Information Processing for Quality Assurance in Reverse Logistics Supply Chains: An Organizational Information Processing Theory Perspective
Abstract
:1. Introduction
RQ1. What epistemic uncertainties (excluding macro-level uncertainties) lead to IPNs for QA in RLSC of DW?RQ2. What IPMs do organizations in the RLSC undertake in response to these epistemic uncertainties?
2. Literature Review
2.1. Conceptualisation and Theoretical Basis: Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT)
2.2. The Reverse Logistics Supply Chains of Demolition Waste and Its Quality Assurance
3. Research Methodology
3.1. Research Approach
3.2. Data Collection
3.3. Data Preparation and Analysis
3.4. Trustworthiness of the Qualitative Study
4. Findings
4.1. Epistemic Uncertainties That Lead to Information Processing Needs for Quality Assurance during Building Dismantling and On-Site Processing Stage
4.1.1. Meso-Level Uncertainties for Quality Assurance
So, I have had both good and bad experiences working with subcontractors. Sometimes, they say, they are doing the work. And when I go and have a look on them, and then some just don’t any sounds of it all, and I guess, smash everything. Cause time is money.(Interviewee BD7)
4.1.2. Micro-Level Uncertainties for Quality Assurance
Until we enter the site for a new project, we do not know how the building looks. It is quite a lot. So, we’ve just got to ascertain; and see what is involved. Most unusual things arise after opening the building during demolition, even after ascertaining. Therefore, the as-is condition of the building is always uncertain for us.
In houses, friable and non-friable asbestos is mostly hidden and difficult to recognize at once. Rock wool is another dangerous product that everybody is not much concerned about. This when you touch it’s a little fine. But now, when you remove them, a lot of dust and invisible loose fibres get contaminated with air, which will not be good for your eyes, mouth, skin and especially lungs. Rockwool should be treated like friable asbestos when you remove it.
We are generally receiving many accident cases on demolition sites. Most of them are related to the uncontrolled collapse of the structure or part of the structure due to poor planning of the demolition process. Usually, the demolition sites are small and confined, and thus, the demolishers are exposed to more accidents.
We already know that asbestos is there. Therefore, before demolition, we remove that part first. First, or during, depending on how it’s set up. Sometimes you find it and sometimes don’t know it’s there. Anything is weird that has asbestos; we don’t touch it. Sometimes, we find asbestos from the footings formwork, which is not a common construction method, and this requires additional expertise and supervision to manage safely.
Suppose we take the demolition of a house. The process should be services gets disconnected, and you need to start with the asbestos removal. Particularly, asbestos is done separately and as the very first task. Once the asbestos is done and cleared, we start salvaging, like timber joist, truss, roof tile, window and roof, bricks and concrete. After that, only the mechanical demolition will be taken place.
4.2. Epistemic Uncertainties That Lead to Information-Processing Needs for Quality Assurance during Off-Site Waste Processing Stage
4.2.1. Meso-Level Uncertainties for Quality Assurance
[…] but that’s more about what happens on-site. What we produce is a direct reflection of the material we receive. So, if we get poor-quality material in, our product will be poor quality; it’s not a magic store that we run. So, policy and procedure are crucial, but if the materials are handled on-site correctly at the demolition point, we will get quality material into our gate. Then we can make a quality product out of it.
4.2.2. Micro-Level Uncertainties for Quality Assurance
We have many heavy machines operating outside and people walking around, so safety is a huge focus because we are not all sitting under desks. There is quite a good opportunity for people to get hurt, and that couples with using heavy machines and crushers. Another time a piece of the plant fell off, and the person thought it was metal coming through the product. So that is an absolute disaster how it happened, but it happened, and he got hurt on his back and was recovering for a couple of weeks.
For instance, if rock wool is present, we cannot even recognize it; we cannot even touch it, but it is dangerous to everybody in the plant if exposed to air. Therefore, we make efforts not to enter any of these harmful materials into the plant, but there are some unexpected situations that we cannot avoid totally.
The main uncertainty is hidden materials that we are not informed or aware of. For instance, we are vigilant about asbestos, chemicals, hazardous chemicals and oils because if some happen to swift through our system and go into our products, that would be the end of our business. Also, sometimes hidden bricks and rocks falling off the conveyors would damage our equipment.(Interviewee WP7)
4.3. Information Processing Mechanisms for Quality Assurance in Reverse Logistics Supply Chains of Demolition Waste
4.3.1. Information Processing Mechanisms of Both Demolishers and Waste Processors
We have partnerships for different projects with […]. All of us were bringing cash into the projects and, thereby, we were able to raise more capital to grow our business. Also, each of these companies has any specialization that we lack. Thus, we could expand our business using their know-how, technologies and experience.
