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The emergence of Industry 4.0, also referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, has entirely transformed how the industry or business functions and evolves. It can be attributed to its broadening focus on automation, decentralization, system integration, cyber-physical systems, etc. Its implementation promises numerous benefits in terms of higher productivity, greater volatility, better control and streamlining of processes, accelerated enterprise growth, sustainable development, etc. Despite the worldwide recognition and realization of Industry 4.0, its holistic adoption is constrained by the requirements of specific skills among the workforce. The personnel are expected to acquire adaptive thinking, cognitive and computational skills, predominantly in the area of information technology, data analytics, etc. Thus, the universities that laid the foundation for future talents or trends in society have to adapt and modernize the existing programs, facilities, and infrastructure. This reshaping of higher education in consonance with the vision of Industry 4.0 possesses its opportunities and challenges. There are, of course, a multitude of factors involved and they need a reasonable assessment to strategically plan this metamorphosis. Therefore, this work aims to explore and analyze the different factors that influence the progression and enactment of Industry 4.0 in universities for sustainable education. For this purpose, a systematic approach based on a questionnaire as well as a SWOT (strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities (O), and threats (T)) integrated with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is adopted. The questionnaires are administered to university employees and students (or stakeholders) to assess their viewpoint, as well as to estimate the priority values for individual factors to be included in SWOT. The AHP is implemented to quantify the different factors in terms of weights using a pairwise comparison matrix. Finally, the SWOT matrix is established depending on the questionnaire assessment and the AHP weights to figure out stakeholders’ perspectives, in addition to the needed strategic scheme. The SWOT implementation of this research proposes an aggressive approach for universities, where they must make full use of their strengths to take advantage of the emerging opportunities in Industry 4.0. The results also indicate that there are fundamental requirements for universities in Industry 4.0, including effective financial planning, skilled staff, increased industrial partnerships, advanced infrastructure, revised curricula, and insightful workshops. This investigation undoubtedly underlines the importance of practical expertise and the implementation of digital technologies at the university level to empower novices with the requisite skills and a competitive advantage for Industry 4.0.

Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 aims at economic diversification and the establishment of a knowledge-based economy, emphasizing the importance of EFL education for global integration and engagement. This systematic review examined 44 studies on EFL policy alignment with Vision 2030's economic objectives, using the PRISMA framework and data from various academic databases, covering the period from 2013 to 2026. The findings revealed a substantial alignment with Vision 2030, highlighting the expansion of EFL programs, integration of technology, and the strategic role of English proficiency in enhancing global competitiveness. However, the study noted significant challenges to achieving educational objectives, including sociocultural barriers, insufficient teacher preparedness, outdated assessments, inadequate feedback, insufficient infrastructure, and curriculum misalignment, particularly regarding the underrepresentation of females in prestigious roles. The study advocates for a focus on vocational linguistic competence in EFL education to support economic transformation, recommending tailored professional development for teachers and improved integration of soft skills into the curriculum.

Purpose Based on the sociotechnical systems theory, we examined the human–technology interactions in the context of future works conditioned by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). Skills needed to support career sustainability and the future of the workforce, particularly for the middle-skilled workforce in the contemporary United States America (USA) context, were also studied. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a scenario analysis to demonstrate the potential roles that human resource professionals may perform to fill the skill gaps given their expertise in the shaping and skilling processes. Findings Assessing the success of the integration of AI and ML into the middle-skilled workforce requires a multi-faceted approach that considers performance metrics, cost-effectiveness, job satisfaction, environmental impact and innovation. Employees with AI skills can be more competitive in the workforce and forward to high-skilled positions. Research limitations/implications Empirical research and related studies focusing on evaluations of reskilling and upskilling processes and outcomes would support career sustainability and the future development of middle-skilled workers. Practical implications Through a proactive strategic career development plan with AI integration, middle-skilled workers may enhance their career sustainability and be prepared for future higher-skilled work. Social implications The economic downturn caused by technology-induced unemployment may be addressed by unleashing middle-skilled workforce potentials for future work created by AI and robotics and sustaining economic competitiveness. Originality/value This article offers important implications for human resource development theory-minded researchers and scholarly practitioners.

