Informing Additive Manufacturing technology adoption: total cost and the impact of capacity utilisationInforming Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology adoption decisions, this paper investigates the relationship between build volume capacity utilisation and efficient technology operation in an inter-process comparison of the costs of manufacturing a complex component used in the packaging industry. Confronting the reported costs of a conventional machining and welding pathway with an estimator of the costs incurred through an AM route utilising Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), we weave together four aspects: optimised capacity utilisation, ancillary process steps, the effect of build failure, and design adaptation. Recognising that AM users can fill unused machine capacity with other, potentially unrelated, geometries, we posit a characteristic of "fungible" build capacity. This aspect is integrated in the cost estimation framework through computational build volume packing, drawing on a basket of sample geometries. We show that the unit cost in mixed builds at full capacity is lower than in builds limited to a single type of geometry; in our study this results in a mean unit cost overstatement of 157%. The estimated manufacturing costs savings from AM adoption range from 36% to 46%. Additionally, we indicate that operating cost savings resulting from design adaptation are likely to far outweigh the manufacturing cost advantage.

Aim of this article is to address the issue of citizen participation and democratic engagement within a specific area-slum upgrading-presenting and theoretically discussing the approach of an international network called Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), which represents member federations of urban poor and homeless groups from about 30 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The article addresses the model of intervention embraced by the network, the activities carried out, its philosophy, etc., mainly focusing on the way it envisions and pursues the engagement of local governments in upgrading slum dwellers living conditions. The basic idea within SDI is that the lack of participation by the urban poor has historically been one of the major obstacles to achieve real development: either the government or the donors' agencies, in fact, usually treat the poor as beneficiaries of someone else's actions, thus undervaluing their knowledge and skills. Radically opposing this view, SDI interprets its role not as an intermediary agency of slum dwellers in the engagement/negotiation with local governments but rather as an ''enabling tool'' of direct negotiation between the urban poor and the public institutions. SDI's most relevant feature, in fact, is surely the genuine leading role assigned to the slum dwellers grassroots organizations.Résumé Cet article traite du problème de la participation citoyenne et de l'engagement démocratique dans un domaine particulier, la réhabilitation des A preliminary draft of this article has been presented at ''Citizen Participation and Democratic Engagementbidonvilles. Il présente et il discute sur le plan théorique l'approche d'un réseau international nommé Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), qui représente des associations composées de groupes de sans-abri et de démunis urbains dans environ 30 pays d'Asie, d'Afrique et d'Amérique latine. Cet article aborde le modèle d'intervention adopté par le réseau, ses activités, sa philosophie, etc.… en se concentrant principalement sur la manière dont il envisage et suit l'implication des gouvernements locaux pour l'amélioration des conditions de vie des habitants des bidonvilles. Selon l'idée maîtresse au sein de SDI, le manque d'implication des démunis urbains constitue historiquement l'un des obstacles majeurs à un réel développement : en fait, le gouvernement ou les organismes donateurs traitent généralement les démunis comme les bénéficiaires des actions de quelqu'un d'autre, dévalorisant ainsi leurs connaissances et leurs compétences. S'opposant radicalement à cette idée, SDI se voit non pas comme un intermédiaire jouant un rôle d'implication ou de négociation entre les habitants des bidonvilles et les gouvernements locaux, mais plutôt comme un « outil d'établissement » de négociations directes entre les démunis urbains et les institutions publiques. En fait, le réseau SDI se distingue certainement parce qu'il donne authentiquement le rôle principal aux associations d'habitants des bidonvilles.Zusammenfassung Ziel dieses ...

No abstract

In this article, we offer a critical analysis of governance arrangements looking at the evolution of the Italian local welfare system over a time period of more than 40 years. The broad idea of a shift “from government to governance” is questioned. The nonprofit organizations had a vital role in the foundation of the Italian local welfare system. However, their participation in the governance arenas of today is often illusionary. This has practical consequences, as innovation in the welfare domain needs authentic public–private partnerships, and genuine participation of the nonprofits at all levels of social and political action.

This article seeks to advance the understanding of how human and material agency enmesh in human-robotic workplaces. By means of a qualitative study, the practical use of robots is investigated within two organisations for medical rehabilitation. The theoretical framework combines Andrew Pickering’s ‘dance of agency’ with a process-oriented view of technology as technical rationality. It shows how resistances and accommodations are enacted by both humans and nonhumans as analytical loci of the dance of agency, and it explains how the experimental activities that are concerned with technology adoption and use are emergently fixed in formal or informal rules of coordination of action – the ‘choreographies of care’. By extending the processual orientation of Pickering’s ‘dance of agency’, and by further elaborating on the organisational implications of technological change within it, the article increases understanding of how the transformation of material agency may enact processes of change in the organisational culture.