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PurposeIn today's global economy, developing supply chain agility (SCA) and lean practices (LP) as resource-based view and dynamic capabilities are essential for firms to sustain their competitive advantage (CA) and enhance their operational performance (OP). The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a framework to investigate how CA is achieved through SCA and LP and how these, in turn, can enhance a firm's OP.Design/methodology/approachFor data collection, the authors adopted the survey method using self-administered questionnaires. Two-source survey data were collected in two rounds (separated by a two-month lag time) from supply chain managers, operational managers and general managers. The purpose of collecting data in two rounds was to reduce common-method bias. Likert scale (1–5) was used in the questionnaire. Smart PLS 3 and SPSS 23 were used for the data analysis purpose.FindingsSCA was found to directly and positively affect OP. LP also positively affected OP. In addition, CA fully mediated the relationship between SCA, LP and OP.Practical implicationsThis study encourages the managers of manufacturing firms to adapt LP and their supply chains (SCs) to become agile and leverage the advantages of their implementation to improve their OP and succeed in the market.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to investigate the effect of SCA and LP on OP. Furthermore, the first study examines CA's mediating impact on the relationship between SCA, LP and OP.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a model that determines whether how much effort of preventive maintenance action is worthwhile for the consumer over the post-sale product life cycle of a repairable complex product where the product is under warranty and subject to stochastic multimode failure process, that is, damaging failure and light failure with different probabilities.Design/methodology/approachThe expected life cycle cost is designed for a warranted product from the consumer perspective. The product failure is quantified with failure rate function, which is the number of failures incurred over the product life cycle. The authors consider the failure rate function reduction method in their model where the scale parameter of a failure rate function is maximized by applying the optimal preventive maintenance level. The scale parameter of any failure distribution refers to the meantime to failure (MTTF). The first-order condition is applied with respect to the maintenance level in order to achieve the convexity of the nonlinear function of the expected life cycle cost function.FindingsThe authors have found analytically the close form of the preventive maintenance level, which can be used to find the optimal reduced form of the failure rate function of the product and the minimum product expected life cycle cost under the given condition of multimode stochastic failure process. The authors have suggested different maintenance policies to consumers in order to implement the proposed preventive maintenance model under different conditions. A numerical example further illustrated the analytical model by considering the Weibull distribution.Practical implicationsThe consumer may use this study in the accurate modeling of the life cycle cost of a product that is under warranty and fails with a multimode failure process. Also, the suggested preventive maintenance approach of this study helps the consumer in making appropriate maintenance decisions such as to minimize the expected life cycle cost of a product.Originality/valueThis study proposes an accurate estimation of a life cycle cost for a product that is under the support of warranty and fails with multimode. Furthermore, for such a kind of product, which is under warranty and fails with multimode, this study suggests a new preventive maintenance approach that assures the minimum expected life cycle cost.

A series of sulfonamide derivatives HR1-HR5 were synthesized in one step reaction (nucleophilic substitution reaction SN 2 ). Structures of new products were confirmed by elemental and spectral analysis i.e., FTIR, UV, 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR, EIS-MS. In-vitro, antibacterial and anti-fungal activity of newly synthesized compounds was investigated against two bacterial strains: Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and two fungal strains: Aspergillum flavous and Aspergillum niger. It was found that among all tested compounds HR2 showed good antibacterial activity with MIC 1.13 × 10 -3 and 1.54 × 10 -3 for S. aureus and E. coli respectively. While HR4 showed good antifungal activity with inhibition zone 25.2 ± 0.12 mm (MIC: 71.2 × 10 -3 mol/L) and 17.1 ± 55.5 mm (MIC: 98.9 × 10 -3 mol/L) against A. flavous and A. niger respectively. Developed compounds were also screened for their Invitro antioxidant activity by DPPH radical scavenging assay. All compounds showed moderate activity but potential activity with 15.75% at 6 mM was exhibited by compound HR2.

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