Rising global population, socioeconomic development, industrialisation, lifestyle changes, mobility, and transportation all depend on fossil fuels. This reliance creates environmental pollution, CO2 emissions, depletion of fossil fuel resources, energy insecurity, and increased financial and environmental costs. Renewable energy sources, especially wind, provide a viable alternative to fossil fuels, decreasing reliance on them and mitigating environmental impacts. Despite considerable advances in the use of renewable wind energy for power generation, significant challenges persist in realising the full potential of this promising energy source. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to thoroughly examine global wind power generation, its distribution by region, and the challenges associated with using wind energy, such as issues with the global supply chain, equipment manufacturers, rare earth materials required for wind turbines, and a lack of skilled workforces in the wind energy sector. The major finding and novelty of the study includes a national action plan for wind power generation that encompasses diverse tasks and activities, which can be tailored to the specific requirements of a country. Additionally, the study proposed a classification of countries into six groups based on the availability of specific energy types within their national jurisdictions, aiming for an optimal energy mix to achieve energy security, sustainability, and climate impact mitigation. The other contribution of the study is outlining present difficulties, their origins, and potential solutions that governments, legislators, and other wind power stakeholders encounter while formulating strategies for wind power generation.

Utilizing local brick-and-mortar stores for same-day order fulfillment is becoming prominent in omni-channel retailing. Efficient in-store order picking is critical to providing timely value-added omni-channel delivery services. Despite numerous studies on order picking in traditional logistics warehouses and distribution centers, there is scant research focusing on in-store order fulfillment with the multi-skilled workforce in omni-channel retail stores. We studied the integrated Order Picking and Heterogeneous Picker Scheduling Problem (OPPSP-Het) in omni-channel retail stores. We characterized the OPPSP-Het in a mixed-integer linear optimization model with the objective of the minimization of total tardiness of all customer orders. A hybrid heuristic combining the genetic algorithm and variable neighborhood descent was designed to obtain effective solutions. Extensive experiments were conducted to validate the performance of the proposed approach relative to existing algorithms in recent literature. We further numerically showed the effects of order size and heterogeneous workforce on order fulfillment performance. We lastly emphasized the importance of workforce flexibility as a cost-effective approach to improving in-store order fulfillment performance.

Introduction Many national development strategies are implemented at the subnational administrative level, serving as critical units for service delivery. Some subnational levels remain underserved and face significant obstacles to achieving equitable development. In Sub-Saharan Africa, underserved regions are often called hardship areas; however, there is no clarity on how such areas are defined across various contexts. Therefore, this scoping review aimed to delineate the definitions of hardship areas across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and develop a unified typology of their features. Methods This scoping review followed the framework by Arksey and O’Malley, aligned with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. We searched Ovid Embase, Ovid MEDLINE, CINAHL via EBSCOhost, Ovid Global Health, and Scopus from 1st January 2010 to 8th October 2024, as well as grey literature from websites. We imported the retrieved articles into Covidence. One reviewer conducted the title and abstract screening. For full-text review, one reviewer assessed all the articles, whereas the second reviewer independently evaluated a random sample of 20%, achieving a 90% agreement. Data were systematically extracted, tabulated, and synthesised using deductive and inductive thematic approaches. Results Of the 15,017 articles screened, 210 articles met the inclusion criteria. Only 137 articles were included, as the remaining 73 provided no new information. We identified several definitions and synthesised them into 79 relatively distinct features. These were grouped into 6 contextual themes: physical/geographical location and accessibility, social services, economic and livelihood challenges, demographic characteristics, security and governance, and natural and man-made disasters, with 16 subthemes. Strengths and limitations We applied the Arksey and O’Malley framework, which fostered collaborative engagement in developing the research topic and search strategy. Limitations included few primary studies capturing lived experiences, a focus on three AFRHiCARE countries which restricted broader policy comparisons, and omission of non-English publications. Conclusion In Sub-Saharan Africa, hardship is a multidimensional notion with context-dependent features. The typology developed in this review lays the groundwork for geospatial characterisation of hardship, bridges definitional gaps, and supports transparent, effective, and equitable policy responses.

