Browsing by Author "Timothy Clapp, Committee Member"

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    Development and Application of a Value Chain Research Approach to Understand and Evaluate Internal and External Factors and Relationships Affecting the Economic Competitiveness in the Textile Value Chain
    (2010-04-20) Frederick, Stacey Elizabeth; Timothy Clapp, Committee Member; Trevor Little, Committee Member; Blanton Godfrey, Committee Member; Nancy Cassill, Committee Chair
    Textile firms’ compete in a global, rapidly changing economy. In this environment, stakeholders cannot be complacent; they must continually upgrade their skills and seek more sophisticated advantages. To develop a sustainable strategy requires a holistic understanding of past and present dynamics affecting the entire value chain on a local to global scale. Yet due to changes in industry-specific and economy-wide business dynamics, the textile complex lacks a holistic, standardized model that represents all sectors and stakeholders. The purpose of this research was to fill this gap by developing a conceptual framework and research process that provides a comprehensive view of the forces driving change in the organization, geography and relationships among stakeholders throughout the value chain. This framework underscores areas that are increasing in importance in the textile complex including pre- and post- production activities and network relationships. The research approach is built on a visual representation of the value chain structure that allows information to be easily analyzed, visualized or compared to other industries. Together, the visual and conceptual models can be used to show how different parts of the chain are connected to each other. Firms and economic developers can use this approach to predict future competitive dynamics and to develop sustainable upgrading strategies. This research was accomplished in three phases. First, secondary literature on existing chain-based industrial organization research approaches were reviewed. The two main streams of literature, strategic management and economic sociology, were compared to identify similarities and differences in research frameworks, models and processes. Results indicated that despite different analytical lenses, the two approaches were quite similar and are often used interchangeably by research practitioners. Next, key features from the sociological approaches were added to the business and management strategy formulation models. By combining the complementary elements of these approaches, a new, industry-neutral research approach including a research process, conceptual model, and visual representations were created. Finally, the new research approach was applied to textile value chain and the research process was carried out to understand the competitive dynamics facing the existing structure of the North Carolina textile complex. Results indicated that the North Carolina textile complex has a strong base of textile firms and a strong presence of members of the supporting environment. Yet, the industry lacks physical presence or linkages with important downstream buyers or lead firms. Furthermore, the industry lacks full-package, flexible, scalable, network operating structures. The industry would greatly benefit from increased marketing of existing capabilities and an infrastructure that can facilitate collaborative efforts along the chain and among firms with complementary competencies.
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    Impact of Retail Attributes on Store Choice, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty for Premium Denim.
    (2011-03-16) Owen, Madison; Marguerite Moore, Committee Chair; Lori Rothenberg, Committee Member; Timothy Clapp, Committee Member; Nancy Cassill, Committee Member
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    Improving the Competitiveness of North Carolina Textile Manufacturers with E-business Initiatives
    (2006-05-10) Cagle, Christine Michelle; Timothy Clapp, Committee Member; William Oxenham, Committee Member; Nancy Cassill, Committee Member; George Hodge, Committee Chair
    The purpose of this research was to improve the decision making process of textile manufacturers by providing information on how the North Carolina textile manufacturing industry is using e-business. This study reveals what e-business initiatives North Carolina textile manufacturers are currently using, the initiatives that they are planning to invest in next, the benefits experienced, the challenges faced, and in what business areas they expect to see the greatest future benefits from e-business for the textile industry. It is important to note that the focus of this study is on business-to-business e-business in textile mills and does not include textile product mills or apparel manufacturers. The methodology used in this study consisted of two phases. Phase I was an analysis of secondary sources. A database of textile manufacturing companies in North Carolina with a primary NAICS code of 313 was compiled. The resultant database was used to develop the sample for Phase II-A, the questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed by the researcher based on information collected from the literature review and the analysis of similar studies performed abroad. Phase II of the study consisted of two parts. Phase II-A was the distribution and analysis of the questionnaire. The resulting response rate was 38.1%, with 117 total usable responses. Phase II-B utilized case study methodology and built on the results of the questionnaire to gain a more in-depth understanding of the subject. The sample for the case studies consisted of 7 companies in North Carolina and 2 companies in South Carolina. The results indicate a limited degree of implementation of e-business in the textile mill sector of the North Carolina textile industry. While websites were used by 67% of the survey respondents, few are using e-business to its full potential. Telephone, fax, and email still seem to be the prevalent methods of communication with business partners, especially for small and medium sized firms. A conceptual model was developed indicating the current and potential implementation of e-business in the textile industry.
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    Inventory Management, Metrics, and Simulation.
    (2010-11-03) Martin, Benjamin; Jeffrey Joines, Committee Chair; Kristin Barletta, Committee Chair; Dahlia Nielsen, Committee Member; Donald Warsing, Committee Member; Timothy Clapp, Committee Member
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    An Investigation of Aerosol Filtration via Fibrous Filters
    (2008-11-06) Wang, Qiqi; Behnam Pourdeyhimi, Committee Co-Chair; Hooman Vahedi Tafreshi, Committee Co-Chair; Timothy Clapp, Committee Member; Xiao-Biao Lin, Committee Member
    The most common method of removing particles from a gas stream is via fibrous filters. However, most of the previous studies have been limited to systems consisting of rows of fibers (often in two-dimensional geometries) perpendicular to the flow direction. The current work is aiming to develop an understanding of the role of filter?s microstructure and manufacturing process. In the first part of this study, pressure drop and nanoparticle collection efficiency of lightweight spun-bonded media are simulated by solving the Navier-Stokes equations inside three-dimensional geometries resembling the microstructure of such media. These pressure drop and collection efficiencies showed a perfect agreement with experimental data. In the second part of this work, the influences of fiber length and compaction ratio of filter media on the pressure drop are discussed. Simulation data of staple fiber media have shown good agreement with Davies? empirical equation. Such an agreement indicates that, within the range of dimensions considered, the fiber length has no significant influence on the materials? through-plane permeability as long as the SVF remains constant. Our simulation results for nonwovens with different compaction ratios, together with our experimental data, indicate that pressure drop of the porous media increases with increasing the compaction ratio or temperature of the calender rolls. In the third part of this work, we presented our approach for modeling permeability of fibrous filters with bimodal fiber size distributions (referred to as bimodal filters in this context). The three-dimensional microstructures resembling bimodal filter media with random in-plane fiber orientation distribution were generated to compute their permeability constants. These results were compared with the previous analytical and numerical models as well as our experimental data. Here we concluded that there exists an area-weighted equivalent average diameter for each bimodal filter that can be used in the existing expressions for calculating the permeability of unimodal filters. The last part of this thesis is dedicated to studying the permeability woven fabrics. Concerned with the accuracy of the homogeneous anisotropic lumped model of Gebart (1992) for predicting the permeability of multifilament fabrics, we devised a series of numerical simulations conducted in full three-dimensional geometry of idealized multifilament woven fabrics wherein the filaments were packed in Hexagonal arrangements. While a relatively good agreement was obtained, our results indicate that Gebart?s model underestimates the permeability of multifilament fabrics at high yarn?s solid volume fractions. We also simulated the pressure drop of monofilament woven fabrics under tension where we observed a logarithmic relationship between the discharge coefficient and the Reynolds number of the flow.