particularly good and students prefer to choose other industries. The building industry therefore has to change and, so far, everyone agrees. Evidently both the building industry and its environment are very keen to change; the sincere will is there, and money and energy are available, but it seems that efforts are not proceeding in a very planned or coordinated manner at present. And this is causing fragmentation and, therefore, sub optimisation. How does sectoral change proceed and how is this process to be managed? That is the central question in this paper.
tract Micro wind turbines can be structurally integrated on top of the solid base of noise barriers near highways. A number of performance factors were assessed with holistic experiments in wind tunnel and in the field. The wind turbines underperformed when exposed in yawed flow conditions. The theoretical cosθ theories for yaw misalignment did not always predict power correctly. Inverter losses turned out to be crucial especially in standby mode. Combination of standby losses with yawed flow losses and low wind speed regime may even result in a net power consuming turbine. The micro wind turbine control system for maintaining optimal power production underperformed in the field when comparing tip speed ratios and performance coefficients with the values recorded in the wind tunnel. The turbine was idling between 20%–30% of time as it was assessed for sites with annual average wind speeds of three to five meters per second without any power production. Finally, the field test analysis showed that inadequate yaw response could potentially lead to 18% of the losses, the inverter related losses to 8%, and control related losses to 33%. The totalized loss led to a 48% efficiency drop when compared with the ideal power production measured before the inverter. Micro wind turbine’s performance has room for optimization for application in turbulent wind conditions on top of noise barriers. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14051288
Business relations between Brainport organisations and their partners based in China have been growing rapidly. This postdoc project explores the Sino-Dutch corporate communicative strategies in the intercultural and geo-political context. Adopting discourse analysis and design-based research methods, the research aims to develop effective communication strategies for organisations in Brainport. Probing the geo-political, intercultural and digital challenges, the project provides a framework and insights in terms of corporate communication in the intercultural settings. Based on the results, the publications, the teaching activities, and the public talks, this research will generate future research leads and more societal discussions on the interplay between intercultural and business communicative strategies. Furthermore, this research engages the teaching activities through lectures and workshops at Fontys School of Business and Communication. Engaging the students in various learning activities, I will encourage the learning groups to participate and experiment in a hybrid learning environment at Fontys. I will lead a research project team in our minor China and World Economy, and encourage the learning group to participate and experiment in a hybrid learning environment at Fontys.