Rapid technological development and globalization in all areas of society today create new challenges to the quality of specialists’ work, which, in turn, toughens the requirements for the professional education of workers in all economic sectors. In the context of strengthening integration processes, the issue of theoretical and methodological justification of the development directions of the specialists’ professional training process acquires high priority. This article aims to analyze the scientists’ opinion concerning the status and existing tendencies in vocational training, as well as to reveal the main development factors, problems, and priority directions of vocational training development methodology optimization in modern conditions. According to the research results, we outlined the normative base regulating the sphere of vocational education; highlighted the importance of the theoretical and methodological basis of personnel training within the context of professional training. Furthermore, as the result of the online questionnaire survey, we determined the opinion of teachers of vocational education institutions concerning the most critical factors, problems, and perspective directions.

With an extensive presence in the world of Industrial Symbiosis literature, the Kwinana industrial area in Perth, Western Australia is a powerhouse of integrated heavy industrial activity. From when its first entrant arrived in 1955, development has been strong, and now it presents a complex industrial cluster with a wide range of industrial enterprises present, ranging from several major industrial multi-product manufacturers to those filling niche markets. Formal reporting of its economic contribution has occurred periodically over 40 yr, with one of the features of this being a series of four earlier iterations, and in this paper, the fifth, of a schematic diagram that identifies the enterprises engaged in symbiotic relationships and the nature of the associated materials exchanged. While the earlier reports concentrated solely on the traditional materials exchanges, the present study (data collected in 2021) went beyond these to gather additional data on what the authors are proposing as additional dimensions of the traditional Industrial Symbiosis framework. Aspects of Kwinana's skilled workforce, its support industry base, and its overlying governance framework were studied to provide insights into what role they play in explaining why some industrial clusters appear to provide a supportive business environment, and why other clusters struggle to gain momentum. The new study identified that the novel posited dimensions of Industrial Symbiosis are interlinked at the precinct level, and that at the macro (societal) level, they combine to contribute to the effectiveness of the Circular Economy.

The race to establish regional education hubs is a recent development in cross-border higher education. This article briefly examines the rationales and strategies used by three countries in the Middle East and three in South East Asia which are working towards positioning themselves as regional education hubs. The different approaches and purposes among the six countries highlight the need for a typology of education hubs. Three types are proposed: the student hub, the training and skilled workforce hub, and the knowledge/innovation hub. The final section of the paper takes a closer look at Malaysia's cross-border education initiatives and its actions to establish itself as a competitive education hub in a region where Singapore and Hong Kong have similar intentions. Whether Malaysia has the ability to make a quantum leap from being a student hub to becoming a knowledge/innovation hub remains to be seen and appears to be an optimistic outlook. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

Motivated by a cybersecurity application, this paper studies a two-stage, stochastic days-off scheduling problem with (1) many types of jobs that require specialized training, (2) many multi-skilled analysts, (3) the ability to shape analyst skill sets through training decisions, and (4) a large number of possible future demand scenarios. We provide an integer linear program for this problem and show it can be solved with a direct feed into Gurobi with as many as 50 employees, 6 job types, and 50 demand scenarios per day without any decomposition techniques. In addition, we develop a matheuristic—that is, an integer-programming-based local search heuristic—for instances that are too large for a straightforward feed into a commercial solver. Computational results show our matheuristic can, on average, produce solutions within 4–7% of an upper bound of the optimal objective value.