We tend to run the company with an open-door policy; teams work on-site pretty much. I go to the site a fair bit; obviously, COVID made it a bit harder. But if somebody wants to ask a question, we’ll answer it where possible. And it’s still got that informal communication level.
We have our trained group of people for managing hazardous materials. We usually have training every six months. We go in and assess the building or the structure; whatever we’re looking at, we assess that. And we make sure that we’ve identified hazardous materials in the particular building.(Interview BD1)
If we think it’s risky, we’re going to pull the wall down; if it’s a particularly high wall, if it’s a boundary wall, we’re going to bring that down by hand. So, without or with the machine, we can control the wall, so the wall doesn’t fall over and cause some damage to property or people.
4.3.2. Information Processing Mechanisms That Are Exclusive to Demolishers
You need to conduct a site visit and measure everything in your mind. It needs experience. Now I always measure it. How it is calculated is you need to transfer the building or the demolition; whether it’s trees, bitumen, or building, you have to convert that to tons of cubic meters. This is my methodology.
I would just interview the people and see their general experience, how they look, and what they say. Whether they got good experience in what they do, how they’re going to treat their machines or our equipment, there are several things we look at, to see whether we want to have that person. They’ve got to have some experience to work with us.(Interviewee BD1)
4.3.3. Information-Processing Mechanisms That Are Exclusive to Waste Processors
Accounts Managers will get to the job site, ensuring that demolisher would come to us. Yeah, so they’re very proactive in that sense. So one, they’re responsible for setting the price for that customer, for that job. And two, they’re responsible for everything that happens with that. And the idea of that is you have to have good relationships with them so that when things go wrong, or things go right, you’ve got someone who understands their business and can mediate between our business and their business.(Interviewee WP3)
Waste acceptance criteria is a really strict protocol around what we can accept. We can’t accept soil, asbestos and green waste, but we could accept general waste. We have a landfill for contaminated soil. So again, if a customer comes over the weighbridge, we can’t accept all of that. There are rules around how much we can dispose of without being tested. So, we stick to those protocols. It is a 100 tons per site.(Interviewee WP6)
Whereas now on-site, demolishers segregate and stuff out and then make sure the loads go because they’d certainly not want to be paying us. They want to make sure that they pay the least possible for each trip. So, the demolition companies have gotten better at it through economic incentives. And conversely, it’s been less of an issue for us.(Interviewee BD5)
5. Discussion
5.1. Epistemic Uncertainties for Quality Assurance
5.2. Information Processing Mechanisms for Epistemic Uncertainties
5.3. Information Processing for Quality Assurance in Reverse Logistics Supply Chains of Demolition Waste
6. Implications for Theory and Practice
6.1. Theoretical Implications
6.2. Practical Implications
7. Limitations and Future Research
8. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Sector of Representation | Interviewee (Code) | Designation | Experience (Years) |
---|---|---|---|
Building dismantling and on-site processing | BD1 | Managing Director | 19 |
BD2 | Managing Director | 28 | |
BD3 | Managing Director | 21 | |
BD4 | Quality Control and Sales Manager | 18 | |
BD5 | Sales and Marketing Manager | 18 | |
BD6 | Director | 14 | |
BD7 | Director | 16 | |
BD8 | Contracts Manager | 19 | |
BD9 | Managing Director | 30 | |
BD10 | Operations Manager | 10 | |
BD11 | Managing Director | 22 | |
Off-site waste processing | WP1 | Strategic Business Development Manager | 11 |
WP2 | Accounts Manager | 16 | |
WP3 | Human Resource and Occupational Health and Safety Manager | 10 | |
WP4 | Accounts Manager | 8 | |
WP5 | Regional Manager | 8 | |
WP6 | Sales and Marketing Manager | 15 | |
WP7 | General Manager | 11 | |
WP8 | Sales and Marketing Manager | 10 | |
WP9 | Principal Sustainability Advisor | 13 | |
Regulatory sector (state government agencies) | SG1 | Chief Executive | 28 |
SG2 | Regulatory Manager | 20 | |
SG3 | Senior Environmental Advisor | 22 | |
SG4 | Regulatory Manager | 11 | |
Regulatory sector (local government agencies) | LG1 | General Manager | 23 |
LG2 | Development Officer | 24 | |
Forward supply chain—upstream actors | UA1 | Managing Director | 23 |
UA2 | Design and Construction Manager | 32 | |
Forward supply chain—downstream actors | DA1 | Senior Engineer | 30 |
