Organelle Structures: Bridging Strategy and Technological Processes

The shifting requirements as imposed on operations ma nagement require adjusting and tailoring the organisational structure to meet ma rket demands. However, translating these requirements directly into hierarchical structure will not ensure the integration of processes across organisational un its and guarantee desirable performance. Therefore, management and management li terature wonders: · How should we connect processes to the external environment within a strategi c framework · Which organisational structures do meet performance requirements · Which choices and freedom do we have within organisational structures · How and when do we implement organisational structures That the hierarchical structure does not meet as such the performance requiremen ts nor did it relate to these became already clear during case studies performed in the ’70s. The conclusion was drawn that organisational changes should affect working processes before they proof to be viable. This required the development of new approach through empirical studies and base d on literature. This led to the development of the organelle structure. The org anelle structure should connect to the strategy and the product flow. Thereto, a decision model has been developed for revealing these relations and the practic al implication. During a number of case studies this methodology has been refined and includes t he strategic choice between variants for the organelle structure with their own performance capabilities; we distinguish about 20 variants ranging between the f unctional organisation and the product flow organisation. These ranges of choice s however can be connected to different order entry points, stemming from logist ic concepts. This extends the performance to improved lead-times and improved c ontrol. Strategic choices relate the organelle structure to external performance criteria dictated by product/market-combinations: · lead-time · quality · costs and internal choices for performance criteria: · flexibility · productivity · resource utilisation · innovative performance. Case studies reveal the drastic improvements of the performance of operations an d manufacturing. The paper will discuss a few of these implementations to demons trate the impact. They also show how one derives the hierarchical structure from the choice for the organelle structure. Organelle structures do bridge the link of an industrial company to its environm ent and the internal possibilities, dictated by characteristics of product flow and process execution. The link to the environment results in a strategic framew ork for assessment of alternatives and possibilities. Choices for organelle stru ctures depend strongly on choices on the order entry points of the hardware flow and the specification flow. The evaluation of the characteristics takes place a gainst the strategic framework ensuring competitive advantage as well as a high probability of factual implementation and performance improvement.

Alkylene-functionality in bridged and fused nitrogen-rich poly-cyclic energetic materials:Synthesis,structural diversity and energetic properties

From the standpoint of chemical structures,the organic backbones of energetic materials can be classified into aromatic rings,nonaromatic rings,and open chains.Although the category of aromatic energetic compounds exhibits several advantages in the regulation of energetic properties,the nonaromatic heterocycles,assembling nitramino explosophores with simple alkyl bridges,still have prevailed in benchmark materials.The methylene bridge plays a pivotal role in the constructions of the classic nonaromatic heterocycle-based energetic compounds,e.g.,hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine(RDX)and octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine(HMX),whereas ethylene bridge is the core moiety of state-of-the-art explosive 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane(CL-20).In this context,it is of great interest to employ simple and practical bridges to assemble aromatic and nonaromatic nitrogen-rich heterocycles,thereby expanding the structural diversity of energetic materials,e.g.,bridged and fused nitrogen-rich poly-heterocycles.Furthermore,alkyl-bridged poly-heterocycles highlight the potential for the open chain type of energetic materials.In this review,the development of alkyl bridges in linking nitrogen-rich heterocycles is presented,and the perspective of the newly constructed energetic backbones is summarized for the future design of advanced energetic materials.