DA2 | Senior Sustainability Advisor | 15 |
Type of Generalizability | Strategy Employed | Description |
---|---|---|
Naturalistic generalization | Thick description | The study provided comprehensive explanations and interpretations of the research setting, participants and data collection procedure, enabling the researcher to understand the proximal similarity of the context of the study and the participants. |
Know the data | The study followed a robust data preparation and analysis process that allowed the reader to immerse iteratively and grab strong insights from the collected data. Furthermore, the study incorporated excerpts from interviewees advocating readers to match their personal and interviewees’ experiences. | |
Analytical generalization | Replication in sampling | The study employed a combination of purposive sampling and snowball sampling techniques to enable analytical generalization. With this approach, the most appropriate interviewees were able to be incorporated to increase the rigor of the study’s findings. |
Internal Stakeholder Category | Information Processing Mechanism | Description |
---|---|---|
Demolishers and waste processors | Rules and programs | The rules and programs encompass internal policies, procedures, guidelines and frameworks that provide a fixed, objective knowledge base from which the internal stakeholders could learn how to respond to epistemic uncertainties that they may encounter recurrently. |
Planning and goal setting | Establish plans and set goals leaving the internal stakeholders to decide which behaviors to enact. | |
Business partnering | Develop strategic relationships with business partners to achieve competitive advantage while sharing the lack of resources and competencies. | |
Forming contracts | Form a legitimate formal document between parties mentioning what parties agreed to do and not agreed to do within the scope of the job. | |
Group meetings | Conduct face-to-face group meetings to coordinate work, discuss issues and share opinions, perceptions and judgements. | |
Hierarchical referral | Refer the infrequent problems up to the hierarchy in finding solutions. | |
Incorporation of self-contained groups | Form independent groups with all the resources and capabilities to perform the tasks. | |
Investment in technologies | Augment the information-processing capacity by embracing various man-machine combined assistants. | |
Creation of slack resources | Increase the planning targets or reduce the performance level to reduce the number of exceptions. | |
Demolisher | Collection of building documents and asbestos registers | Collect as-built drawings and asbestos registers to understand the details of the as-is condition of the building. |
Site visits/Pre-demolition audits | Site visits/pre-demolition audits allow the demolishers to assess the as-is condition of the building while evaluating the non-hazardous and hazardous waste required to be removed from the building. | |
Performance evaluation of subcontractors | A mechanism that enables an understanding of what subcontractors are performing to produce quality output. | |
Waste processor | Creation of integrator roles | Waste processors assign an organizational role known as ‘accounts manager’ to a boundary-spanning activity, i.e., monitoring and building relations with demolishers. This role ensures that the waste processors are not receiving mixed waste from demolishers. |
Waste acceptance criteria/gate fee | The criteria used to accept the waste into the MRF, and their corresponding gate fees advocate the waste processors avoid receiving mixed waste from demolishers. | |
Creation of special reports | Gather feedback from end users about the quality of reprocessed products, synthesize them and take appropriate measures for any identified issue. |
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Wijewickrama, M.K.C.S.; Chileshe, N.; Rameezdeen, R.; Ochoa, J.J. Information Processing for Quality Assurance in Reverse Logistics Supply Chains: An Organizational Information Processing Theory Perspective. Sustainability 2022, 14, 5493. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095493
Wijewickrama MKCS, Chileshe N, Rameezdeen R, Ochoa JJ. Information Processing for Quality Assurance in Reverse Logistics Supply Chains: An Organizational Information Processing Theory Perspective. Sustainability. 2022; 14(9):5493. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095493
Chicago/Turabian StyleWijewickrama, Madduma Kaluge Chamitha Sanjani, Nicholas Chileshe, Raufdeen Rameezdeen, and Jose Jorge Ochoa. 2022. "Information Processing for Quality Assurance in Reverse Logistics Supply Chains: An Organizational Information Processing Theory Perspective" Sustainability 14, no. 9: 5493. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095493